Thinking about joining fictionwise...

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by =X=

I think the Club membership is worth it if you buy throughout the year and plan on buying more than $133 dollars in books.

What I realized however is that I only buy their books when there is a 100% rebate sale. They tend to have 2 a year. It was not worth it for me since the discount is reduced to 0. So I did not benefit from the15% discount. (One can argue that paying less upfront is better than reclaiming the discount via micro rebates but that is just preference).


=X=

But you get the 15% when spending your rebate which can really help. When they have their "sales" where you get a big rebate even when paying with Micropay, every bit that gets the per book price down helps to minimize the amount of micropay dollars you need to start with.

For example, say a book initially is $10 and has a 35% rebate even with Micropay. This means you'll spend $6.50 of your Micropay dollars to get the book. However, you *have* to have $10 in your Micropay account to initially buy the book, even though you'll get $3.50 back for a net deduction of $6.50. With buywise you only have to have $8.50 in your account to start with.

This is really helpful on things like the current 75% rebate Agatha Christie sale, where you need 4x the amount of Micropay dollars than the actual net cost of the book.

-Marcy

[edbro]

Originally Posted by mgm1979

so this is taking the thread off topic a bit, but now I'm curious...if not FW, then where else does everyone get their eBooks?

Wherever they are the cheapest. Use a price comparison engine like Inkmesh to look for an individual book. The prices vary wildly between retailers. Sony and Amazon are consistently cheap, but not always the cheapest on any given book.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by mgm1979

so this is taking the thread off topic a bit, but now I'm curious...if not FW, then where else does everyone get their eBooks?

Apart from Fictionwise*, where I've bought (and still buy) most of my ebooks, the other big source for me is http://www.webscription.net/ . But unless you like SF/Fantasy, that bookstore won't help you. And then there's the Amazon Kindle store. But I haven't bought much there.


(*My Paypal account has a grandfathered-in US delivery address, so I've been able to avoid geographic restrictions quite easily.)

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by mgm1979

so this is taking the thread off topic a bit, but now I'm curious...if not FW, then where else does everyone get their eBooks?

For me, mainly Fictionwise. I also get a lot from Baen (webscriptions), being a SF geek. I buy from there, even if I can get the book cheaper or with 100% rebate at Fictionwise, because I want to support their model of no-DRM and once the book is yours it's always yours.

I occasionally buy at the Sony store, mainly because I have a gift card I haven't finished up. The books are expensive there and the software you are forced to use to buy from the store is a buggy piece of crap. I will occasionally buy from amazon, if I'm desperate for a book only they carry.

Smashwords is a great source for DRM-free ebooks. However it has a high signal-to-noise ratio of great stuff buried in crap. I find Kobobooks expensive, but they have a few surprises, like many of Mickey Spillane's books available for under $3. I've bought a few books from Waterstone's because they were the only source for those books. However they are expensive, especially for someone paying in dollars.

I assume you've visited the public domain books sites -- feedbooks, manybooks and the ones here in the forum as well.

-Marcy