eBook Bailout Plan: 50% Rebates on Every Title! (Limit: $700 Billion)

[DaleDe]

Why do these things seem to deteriorate into my reader is better than your reader, my ebook store is better than your ebook store, etc. etc. I buy the books where I want at the time based on the value or sale of the moment and am not locked to any concrete better than you are decision. The world is become way to polarized for my blood.

Dale

[JSWolf]

So can you buy eReader at 50% off using micropay dollars or do you have to pay with a credit card?

[Cheezburger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

PLUS, they have periodic spells of free buyer's club membership (there was one about a month ago). Join then and you don't pay the $30 .

good info Harry, but today I want to buy ebooks and get half back in rewards, and 15% off upfront and without having to spend $200, where do I go today to save money? I lose $30 worth of eBooks (best case scenario $20) if I have to pay a membership fee.

today I say I have to go with BoB, but I appreciate everyones calculations and the info on where and how to convert, liberate and transfer

I will continue to just read and learn for awhile, I like it simple and think eBooks and eBook readers would be better off if it were

[PsyDocJoanne]

Hi Bob!!

>...you would live in a cave and kill your own dinner with your bare hands.

Hmmm....how do you know I don't? Would you like to stop by one night for some roast beast? I've got the fire stoked, and my cave has DSL...

I agree that the Fictionwise site isn't without issues. And, I'm the kind of person who's generally willing to put up with a bit more 'nonsense' to get the same product a little cheaper, as long as it's not too time consuming.

I think people should do what they want to do...after all, that's what makes the world go 'round. I just don't like people making claims that are inaccurate or unsubstantiated

[bbusybookworm]

From my prospective, Both offer a good deal.

With Fictionwise, if you buy quiet regularly, the Club membership will pay for itself within a short while as I've found that the Club prices are usually a little cheaper then the BoB Prices. It does however require you to be willing to pay for the membership upfront tie up some of you money in Micropay dollars.

With BookonBoard, While you don't have the upfront cost of the membership, the discounted prices are a little higher, and you're Money is similarly tied up in Reward Dollars. The advantage is that Prices are lower then FW's non member prices.

If you buy eBooks only occasional, then BoB definitely offers a better deal.

However in my own case I've I got the Buywise membership for Free* (100% Rebate) and got a free book to boot, so better then free actually. The additional discounts is just gravy.

Also, while BoB usually follows when Fictionwise offers a sale In some cases, like the Chambers Promotion, they did not, and so I went with Fictionwise.

Basicly you just have to consider your own Buying habits and decide what is best for you.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne

Hi Bob!!

>...you would live in a cave and kill your own dinner with your bare hands.

Hmmm....how do you know I don't?

Because you drive a BMW. I'm just assuming here.

BOb

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by Cheezburger

I went and checked up on the membership at ficw

$30 bucks to join!? and then I get to buy books and qualify for rebates?

Don't forget when doing the math that you get a free book (up to $10) with the club membership.

Whether it is worth it to you really depends upon how many books you buy per year. If it is a lot, it is a good deal (it is for me). If not, then certainly BoB may beat FW on a particular book.

[PsyDocJoanne]

Heh....my primary cave has an attached 2-cave garage. And it's a huge advantage to have the convertible...it's hard to stuff an entire freshly-killed bison into the trunk of my husband's Honda, but with my car, it just pokes out the top of the passenger seat

[Monteagle]

This price maneuvering is all pretty interesting. Normally, BooksOnBoard beats all with straight discounts. (There's always an exception - that's why you shop around.) For example, on the books listed in this thread, BooksOnBoard's straight prices were about the same as the FW rebate-club deals until this promo - and most of BoB's titles were less expensive. (BoB's Rewards Dollars go in as an adder to the discounts.)

I like the straight discount approach and am not crazy about managing rebates and rewards. But that's what we have here from both companies. And that's what this threads about. (If Amazon or Sony did this kind of pricing, the Washington Post or NY Times would make it a front page story. But independents like these two hard-working businesses don't get equal time from the media.)

This weekend, BooksOnBoard's ALL REWARDS deal and FW's bailout deal effectively attempt to match each other. However, if you play the game, you come out ahead every time I can calculate with BooksOnBoard - BECAUSE BooksOnBoard lets you use Rewards Dollars to get more Rewards Dollars. I thought this was a mistake they didn't catch, but they actually include it in their documentation. It takes a geometric progression to figure it out, but over the long run, you can consistently keep a net cost of better than 50% off if you're a student of this thing. (Not sure it's worth it for books that cost less than a gallon of gas, but that's another discussion. )

There IS a catch, however. It doesn't look like BoB's advertising it, but I found this on the their site: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.ph...ficate_rewards. BookOnBoard lets you use Rewards Dollars on top of Rewards Dollars with a gioft certificate deal. This is better than any buyers club I've seen, but it has a short fuse. Had to read it a few times to make sure I understood it because the deal's a little bit too good to believe. It's real, though. Much better deal than the FW club - and every nickel can be used to buy ebooks plus the audiobooks they carry. If I'm really planning to buy a pile of ebooks and audiobooks in the months ahead, I can easily save something like 70% plus now - and when BooksOnBoard goes back to its straight discounts next week, savings can be close to 80% plus. Do they know this? (Maybe this page is a secret page or something that I wasn't supposed to find - but then who is it for?)

All that being said, one has to wonder why two independents are fighting each other - Amazon and Sony must be laughing in their Seattle coffee and Japanese beer. - I like both of these small independent outfits and hope they stay the course. FW makes me most nervous since they probably borrowed many millions to buy eReader.com a few months back. With the market like it is, I have to wonder if they did this bailout to bail themselves out a bit to get cash in to pay part of the note.

BooksOnBoard is apparently very well-funded from reading other posts around the web, but all of it bears watching.

Of course, it was the big guys that deleted customer bookshelves in the past - Amazon and Barnes and Noble wiped out half a decade's worth of customer purchases with arbitrary corporate decisions a few years ago.

I'll stick with the two independents and hope they work with each other to protect us all from the big corps that don't seem to care as much about the ebook reading public.

[GatorDeb]

Well it's been almost 40 minutes and I'm about halfway through the 44 books, so it's about 2 minutes per book but most of that is waiting for ereader2html to process... so I'm watching TV for most of that time... that's one episode of CSI


P.S. With Fictionwise you can ALSO use your Micropay account and get Micropay dollars back, up to 30% discounts on books. So it's the same thing as BOB allowing you to reward dollars to get reward dollars.

[GatorDeb]

Ok, so started at 10.05a and ended at 11.55a... 1 hour and 50 minutes or 110 minutes to convert 44 books. That's two and a half minutes per book. Most of the time was spent waiting for ereader2html to convert, PRC and LIT files are pretty much instantaneous. But I was watching CSI, Judge Judy, and Judge David while I converted

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Cheezburger

club membership? whats that? do you have to give fictionwise your CC info or Buy In to some kind of membership?

sounds a little wall street to me...

BooksOnBoard is simple and straight forward, low price and then Rewards Dollars off


please, no price explanantions requiring calculations and results given only after factoring in x,y,z.....been a long week, we don't need more of that

Sorry to disappoint you, but it's quite simple: You join for 1-5 years and get 15% off your books for as long as the membership is good. Plus, for joining, they'll give you extra bonus "money" to buy more books.

There are a lot more savings, as already mentioned by earlier posted comments.




Don

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne

Not exactly. But since you don't want to do any calculating, I'm not surprised your calculations are incorrect.

Enjoy yourself at BoB. I'll be saving money at Fictionwise.

Hahahahahaha!!! I'm with you, my good woman! It's funny how some people don't understand the incredible savings from Fictionwise. I''ve literally bought over 100 books from Fictionwise and saved an incredible amount of money from them.

We're not the only ones....


Don

[GatorDeb]

I want to do another $100 order... any non-fiction recommendations?

[ficbot]

If I am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus
Call of the Mall by Paco Underhill
The Faith Club by Various
On Writing by Stephen King