Free ebooks at Amazon?

[poshm]

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.

[pdurrant]

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.

Originally Posted by poshm

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.

[Ervserver]

even with the fee many ebooks are worth it

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Ervserver

even with the fee many ebooks are worth it

yes, you need to be really cautious with some of the free books if you are paying a download fee. on the other hand... some have been incredible gems!

[poshm]

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!

[The-eBook-Reader]

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.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by poshm

I assume the free ebooks on Amazon.com are not available to us in the UK?

Public domain laws vary from country to country, and it's likely the self-publishing feature on Amazon doesn't currently include international rights in its setup. And there's also just good ol' setting up international rights. E.g. Ballantine publishes "A Kiss of Shadows," which they've set at $0 for promotional purposes, but presumably that covers the US market only right now. The UK publisher may have its own preferences on how to handle promo pricing like that.

Originally Posted by poshm

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!

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.

[poshm]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

You are so right and I'm very thankful about that - lots of people moan about our NHS system in the UK (there can be longish waiting lists etc) but personally we've been very lucky in our family and have been treated really well when we've needed medical attention.

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 ...

[fugazied]

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)!

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by fugazied

I am pretty sure most of those 'free' ebooks from Amazon are available from other locations...

Depends on the book though. E.g. some books may be in public domain in the US but not in the UK. More likely is that new books slated for $0.00 for promo purposes have a normal price outside the US.

Originally Posted by fugazied

Paying the fee on top of a free book is a bit much, avoid at all costs (so to speak)!

Sometimes the Amazon version of a PD book has better formatting than what's available elsewhere, so it's occasionally worth the $1 or more for that version.

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.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

Oh, they could if they wanted to. They're taking a loss on the free books in the US, so making them free in UK also would simply mean taking a little bigger loss-which they could do, if they really wanted to. I suspect most of it is what they perceive as the 'market clout', i.e. discrimination against UK readers.

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.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

I suspect most of it is what they perceive as the 'market clout', i.e. discrimination against UK readers.

Yeah, I don't think so.

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.

[pdurrant]

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.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

As to the wireless charges -- [...] This is the $1.99 charge I expect you can avoid if you download to your computer, and transfer the file via USB.