85% Off the Hunger Games

[ATDrake]

As of this year, Ernest Hemingway is public domain in Canada, which may account for the Kobo cheapies.

Some of his titles are now in the MR Patricia Clark Memorial E-Book Library, for those who live in Life+50 countries.

BTW, if any of my fellow Canadians would like to keep Canada a Life+50 country, be sure to write your MP opposing the proposed copyright extensions that are apparently up for discussion as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks. Project Gutenberg Canada has a bit on the top of their page about it. Our current Conservative government probably won't listen at all, but one should at least get one's word in before they start selling our heritage out to the highest corporate bidder.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Must be a sign I've too many books to read when I turn such a good deal down for a set of books I wouldn't mind reading, all because I don't want the hassle of signing up for another book store and having to remove the drm/convert to kindle (as easy as it is).

Now you know how we feel when authors who go exclusive with Amazon tell us to convert to ePub.

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Hemingway entered the public domain this year in Canada. Someone must be digitizing and selling the PD versions of Hemingway's books and offering them for $0.99. A couple of Hemingway's books have been recently uploaded here on MR, if you want free versions.

The $12.99 & the $0.99 were both at Kobo's site.

Old Man & The Sea - Scribner $12.99
Old Man & The Sea - HarperCollins Canada $0.99.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by koland

Must be Canada only publisher, as nothing of his is that cheap for US buyers at Kobo

Ernest Hemingway is in the Canadian public domain. Don't see him on Gutenberg Canada yet.

He had several books published posthumously. One in 1999. Do they all become public domain in Canada or is there a minimum period included in the life + 50?

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

The $12.99 & the $0.99 were both at Kobo's site.

Old Man & The Sea - Scribner $12.99
Old Man & The Sea - HarperCollins Canada $0.99.

The Scribner version is an older version, from 2002, long before Hemingway entered the public domain in Canada. The HarperCollins Canada version was created last month, Feb 2012, after it became public domain.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by JoeD

I caved in. Despite the long TBR list, it's just too good a bargin to turn down, even though it meant jumping through way too many hoops...

Sign up for account, click buy, enter payment details, download book, book doesn't download. Realise I don't have ADE installed, go to download ADE, find you need flash to install it (if there's a non flash installer I didn't notice it and was losing the will to live by this point), install flash, realise you need an adobe account, sign up for account, install ADE, authorise my computer, finally download ebooks. Remove flash plugin. What a pita.

Compare that to amazon, sign up at amazon, enter payment details, click buy. download book.

Only part that wasn't a pain was dropping it into calibre, freeing and syncing to the kindle

Yes but if you had done all that previously then all you would have done this time is login, click, buy, download. Kobo is worth signing up for and getting all those downloads sorted out. With all of their discount codes, I regularly get books more cheaply than I can find them on Amazon.

[Blue Tyson]

Have to say the first time I used Kobo it put me off using them, with the whole ADE horror and the rest.

So the Hunger Games thing would be the 2nd, 3rd and 4th books I have bought there - hadn't used it for 2 years. Those worked fine, so as you say, maybe worth a second look.

[Blue Tyson]

So, looked up the Kobo thread on MR - found a discount code and the country abbreviation change trick.

Went and had a look at my Kindle wishlist - found an independent book that Kobo had too for the same price - translated into AU, anyway - voila, 20% off. So cool! Additional goodness being it was DRM free epub. Soon to be Kindle personal docs archive

[melmac]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

So, looked up the Kobo thread on MR - found a discount code and the country abbreviation change trick.

Went and had a look at my Kindle wishlist - found an independent book that Kobo had too for the same price - translated into AU, anyway - voila, 20% off. So cool! Additional goodness being it was DRM free epub. Soon to be Kindle personal docs archive

Blue,
Make sure to read the first post in that thread GOAT does an awesome job of keeping it up to date there are currently active codes for 40%,35% and 30% off. My biggest problem these days is finding enough non agency books that I want to use all the codes on.

[Blue Tyson]

I am sure I will be able to find some books. 40% off? Nice. Time to go through wishlist for one of the pricier ones then!

The discount I used seem to work for both books - the 20% off that they emailed me about.

As for books I did, Burn Baby Burn by James Maxey and Half a Hero by Richard Lee Byers - both superhero novels.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Now you know how we feel when authors who go exclusive with Amazon tell us to convert to ePub.

The conversion wasn't my issue, it's the hoop jumping during the purchase that was. With Amazon if you don't have a kindle and have never bought from them before, you sign up for amazon account, install kindle app, buy book.

There's no need to sign up for an adobe account, install flash and then install ADE, authorise your PC followed by downloading a URL link and then "open with" ADE.

Whilst with kobo you need to install ADE and with amazon you'd need to install Kindle App, the setup process is much more convoluted with kobo than amazon imho.

DRM removal/conversion steps are similar for amazon->epub as kobo->mobi.

That said, I agree authors shouldn't go exclusive for amazon, mainly because authors shouldn't rely on non amazon customers stripping DRM just to read their books, nor should they be putting all their eggs in one basket retailer wise. If amazon pay enough to make it worth their while, I do understand why some choose to do so, but I think they're potentially asking for trouble long term.

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Yes but if you had done all that previously then all you would have done this time is login, click, buy, download. Kobo is worth signing up for and getting all those downloads sorted out. With all of their discount codes, I regularly get books more cheaply than I can find them on Amazon.

I'm not disputing that once setup the two are reasonably similar purchase methods. But in terms of initial experience in buying something, the hoop jumping for setting up kobo was silly. I think of all the steps, it's the need to have flash installed in your browser that was the most annoying, had they linked to a standalone installer for ADE, then I wouldn't have felt the process was too much more inconvenient.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

I just bought four Ernest Hemingway books at $0.99 each. They have duplicate titles and their counterparts are $12.99 for the exact same title. I don't get it. They appear to be the same thing re length & file size. It's not a shortened version for the $0.99. It made absolutely no sense to me. Naturally I bought the $0.99 versions.

Or, since you're Canadian, you could have downloaded them for FREE here on Mobileread. They are out of copyright in Canada, and The Terminator has uploaded copies of pretty much all his novels here.

[Ajax]

Thanks for the deal, it finally got me to install ADE and sign up for a Kobo account.

[tdonline]

Read a bit of it in store at B&N and decided I wasn't that interested to pay for the trilogy. But hey for $3.01 total, why not? First books I've paid for since getting the Nook last Thanksgiving. Since I'm an Overdrive user, going through ADE wasn't that big of a deal.

Thank you for the heads up on this deal.

P.S....so how does Kobo make money on this?

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by tdonline

P.S....so how does Kobo make money on this?

One of two things are likely true: either Scholastic agreed to discounting in exchange for Kobo promoting it, or Kobo's looking to grab attention from e-book enthusiasts and is using the Hunger Games as a loss leader.

Kobo's a pretty open platform, and perhaps they're hoping that they'll get owners of other e-readers interested in buying books from Kobo. Another possibility is that they feel it will rope Kobo owners back into reading books who maybe haven't been using their e-readers for a while. Not all owners of e-readers are avid readers who read the Mobileread forums, after all.

My guess is it's an advertising stunt. Why pay for advertising that someone may, or may not, ever even see. A loss leader discount like this costs you nothing unless you get people visiting and buying things from your store. The discount Kobo provides (above and beyond their wholesale price, whatever that is) is the customer acquisition cost. To the degree that existing Kobo owners take advantage of it, it's a great way to maintain loyalty and enthusiasm amongst your existing customers (or former customers that the deal lures back).

I expect we'll see more things like these (and a continuation of Kobo's popular discount codes) as Kobo's new owners, Rakuten, are determined to build marketshare amongst their various divisions and they see Kobo as a key part in that.