Free and bargain romance in April

[travger]

I for one would perfer 2 romance threads - amazon and others. Amazon discriminates people from non-eligible countries; it saves me from scrolling through all those useless (to me, and mouthwatering) posts.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by travger

I for one would perfer 2 romance threads - amazon and others. Amazon discriminates people from non-eligible countries; it saves me from scrolling through all those useless (to me, and mouthwatering) posts.

I agree, and not only because of that reason. Amazon/Kindle has a much larger number of freebies than the other stores, and ARe, Smashwords, Kobo, and the others could easily find themselves buried and hidden among all the Kindle posts.

I vote one thread for "Kindle Romances" and one for "Other(/ePub?) Romances"

[Blossom]

The problem is most of the freebies at Amazon are exclusive. The author has to remove the title from every other store which is why they belong to the program for a period of time. This is why you will seldom see the freebies available elsewhere.

Romance authors are seldom now using Smashwords and moving their titles to Amazon and B&N. Kobo seldom ever has freebies now and Sony freebies are usually mainstream and put in other threads.

Kindle Self published are usually DRM free and can easily converted to format of choice using Calibre. As for geo restrictions they suck but other then working around it pretending to be in the U.S. not much else can be done.

If I see something from somewhere else I will post it but the mainstream giveaways that include other stores are still posted in separate threads by ATDrake not usually here.

[apesmom]

Avon Earls on sale for $1.99 each

As an Earl Desires (Lost Lords #1) - Lorraine Heath Kindle / nook

How to Engage an Earl (Royle Sisters #2) - Kathryn Caskie Kindle / nook

I Kissed an Earl (Pennroyal Green #4) - Julie Anne Long Kindle / nook

My Irresistible Earl (Inferno Club #3) - Gaelen Foley Kindle / nook

My Wicked Earl - Linda Needham Kindle / nook

The Earl of Her Dreams - Anne Mallory Kindle / nook

The Return of the Earl (Botany Bay #1) - Edith Layton Kindle / nook

To Wed a Wicked Earl (Devine & Friends #2) - Olivia Parker Kindle / nook

What an Earl Wants - Shirley Karr Kindle / nook

[Blossom]

Added some non Amazon links to my earlier post from today

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Blossom

The problem is most of the freebies at Amazon are exclusive. The author has to remove the title from every other store which is why they belong to the program for a period of time. This is why you will seldom see the freebies available elsewhere.

To me, that only adds to the list of reasons for keeping this thread Kindle-only. That also makes it a lot easier for posters who don't have a Kindle, but who wants to find romance freebies to find what they're looking for. Before I got my TouchPad, I had no interest whatsoever in Kindle books, but the non-Kindle ones were very difficult to find in this forum.

It's better to keep the non-Kindle books separate and clearly flagged, to make it easy find them, I think.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

To me, that only adds to the list of reasons for keeping this thread Kindle-only. That also makes it a lot easier for posters who don't have a Kindle, but who wants to find romance freebies to find what they're looking for. Before I got my TouchPad, I had no interest whatsoever in Kindle books, but the non-Kindle ones were very difficult to find in this forum.

It's better to keep the non-Kindle books separate and clearly flagged, to make it easy find them, I think.

Maybe we need to add a note that KDPs are usually DRM Free and can be converted to epub using Calibre.

[petercreasey]

Originally Posted by travger

I for one would perfer 2 romance threads - amazon and others. Amazon discriminates people from non-eligible countries; it saves me from scrolling through all those useless (to me, and mouthwatering) posts.

I also vote in favor of this motion.

[melmac]

Seeing as people are jumping in and having their say I thought I'd better pipe up with mine. Thank You Britomart, Blossom, mikaelalind, mitford13, apesmom, rosspag and anyone else who regularly posts romance bargains. Not just the bargains but the little asides about it being previously published as "so and so" or "I really love this author" I find this info invaluable and I know it's time consuming so Thank You.
I like this thread just the way it is and if people want their bargains packaged up for them a particular way with a bow on top, then they are free to go source them themselves.

[Loosheesh]

^This.

[Shelli508]

I'd also like to say thank you for all of the wonderful posts. I appreciate it. I understand that it can take time to sort through posts to find ones that may apply to us, but I also imagine that it would be equally time-consuming for posters of these deals to have to sort through where to post their finds. Please keep posting. I check this site on a daily basis!

[Blossom]

One thing you can do is open Calibre click Get books hit the binoculars and choose the Title/Authors tab and put in the title and author of the book you are looking for. It will show you the prices at the other stores like B&N and Kobo.

[Britomart]

When I proposed we open up this thread to romances from other retailers and to freebies and bargains, I did so because I thought this would give the thread a wider scope.

After all, everyone can find out what romances are free for Kindle on a given day just by going to ReaderIQ and using the sort-by-genre feature. The valuable information, for me, is which of the cheap or free ebooks out there are actually the ones worth getting. So the more people post here, identifying authors or titles that are worth reading, the better.

Deeply as I appreciate ATDrake's work in pointing out freebies, I would prefer not to depend only on him/her. Romance is not his/her primary point of interest, and although the posts include a lot of information on the authors that can be garnered from databases, there is comparatively little of the "I read her last book - excellent!" or "She's an autobuy for me" we get here. Again, the more input we receive from dedicated romance readers, the better.

In addition, the groups are not so clearly cut into Kindle-owners and non-Kindle-owners as might be assumed. It is possible for non-Kindle-owners to acquire ebooks from Amazon and read them quite legally on their PCs. Some readers are prepared to strip DRM, others aren't. Geographical restrictions are another huge stumbling block. Many of the books offered for free or at reduced prices are not available to Europeans at all, or only at much higher prices. This is not only true for Amazon, but also for Kobo, BoB and even ARe. So I have to check the availability of the books I am interested in in any case.

Take some of the more recent offerings, for example: I would have loved to get T.J. Bennett's The Legacy (full price for me from BoB, as Nook is US only), or some of the Avon Earls deals (full price in Germany) posted above. On other hand, the deal on Gina Robinson's The Spy Who Left Me on Kobo that Blossom pointed out worked perfectly well and, with the addition of a coupon, proved an excellent bargain.

Furthermore, books on Smashwords and ARe are often multi-format and may be interesting for owners of various ereaders. Books on Carina come DRM-free and can easily be converted, as can quite a few Kindle books, as Blossom said above. Should information about such books then be posted several times? And who would take the time to really distinguish, while posting, between them and others that are only interesting for a more limited group?

My final point is a political one really: I deplore the format war that is being waged between Amazon and the other retailers. This war is fought on our, the customers', shoulders. So I would prefer not to carry the artificial division that is forced on us readers into a discussion group like ours. (Steps down from soapbox.)

In the end it's completely up to each of you in which thread and about what books you post. If several romance threads should pop up, I would read all of them gladly, but might not post at all of them. So long as as much relevant information as possible is made available to as many romance lovers as possible, I am happy.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Britomart

Gina Robinson's The Spy Who Left Me on Kobo that Blossom pointed out worked perfectly well and, with the addition of a coupon, proved an excellent bargain.

Speaking of Kobo went to buy a non agency Harlequin book and was charge sales tax! Not just state but county tax too! Seeing I bought a book there last Friday from the same publisher this must of just started. *big sigh*

[apesmom]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Speaking of Kobo went to buy a non agency Harlequin book and was charge sales tax! Not just state but county tax too! Seeing I bought a book there last Friday from the same publisher this must of just started. *big sigh*

Is that a TN thing? I just selected a Harlequin to check out with and saw IL tax of $0.00.