The Humble eBook Bundle: 6 eBooks, Pay What You Want

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by weedfreak

It is not pay what you want, if you want to pay 0.00 for them you cannot.

There's a valid reason for that.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/12/22/hu...to-steam-scam/

In addition, the original bundles used to allow literally anything you wanted, even 1cent. However payment processors charged a minimum amount per transaction so they were losing money from each of those sales.

It's still pay what you want although may be more accurately described as pay what you want above $1

Granted the steam issue doesn't apply to ebooks, but it's likely just set across the board now.

Not sure if this works the same as their software bundles but I have never paid more than a few cents for them and always got the bonus items as well.

It's exactly the same. Bonus items in even the game bundles are only offered if you pay more than the average. Get in early, the average is usually a pittance, wait some time and it goes up by a fair bit.

It is also obvious that someone may be cheating with this deal, who would pay $1000 for this bundle that you can buy for $52 ? Well a greedy author might, if they see they have made several thousand in a couple of days they may invest some of their earnings back into the system and buy the bundle for a ridiculous price, setting the payment to go 100% to themselves and giving a quick boost to the average price which everyone feels they have to beat.

It's possible, but people do sometimes give large amounts in recognition of the authors doing this bundle and potentially could be giving it all to charity. It's also likely any author caught doing that would find themselves at the end of a huge PR backlash and would lose out in the long run way more than they stand to gain in the short term.

It may also be possible that the lowest and highest few amounts are excluded from the averaging, depending on which method of average calculation they're using.

[Quake1028]

IMO, admitting that you personally have only ever paid a few "cents" for the game bundles in the same post you are accusing someone else of being unethical is a riot.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Quake1028

IMO, admitting that you personally have only ever paid a few "cents" for the game bundles in the same post you are accusing someone else of being unethical is a riot.

I don't think there's anything wrong with what he's said in that regard. There is imo a difference between paying the minimum allowed vs gaming the system (which is what I'd see the high payments as been if it were indeed the author or someone on the authors behalf doing it).

However, it's totally here-say as the only people who could know or have a chance of knowing are those running the humble bundle.

[koland]

I believe you can also set the donation amount to go entirely to the charity - so those who might have donated anyway often give a fairly high amount on these bundles, raising the average.

[hwlester]

Looks like the meteoric rise of the average has slowed and it's hovering at just over $12.50 right now.

Has anyone else had issues downloading the EPUB or MOBI for the Mercedes Lackey book? I get an error every time, but the PDF for it seems to work and the EPUB's for the other books are fine as well. I contacted Humble Bundle's support, but I wanted to see if others were having trouble as well.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

...but remember that they have pay credit card fees (if it's less than $15k at this point, I'd be VERY surprised)...

I use Paypal to pay for mine, so hopefully that's cheaper on them.

[Abtacha]

Originally Posted by hwlester

Has anyone else had issues downloading the EPUB or MOBI for the Mercedes Lackey book?

I had no problem downloading it when I bought it on the first day, but I tried it again just now and get "The information you requested could not be retrieved. ".

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by hwlester

I use Paypal to pay for mine, so hopefully that's cheaper on them.

Same - my account wasn't even linked to a CC so hopefully that is helpful to them.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by Abtacha

I had no problem downloading it when I bought it on the first day, but I tried it again just now and get "The information you requested could not be retrieved. ".

That's what I'm seeing as well.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by hwlester

That's what I'm seeing as well.

And same here. Something is broken.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Abtacha

I had no problem downloading it when I bought it on the first day, but I tried it again just now and get "The information you requested could not be retrieved. ".

https://twitter.com/humble/status/257333173191598080 <- "If you were having trouble downloading Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle, please try again. Sorry about the inconvenience today!"

So I guess whatever the problem was, it's fixed.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

https://twitter.com/humble/status/257333173191598080 <- "If you were having trouble downloading Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle, please try again. Sorry about the inconvenience today!"

So I guess whatever the problem was, it's fixed.

Thanks. I was able to get it now.

[Joshua.P]

It seems linux is leading in the average price...

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by Joshua.P

It seems linux is leading in the average price...

As always... which seems a curious thing but maybe also Linux users want to buy something sometimes... or support charity or, and that would be my number one guess, open distribution schemes...
Mac users are often second in the game bundles, probably due to lack of Mac games...or because they are "known" to spend more money on stuff anyway...
and Windows users are cheap most of the time... ;-)

[ficbot]

I bought it. I love this idea and if I like the books, I would definitely buy it again. I wish someone would do a mystery bundle. I saw one recently but it was all weird-looking books. I'd love a mystery bundle with more 'name' authors.