Read an Ebook Week speculative fiction thread (freebies & bargains)

[ATDrake]

Looks like the RAEBW sale is still going at Smashwords. I've spent ~$60 on the stuff I was planning to get and might go back and sample some more of the marginal maybes if they're good for another hour or two.

Some last minute additions.

Book View Café author consortium member and fellow MR member author Sue Lange (ISFDB) offers 25-75% off four items (one of which only shows up under the Book View Café aegis, who, sadly, have nothing else on sale, nor is there a corresponding discount offered on the BVC site for these). I picked up her half-off collection of previously-published short stories and her backlist small press comedy sf novel.

David Mark Brown who wrote a Christian non-fiction work for Intervarsity Press and showed up in the KDP slushpile with an AU weird western zany pulp adventure, seems to have returned his book to Smashwords (or did the KDP starter trial before putting them up at all) and offers one of said AU "Reeferpunk" novels free with coupon.

ETA: It turns out that Alan Burt Akers is the penname of the late Kenneth Bulmer (ISFDB) who appears to have extensive and lengthy credentials. Mushroom Publishing offers one off his works in his long-running Dray Prescot series originally published by DAW free-with-coupon, the 2nd in series free-with-different-coupon, and the rest at 25% off (probably cheaper at Fictionwise with coupon).

Roger Taylor's (ISFDB) 1st in series fantasy originally published by Headline is also free-with-coupon. There may be more lurking in the Mushroom catalogue.

[sgoldin]

According to Mark Coker, the sale lasts until 11:50 Pacific Time tonight. If you hurry, you can still make it.

[ATDrake]

Thanks for that info. I can take a break to get something to eat before heading back to decide and pick up some last minute freebies.

ETA: Looks like their server is pretty hammered right now. Hopefully it'll be less so in another half-hour.

[cromag]

I'm guessing they're getting a lot of last minute traffic. The site's not responding (for me, anyway).

EDIT: I think my post collided with yours, ATDrake.

[dreams]

I've been trying for over an hour and still haven't been able to get on.

[ATDrake]

Dead for the past hour just after I last posted. And there was just one more book I really wanted to pick up, too.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the Daylight Savings switchover. In any case, I hope they can get the servers back up within the next 20 minutes or extend the sale a bit. If not, I'll hope that the same deal gets offered during the next round of sales.

[Blue Tyson]

Seems melted here too.

[cromag]

I was downloading as I found them, so there's only one in my "cart." If I miss the sale I still have enough to keep me reading for months.

[pdarnold]

I was just getting ready to check out... an hour ago. I too am stuck in meltdown.

[pdarnold]

I managed to get my purchase. However, I was double charged. I'll worry about that later.

[ATDrake]

Apparently it came back up just in time for the sale to expire about a minute later when I tried entering the coupon code which was still showing on the reloaded listing page after the cart told me it was invalid. Great timing.

Well, hopefully the book I was trying to check out goes back on sale at the same price during whatever the next round of Smashwords sales is. And now I have to go clear some expired coupon freebies from my cart. Good thing I hadn't loaded too many in.

Given the timing of it, I think it probably was a Daylight Savings Time switchover issue, which hopefully SW will account for next time they do this.

[dreams]

I finally got on about 10 minutes ago and the sale was over.

Strange... the time is an hour behind on this post, but correct on my moderator ones.

[ATDrake]

Depending on what, if anything, you actually wanted to buy, and how accessible the authors of those are publicly, possibly they might be willing to issue discount coupons to pricematch their sales if you write and explain about the Smashwords downtime if it's something you really wanted to pick up.

[mikaelalind]

I know that Read an book week is officially over, I just discovered that Samhain Horror offer W D Gagliani's Wolf's Edge for free as a part of Read an ebook week. The best part? It is still available .