Quote:
Originally Posted by Tazling
I thought it was a pretty interesting idea and the "free trial" offer was on, or at least some deep sale offer where your first month costs you only $3.99 or something like that. My main interest was in older, nearly OOP books (stuff that is getting harder to find in ratty old paperbacks via Abebooks) -- am starting to get a little embarrassed about the air miles my used books are putting in.
For example it's not so easy to find all the Edmund Crispin Gervase Fen novels any more. Or the Applebys. And some of these "old fashioned" authors are in the KU "free to read" programme. And they do let you DL a copy so you can read even if your internet connection is out (which mine fairly often is -- rural location, lots of power hits). 10 book limit is not bothersome. That keeps me happy for a week or so.
BUT... I think there's a bit of upsell monkey biz going on. After selecting an initial reading list I did some searching for specific hard to find authors and titles and did find a few in KU (yay). A day later I visited Amazon.ca and found that all those titles I had found were mysteriously marked back up to full price.
I have a bad feeling that Amazon might be pulling a wee bit of bait and switch here -- remembering what titles a new KU subscriber searches for specifically by author or title, then next time you look, they mark them up so if you REALLY want that book you have to pay full (Kindle) price. And they already know you want it :-)
Hmmm. That would make KU more of a marketing tool than a "discount shelf".
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....except that Amazon has nothing to do with which books are in or out of KU--it's the publisher's choice, and the publishers don't know when people look at their books, only when they buy them. Many publishers will put a book in for a 90 day period, then pull them out at the end of that period and put them back to full price.
Sounds like it was just bad luck, sorry.
Shari