MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - BoB promotion, Sony PRS-505 at $99 if you buy $500 gift card. Free with $1000 GC

KJohnson · 05-05-2009, 10:56 AM

Andybaby, thank you for pointing me to this thread.

Thanks everyone for the postings and the commentary about our Sony offers. We're about to extend them until next Monday as there has been a great deal of very positive response, much more than we anticipated. This is an exciting offer, meant to provide another opportunity for value to many of our customers.

In partnership with Overdrive and Adobe, we were the first to offer ePUB titles from major publishers a year ago as well as the among the very first to offer MP3 DRM-free audio book downloads. We also introduced our Qik Clik (TM) technology. the first of its kind on the iPhone, in February.

The $99 Sony Reader is another first for our customers.

As with our customer support - where we keep a support team available 7 days a week - we are always seeking new ways to reward our loyal readers and to make it easier and more compelling for new customers to join the ebook fold. We constructed the Sony offers premised on some carefully calculated math that results in us losing a bit of money over the long run on the offers themselves, but coming out well ahead - along with customers and the entire industry - if they cause the kind of increase in ebook adoption that we would like to see. We view this as something that helps all ships rise including those of our existing customers, new customers, competitors, authors and publishers.

At the same time, we do not encourage customers to spend inappropriately to buy a Sony Reader now. If someone is going to spend $400 plus on eBooks in the next year or so, it's certainly a great value. But building personal debt to get something that is just "nice to have" is not what we want to encourage. If someone reads less than several hundred dollars worth of eBooks a year, this is probably not the right offer for that person. On the other hand, we have many, many customers who buy more than $400 worth of eBooks in a year that are still reading on laptops in their beds at night. This offer can be very worthwhile for them. These are also the customers who have done the most to help our business and it's appropriate to provide a win-win offer like this for them.

We find that most reserve their eBook device budgets for the holiday season and other significant gift giving seasons. This time of year - with Mothers Day, Graduations, and Fathers Day stacked up over six weeks - is probably the second largest season of the year for Sony Readers and other devices like the Cybook and Kindle. We stand behind both Sony Readers and Cybooks in large part because the manufacturers remain committed to open formats that are broadly accessible.

We do pay close attention to this forum and the thoughts and opinions of it's members, the vanguard of ebook technology users. Reader price receives frequent mention. This promotion is about progress in that direction.

Sincere Regards,

Kurt Johnson
BooksOnBoard

05-05-2009, 10:56 AM	#13
KJohnson Member Posts: 21 Karma: 936 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: San Marcos-Austin, Texas Device: Sony505	Andybaby, thank you for pointing me to this thread. Thanks everyone for the postings and the commentary about our Sony offers. We're about to extend them until next Monday as there has been a great deal of very positive response, much more than we anticipated. This is an exciting offer, meant to provide another opportunity for value to many of our customers. In partnership with Overdrive and Adobe, we were the first to offer ePUB titles from major publishers a year ago as well as the among the very first to offer MP3 DRM-free audio book downloads. We also introduced our Qik Clik (TM) technology. the first of its kind on the iPhone, in February. The $99 Sony Reader is another first for our customers. As with our customer support - where we keep a support team available 7 days a week - we are always seeking new ways to reward our loyal readers and to make it easier and more compelling for new customers to join the ebook fold. We constructed the Sony offers premised on some carefully calculated math that results in us losing a bit of money over the long run on the offers themselves, but coming out well ahead - along with customers and the entire industry - if they cause the kind of increase in ebook adoption that we would like to see. We view this as something that helps all ships rise including those of our existing customers, new customers, competitors, authors and publishers. At the same time, we do not encourage customers to spend inappropriately to buy a Sony Reader now. If someone is going to spend $400 plus on eBooks in the next year or so, it's certainly a great value. But building personal debt to get something that is just "nice to have" is not what we want to encourage. If someone reads less than several hundred dollars worth of eBooks a year, this is probably not the right offer for that person. On the other hand, we have many, many customers who buy more than $400 worth of eBooks in a year that are still reading on laptops in their beds at night. This offer can be very worthwhile for them. These are also the customers who have done the most to help our business and it's appropriate to provide a win-win offer like this for them. We find that most reserve their eBook device budgets for the holiday season and other significant gift giving seasons. This time of year - with Mothers Day, Graduations, and Fathers Day stacked up over six weeks - is probably the second largest season of the year for Sony Readers and other devices like the Cybook and Kindle. We stand behind both Sony Readers and Cybooks in large part because the manufacturers remain committed to open formats that are broadly accessible. We do pay close attention to this forum and the thoughts and opinions of it's members, the vanguard of ebook technology users. Reader price receives frequent mention. This promotion is about progress in that direction. Sincere Regards, Kurt Johnson BooksOnBoard