Kobo Discounts: Coupon Codes + Discussion

[illiterate]

Could someone explain what "agency pricing" means please?
This is my first post BTW, just got my Kobo Touch 4 days ago

[taming]

From post #1:

NOTE 1: You do have to make sure that you are buying a non-agency book. Agency books generally have only one price listed. If a book has two prices, it is not subject to Agency price fixing and will usually/always work with coupons.

NOTE 2: For codes containing "ca", "us", "au", "row", or "ww", simply interchange those letter codes depending on your location (ww means "worldwide" I believe). Each of these can be used to turn a one-time use code into a multi-use code.

For agency priced books, the Publisher dictates the minimum price a book can be sold at in a given geographic region. When Kobo sends you a discount code or coupon, you will see something like this at the bottom of it. It details which publishers have agency pricing in several different countries.

Legal Offer valid from August 24, 2011 at 12:00 AM through to August 28, 2011 at 11:59 PM. This offer is not valid in conjunction with any other offer or promotion and cannot be used to adjust amount paid on previous purchases. Discount code is valid for one time $1 off any eBook purchase excluding those from the following publishers: In the UK - Zondervan, Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Wiley and all respective subsidiary imprints. In the US - Hachette Book Group USA, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Macmillan, Zondervan, Wiley, Random House and all respective subsidiary imprints. In CA - Zondervan, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, Wiley, and Macmillan. In AU/NZ - Zondervan, Wiley, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and all respective subsidiary imprints. Newspapers and magazines are excluded from this offer. Promotional code must be entered at time of purchase to qualify for this discount. Discounts cannot be applied nor the discount value refunded once a purchase is complete. We reserve the right to change or end this offer at any time without notice.

[filmo]

"agency pricing" = price fixing by publishers of books.
Not old distributors as they are cut out with e-books. They like Video and Motion Pictures are trying to maintain and increase profit margins of shrinking sales as legal production and distribution is faster and cheaper while free distribution of copyright product is easy and limitless without DRM. Old out of demand books were once sold sale price. 2 years later books were sold by pound to ware house book stores for pennies on dollar. Now agency pricing tries to prevent this because little real product expenses to recover. Not selling a older book for less only saves costumers money for higher margin new books. Once popular out of print old books now sell as e-books at near first edition price because of agency pricing. The agency has no expenses for slow selling books on Amazon or Kobo servers thus little incentive to lower price over time. Authors still receive same very small percent of shrinking sales.

Market for books shrinks with each new form of popular entertainment.

[hadaad]

FirstRead helped take $11.00 off a book for me. Thanks for this!

[anonymoose]

New coupon! Firstreadca1 - ends Sept 23
Will take $1 off.
Other country codes does not work, just ca only.

[melmac]

Originally Posted by anonymoose

New coupon! Firstreadca1 - ends Sept 23
Will take $1 off.
Other country codes does not work, just ca only.

Thanks worked for me

[G0AT]

Originally Posted by anonymoose

New coupon! Firstreadca1 - ends Sept 23
Will take $1 off.
Other country codes does not work, just ca only.

Thanks! Added to OP.

[digiSara]

Just received 2 separate emails. Anyone got one for 30%?

Save 10% - save10sept291 - expires Sept 23
Save 20% - save20sept292 - expires Sept 23

Says one time use.

[MorganM]

Originally Posted by digiSara

Just received 2 separate emails. Anyone got one for 30%?

Save 10% - save10sept291 - expires Sept 23
Save 20% - save20sept292 - expires Sept 23

Says one time use.

Thanks! Picked up a couple of books I had on my wish list.

[ATDrake]

Apparently Kobo only puts a value of 15% off on my business. My "We Miss You, Come Back" email coupon is as follows:

save15sept891 expires 23rd September, one per customer who wants to save 15%

[G0AT]

Added the 10%, 20%, and 15% codes to the OP. Thanks all.

[anonymoose]

G0AT, on the OP you wrote 30% not 15%.

[G0AT]

Originally Posted by anonymoose

G0AT, on the OP you wrote 30% not 15%.

Good spot. Fixed.

[Latch]

Re: Agency Pricing

<rant on>
I can't believe these fools would not pay attention to the last 10+ years of the evolution of the digital marketplace. If they want to insist on charging full price for ebooks as compared to deadtree books, or books long out of print, with the excuse that they must charge high prices to maintain the "value" of the work, they will quickly find their product suffering the same fate as music and movies. Instead of offering a superior product at a fair price, they will insist on a DRM-wrapped product at a high price. At this very moment, I could (if I so wished) download many hundred current books for free within minutes, all without any DRM. I would rather not do this, as I believe people should be paid for their work (but not forever, eternal copyright is nonsense), but like music & movies, why should I pay a premium for an inferior experience that DRM always shackles you with?
<rant off>

[taming]

Hey Latch, many folks here probably agree with you, but you may want to share your future rants with the MR community in the General section . I'd hate to lose focus here (but that's just me, mebbe).