FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by isarl

Now, you also get 10% off… except as far as I can tell, you don't get get a discount on titles already on sale. My ~$3 books are almost all purchased on sale.

The 10% off is on the same publishers that are couponable - indie and small presses. And it is applicable even if the book's already on sale. You can also apply a promo code to the membership itself.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

After paying, all I want to do is download the book, but the "payment successful" page doesn't include it, or even a link to my library. I have to go back to the main page, then "my account > my books", click the "..." near the book, and choose "Download".
So much hassle!

I thought I just saw that because somehow I was linked to 'Kobo by fnac'. I thought surely the generic Kobo page would be much better.

C'mon Kobo! Step up your game!

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by isarl

I was looking at this recently. I usually buy books around $3, which at 20 points/$ means +60 points. The same books are typically 2400 points to buy with points, which gives a purchase:reward ratio of about 40:1. Since the annual fee is $10 that means, other membership benefits notwithstanding, that in order for the membership to pay for itself I need to spend $400 just to break even on $10.

Now, you also get 10% off… except as far as I can tell, you don't get this discount on titles already on sale. My ~$3 books are almost all purchased on sale. And I looked at their catalogue for their “annual free book” and it is very paltry. I have zero interest in any of it except maybe the classics, which I can get for free and probably with better production quality from Standard Ebooks.

So for me I landed on the opposite conclusion; I don't see enough benefit from it.

Granted, if you read different content than I do, like maybe a lot of freshly-released content at full price, then you might see a lot more benefit. If you're regularly getting your 10% off discount then you will have paid for your membership after the first $100 spent, and already have $2.50 worth of points banked (or 2000 points, if my 40:1 ratio is off).

I am curious what other people's experience has been with the programme.

You've researched a lot more thoroughly than I did!

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

After paying, all I want to do is download the book, but the "payment successful" page doesn't include it, or even a link to my library. I have to go back to the main page, then "my account > my books", click the "..." near the book, and choose "Download".
So much hassle!

Kobo's expectation is that your Kobo device will automatically download the book for you next time it runs a sync. Which it will if you're not like me and don't take steps to prevent this.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Jhereg, the omnibus of the first three Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust, is on sale for $1.99 on Amazon.

I can't recommend these highly enough.

Thanks for that. For some reason, I always thought this was a series about vampires. I checked the book out and it sounds pretty good.

On sale at Kobo as well.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I always thought this was a series about vampires.

Unfortunately, my introduction to it was this Penny Arcade comic strip.
(It was funny at the time.)

[isarl]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

The 10% off is on the same publishers that are couponable - indie and small presses. And it is applicable even if the book's already on sale. You can also apply a promo code to the membership itself.

Thanks a lot for this! If the 10% discount applies to every purchase you make then like I say the maths work out much more favourably, paying for your membership (+ a little bit) after only spending $100 (or even less, if you get the membership at discount too). Perhaps I should get it, because I bought myself $60 of Kobo gift certificates at Christmas, and topped them up again after, and am already starting to run low.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Unfortunately, my introduction to it was this Penny Arcade comic strip.
(It was funny at the time.)

I hadn't seen that. Still funny.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by GlennD

I hadn't seen that. Still funny.

The swearing is trying too hard - maybe it's just my age.

[isarl]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The swearing is trying too hard - maybe it's just my age.

A perfectly cromulent opinion given the strip in question! Maybe it's my familiarity with the characters that lets it fly for me. A more deadpan expression of the same contradictions being pointed out here could have worked, I'm sure, but it would have had a very different style from Penny Arcade's usual one. The tension of Gabe's mild anti-intellectualism towards Tycho is an important ingredient in the mix.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by isarl

Thanks a lot for this! If the 10% discount applies to every purchase you make then like I say the maths work out much more favourably, paying for your membership (+ a little bit) after only spending $100 (or even less, if you get the membership at discount too). Perhaps I should get it, because I bought myself $60 of Kobo gift certificates at Christmas, and topped them up again after, and am already starting to run low.

Not every purchase -- unless you don't buy much from the big publishers and their imprints.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Silo Series Collection by Hugh Howey is FINALLY on sale for $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Silo is coming to Apple TV. Should be interesting to watch.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Kobo's expectation is that your Kobo device will automatically download the book for you next time it runs a sync. Which it will if you're not like me and don't take steps to prevent this.

The only time I have ever synced any eBooks from Kobo is when I first setup my H2O. It got a few eBooks before I stopped it and never again did I sync a single eBook to my Kobo.

[salty-horse]

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest is $1 (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon.com)

Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled to Britain from Anatolia where his wife Melanie has been killed by insurgent militia. IRGB is a nation living in the aftermath of a bizarre and terrifying terrorist atrocity - hundreds of thousands were wiped out when a vast triangle of west London was instantly annihilated. The authorities think the terrorist attack and the death of Tarent's wife are somehow connected. A century earlier, a stage magician is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy. On his journey to the trenches he meets the visionary who believes that this will be the war to end all wars. In 1943, a woman pilot from Poland tells a young RAF technician of her escape from the Nazis, and her desperate need to return home. In the present day, a theoretical physicist stands in his English garden and creates the first adjacency.

THE ADJACENT is a novel where nothing is quite as it seems. Where fiction and history intersect, where every version of reality is suspect, where truth and falsehood lie closely adjacent to one another.

[pdurrant]

ARC Manor/ Phoenix Pick are planning on a new discount ebook subscription service.

BookBale Club https://www.bookbale.club will be a US$9/month subscription service with a significant difference.

Books listed at bookbale will have a nominal price between $2.99 and $8.99. Every month, members may select up to $60 worth of books from the BookBale Club website. Those books become permanent puchases. Members retain rights to the selected books even after their membership ends.

It will all depend on the content, of course, but if there's a good range it could be a bargain. $60 of books for $9, every month, and one gets to choose the books.

More details in the ARC Manor/Phoenix pick newsletter, and at https://www.bookbale.club/