The Sword and Laser discussion
Amazon pricing is so weird
date
newest »
newest »
Books that offer whispersync are almost always cheaper to get the kindle + audio than just paying for the audio outright.Also, the audio prices listed on amazon are often for physical MP3 CDs, not the audible version. If they are the audible version, often the full price is listed and not the member price.
Audible has been doing this for some time. I think it's a way to build up audiobook customers. It makes for a really great deal, and for people who like to read along as they listen to the book, it's a spectacular deal. Even if you don't, but the ebook just to get the audiobook at the steep discount. The audio book authors and narators, by the way, still get their full royalties, as if the full price was paid. At least that's been the case, I believe.
I highly recommend checking kindle sales on books that have whisper sync I have gotten a kindle book for 99cents-1.99 and a whispersync upgrade for another 1.99-3.99 for tons of audiobooks. Some books also give you the kindle book for free when you buy the full book from amazon, so you can get that the kindle then upgrade to the audiobook...then resell your book to a local used bookstore if you don't want it or keep it.
It does not work with the physical book, just the ebook. It is only to get you hooked on WhisperSync, the literary crackpipe.
Stephen wrote: "It does not work with the physical book, just the ebook. It is only to get you hooked on WhisperSync, the literary crackpipe."Well I hope no one tells them that it's not going to work. It's going to hook me on 4$ audio books, not whispersynch.
As a further comment, you can get the whispersync pricing even if you've just borrowed a Kindle book from your local library's ebook collection.Not every book has lower Whispersync pricing, but quite a few of the books that get put on sale do.
Its the same oddness with physical CD's. Oftentimes Amazon will give you a free digital download of a physical CD if you buy the physical CD too and it will be cheaper than outright buying just the digital download. That in turn allows you to then sell the unopened physical CD to a used store for a buck or two.
I just had a really weird experience where since I had a credit, I had to buy a kindle book from amazon.com instead of amazon.co.uk (or at least, I thought I did). After some browsing and messing around with the addresses, I discovered that .com was willing to sell me directly and in dollars a Kindle book off co.uk for a third the price they will offer the same book to a US customer ($4 instead of $12). To my astonishment, this difference applied not just to one, but to several of the books I was interested in.This obviously has something to do with regional publication rights - the editions weren't the same - but do we readers care? The thing is you usually don't see this, because Amazon only displays the price of Kindle books they are willing to sell based on the customer's stated region.
has anyone also noticed how the price of amazon kindle books yo yo, sometimes there is a huge difference from one day to the next, books can be as much as 50 per cent cheaper, then go up again the following week, and so on.
Rik wrote: "Its the same oddness with physical CD's. Oftentimes Amazon will give you a free digital download of a physical CD if you buy the physical CD too and it will be cheaper than outright buying just t..."But if you mark it as a gift, they don't give you the download.
I did the same for a bunch of the Glamour and Glass books where the audio book was offered at a huge discount. Is this going to be a regular practice? Am I only seeing it because I'm a Prime and Audible user? it's weird.