Interestingly, I’m seeing in the Kindle forum that different people are seeing different prices. Assuming that they are all in the same country, it might seem odd that the prices would be different for different people. That can happen…and, as I understand it, it’s legal.
For example, a website could charge different prices to people in different locations. It might cost them more to do business in different states…perhaps there are different delivery methods available.
If that seems odd, it happens a lot. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area: compare our gas prices to those of, say, New Orleans. That’s not just due to our relatively high gas taxes.
More broadly, what if they charged more for an item that was Prime eligible…but only if the customer was a Prime member? I don’t know if that’s the case, of course…but my guess is that it would be legal.
that gives you several examples of “dynamic pricing” at websites…including Amazon. They claim to give you some advice about what to do about it…but I think it’s going to simply be the way it is for most people.
That said, I think Amazon generally has very good prices (it’s one of their three principles: price, selection, and service). I have noticed in the past that a Prime item might be higher than I would pay for it somewhere else…but the convenience of Prime make it worth it. In other words, if I’d pay the same price (counting shipping and handling) for something that is Prime versus something which isn’t Prime, I’d definitely going with Prime.
If you aren’t a Prime member, now is the time to sign up for the free month! That way, you’ll be a Prime member for Prime Day:
That may be a veeeeerrrrryyyy interesting day, with lightning sales and day-long sales.
Oh, as to Fire HD6?
Yes, we own one now…it’s what we have as our “guest Kindle”, and has been used that way. I think our house guest really appreciated having a tablet to use.
If you can get one for fifty dollars, you could use it yourself…or tuck it away as a gift for later.
On the other hand, who knows what opportunities we’ll have five days from now? 😉 Of course, Amazon does have a generous thirty-day return policy on Kindles/Fires. You could hypothetically take advantage of this low price, and then return it (paying return shipping, since it would be working as advertised) if there was a better deal on July 15th.
What do you think? Would it be okay to buy a Kindle, with the idea that you might return it if you could get a cheaper price? Is it okay for websites to the same item for different prices to different people? If so, what should the criteria be? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
asks that people celebrate not by buying gifts, or wishing a happy birthday, but by supporting #BooksNotBullets.
Malala says:
“In fact, if the whole world stopped spending money on the military for just 8 days, we could have the $39 billion needed to provide 12 years of free, quality education to every child on the planet.”
All you have to do is post a photo of yourself holding your favorite book with that hashtag (#BooksNotBullets) and explain why people should choose books over military action.
I’m seeing some interesting choices for books…and some moving comments.
I just wanted to let you know, in case you want to participate. If you, feel free to link to your picture in a comment to this post. Of course, as always, you can also tell me and my readers what you think.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
formerly known as Manage Your Kindle (and the old links still work).
This is where people who know the credentials (username and password) for an account can change “global” settings, things which affect everybody on the account. I refer to those people as “managers” of the account. Users of the account may just be able to use a device (a Kindle/Fire/app) to buy books, but can’t, for example, delete a book from the account (since that would affect all of the users). Users who are not managers don’t have the password.
If you do go to that MYCaD page, you have three tabs:
Your Content
Your Devices
Settings
Let’s take a look at what Settings options currently exist:
Digital Payment Settings: this is where you manage the payment method for 1-click purchases (which is how you buy things in the Kindle store). You actually don’t need to have a payment method…some people do that, and just apply Amazon gift cards to the account to pay for things. There some types of items you can’t do that way (like magazine subscriptions), but otherwise, that can work
Country Settings: you tell Amazon where you live here. Some people suggest changing this to fraudulently obtain books not published to their country. I don’t recommend that…
Households and Family Library: you can set up cross-account sharing of some items for two adults and up to four children
Newsstand Subscription Settings: manage your subscriptions
Kindle Unlimited Settings: you could cancel your membership here, and it will tell you when the next payment is
Device Synchronization: you can choose if a book will open on a second device at the same point you finished it on a first device. If you are one person reading on two devices (a Kindle and a phone, for example), that make sense. If you are two people reading the same book at the same time on different devices (as is sometimes the case in my family), it doesn’t
Automatic Book Update: if a book is substantially updated in the Kindle store which you have purchased previously, this means your version will update automatically. I keep this turned off: there are times I want to keep the original version, the one for which I paid.You can still update one if you choose
Language Optimized Storefront: choose the language for the Kindle store…well, at least you can choose Spanish or English, from what I can see
Personal Document Settings: there are several sub-settings here:
* Send to Kindle E-mail Settings (choose e-mail addresses for your Kindles)
* Personal Document Archiving:if you send a document you’ve created to a Kindle through Amazon’s system, you can select here if you want it stored centrally or not
* Whispernet Delivery Options: this affects you if you are getting documents via 3G/4G…it doesn’t affect wi-fi downloads at all. You can choose a maximum charge
* Approved Personal Document E-mail List: so you don’t get spammed, you have to authorize specific e-mail addresses to be able to send your Kindle documents
Manage Whispercast Membership
Your AmazonLocal Voucers
If you have questions about any of these, let me know by commenting on this post.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
The covers are reasonably sturdy, and they have a nice variety of patterns and colors. For us, it’s also important that they aren’t animal leather…not everybody cares about that, of course, but that’s a choice we make.
The Fintie coves certainly aren’t poorly reviewed, but I wanted to look at the best reviewed Paperwhite covers on Amazon.
my guess is that there will be a sale (although it may be short lived) on Paperwhites…probably the Paperwhite 2, the model I use every day, but we’ll see.
Might be nice to have an idea what cover you want before then. 🙂
Amazon may show you several variations of the same thing as separate clickables on that page, but if multiple items have the exact same (substantial) number of customer reviews, I’m going to count them as one item:
Amazon’s own cover | 4.7 stars out of 5 | 13,700 customer reviews | $39.99
Well, it appears that being well reviewed doesn’t mean you can stay in business. 🙂 That’s not necessarily what not being currently available means, but that part is intriguing.
I didn’t really know Jonathan Adler or Leslie Hsu, but I do like the look of both of them.
One thing I do prefer in covers for my Kindles: “auto-wake”. That means that when you open the cover (usually like a book), the Kindle wakes up…close it, and it goes back to sleep. I just find that both convenient and reminiscent of a p-book (paperbook). I didn’t need to use a power switch on a p-book either. 😉
What do you think? Are there covers you’ve liked? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
One book a calendar month to borrow (from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library…you also need to have a Kindle or a Fire)
Prime Early Access
Prime Now (in a few cities)
Reduced one-day shipping on some items
and others.
There’s no question that Prime is a major focus for Amazon, at least as far as the retail part of the business goes.
Those benefits cost Amazon money, but since Prime members reportedly buy more (and they buy those higher margin physical items, what I call “diapers and windshield wipers”), it’s worth it.
It’s exclusive for PrimeMembers, and is supposed to have more deals than Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, one of the biggest retail days of the year in the USA).
There will be thousands of deals, and some will likely sell out in seconds.
I fully expect that there will be deals on Amazon hardware…this might be a good time for them to do a blow-out on the Kindle Paperwhite 2, for example, since they have just released a new version. I could see it going down to under $70.
Fire tablets? Sure, discounts on some, I would think.
I think that’s possible, although I wouldn’t expect the $99 price that Prime members paid for it pre-release. Maybe they would throw in the voice remote, or offer a reduced bundle? I would expect that would be a short term deal.
On the other hand, I would guess there would be a day-long deal on Kindle books.
Oh, and there is a contest where you could win $10,000 in Amazon gift cards! You submit a picture of yourself showing what “Prime Living” means to you. The details are here:
There will be one winner from each of these countries:
Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, The United States
If you are a Prime member, I’d try to check it out a week from Wednesday.
If you aren’t…you might consider joining. 🙂 They do have a free one-month trial…and that will qualify.
Update: I should have mentioned that this is in honor of the Amazon’s 20th “birthday” (which is the following day, July 16th). That’s not the day Amazon started, it’s the day they went online.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
While certainly, there has been some pushback on it…in particular, from authors (and in some cases, their agents), who feel like it might radically reduce their royalties.
It will…for some people.
It will also likely increase royalties for other people.
Before the new plan (which went into effect July 1st), all borrows in Kindle Unlimited (from publishers using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing) shared a pool of money, based on the number of borrows.
Whether a title was three hundred pages, or three pages, everybody got the same amount.
The only requirement was that a borrower read 10% of the titles.
Let’s say the books had the classic 250 words per page.
That three page book had 750 words…so 75 words would be enough for payment (you’ve read twice that many in the post already).
The three hundred page book had 75,000 words…so, 7,500 words (thirty pages) before someone got paid.
It’s different, but making the longer book more valuable seems reasonable to me.
Note also that it’s not just that the book is longer…it’s that the reader actually read more of it, presumably getting more value out of it.
I’ve been trying to come up with analogies for this, to help me understand it. I wanted to know why someone would be passionately opposed to it.
Suppose you wanted one bottled water. Further suppose that you could only buy a six pack.
Does it seem reasonable that the person who drank one bottle and threw away the rest paid the same amount as the person who drank and got value out of the six bottles?
How about at a restaurant?
Would you shop at a restaurant where you always had to pay for a salad, soup, appetizer, main course, and dessert, even if you only wanted the salad?
People do order “prix fixe”, where they pay one price for several courses.
On the other side, I can see the argument that if you order a medium pizza and only eat two slices, the restaurant still had to make the whole pizza…it’s not their fault if you don’t eat the whole thing.
That doesn’t feel quite the same, though…the restaurant used up resources on the pizza. The writer did use resources (time, creative energy), but it’s not limited in the same way.
I want to hear from you, my readers, as to what you think about it. You can certainly make comments on this post, and I’m going to do a poll. Tell me why you don’t like it, or why you do.
If you are both an author and a reader, please approach the poll as a reader…you can express your writer’s perspective in the comments. 🙂
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
They’ve also been doing Monthly Kindle Book Deals for $3.99 or less each) (at AmazonSmile). That’s a rebranding: they used to say it was “100 Books”, but that’s also gotten to be more…there are 306 for this month at the time of writing (seventy-five more than last month…it has been trending upwards, a huge skyrocket of a jump!).
Those prices only apply to the USA, and one weird thing is that some of the books seem to sell out at that price sometimes (or become unavailable for some other reason).
It’s also interesting…about 50% of the books in the USA Kindle store are $3.99 or less (1,817,689 of 3,643,239). Still, these are on sale, and that’s worth something.
Another thing is that many of these books may be part of
Amazon lists that information prominently. If they are, then you need to consider whether it is worth buying them…even at these low prices. While they are in KU, you can, if you are a subscriber (and there’s a free month available right now), read them at no additional cost. There are, of course, advantages to owning books, especially if you want to re-read them. A book could move out of KU at any time. Even if you think you want to own it, if you are a KU member, you could always read it first to make sure. 😉 I will mark them with KU.
Oh, interesting! I see they are now also clearly marking when a book is available through the KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library)! That’s nice…there was a period of time when it was quite hard to tell. Eligible Prime members can borrow one per calendar month. If you are both a Prime member and a Kindle Unlimited subscriber (like me), I think you are more likely to get them through KU (where you can have up to ten at a time out, with no limit per month), but I’m sure I have many readers who are Prime members and don’t subscribe to KU. I’ll mark those with KOLL.
I’m going to list some of the $3.99 or lower ones that caught my eye…I’m not necessarily recommending them, but I do think they are interesting.
The ones I link (if I actually link to specific books) also don’t block text-to-speech access**…but I think blocking it is becoming rarer.
The One That Got Away by Simon Wood | 4.2 stars out of 5 | 3,741 customer reviews | KU
WIRED by Douglas E. Richards | 4.1 stars | 2,762 reviews | KU
Agenda 21 (Agenda 21 Series) by Glenn Beck and Harriet Parke |4.3 stars | 2,218 reviews
Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat by Melissa Joulwan and David Humphreys | 4.6 stars | 1,300 reviews | KU
The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D. | 4.3 stars | 915 reviews
No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs Book 1) by J. S. Scott | 3.9 stars | 834 reviews | KU
101 Dog Tricks: Step by Step Activities to Engage, Challenge, and Bond with Your Dog by Kyra Sundance and Chalcy | 4.6 stars | 719 reviews
Witches on Parole (WitchLight Trilogy: Book 1) by Debora Geary | 4.6 stars | 666 reviews | KU
Loving (Bailey Flanigan Series Book 4) by Karen Kingsbury | 3.5 star | 604 reviews
Running for My Life: One Lost Boy’s Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games by Lopez Lomong and Mark Tabb | 4.8 stars | 471 reviews
The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L. J. Smith | 4.0 stars | 434 reviews
All-American Girl by Meg Cabot | 4.5 stars | 338 reviews
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi | 4.5 stars | 222 reviews
Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing at All by Karen Ehman | 4.8 sars | 330 reviews
Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz | 4.0 stars | 276 reviews
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson | 4.1 stars | 273 reviews | Newbery Medal winner
Cop Hater (87th Precinct Mysteries Book 1) by Ed McBain | 4.0 stars | 260 reviews | KU | first of 55 books in this very successful series
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann | 4.0 stars 221 reviews
No Man’s Nightingale: An Inspector Wexford Novel by Ruth Rendell | 3.8 stars | 211 reviews
Busman’s Honeymoon (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries) by Dorothy L. Sayers | 4.6 stars | 208 reviews
The Sweet Spot: A Novel by Stephanie Evanovich |3.3 stars | 198 reviews
Trial by Fire: A Novel of Suspense (Ali Reynolds Book 5) by J.A. Jance | 4.4 stars | 150 reviews
Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson | 4.1 stars | 142 reviews | Ronson is a great writer of investigative non-fiction
Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas | 4.5 stars | 64 reviews
The Origin of Brands by Al Ries and Laura Ries | 3.9 stars |30 reviews
If there were others you’d like to mention for me and my readers, please comment on this post.
You can get one of the four books to own (not borrow) for free…these are books which will be actually released next month. The choices this month are:
The Einstein Prophecy by Robert Masello (thriller) (
Crooked Little Lies by Barbara Taylor Sissel (contemporary fiction)
It’s In His Heart (A Red River Valley Novel) by Shelly Alexander (romance)
Cold Black Earth by Sam Reaves (suspense)
People like to know which one I pick…I debated this one a bit, between The Einstein Prophecies and Crooked Little Lies. Too big an Einstein fan not to go with that one, though. 🙂
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.
** A Kindle with text-to-speech can read any text downloaded to it…unless that access is blocked by the publisher inserting code into the file to prevent it. That’s why you can have the device read personal documents to you (I’ve done that). I believe that this sort of access blocking disproportionately disadvantages the disabled, although I also believe it is legal (provided that there is at least one accessible version of each e-book available, however, that one can require a certification of disability). For that reason, I don’t deliberately link to books which block TTS access here (although it may happen accidentally, particularly if the access is blocked after I’ve linked it). I do believe this is a personal decision, and there are legitimate arguments for purchasing those books.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
In the USA, the Fourth of July is Independence Day (celebrating the country’s founding), but without diminishing that, I thought I’d take at look at e-books published “independently”…what are commonly called “indies”.
Obviously, before we go further, we should have some sort of agreement about what we mean by an “independently published book”…for one thing, that will help me when I look in the Kindle store.
Clearly, books published by the “Big 5” don’t count. Those are the five largest trade publishers in the USA. Trade books are the ones you would have bought in a bookstore…not textbooks and the like.
The Big 5 are:
Penguin Random House
Simon & Schuster
Macmillan
HarperCollins
Hachette
and all of their various imprints.
However, I would also consider a number of other publishers to be not indies…for example, Scholastic, which has some very significant bestsellers (The Hunger Games and Harry Potter in the USA), but just doesn’t publish that many titles.
What about something like Inkshares, which published one of my sibling’s recent first novel, One Murder More (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)?It’s independent of the traditional distribution system, but they chose whether to publish the book or not…my sibling didn’t publish it on their own initiative (which is how some people would define an indie…essentially, synonymous with the generally considered to be less attractive term, “self-published”.
I’m going to go with books from publishers I don’t recognize or that don’t show a publisher at all. 🙂
That’s not a surprise: that’s clearly a very successful program for Amazon, where Amazon Prime members can buy one of a specific set of books before they are released.
While these books are not from the Big 5, I don’t consider the independents. This is Amazon doing traditional publishing.
Amazon imprint
Amazon imprint
Amazon imprint
Amazon imprint
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House
Amazon imprint
HarperCollins
Simon & Schuster
Amazon imprint
That’s interesting!
When I’ve looked at bestsellers before, I think indies have had times when they’ve had more of an impact.
The highest book I can see that I would consider an indie for this purpose?
are seriously cannibalizing sales of books. That would be true for indies, and not for the Big 5 (the latter aren’t participating in KU…yet).
That’s definitely worth a deeper analysis…and trying to figure out how the new rules of “pay per page read” might be impacting the income of publishers in Amazon’s subser (subscription service…”all you can read” for a flat fee a month).
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
I recently asked my readers to suggest a book for me to read.
I wanted them to challenge me…to give me something to read they thought might change my life.
Most importantly, my hope was to end up with something I might not have chosen myself…to stretch the boundaries of my literary life.
Their choices were certainly intriguing! I’m excited!
However, I’m going to leave the final choice up to you.
I’ll describe the books for you, and then do a poll.
I’ll read whatever gets the most votes…not necessarily as my next read, but soon.
Oh, and these were the rules I set…that will explain the suggestions which were disqualified from being in the poll. I included those at the bottom of this list. I still appreciate the suggestions, and one of my hopes is that this post helps my readers discover things as well. They may not have the same self-imposed limitations I do. 🙂
It has to be available to me in Kindle format through Amazon.com in the USA
It can’t block text-to-speech access (it will say that text-to-speech is “enabled” on the book’s Amazon product page)
I won’t re-read a book for this, but it’s okay if I already own it
My take: they are saying it is reminiscent of The Avengers (Steed and Peel…I was sorry to hear of the passing of Patrick Macnee recently), which is one of my favorite TV series. I’m pretty confident I would enjoy this…but I can’t say it would be a big stretch.
My take: I actually worked in an immunization project, and work for a healthcare organization now. I like reading nonfiction like this…but I don’t think I would have gotten to this one on my own.
The Martian (at AmazonSmile*)
by Andy Weir
4.6 stars | 11,579 reviews
science fiction
recommended by Dave
My take: I’m looking forward to the movie, and I’ve followed the story of the success of the book. I probably would have read it at some point, but I might not have been likely to read it at this price and not in Kindle Unlimited.
My take: some of the best books I’ve read have been considered young adult (or even younger): the Oz books; Harry Potter; The Hunger Games, and I’ve read a lot of dystopian novels (even though my temperament leans more towards the utopian). jaminord edited the book, but I specifically said people could suggest books they wrote, so that’s fine.
My take: I’ve played a little pool in my time. I’m not great (although being ambidextrous helps), but I was a pretty good hustler…just for fun, of course. It’s a three game thing. The first game, it doesn’t matter who wins as long as it is close. The second game, you get a stake in it (doesn’t have to be money), and you lose significantly. Then, they are ready to stake more…and you have to be able to win that one. As you can imagine, a big part of this (and any hustle) is picking in the right person.
My take: I really like reading books from different religious perspectives, and have read books that cover quite a range of spirituality and religion. That said, I don’t usually look through the religion section at Amazon, so this could be a very good choice for me.
My take: I’m a big fan of happiness. 🙂 I don’t do formal meditation, but I have done some biofeedback and can relax myself pretty well. I know that’s not the same thing, but I’d be interested in reading this
My take: I’m very familiar with Mame, having been made into a beloved movie (and one not so beloved) and I know the play. I’ve never read the original book, though, and I really enjoy reading original sources.
My take: this book is right up my alley! I managed a game store, and in understanding what influences behavior is an important part of what I do in my work life.
Thanks so much to everyone who made a suggestion! I’m thrilled by this process, and I intend to do it again (although probably not very soon).
Here’s the poll! You can pick more than one, and I’ll leave it open at least through Saturday. I may keep it open the whole weekend, although I may be champing at the bit to get started. 🙂
Update: the poll is now complete, and my read has been chosen! I’ll be reading The Martian, recommended by Dave. Dave, as a thank you, I’d be happy to gift you one of the books in the poll. If you’d like that, just let me know which book you’d like by commenting on this post. I can keep your comment private, if you prefer…please let me know in your comment if you’d like it to be private. I appreciate everyone who participated (either by recommending, or voting, or both), and at this point, I fully expect to do this again. 🙂
Thanks again! I look forward to the results! If you’d like to say more about the books, or about this process, feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
It says something about the size of your company when you can say that you aren’t really concerned about the nearly half a billion dollar you stand to lose…it’s the principle of the thing. 😉
Quick recap first:
When Apple was going to introduce the iPad, five of the then six biggest USA trade publishers (trade books are the books you would have bought in bookstores…not textbooks and such) switched to the “Agency Model” for e-books. In the Agency Model, the publisher is the official seller of the book (not the retailer, like Amazon or Barnes & Noble)…and the publisher sets the price the customer pays for the book. They offered that as the only arrangement to Amazon, which fought at first, but eventually adopted the model.
The United States Department of Justice went after Apple and the publishers for anti-competitive actions.
Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, despite having settled, joined the appeal…essentially arguing that the restrictions placed on Apple also affected them.
11 We conclude that the district court’s decision that Apple orchestrated
12 a horizontal conspiracy among the Publisher Defendants to raise ebook prices is
13 amply supported and well‐reasoned, and that the agreement unreasonably
14 restrained trade in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. We also conclude that the
15 district court’s injunction is lawful and consistent with preventing future
16 anticompetitive harms.
Continuing, the court is, shall we say, unimpressed with the arguments presented:
17 Significantly, the dissent agrees that Apple intentionally organized a
18 conspiracy among the Publisher Defendants to raise ebook prices. Nonetheless,
1 it contends that Apple was entitled to do so because the conspiracy helped it
2 become an ebook retailer. In arriving at this startling conclusion — based in
3 large measure on an argument that Apple itself did not assert — the dissent
4 makes two fundamental errors. The first is to insist that the vertical organizer of
5 a horizontal price‐fixing conspiracy may escape application of the per se rule.
6 This conclusion is based on a misreading of Supreme Court precedent, which
7 establishes precisely the opposite.
I have skimmed the entire decision and the dissent, and will probably get through all of it in the next week or so.
The judicial dissent to the decision, to me, doesn’t seem to be defending what Apple did specifically (saying it was a good thing), but arguing that the majority misapplied the law.
Where does it go from here?
Apple could pay about $450 million…consumers would get some money.
Apple could appeal, getting to the Supreme Court…which might, as is argued in the Yahoo piece, decide in Apple’s favor, at least based on the current makeup of the court.
I’m not a legal expert, although I do follow things at the Supreme Court, somewhat. My intuition is that SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) might simply decline to hear the case. I think it depends, to some extent, as to whether the or not the Supreme Court agrees with the dissent in this most recent decision: was the law misapplied.
Otherwise, the bar is pretty high. You appeal a decision asking the higher court to determine if what the lower court did was right…it’s not exactly about your “innocence or guilt”, it’s about the competence of the lower court.
The lower court is, in a way, innocent until proven guilty. When you argue your Supreme Court case, we start with the assumption that the lower court was correct…and the appellants have to prove it wasn’t.
It’s worth noting that the Agency Model is back. It wasn’t the Agency Model itself (much as I dislike it personally) that was the problem, according to the DOJ: it’s that it was used collectively to control prices.
Why do I dislike the Agency Model?
I’m a former brick-and-mortar bookstore manager, so I freely admit that I could be prejudiced…but I want the retailers to compete on prices. I want Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble to set their own prices as a way to affect sales…not have the publisher set the same price for all stores. The new version of the Agency Model at Amazon modifies that a bit, allowing Amazon to do some discounting…but, as a customer, I like stores having pricing as a tool.
What do you think? Will Apple appeal? If they do, will they win? How invested are you in getting money from Apple over e-book pricing? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
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