50% off on Book View Cafe's anthologies

[Andreiuta]

To celebrate the launch of their new online bookstore, they are offering a limited-time discount ($2.49) on some of their anthologies (DRM-free): sale page (however, not all titles appear to be on sale)

1. Tales Newly Twisted: Tales Newly Twisted (Fantasy)
   
2. Brewing Fine Fiction (Non-fiction, Writing advice)
   
3. Dragon Lords and Warrior Women (Various Fantasy: High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, etc) - among the included stories, “Daddy’s Big Girl” by Ursula K. Le Guin
   
4. Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls (various Science-Fiction: Space opera, Aliens, High tech, etc) - among the included stories, “Steelcollar Worker” by Vonda N. McIntyre
   
5. The Shadow Conspiracy, vol I (Science-Fiction: Steampunk, Alternate history)
   
6. The Shadow Conspiracy, vol II (Science-Fiction: Steampunk, Alternate history)

[sufue]

Thanks! Not usually quite my style, but picked up two to try out. Who can resist a title like Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls?

[ATDrake]

The sale should be good through June 7th, and I'm personally going to scoop the lot; I've just been waiting to see if the Canadian dollar bounces back up a bit (stupid panic-trading CAD-dumping investors late last week driving the exchange rate up with their stock market shenanigans).

BVC practically never discounts their stuff. Incidentally, author member Pati Nagle is discounting two of her 1st-in-series titles to $2.99 (down from the 4.99 it's mostly been for the past two years), details and coupon code on her page. And YA author has set the introductory price of her 1st-in-series SF space opera novel to 99 cents (don't know if this is a temporary sale or a permanent discount; might as well scoop it anyway, to hopefully encourage more lower introductory prices).

Though personally, I'm rather disappointed that with the new site, they've decided to eschew the MultiFormat downloads + online reading with your purchases kept on the site in favour of 1 purchase per format with a single non-recoverable download link. (Not to mention, I used to direct a lot of people to the online reading shorts and novellas to try new-to-them authors I was recommending, but no more of that now, I suppose.)

You'll definitely have to make your own backups this time around.

[suelange]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Though personally, I'm rather disappointed that with the new site, they've decided to eschew the MultiFormat downloads + online reading with your purchases kept on the site in favour of 1 purchase per format with a single non-recoverable download link. (Not to mention, I used to direct a lot of people to the online reading shorts and novellas to try new-to-them authors I was recommending, but no more of that now, I suppose.)

You'll definitely have to make your own backups this time around.

ATDrake, we tried desperately to keep that functionality, but couldn't find a solution that would do that for us. We'll keep working on it, though, and maybe figure out some other solution. Thanks for the feedback.

Sue Lange
BookViewCafe Author member

[Andreiuta]

One more: Fires of Nuala (Science-Fiction) $2.49 through June 10 with coupon NUALA-GO.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by suelange

ATDrake, we tried desperately to keep that functionality, but couldn't find a solution that would do that for us.

Perhaps a purchase could at least give you the multi-format bundle (you are after all paying for the words in the book, and not really the format it comes in, IMHO) and if people create a login on the new website, it can be linked to a bookshelf of their purchases?

Weightless Books seems to also run on a WordPress-based/like site and that's how they manage to do it.

In any case, I can manage my own backups and conversions, but the really disappointing thing is that since the old site has effectively been shut down, I can no longer direct people to try the online shorts that used to be there to check out an author I was recommending without having to invest in a purchase they might end up not liking.

I hope that eventually some of the old stories might return to the new site, if the authors are willing.

Thanks for your response (and for participating in the Read an Ebook Week sale earlier this year; I bought two of your books via Smashwords, in part due to the availability of said online shorts at the old site).

[koland]

Some of their omnibus choices are a good deal, as well.

This one is in the KDP lending library:

The Jack Stein Omnibus and is a good deal at $9.99 (or read free for prime members)

[suelange]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Perhaps a purchase could at least give you the multi-format bundle (you are after all paying for the words in the book, and not really the format it comes in, IMHO) and if people create a login on the new website, it can be linked to a bookshelf of their purchases?

Weightless Books seems to also run on a WordPress-based/like site and that's how they manage to do it.

In any case, I can manage my own backups and conversions, but the really disappointing thing is that since the old site has effectively been shut down, I can no longer direct people to try the online shorts that used to be there to check out an author I was recommending without having to invest in a purchase they might end up not liking.

I hope that eventually some of the old stories might return to the new site, if the authors are willing.

Thanks for your response (and for participating in the Read an Ebook Week sale earlier this year; I bought two of your books via Smashwords, in part due to the availability of said online shorts at the old site).

I got this response at the BVC forum when I posted your comment:

"they can download again: it's not a "non-recoverable download link."

Basically they're going to try and make this more obvious. They've put something in the faq. It still doesn't do exactly what you want, but they're working on a better solution.

I love some of your new ideas here. I think they're important so I'll pass them on again. And BTW, I'm personally planning on putting up some more shorts myself soon. Maybe I'll offer them free for a while as per your suggestion.

Hang in there and thanks for the valuable feedback!

Sue

[suelange]

By the way there are some freebies. The link is towards the bottom of the list of subjects on the right. I think it says "Free fiction" or some such.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by suelange

"they can download again: it's not a "non-recoverable download link."

By "non-recoverable download link" I didn't mean that people couldn't download again, as that's stated right on the site. I meant that people only got the single link in one particular email message associated with their purchase, and if they ever lost that particular email message, then they would not be able to download their purchase again, even if the system allowed them to, much less get a message with the old download link sent to the email on record.

Which is again something the new site warns about, that you have to take particular care to preserve that particular email message associated with said purchase.

This is something of a step down from the old website where you could just login and re-download your books if you ever needed to, without digging through your email archives (assuming nothing got lost/accidentally deleted in the meantime). Also, since none of the purchases seem to be linked in any way, it brings up the possibility of accidentally re-buying books you've bought before (which is something I've done in paperback, but at least I got a second copy I could pass around or re-sell).

Anyway, thanks again for your response and for considering putting up more online shorts. I did notice the Free Fiction section, which is nice, but not as well organized as the old site's Bookshelf for each author, IMHO, which provided a ready one-stop place for the author's biography and online stories as well as their purchaseable e-books that could both be browsed at more-or-less the same time.

Some full-length sample stories that could serve as teasers for the collections/anthologies seem to only be linked to from the pages for those books instead of being added to a centralized or author-oriented page where people looking for a particular genre/writer could see them easily and know there was an associated book that could be bought.

And, though there's probably nothing that can be done about this because of the way that WordPress arranges posts by date, it can be hard to find an author's single free story from their page amidst a dozen other items, and it might possibly be difficult in the future to see that there were more stories in the Free Fiction section if they did indeed get added.

I actually went over the Fantasy and Science Fiction categories a couple of times wondering why they weren't larger, before I realized there was a tiny "more stuff" link to a second page at the very bottom.

Perhaps a link right under the bio could be added to each author's page directing people to a page which collected any full-length sample or outright free stories, and perhaps add genre/length subcategories for the Free Fiction section like currently there are for the Short Stories if there's eventually enough to merit them inside?

[koland]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

By "non-recoverable download link" I didn't mean that people couldn't download again, as that's stated right on the site. I meant that people only got the single link in one particular email message associated with their purchase, and if they ever lost that particular email message, then they would not be able to download their purchase again, even if the system allowed them to, much less get a message with the old download link sent to the email on record.

Which is again something the new site warns about, that you have to take particular care to preserve that particular email message associated with said purchase.

And with spam so prevalent, many email systems are extremely bad about simply routing some messages to the trashbin (not a spam folder), which means that there is no guarantee you'll even get the first message. Hopefully you also display a download link at the end of a purchase, so that the person is at least guaranteed one shot at downloading what they have spent money upon...

At the very least, a library list should be maintained for a person's account, with download links (even if tied to one format), as is done at AllRomance. Better would be a list of purchases and links to download all formats (as you get at Ellora's Cave/JasmineJade/Fictionwise's multi-format books)

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by koland

Hopefully you also display a download link at the end of a purchase, so that the person is at least guaranteed one shot at downloading what they have spent money upon...

It turns out they do, according to the order I just placed for the bunch of ePubs to go on my Sony (and which I may one day get around to running through KindleGen once I tweak the formatting a bit more to my liking, though I will say that I do appreciate the use of little spacer images for scene breaks).

Wording on the receipt also indicates that it's supposed to be a revisitable, bookmarkable URL for the order, which hopefully shouldn't be that hard to associate with a related site login to provide a semblance of a library shelf.

ETA: Another sale title: The Dread Hammer 1st in fantasy series by Linda Nagata, $2 off with coupon for $2.99 through June 7th. I'll be getting this once I'm done some more browsing to decide what else to put in my cart, as Nagata has a good reputation (for sf, at least) and also offers a science fiction novella free via Smashwords: In the Tide.

[ATDrake]

In case anyone's thinking of doing any last minute shopping at the sale, when it comes to books that have to have the coupons individually applied:

Only checkout ONE book at a time with its corresponding coupon.

Their new cart system only allows a coupon discount using different coupon codes to be applied to one book at a time and if you add one book to your cart, use a coupon, then add a second book and use its coupon, only the second coupon will be honoured and the discount for the first book removed and your total will be higher than you might otherwise expect.

[suelange]

Thanks for all this great feedback everyone. I'll take it back to the group. without responding to each comment here, I'll just make one final mention: if there is anything that is not working or that really is deficient with the BVC site, send a note to info@broaduniverse.com. We do have someone responding at that email address. And if all else fails, send a note to media.relations@broaduniverse.com. That goes to me directly.

[suelange]

Hey all, for follow up, I wanted to let you know, I've been passing on the word to the BVC authors about doing some more short freebies. We'll see what happens. At any rate, the page is: http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/genre/free-fiction/

I just added my own selection, PremiumExistence, there. I'll probably leave it there for a couple of months and then once I add it to Amazon, it'll no longer be free.