11-07-2009, 02:00 PM | #1 |
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Free ebooks at Amazon?
I assume the free ebooks on Amazon.com are not available to us in the UK?
I can buy kindle books for the ipod touch which have a monetary value but couldn't find any which were free Why oh why do I feel like we get a bit of a raw deal in the UK - ie pay well over the odds for things which our US cousins get so much cheaper or indeed for nothing! Anyway correct me if I'm wrong please. |
11-07-2009, 05:58 PM | #2 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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In the UK, Amazon insist on adding on a charge of $2+VAT ($2.30) to all books to pay for the wireless charges.
This means that ebooks that are free in the US cost $2.30 in the UK. Yes, they add this fee even if you're not using whispernet to download the book to a Kindle. No, they're not being up-front about it. Quote:
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11-08-2009, 12:45 AM | #3 |
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even with the fee many ebooks are worth it
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11-08-2009, 12:52 AM | #4 |
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11-08-2009, 01:52 AM | #5 |
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Yes it's still worth a look at the Amazon books as some have a very good price.
Just doesn't seem right that the freebies are not extended to ALL their customers regardless of location. Thanks for the info though, I didn't know about the tax/vat charge! |
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11-08-2009, 09:34 AM | #6 |
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Before paying the $2.30 make sure to run some searches on the web for the ebook in question. You can often find the free ebooks that Amazon offers from the publishers themselves and other sources. Then you can download them to your computer and transfer them via USB. You may need to convert the format first though, but at least they're still free that way.
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11-08-2009, 10:14 AM | #7 | ||
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Quote:
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Don't forget you folks have to pay VAT, and US sales tax rates are much lower. Then there's currency fluctuations -- e.g. I spent a week in Italy in 2008 when the dollar was low, and everything was ridiculously expensive; in turn the dollar is low again, so Europeans who shop in the US are getting great deals. Besides, y'all don't pay for health care. If you had to shell out £50,000 for spending a week in a hospital, you might not feel like you're getting a "raw deal" all the time. And as mentioned above, most of the books are available elsewhere, e.g. Gutenberg, Manybooks etc. |
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11-08-2009, 02:38 PM | #8 | |
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Not everything is free I might add, we've had to pay to go private with a few things but it's still been affordable and not a case of having to take out an extra mortgage to cover it. Yup, the grass isn't always greener ... |
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11-08-2009, 05:19 PM | #9 |
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I am pretty sure most of those 'free' ebooks from Amazon are available from other locations, poke around here and on other sites and you should be able to find them. Also you could probably post a request for someone in the US to post a free ebook on a server somewhere.
Paying the fee on top of a free book is a bit much, avoid at all costs (so to speak)! |
11-08-2009, 06:36 PM | #10 | ||
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Also, keep in mind that the $2 is mostly covering an AT&T international data fee. So you can gnash your teeth at AT&T over that one, I'm reasonably certain Amazon would like to charge less if they could. One thing I'm not clear on is that in the US, you can download the book and manually load it onto your Kindle. I assume international users can do the same to avoid the AT&T charge, but can't confirm that. |
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11-08-2009, 07:41 PM | #11 | |
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BTW, one of the earlier posts said that even though the rationale for the charge is to cover the wireless download, the charge itself is Amazon's price-so it applies to the book no matter how you load it onto your Kindle. |
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11-08-2009, 11:49 PM | #12 | |
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After a little digging, it looks like the Digital Text Platform is not available for international publishers or customers. I assume this is due to the aforementioned PD discrepancies and rights issues. PD books on DTP is probably the largest source of free books on Amazon in the US, but you should be able to get those texts elsewhere. The other source is publishers dropping the price to zero for promo purposes. It's a relatively recent phenomena for Amazon, so that may gear up soon. But that's the publisher's choice, not Amazon's. And not having access to the UK Kindle site, I can't tell if the issue is that these promo priced books are not available, or if they're adding in the wireless delivery fee. As to the wireless charges -- which do apply to a book with a $0.00 promo price -- I'm sure Amazon takes some of it but a good chunk of that is going to AT&T, and is levied for every international download to the Kindle device. This is the $1.99 charge I expect you can avoid if you download to your computer, and transfer the file via USB. The idea that Amazon "discriminates" against punters in the UK is slightly absurd, especially since these charges and availability issues are faced by all current international customers. |
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11-09-2009, 03:25 AM | #13 |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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If we could avoid the $2+VAT charge for wireless by downloading to our computers and not using whispernet, we wouldn't be moaning.
But the charge is built into the price of the book. There's no way to avoid it. We pay the same whether we use whispernet or download by computer. |
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