Prime Day is Tuesday & Wednesday (12-13 July)!

Prime Day is Tuesday & Wednesday (12-13 July)!

It’s time for

Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

which is 12 & 13 July (this Tuesday & Wednesday)!

Of course, there are deals now!

This is an annual event for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

members.

While we’re comfortable, we’ve moved into a phase where we are likely to have negative cash flow for a while (but the long term future looks fine, and this is expected). That changes my approach a bit: this will be the 1st year I won’t be carefully watching for a

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

deal.

We have it now and when it runs out, we’ll try just using

Prime Reading (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

There are about a 1,000 books in there you can read with your Prime membership.

I should emphasize, I don’t see a point where we wouldn’t be Prime members! Too many benefits!

One of the things I’ve “bought” is adding

Paramount+

as a channel to Prime Video for $0.99 a month for the first two months. This is a “cancel” any time deal, and I’m setting a reminder to cancel it before it hits the normal $9.99. That’s my plan right now: I’ve got a lot to watch already! However, as an old school Trekkie, I’ve heard good things about Strange New Worlds. I like an optimistic Star Trek. I do want to be clear, though: whatever you like is okay with me! Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, after all. 🙂 This will give me a chance to watch it.

While the first Prime Day had a lot of things almost instantly sell out, I don’t feel like you have to be hovering over the Buy Button any more…at least not as much. This is more of a heads up, and then your own strategies should work. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

One weird tip for you: we sort of accidentally got a Credit Karma account (that’s where Turbo Tax offered to put the tax refund, and I was so relieved to get done with the taxes, that I just said yes).

What happens is they just randomly pay for things people have “charged” (it’s a debit account, not credit…they call it a “spend account”). I never thought that would happen, but they paid for a $74 bill for us…so far! I’ve changed that to be our default card for Amazon: CK shows you who has won in the past couple of hours (just by 1st name and state), how much they got, and how many times they’ve won. The highest number of times winning we’ve seen is 45, but there is almost always someone who has won at least ten times before…and almost always someone who wins over $100. Totally up to you, of course! It didn’t make a lot of sense to me (it doesn’t cost us anything), so we looked up the business model. I see ads for things like car loans. I just ignore them. What I read is that CK gets something like a finder’s fee: they are referring good customer prospects.

Last thing I’ll say for now:

My Silver Falchion award-winning mystery writing sib, Kris Calvin, has the second book in the Emma Lawson series coming out on Prime Day. I’m sure that’s a coincidence: the publication date wold have been set well before we knew when Prime Day was!

Under a Broken Sky

It’s available for pre-order in Kindle format (or as a hardback).

Amazon has the first book

All That Fall

on sale right now for $1.99 for the Kindle edition…I’m guessing that goes through Prime Day.

If you spot any deals you want to share with my readers, feel free to comment on this post or let my readers know on Twitter:

• https://twitter.com/bufocalvin

Remember that you can buy gifts for others, and for places like non-profits!

Amazon Charity Lists

Happy shopping!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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. 

Early Prime Day Deals on “select top” Kindle titles

Early Prime Day Deals on “select top” Kindle titles

Amazon is really promoting this year’s

Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

which is June 21st & 22nd!

I’m seeing lots of commercials, and they even reached out to me (and through me, to you) for the first time in a long time. This is the annual sale for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

members.

They particularly alerted me to an early sale on Kindle books (there will be other Kindle book sales on Prime Day itself.

Early Prime Day deals: Up to 80% off, select top titles on Kindle (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

There are 105 titles in the sale (note that this is for the USA & titles could possibly go in and out of this deal: check the price before you hit that Buy button). Here are a few that caught my eye:

• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Book 1 of 6 in the Earthsea series) | $1.99 | 4.4 stars out of 5 | 2,129 customer reviews
• Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg (Book 1 of 3 in the Eve Ronin series) | $1.99 | 4.5 stars | 5,480 reviews
• Dark Pattern by Andrew Mayne (Book 4 of 4 in the The Naturalist series) | $1.99 | 4.4 stars | 1,544 reviews
• The Mercy of Snakes by Dean Koontz (Book 5 of 6 in the Nameless: Season One series) | 4.6 stars | 4,139 reviews
• Murder by the Book by Lauren Elliott (Book 1 of 7 in the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery series) | 4.3 stars | 1,394 reviews
• Plain Jane by Fern MIchaels | $1.99 | 4.4 stars | 542 reviews
• This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig | $1.99 | 4.6 stars | 437 reviews
• A Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh (Book 30 of 33 in the Roderick Alleyn series) | $1.99 | 4.5 stars | 156 reviews

Remember, this is just a few out of more than 100. Feel free to mention others in the comments/Twitter replies.

There will be lots of other Prime Day deals, of course!

Enjoy!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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 organizations, begin your Amazon shopping from a link on their sites: Amazon.com (Smile.Amazon.com)

Day 1 of Prime Day…and we’ve already saved much more than we pay for the annual membership

Day 1 of Prime Day…and we’ve already saved much more than we pay for the annual membership

I recommended some strategies for

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

earlier today:

It’s Prime Day! Strategies…

We’re careful buyers (believe it or not), but I thought I’d give you some idea of what we’ve bought, and how much we saved.

First, and this is still available, we’d saved $95.96 before the official start of Prime Day (but as part of it) by renewing our Kindle Unlimited membership for another two years. You do that here:

Give the Gift of Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile*)

Did we stop there?

Nope! 🙂

We’ve saved about $150 just today.

Our biggest savings was on the

Ring Spotlight Cam Battery HD Security Camera with Built Two-Way Talk and a Siren Alarm, White, Works with Alexa (at AmazonSmile*)

That is $60 off, $139.00 instead of $199.

I’ve been wanting one…we do have package theft in our area, and not everything can go to an Amazon Locker (we send everything there we can). This should be a deterrent…oh, and if the camera itself gets stolen, Amazon will replace it!

Lots of good features in this one. We bought an extra battery pack…one battery likely lasts for a few weeks (depending on settings), and it will automatically switch to the second one. That gives you a chance to charge one while the other is running. They sell a solar panel for it, but I don’t trust us to install it. We’re terrible at that “handy stuff”. A funny one recently: we had to put on a new doorknob. My first mistake was removing the doorknob while the door was closed…I couldn’t open it! Then, fortunately, my Significant Other noticed I was putting the doorknob on upside down…

We also bought the

Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote (at AmazonSmile*)

for $14.99, to have as an “emergency gift”. That saved us another $25.

I bought two wi-fi bulbs for $38.99 off…but they appear to be sold out.

Outside of that, it was clothes and household items, making up the rest.

I heard from other people I know that they bought two

Echo Show 5s (at AmazonSmile*s)

for $49.99 each…$40 off each!

I want to mention one more thing:

There is a

new version of the Kindle Oasis (at AmazonSmile*)

being released on July 24th…and the current version is significantly on sale:

current generation Kindle Oasis…apparently now available without an animal leather cover (at AmazonSmile*)

for $199.99, $80 off.

Prime Day has definitely been worth it for us!

How about you? Feel free to let me and my readers know about great bargains you’ve gotten by commenting on this post.

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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.

It’s Prime Day! Strategies…

It’s Prime Day! Strategies…

It’s here!

Today (and tomorrow) is

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

This is genuinely an opportunity to get some great deals! However, like a lot of things in this time of consumer plenty, it can be confusing.

You’ll see tons of deals, and it’s entirely possible that you’ll feel yourself shift into a sort of predator mode, that you have to strike NOW as the zebra darts out of the scrub across the savanna. Or, you know, you just think it’s cool 😉

I’m not going to stop you from that. We expect to buy some things today.

I’m also not going to try to point out flash deals to you all day long. The nature of Prime Day has changed in the four years since it launched. The first year, there were many deals which were only available for a very short time. We hovered over the Buy button, trying to hit it at exactly the right time before they ran out.

That’s not the case now. There will be lightning deals, and some of them will sell out, but now, it’s more a matter of making a deliberate choice. Many deals have already been available, and they will be available through both days (and some will undoubtedly continue afterwards).

UPDATE: We had on the Prime Day Channel in the Amazon shopping app on our Fire TV Cube, and they announced their first special deal (a “Deal Reveal”) for a 70″ Sony TV deal for about $800 (which I think was about half off)…and it appeared to sell out in under a minute. That’s not going to be the case with most things, especially Amazon products, but it did seem to be true with this…a quick sell out.

You can find them at

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

or even better, in the Amazon Shopping app. That’s just going to be easier and has more functionality to alert you to deals. You can also just ask Alexa.

What do you do when you see something you want? For example:

Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote (at AmazonSmile*)

It says it’s $14.99 instead of $39.99 (63% off). This is an excellent “emergency gift”. We always keep a few things around at the holidays, in case someone shows up we weren’t expecting (such as someone having a new Significant Other). If your recipient already has one, this can still be valuable. It would also be good for a company gift exchange

If it’s a Prime Day Deal (and you’ll see a “badge” on that), you’ll also likely see a countdown for when the deal ends (as I write this, the deal ends in about 43 and a half hours).

If you are just good with the price, and don’t care whether it’s a bargain or not, go for it.

If you want to see if it is actually a good deal, an especially low price, go to

https://camelcamelcamel.com/

You can either describe the item or put in the URL (the address up in the search bar). Note that there may be different versions shown if you put in words. Also, and this is important, their current price will probably be higher than the price you are seeing on Amazon…because that price at Amazon is exclusive for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

You need to be a Prime member to get Prime Day deals…although you can get a free trial. The odds are if you trial Prime, you’ll stick with it. Not having Prime nowadays is like not having access to a car. You can deal without it, but it certainly makes things much more convenient!

So, it shows the current price for the Fire TV Stick above as $39.99. What’s important, though, is that it shows you the price history. In this case, it goes back to January 15th…and the lowest price it has been is $29.99, so this is a great deal!

You can set a price alert at CamelCamelCamel…locate a product, and then sign up to get an e-mail (yes, you’ll be giving them your e-mail for that…you don’t have to sign up for anything to use CamelCamelCamel) when that product drops to a price you set.

That’s the shopping part. 🙂

I do want to point out that there will be many scams around Prime Day. Beware of e-mails telling you that you need to click something because your product is out of stock, or they need a confirmation, or the price changed, or they couldn’t deliver something. If you get an e-mail, ideally, go directly to Amazon to check on it.

I may try to add more specific products throughout the course of the two days, but this is where my readers can help each other. Feel free to comment on this post with deals you see. If you can, give some idea about when it will expire.

Here’s Amazon’s press release listing some of the deals:

press release

Don’t forget to use Alexa to shop! Asking Alexa for deals can be very easy, as well as using the Amazon Shopping app on your Fire TV device (they have a live Prime Day “channel”) in the app.

Also, while Prime Day is not just in the USA, the offers will be different in different markets.

Happy shopping! Oh, and if you go to Amazon Smile, you can benefit a non-profit of your choice by doing so. I’d appreciate it if you use my link to start your shopping trip:

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

but if you want to help someone else by going from their link, (such as a non-profit), I understand. 🙂

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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. 

 

The one Amazon deal I look for every time is here!

The one Amazon deal I look for every time is here!

With

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

less than two weeks away (July 15/16), deals are already here.

There’s one deal I look for every time for Prime Day and on Black Friday.

That’s a big discount on

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

That’s Amazon’s subser (subscription service) for books (including audiobooks) and magazines. We’ve been happy members since it started…you can have up to ten books borrowed at a time, with no limit as to how many you borrow (not get to own) in a month.

I’m not an audiobook fan…I like them if I’ve already read the book, and I know I’m unusual in this, but I don’t like an actor or even the author interpreting the characters for me if I haven’t read it. On the other hand, I use text-to-speech (software reading the book aloud) pretty much every work day, and for hours a week typically (I can end up driving a lot in my day job, and that’s when I listen…at other times, I sight read). If you are a fan of audiobooks, though, KU is a great way to go.

It’s normally $9.99 a month, but right now you can buy it at a discount, up to 40% off if you buy 24 months ($143.80 versus $239.76…a discount of $95.96, and just shy of $6 a month).

Yes, if you are already a member, you can take advantage of this. Before I bought it this time, I already had an ending date based on my current payments in 2023.

We also have bought it as a gift for a family. I’d still love Amazon to let you buy a single month as a gift…that would be great for things like gift exchanges at work, or even birthday presents for kids!  Here’s the gift page (that’s where I got the deal right now):

Give the Gift of Kindle Unlimited) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping)

What I did to get the deal is buy it as a gift for myself (using the e-mail address we always use on the account). When I was notified of the gift, it said this:

Already a Kindle Unlimited member? You can now stack this gift on top of your existing subscription or click here to redeem your membership as a gift card.

We’re now subscribed through 2025…my tentative retirement year from my day job. 😉

I should also mention that they have really been improving the selection, although it was good before. Here are some standouts:

• Never read the immensely successful Stephanie Plum mystery comedies by Janet Evanovich (or just want to revisit the beginning)? One for the MOney is in KU
• Watership Down…the THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN’S BOOK tale of rabbits by Richard Adams (and the subject of a recent TV adaptation)
• Nonfiction more of your thing? Read TV super producer Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes
• NYT bestseller Robert Dugoni’s Bodily Harm

Older books, newer books, well-known books, special interest…there is a lot here!

I should also mention that if you are an Amazon Prime member, you also automatically have

Prime Reading (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

at no additional cost…that’s a wonderful benefit, but it is only about 1,000 titles…it doesn’t have Watership Down (mentioned above) as one example.

This deal may not last until Prime Day, although my guess is that it will…or at least it will be available during the Prime Day sale.

Might there be other deals during or for Prime Day that will save you more money? Yes, but this is the one that will get you access to the most books!

See other Prime Day deals you want to share with me and my readers? You can do so by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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. 

Amazon Prime Day 2019 is July 15th and 16th!

Amazon Prime Day 2019 is July 15th and 16th!

We’ve known that Amazon’s self-driving holiday 😉 would be coming soon, and it has now been officially announced!

Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

It’s been getting better over the years…the first year, there were a lot of things that sold out almost instantly.

Look for deals ahead of time, and for big deals on the day(s).

Another interesting thing: other retailers are getting on board. Amazon hasn’t always led (the Nook had peer-to-peer e-book lending first, for example), but they have here. Target will have a big sale, and so will eBay.

I’ll be checking Amazon. This year, another thing to watch is the category of Prime Day Launches…there are a bunch listed already.

I’m excited! There are usually legitimately good deals. I’ll be looking for any kind of deal on

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Those deals have definitely saved us money over the years.

If you spot great deals, I’d appreciate you commenting so my other readers know!

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* 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. 

Prime Day 2018 wrap up: despite hurdles, Amazon sets record…and we saved more than our annual Prime cost

Prime Day 2018 wrap up: despite hurdles, Amazon sets record…and we saved more than our annual Prime cost

Amazon’s

Prime Day (and a half) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

was this week, and according to this

Amazon press release

it was the biggest 36 hours in the history of Amazon.

Not bad for a holiday that they made up. 😉

There are lots of interesting stats in the press release…just for one, more than 100 million products bought. For perspective, only about 15 countries in the world have a population greater than 100 million.

This was all despite a boycott, and major glitches (especially on the first half day). This

Mashable post by Jake Krol

gives an explanation for the glitches. Apparently, basically what happened was that a scaling system, which should have brought more servers online as needed, didn’t work. That meant people manually switching things. This appears to be all internal to Amazon, by the way.

As to my Significant Other and myself (that makes up our household, not counting the dogs), we saved $141.52. The biggest part of that by far was the $95.90 we saved on two years of

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

That is money we would have spent anyway…we just spent less of it. 😉 The value of KU has been diminished for recently because I haven’t been able to use text-to-speech with it (that’s my preference in the car)…they seem to only let me do audiobooks for audio, but it is still worth it for sight-reading.

The second biggest savings? The $10 we got for shopping at Whole Foods for qualifying purchases. We didn’t change behavior for that, so that was essentially just a reduction on our Prime membership. 🙂

We bought eight other miscellaneous things…some practical, some for gifts. We wouldn’t have bought them all now, but none of them were just impulse purchases we regret. We did buy one toy item and then decide it was too young for the intended recipient, but we’ll donate that to Toys for Tots; we have an annual budget for that, so this is also within our plans.

All in all, a successful Prime Day. 🙂

Feel free to share your experiences (including, perhaps, why you joined the boycott) by commenting on this post.

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* 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.

 

40% off KU and other last minute Prime Day bargains

40% off KU and other last minute Prime Day bargains

The first half a day of

Prime Day (and a half) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

had a lot of glitches and crashing…in my family, we saw the “Uh-Oh dogs” a lot!

In fact, we speculated that maybe Amazon would extend Prime Day to make up for it…but we didn’t really expect that.

It seems quite odd that the super powerhouse server provider company (AWS…Amazon Web Services is now almost Amazon’s most important business), with massive algorithms to predict demand, could have been that far off. It was bad enough that some conspiracy theory type things occurred to me…not as likely, but just as possible scenarios (including sabotage, equipment failure…even “false flag” type self-limiting to obscure certain other impacts). I didn’t believe any of those, but my mind is always running down alternative timelines. 😉

Regardless, I wanted to highlight a few bargains available now:

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

This is Amazon’s subser (subscription service) for e-books…normally $9.99 a month for “all you can read” (you can have up to ten books out at a time) from a quite large selection.

If you aren’t a member already, you can get three months for $0.99…how could you not? 😉

If you are an existing member (we’ve been happy members since it started…even though I’ve been less happy lately, since I haven’t been able to use text-to-speech…the only audio choice it will give me is an audiobook, which I know the majority of people prefer), you can also get a discount:

Kindle Unlimited deal (at AmazonSmile*)

You can get 12 months for $80.32 (which works out to $6.69 per month approx.), and it tells you to enter the promo code of PDKU18. You can also select 24 months for $143.86 ($5.99 per month approx.). It doesn’t mention the code, but I’ll enter it. 🙂

You can generally get to the deals through the

Prime Day (and a half) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

so I’ll just mention a few you can find there…double-check the price before you buy it:

• Alexa Fire TV Stick for $19.99…great way to get Alexa, and we use Fire TV to watch TV just about all the time
• Echo Dot $29.99
• The Fire TV Cube for $89.99 (this is $30 off their new, and I think eventually game-changing, device)
• The Echo Show is still $100 off at $129.99
• Echo 2nd Gen for $69.99
• Kindle Paperwhite (still my favorite Kindle model currently available) for $79.99 ($40 off)
• Echo Spot (love this one!) for $9999
• $50off the Fire HD 10 (which has Show Mode)
• I mentioned earlier today: buy an e-book off the top charts and get 75% off another e-book purchase, or buy one other Kindle e-book and get 30% off Buy a Kindle book from the top read and sold charts, get 75% off your next Kindle book purchased by July 31st

Okay, those were all Amazon…but there are so many things! About six hours to go at time of writing…

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* 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.

Prime Day (and a half) starts today at noon Pacific

Prime Day (and a half) starts today at noon Pacific

Amazon’s

Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

starts today (Monday, July 16) at noon Pacific. It will continue through midnight on Tuesday, July 17 (just before it becomes Wednesday) Pacific.

There will be lots of bargains, and they won’t all last all day. There are new products being introduced, freebies, all for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

members (free trial memberships are available).

This year, I’ve had a couple of people bring up personally to me a strike/boycott against Amazon which goes through Prime Day (meaning that some people are not ordering things through Amazon or using their services).

There are quite a few articles on this, and I would say even more buzz on social media. Here’s a Bing search:

Bing search for “Amazon strike”

One person asked me specifically because they thought I could give the best pro-Amazon argument.

I’m not going to argue for or against joining this action: there will be people who are passionate about it on both sides.

Essentially, the initial impetus for this was European Amazon employees stating concern about how Amazon treats them.

What I’ll do is suggest you consider these two questions:

• Does Amazon treat its employees (European and otherwise) fairly?
• If you decide they don’t, will boycotting Amazon affect that situation, and if so, how?

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* 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.

Wrap up: Prime Day 2017

Wrap up: Prime Day 2017

I found that this year, after the third

Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

on July 11th, the buzz was generally positive. People at work knew about it, asked me about, and smiled about it. I know some of them saved some real money…some with my help, some without it.

In this

press release

Amazon gives us some of the statistics.

While I have no doubt that there was really significant growth, Amazon doesn’t make it easy to tell. They compare this year’s 30 hour Prime Day to “…the same 30 hours last year”. Was that July 10th at 6:00 Pacific to July 11th at midnight (not Prime Day to Prime Day)? Seems like it…

When we look at the amount of participation, we have to note that there were more countries participating this year, and there were probably a lot more

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

in the USA going into it as well.

Those caveats out of the way…

These are two of the big stats, in this short excerpt from the press release:

“More new members joined Prime on July 11 than on any single day in Amazon history. Tens of millions of Prime members made a purchase on Prime Day 2017, more than 50 percent higher than the prior year.”

Getting and keeping Prime members? That’s an important part of Amazon’s retail strategy (which is only one of Amazon’s revenue streams).

They are also right to tout the growth for third-party sellers.

Now, in terms of what sold, no question that Amazon devices dominated, with the

All-New Echo Dot (2nd Generation) – White (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

on sale for $34.99 ($15 off) leading the way.

They also gave us the bestsellers (outside of Amazon devices) from each Amazon site, and they are interesting to compare!

One surprise for me for the USA was that they list one of the

23andMe DNA tests (at AmazonSmile*)

as one of the bestsellers.

You can tell looking at this that people did buy expensive items (they might have bought inexpensive ones, too), which is good…bigger cash savings for the same percentage.

That’s what people did generally…what about you, my readers?

We’ll start with a poll I already had up in a post where I tried to help you find bargains. If you already answered it there, you can answer it again to add other choices…just don’t put the same one in you already did. 🙂 I did it this way because I posted it before Prime Day was over, and I figured your circumstances might change. I also added one option (about Kindle Unlimited) at the suggestion of my regular readers and commenters, Lady Galaxy:

I also said I would add a poll about how much you saved. When you answer this, count money you saved on the 40% off Kindle Unlimited deal, or other deals which were on the Prime Day page before Prime Day officially started. Oh, and I’d combine all the money from one account (even if more than one person was shopping on that account), and, I suppose, if you shopped on more than one personal account on Prime Day, I’d combine those, too:

I’ll be interested to see how many people saved more than the normal Prime membership cost!

One last thing: the most downloaded

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

book was

Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine (at
AmazonSmile*)

It’s well-reviewed and one of the most read books, and it was published by one of Amazon’s traditional publishing imprints, Thomas & Mercer.

Well, that was fun this year! I’m looking forward to next year!

Have anything to add? What was the weirdest thing you bought during this year’s Prime Day event? Did you find Prime Day uninteresting? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

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 you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! 🙂