Great on Kindle

[pwalker8]

I got an email saying that my Great on Kindle credits were going to expire soon. Since I had about $35 in credits, I went on a little buying spree.

Great on Kindle seems to be some sort of promotion. I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason for deciding which books are in the promotion, but I found enough books that interested me to use up the credits. Most were in the $1 - $3 range, but I did pick a few more expensive books (one of Bart Ehrman's history of early Christianity, Scalia Speaks, and a Jack the Ripper history, if you are interested). They are books that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise (well, I had been thinking about the Scalia Speaks book for a while)

Oddly enough not much of my usual fiction select though (SF&F or thriller/adventure). Certainly, there only a handful of books that I would call well known or popular.

They did have the 50th anniversary issue of Chariots of the Gods. Gee, that one brings back memories of when I was a teenager and gullible.

Interesting promotion though.

[issybird]

Moved from the General Discussions forum. It's not a perfect fit, but I think it's better.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by issybird

Moved from the General Discussions forum. It's not a perfect fit, but I think it's better.

I had meant it more from a "hey, this is kind of an interesting idea" rather than "check out this deal", but that's fine.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I had meant it more from a "hey, this is kind of an interesting idea" rather than "check out this deal", but that's fine.

I agree that there is more to "Great on Kindle" than discounts, although the only place I've seen it mentioned is in posts by Fluribus in "Deals and Resources". I've found very little about it on amazon.com and the net in general.

It seems to be a way to get authors/publishers and the reading public interested in higher production values for ebooks, particularly images. Amazon's terms send mixed signals to authors/publishers with file size fees. (But cleaner line art doesn't necessarily lead to increased file size.) I know that I dread trying to read poorly scanned tables and lists.

The particular books available change over time. It will be interesting to see if this leads to increased quality.

[sufue]

My only problem is that I have trouble finding titles the credits are good on that I actually want, although I'm really happy that the selection is not the oftentimes rather lame selection of only titles published by Amazon. But still, I'm not into some of the categories in the Great on Kindle list, like biographies or religion. I do like history though and have found a couple of titles in there, and also one title in the business section.

My expiration date has moved out a couple of times as I've used some credits and bought other books that generate credits. I've never been quite sure how the expiration date is determined, but I haven't come close to having any credit expire yet.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by sufue

My only problem is that I have trouble finding titles the credits are good on that I actually want, although I'm really happy that the selection is not the oftentimes rather lame selection of only titles published by Amazon. But still, I'm not into some of the categories in the Great on Kindle list, like biographies or religion. I do like history though and have found a couple of titles in there, and also one title in the business section.

My expiration date has moved out a couple of times as I've used some credits and bought other books that generate credits. I've never been quite sure how the expiration date is determined, but I haven't come close to having any credit expire yet.

I agree with much of that. I generally buy books that I find interesting without regard to discounts or credits. I suspect that most of the great on Amazon credits that I got were applied to books that moved into that group after I purchased it, because I don't really remember seeing that tag on very many books that I've purchased. I do buy a lot of history books.

Sometimes I will buy a book that I'm on the fence about if the price is low enough, so price might get me to try a new author. It just won't get me to keep buying that author. The iTunes book store has a get hooked on a new series section where the first book in a series is available at a special low price, basically $3. Hum, just went back to make sure it's still there. It is. The Fantasy section has quite a selection, including a lot I already have. I need to remember to go back and look through them.

[Fluribus]

I generally see it as a cool surprise whenever I happen to see a GoK credit underneath the 1-Click button. I never go looking for them unless I get the expiration email.