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Old 11-08-2009, 11:49 PM   #12
Kali Yuga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c View Post
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.
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