"Links policy" means what to us regulars here??

[petercreasey]

For those of us who have reaped dividends from each other's alerts about freebies, what does the new policy on links mean to us.

Are we now without the valuable information that we all offer each other?

What can we do to stay "in the loop" with attractive offerings?

Thanks!

[jgaiser]

I *suspect* that the information will continue to be available, just a lot harder to dig out.

As this has just been implemented, we all will have to wait to see how this plays out.

[pidgeon92]

Yes, it means that information will be all over the place, instead of in a few popular, useful threads.

However, the people who were offended that these people were making a few cents off being an Amazon affiliate should now be placated.

[ATDrake]

For Kindle, the official Time Limited Offers auto-generated listing will be of help, as will doing an 0.00 search on EReaderIQ as long as you exclude non-English and public domain books and stuff with a date between March-April 2011 when a huge slew of untagged public domain freebies got added. Sort by Popularity/Bestselling to generally get the latest stuff on the last couple of pages. Same parameters will work for the eReaderIQ UK search to find UK-only freebies, though they're a lot more tedious to slog through results for.

The AddAll free listing for Amazon eBooks will generally have the latest Kindle freebies by date (although it'll omit any repeat freebies you might have missed). And their Sony and B&N pages are totally useless, though sometimes they catch something useful at Harlequin.

For B&N, volunteer posters actually keep a long-running thread which people regularly contribute to on the B&N discussions forums: The Free NOOKbooks Summary Thread. Go to the latest posts and work backwards and some kind people generally compile of list of what's still free every couple of days and warn you of expired titles.

Inkmesh is sometimes useful for turning up new Sony and B&N and sometimes Kobo freebies.

For all the stores, sometimes checking to see if a book that's free in one store is free in any of the others will work, especially with certain publishers who are pretty generous about spreading their freebies around.

And if you've an interest in Christian Fiction, then Christian Books has a page which keeps all their freebies, some of which end up being exclusive to them (or to show up before the other stores' listings do).

A few places do a regular monthly freebie deal, such as the University of Chicago Press (academic usually non-fiction) and Phoenix Pick Press (sf/fantasy; sign up for their newsletter to get the monthly coupon code) and some small specialty stores such as AllRomance and Rainbow eBooks sometimes do sporadic freebie giveaways which they usually tell you about in their newsletters as well.

The bargain deals may get posted less visibly, but in the past year-and-a-half since I've joined, MR has had plenty of people share the freebies and coupon codes around without any compensation beyond maybe getting some karma, and I'm sure that'll keep up even if the affiliate link incentive goes away.

[koland]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

For Kindle, the official Time Limited Offers auto-generated listing will be of help

True - of course, it's a bit long and you'll need to dig thru it a bit, to find the new ones.

, as will doing an 0.00 search on EReaderIQ

Affiliate links. Also includes a ton of indie freebies. can do same searches for UK and DE sites, but will have more trouble filtering out the public domain titles (which are being added regularly and are a bit difficult to get rid of in the searches).

[/QUOTE]The AddAll free listing for Amazon eBooks
Inkmesh
[/QUOTE]

Also Affiliate tags, for those so offended. Even if you check individual publishers for their deals, they often use affiliate tags, as well (increasing their 50-70% take on the ebook in the process).

[NightBird]

Quote:
, as will doing an 0.00 search on EReaderIQ
Affiliate links. Also includes a ton of indie freebies. can do same searches for UK and DE sites, but will have more trouble filtering out the public domain titles (which are being added regularly and are a bit difficult to get rid of in the searches).

I agree with this but there is also the ERIQ Free section. They have added the feature of listing the publisher, so it's easier to tell which are indies; and mousing over the book cover gives a description of the book. Genres are also listed.

http://www.ereaderiq.com/free/

[koland]

Originally Posted by NightBird

I agree with this but there is also the ERIQ Free section. They have added the feature of listing the publisher, so it's easier to tell which are indies; and mousing over the book cover gives a description of the book. Genres are also listed.

Unfortunately, the indies figured out that people were looking at the publisher field and now just make something up. Some put the publisher that originally put out a paperback, others just made up companies (they don't even bother creating websites for them). At least a few have actual publishers there that seem to have no connection at all to the books or authors.

There are examples of each of these just on the first page (and O'Reilly seems to have put the ISBN in the publisher field on one of their books).

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by koland

Unfortunately, the indies figured out that people were looking at the publisher field and now just make something up. Some put the publisher that originally put out a paperback, others just made up companies (they don't even bother creating websites for them). At least a few have actual publishers there that seem to have no connection at all to the books or authors.

Yes, I've noticed that, too. I guess from looking for bargains all the time I've come to learn most of the "legit" publishers and their imprints.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by koland

True - of course, it's a bit long and you'll need to dig thru it a bit, to find the new ones.

I find they generally show up on the last couple of pages (at least on the first day or few that they become new) when sorted by Popularity/Bestselling because they usually haven't had their sales ranks significantly inflated by the freebieization yet.

Originally Posted by koland

Affiliate links. Also includes a ton of indie freebies.

Yeah, but I figure anyone looking in this particular thread either already knows that those sites openly exist for the affiliate link commissions or flat out don't care and just want the freebies. Same as with the publisher getting an extra cut of Amazon sales of their own books, which I've no objections to either.

Anyway, most of the indie titles can be usually checked against Smashwords, even if they've put something in the publisher field, or against B&N if they've managed to navigate PubIt, since it looks like the self-pub people are listed under their own names rather than made-up small press most of the time.

And for finding non-indie bargain deals, there's always the age-old method of seeing a rather low price and a suspicious lack of additional backlist for the author/house in question when Ye Olde Amazon Keyword Search is run.

[basschick]

what a disappointing policy change this is turning out to be

[RoccoPaco]

Originally Posted by basschick

what a disappointing policy change this is turning out to be

I agree!!! Far more difficult now!!!

[luqmaninbmore]

Very annoying. And all because a few people get pissy.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Very annoying. And all because a few people get pissy.

And we don't even know the exact nature of their complaints, because NO ONE is speaking out.

[petercreasey]

I don't want to go all (or any) of the long listings of bargains and freebies.

If they are no longer featured here in individual postings, then I guess I'm fresh out of luck!?!

[Tattncat]

I for one wish the new affiliate policy could be rescinded.