It's sometimes worth pre-ordering at Amazon

[pdurrant]

I've just got notification of the arrival of a pre-ordered Kindle ebook on Amazon UK.

I pre-ordered A Mighty Fortress by David Weber on 8th April at a price of £5.59 — just 6p cheaper than the paperback that was due out as well.

My notification today told me that I purchased the ebook for £4.68. The current price shown at Amazon UK is £5.38. The paperback is still £5.66 (Amazon discounted price).

Good to see that Amazon's pre-ordering price promise actually works - you get the product at the cheapest price it's been offered between your pre-order time and the release date.

[Quake1028]

It is nice - when it does work. Sometimes it takes an email or a phone call to remind them of their own policies - but they always follow through.

[koland]

They do generally honor it, but it doesn't actually apply to ebooks (1-they are not on the list of products where it applies and 2 - there is no displayed low pre-order price guarantee language on the ebook pages, which are required). One reason is due to the Agency model, where they can't adjust a price after it is ordered (yet Penguin seems to be able to cancel your pre-orders without notice or consequence, if they decide they want to increase a price ... so, always keep track of your pre-orders or just don't do it with Penguin).

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've just got notification of the arrival of a pre-ordered Kindle ebook on Amazon UK.

I pre-ordered A Mighty Fortress by David Weber on 8th April at a price of £5.59 — just 6p cheaper than the paperback that was due out as well.

I'm confused. This ebook was released a year ago . On a related note, I see that the next book in the series How firm a foundation is available for pre-order (due to release Sept 2011). The story is really going slow . The prolific Weber keeps starting new stories instead of finishing up the many that he's already started, which is both awesome and frustrating .

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

I'm confused. This ebook was released a year ago .

In the US. It was only released on 5th May 2011 in the UK.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In the US. It was only released on 5th May 2011 in the UK.

Ach . Darn georestrictions again. My deepest sympathies.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Why exactly does one need to pre-order an ebook? There are no physical property limitations-they can make as many as they want.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Why exactly does one need to pre-order an ebook? There are no physical property limitations-they can make as many as they want.

It's simply a marketing gimmick that can be win-win for consumer and retailer alike, as pdurrant's example above showed. The consumer gets some psychological satisfaction out of having taken steps to get a much-anticipated item early (not really early but it feels like it ). More importantly for ebooks, you get the ebook auto-delivered to your Kindle on the release date (so you don't have to painfully keep track of release dates - it's sort of like DVR scheduling for ebooks ). I like this since I tend to do my shopping at specific times during the month and dislike having to keep looking up release dates, etc. and planning for them. There are times I have completely forgotten about great new books that I'd been anticipating (and that have already been released but missed the release) and wasted my time reading other not-so-good stuff.

Sometimes, ebook sellers have discounts for pre-ordering (perhaps pre-orders can help with making predictions of print runs leading to less numbers of unsold copies).

From the consumer's pov, it's more of a "why not pre-order an ebook"?

[Strether]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've just got notification of the arrival of a pre-ordered Kindle ebook on Amazon UK.

I pre-ordered A Mighty Fortress by David Weber on 8th April at a price of £5.59 — just 6p cheaper than the paperback that was due out as well.

I'd be interesting in knowing if Tor cleaned up the book. When I bought it at $12.99 US, it was the worst-formatted book I'd ever seen (if you look at the reviews from those who also bought the Kindle book, you'll see that everyone else thought the same.)

Jim

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Strether

I'd be interesting in knowing if Tor cleaned up the book. When I bought it at $12.99 US, it was the worst-formatted book I'd ever seen (if you look at the reviews from those who also bought the Kindle book, you'll see that everyone else thought the same.)

It does seem to be different to the US version — different cover, different illustrations (well, poorer quality illustrations - assuming the version I had previously 'found' was the official US version), and different internal markup. I certainly haven't noticed any formatting problems.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Why exactly does one need to pre-order an ebook? There are no physical property limitations-they can make as many as they want.

Simply for the convenience. If I notice that an eBook will be released on a particular date, it suits me to order it now, and know that it will get delivered to my Kindle as soon as it's released, rather than risk forgetting about it later.