A large selection of Faber and Faber titles free at Kobo

[plib]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not a matter of "concern", but a simple matter of right and wrong, as far as I'm concerned. If someone's made a mistake which is going to cost them money, the right thing to do is to inform them about it (as Paul very properly did), not take advantage of them. Just my personal opinion. I'd do the same if it were my next door neighbour, or a large company.

Which it seems to have taken them 12 hours or so to respond to, if indeed it was a mistake at all, there's no definitive answer on that yet. I'd suggest that if it was a mistake then having a few thousand books downloaded free is much more likely to make them review their pricing algorithms and procedures, and maybe improve the responsiveness of their customer service, than receiving a polite note would. So, a win all round.

Of course if it wasn't a mistake but a promotion by Faber & Faber then not downloading kinda defeats the purpose, plus your assumption of error may have deprived you of a few books and the authors of the expected exposure.

A company is responsible for its own website. If that website offers something free then there is nothing even remotely dishonest about downloading it. To make assumptions unsupported by any sort of evidence and to base your subsequent actions on those assumptions seems to me to be either foolish or arrogant. As someone who has repeatedly shown a great regard for following rules to the letter of the law I would think you would agree with that.

[HarryT]

I'm certainly not saying there's anything illegal about it. I'm just following my personal code of ethics in this matter. If you think that's foolish or arrogant, that's fine by me; you're just as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.

[RareBird]

I think the actions of both pdurrant and HarryT are admirable. It never even occurred to me to check with Kobo to see if it was an error or not. I may in the future as opposed to giving into my impulses and adding them to my library. As it stands, if the books I added to my library and subsequently added to my Touch when I synced it are removed during my next sync I will totally understand. I did not pay for the books and there's no disputing that. If it does happen I'll just go and buy them a few at a time and I'll have them once again. I already have a number of Faber and Faber titles in my paperback and ebook collections so I'm definitely going to be buying more in the future. Their crime and mystery titles are among the best.

[HarryT]

Rarebird, please let me stress that I am in no way whatsoever criticising you, or anyone else who downloaded these books. They were free - you downloaded them. I think they were probably offered free in error, but that's purely a personal opinion, and I may very well be completely wrong .

[RareBird]

Thanks Harry but I didn't take it as criticism. I was merely pointing out what you and pdurrant did in this situation was admirable. As I said if it was an error and these books are removed from my library and Touch I would fully support and understand that decision. If it wasn't an error, I got a collection of excellent mysteries.

[pdurrant]

I asked explicitly whether the free books were a promotion or an error. Kobo replied:

"We have not been informed of any promotions in regards to this publisher.

It may have been a result of a error or the updates and changes that are being implemented into the Kobo site.

Sometimes titles are affected by the errors and updates, we have any issues corrected as soon as we are aware of the them."

[RareBird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I asked explicitly whether the free books were a promotion or an error. Kobo replied:

"We have not been informed of any promotions in regards to this publisher.

It may have been a result of a error or the updates and changes that are being implemented into the Kobo site.

Sometimes titles are affected by the errors and updates, we have any issues corrected as soon as we are aware of the them."

That's good to know. Thanks for posting that info. In the future I will be a lot more skeptical of such a large number of free books from a publisher at one time.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by RareBird

That's good to know. Thanks for posting that info. In the future I will be a lot more skeptical of such a large number of free books from a publisher at one time.

It can be tricky. If it had been ten titles, it might well have been a special promotion. There's no distinct line where (say) 20 titles can be assumed to be a promotion but 21 is obviously a mistake.

[koland]

Originally Posted by RareBird

I think the actions of both pdurrant and HarryT are admirable. It never even occurred to me to check with Kobo to see if it was an error or not. I may in the future as opposed to giving into my impulses and adding them to my library.

The problem with this approach is that you'll almost never get any answer in a day or two and with so many of the "legitimate" promos only lasting a day, that means you'll miss most of them.

It likely was an error (just as the massive freebie weekend in the Kindle store, when the publishers first took over their own pricing, was a mistake -- yet, nearly all were honored, other than a few pre-orders that were for books that never released at all, likely due to geo restrictions that were entered wrong and were corrected by adding a new ASIN).

The books are still there, just not free. I waited to download some for today (although I grabbed the license files yesterday) and they are still downloading, so haven't been removed from their catalogs and the license are being honored by Kobo/ADE.

[koland]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It can be tricky. If it had been ten titles, it might well have been a special promotion. There's no distinct line where (say) 20 titles can be assumed to be a promotion but 21 is obviously a mistake.

And in this case, it was a few authors, really, that made up the entire thing, with one or two in selected genres. And for those authors, it wasn't every book in their lineup. For all we know, it was Jubilee special.

And the original link is still working, it's just back the original four short stories that have been free for a long time (at least, for the US).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by koland

And in this case, it was a few authors, really, that made up the entire thing, with one or two in selected genres. And for those authors, it wasn't every book in their lineup. For all we know, it was Jubilee special.

True. I don't think it was unreasonable for anyone to grab what they wanted while they were free.

[Synamon]

I downloaded one title each from 5 different authors. Since my library does not carry any of them and I've never heard of them, I would not have been exposed to them without this glitch. I'll treat these as samples and if I like any of them after reading a few chapters I'll go back to Kobo and buy another by the same author.

[RareBird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

True. I don't think it was unreasonable for anyone to grab what they wanted while they were free.

Yes but although I'm no longer a practicing catholic, the nuns were way to thorough in beating the notorious catholic conscience into me. I didn't download the the ascm files for ADE and only downloaded the kepubs directly to my Kobo Touch. I may remove them from my Touch and from my library to ease my conscience and legitimately buy a few ( or even ask for them as Father's Day is next weekend).

[Fbone]

Yesterday, I "bought" four titles. Only two of them let me download. Today, the same two work. The other two show in my library but the Abobe button is missing.

[RareBird]

The Adobe button was next to all of the ones I got before I removed them from my library. I downloaded directly to my Kobo Touch the day I got them though. Maybe the difference is the ones downloaded in some way before the site was fixed are still downloadable while the ones that weren't previously downloaded are not downloadable.