Here’s a few sales and discount codes I’ve found today for your continued shopping pleasure:
Kobo! 20% Off Kobo eBooks with code “June20off”. This offer expires 7/15.
B&N: Paperbacks: There’s a Buy Two Get one Free page with a selection of fiction. Not much romance but a few very popular books that I’ve seen a lot of people reading lately – this might be a good sale for anyone who has some gift shopping to do and wants to buy some books!
Also, I have no idea if you’d be interested in this, but since so many of you are Crafty People, BN.com has an Arts & Crafts store, now, too.
And in NookBook Land, there’s a bunch of different novels from Harlequin priced under $2.00 right now.
And finally, in addition to the sales at Amazon and elsewhere for Lord of Scoundrels at Kindle, nook, and Kobo, Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked which is a 10+ on the angst-o-meter, is .99 cents at Amazon, as well as BN.com, though not yet on sale at Kobo.
Additionally, Caroline Linden’s A View to a Kiss is also still .99c (AMZ | nook | Kobo).
Smashwords is running a July sale, too, and you can pick up books in a variety of formats.
Does anybody here subscribe to the belief that if a book’s e-format copy is priced below 4.99 then it must be crap?
Given that I know a multitude of authors (including myself) who are purposely pricing backlist books at 2.99, 1.99 or .99, I was surprised to here the crap opinion expressed more than once at RWA.
Opinions, anyone?
No, lots of good stuff cheap. I tend to wonder if it means the author is coming out with another book and wants to prime the pump. I love finding cheap books and I love reading most of them.
Actually, my opinion tends to be more along the lines of “if it’s free and I don’t know that this is because of a short-term sale, it’s probably crap.” Then again, the price range you’re talking about is more like what I’ve seen for novellas – I haven’t really been looking at backlist titles. Although, if I had been, that kind of price range would thrill me, because that would make buying those e-books like going shopping at a used bookstore, as far as prices go. “This book must be crap” would probably never even enter my mind.
While sales are important, I find the only thing I can focus on is the contortionist cover model for A Hint of Wicked.
Yummie, bought the latest Kate Daniels with the Kobo discount! Fanks!
On the pricing issue: For me, it is a gamble if it is an author I have not read before. However, I have found some real gems at bargain prices, but then I have also paid full price for books that were complete and utter disappointments.
So, I would not say that cheap=crap as a rule, especially not if it is a time limited sales drive.
No, I think of the cheaper price more as a promotion to gain new readers.
So, is A View To A Kiss worth my suspending my moratorium on buying new books until I read some of the 90 million I already have?
If it’s an established author publishing her backlist, then no, because I read somewhere that they make more money from selling something cheap themselves than they did from their share of the full cover price of the hard copy. So I understand that. But if it’s someone I’ve never heard of (or, more accurately, who hasn’t published anything before – I haven’t heard of ALL of the people 😉 ) then yes. Particularly if there is dubious cover art and it all looks a bit amateurish.
We have different price points here in the UK but I read an awesome Regency mystery last week, priced at 70p for the first one, and the others in the series are £1.44. In my opinion that’s too cheap, and I almost want to write to the author and suggest she price them higher or people might see the £1.44 and assume they’re bad. (I don’t know what they are in the US as Kindle doesn’t let us see US prices because we would cry). I had seen the books recommended somewhere and googled the author and she has a big backlist (yay!) but other people might not bother, and that would be a shame.
Thanks for the links, unfortunately the sales at Kobo etc. is US only. *glares at publishers*
Re: 0.99 price point:
No, I don’t assume it is crap just because of the price, but I am a picky reader. I tend to pick authors that have been previously published.
But I agree, some of them are priced too low. Check out Lazette Gifford at Smashwords. She writes SF/ F and prices them at 1.99 ( currently at sale for 0.99). I would easily pay at least 3.99 for them, if not more.
volume73: I have less than 73 e-books marked as TBR. *g* Actually, I should remove the TBR tag.
HellyBelly, are you sure about that? This series is from an agency publisher and Kobo states on their check out page that no discounts are allowed (believe me, I just tried to use it and no luck).
You know, that’s something else I haven’t understood with the whole agency pricing outrage: So the prices are fixed—yeah, let’s call it what it is—and the seller can’t discount any of those books. But why not let me use a seller’s discount coupon to buy a book? Me, one book, one discount. They’ll let me use the coupon on a print book, but not on the same title in digital format. Is there a scenario or planet on which that makes any sense? Really?
*sigh* Scratch the surface and the egregiously wronged buyer/reader comes boiling out.
@darlynne – I think it is because I am currently in Sweden and using my Swedish credit card, which means that I have to pay sales tax on Kobo. When I applied the discount code – “success” according to the Kobo site, the sales tax was removed/discounted.
I don’t understand the fixed prices on e-books either; as long as the seller absorbs the discount I think that everybody ought to be happy. But who am I but a mere, simple reader… 😉
Arrgghh…I keep seeing the 0.99 sale for Jennifer Haymore’s book and I feel myself caving….. Like many of you, I have a humongous TBR pile AND TBR file, and am trying to be good, especially after splurging during the Amazon Sunshine Deals recently despite the count of TBR books in the three digits. And then I bought a “few” more books after that!
BUT! I won a copy of the sequel to A Hint of Wicked sometime ago, and haven’t read it yet. (I guess having read that book’s blurb has spoiled me to the “which one will she choose” question of A Hint of Wicked.) But nonetheless, it makes sense to buy this 0.99 book, right? Since I won the other book in an online contest, I will technically only have paid 0.495 per book, right? 🙂 (Amazing how I rationalize purchases!)
And Mary Stella, I don’t equate low prices with poor quality. Like HellyBelly, I’ve paid next to nothing, or even nothing, for books that turned out to be gems. I’ve also paid a lot (thought not in e-format) for books that turned out to be duds.
I have a question or two about “A HINT OF WICKED” by Jennifer Haymore. I do have the paperback of this book, but I haven’t yet read it. This book was brought to my attention with the price reduction of the E-book version of this book. Have any of you read it? What do you feel about it? I’ve read various book reviews at Amazon, and they are so contradictory. I received a Kindle for Christmas, and I’ve started to replace print copies for e-books.
Would you buy the e-book if you already had the print copy?
About low price E-books…Bring them on! I’ve bought many books since Christmas (when I received my Kindle) for anywhere from FREE to about $9.99. Free and low-priced books give me the opportunity to try new authors and some new genres that I might not otherwise try. The lower e-book prices also allow me to buy Kindle books to replace my print copies. I love putting my favorite authors’ books on my Kindle, so I can carry them with me.
I just wish that the big 6 publishers would price E-book copies of NEW books a few dollars lower. Especially when you can buy some paperback copies of new books at discounted prices at stores like Target or Costco.
@ Suzannah
Are the books you talked about by Ashley Gardner and Jennifer Ashley (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries)?
Ann G- I personally loved A Hint of Wicked– not so much the follow ups. Maybe I was going through a really angsty period but I LOVED it! It remains one of my fave books although I only re-read once about 6 months ago. I would buy it for sure- especially at that price. I wish I needed some of the books that are on sale right now b/c I would really enjoy getting some more books!
Completely off-topic, but the cover art of Hint of Wicked makes it look like she is trying to remove a rose that someone impaled her on. Also, there is just a “Hint” of manhands there, IMO. I’d hate to see that girl crack a lobster.
As far as pricing on ebooks goes, there are only 2, maybe 3, authors I’ll pay full price for. Otherwise, I only buy discounted ones. If I’m going to pay the same price as a paperback, I’ll buy the paperback so I can share it with friends. And many times, I’ll buy it from my local used shop. I buy too many books to be able to pay full price for them all.
This is my beef with Agency crap, too. It hamstrings online small booksellers because it’s much more important to Stick It To Amazon & Apple than it is to encourage growth in a new market. Resentment abounds in my world over my inability to use discount coupons on Agency books.
Sigh, unfortunately it was a case of NFYL, as my husband says. “Not for you, love”, all those specials are US only.