Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
Ok, but when I buy something, am I paying for the book, or am I paying for some type of "micropay" dollars/units, then using that to buy the book? Do you have to "buy" micropay units up front, then buy books with the micropay credit? How does it work? Still not sure.
BOb
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Checked the thread, and I don't think anyone else has actually answered this.
Micropay is a system to get around credit card transaction fees. If you browse Fictionwise, you will see that many "books" are actually individual short stories, and their price is correspondingly low. Micropay allows you to pay a large amount into your account, and incur a visa fee once. Then when inspiration strikes, you can spend small amounts without worrying about "minimum charges" on the credit card.
However, once you have such an account set up, Fictionwise will do things that can credit this account, because they don't have to process an actual transaction. They frequently have a single special (sometimes individually chosen for you if you're a club member) whereby you buy a new book with a credit transaction (and it's typically a novel priced on the higher end of mmpb prices), then the amount of that credit transaction is ALSO added to your micropay account.
In the past, I've avoided these offers, because they invariably are for the secure formats. Others regularly use them and break the drm, and I suppose I will eventually join the crowd. Until then I just buy multi-format (unencrypted) versions.