Free (nook/Kindle/XtianBk/Sony) Working Successfully w/ Screwed-Up People [Advice]

[ATDrake]

Working Successfully with Screwed-Up People by Elizabeth B. Brown provides tips on exactly what it says in the title, free courtesy of Christian publisher Baker's Revell imprint.

Currently free, probably just for one day @ B&N (also UK), Amazon (available to Canadians and in the UK), and Christian Book (available worldwide).

ETA: Now a repeat in the above venues, and newly free @ Kobo, iTunes & Google Play (all available to Canadians).

ETA 2: And now also addable to your library @ BookShout (online reading & in-app download).

Description
Crazy co-workers stressing you out? Here's the solution.

Let's face it. Some people just don't listen, don't care, and aren't willing to compromise. And you probably work with some of them. The incomprehensible supervisor. The person in the next office who chats more than works. The customer who, by the way, isn't always right.

The good news is, it doesn't take two people to change a relationship in the workplace. It takes one--you! Now the bestselling author of Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People offers expert advice to help you not only get along with co-workers who get under your skin but actually succeed at work in spite of them. You'll learn how to be unflappable, imperturbable, and unflustered in every workplace situation.

Less stress at work can start today. So what are you waiting for?

[ATDrake]

Now also free @ Sony (available to Canadians). Enjoy racing the price-updating bobble birds for this one (the cart check is your friend; 1-click buying is not).

[Shopaholic]

Heeeey! How come it shows $0 but in the cart is has a price of $10.39??

[ATDrake]

It's those pesky price-updating bobble-birds that Sony employs*. They may possibly be possessed by evil sabotaging spirits to ensure that Sony gets the freebies for only a few hours out of what the publisher intended to be a full day. Mind you, Baker's not really helping by doing these repeated multiple 1-day-only promos and if I had to manually switch prices every 24 hours for over a dozen books per month I might not pay too much attention† to it, either.

Also, koland has said in the past that Sony uses two different server/database/whatever systems for the shopping site and the processing/billing stuff, which are somewhat out of sync, hence the differing listing/cart prices.

* At least, I assume they employ them on the possibly overly optimistic reasoning that any actual human being who showed such profound incompetence in multi-store promo freebie handling would have long since have been fired and replaced by a glass toy which could do the job equally as poorly and without undeserved pay, to boot.

† Though I'd at least try to have it drop shortly after I woke up and not reset it until I headed for bed/woke up again around midnight, so people would get longer than a 4-hour afternoon window to grab the freebie.

[koland]

From what I've seen (as have you, I believe), Sony discounts the one-day freebies between 4PM and 8PM (US-ET). I suspect if you put the "full price" book into your cart and went to check out before 4PM, it would actually show up as $0 there (unless the programmers are truly incompetent). It appears that they set up a "24 hour freebie" on the book, but the servers that show the books (on the web and in the app) don't think midnight strikes until 4PM on the East Coast, US. However, the ones that regulate the cart, which also know about the promo, are set up on GMT time and end it at midnight in the UK. This has been consistently (and precisely) true of all the one-day promos that Sony has, for over a year.

Once we get off DST, I'll try to remember to check the times to see if they slid back an hour, too.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by koland

From what I've seen (as have you, I believe), Sony discounts the one-day freebies between 4PM and 8PM (US-ET). I suspect if you put the "full price" book into your cart and went to check out before 4PM, it would actually show up as $0 there (unless the programmers are truly incompetent).

I would not personally wager money relying upon the competence of Sony's programmers. It's a lot more random than a 4-hour window, even for the things from the past few months alone (I know, because I check to see if they've dropped during my infrequent break time, and I've seen things go free as early as 10 am PST and as late as past noon). I'm pretty sure I've also tried cart-placing before the official site $0 and saw it still full price, but I may be misremembering that.

They are, however, very consistent about expiring the 1-day freebies by around 6 PM or so.

I myself suspect that some actual person (possibly a rotating selection of underinformed interns) sees a list of "oh $@#$, this is supposed to be free for today", does the price change, and then the servers which you're likely right about being set to a different time zone bounces it back up at whatever it thinks is the end of the "day".

[koland]

Perhaps it is a lag due to propagation/sync with multiple servers (but with the master server on GMT, as it is the one that you hit with the cart).

If it truly is an intern, then he or she should be banned. Not that Sony apparently actually cares about ebooks, much.

Maybe it's an intern that lives in Japan and can't enter the changes until their shift starts.... and some days, a staff mtg delays them (or lack of coffee).

[ATDrake]

Now a repeat freebie in all the stores still existing* in the OP, and newly free @ Kobo, iTunes & Google Play (all available to Canadians).

ETA: And now also addable to your library @ BookShout (online reading & in-app download).

* RIP Sony bobble-birds.

[ATDrake]

Now a repeat freebie everywhere but BookShout & newly free @ B&N UK (for some reason it won't let me edit the OP right now).