August Promotions for eBooks
These are the August specials I know of. If I have missed some, let me know. The Hachette deals can be found at most etailers like Kindle, Sony, BooksonBoard.com, and the like.
Orbit’s $1.00 release is
- Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow, retail price $6.99 for $1.00 during the month of August.
Forever Summer Sizzling Reads for $1.99
- Insatiable Desire by Rita Herron
- Hungry for More by Diana Holquist
- Seduce Me by Robyn DeHart (new release)
- Simple Wishes by Lisa Dale
Other Hachette August specials:
- Brian Haig: Buy Secret Sanction and get Mortal Alliesfor free.
- Kate Lynch: Blessed Art the Cheesemakers for $2.99
Harlequin is offering:
- 25% off My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent,
the launch title of the new Harlequin Teen line. Offer ends Aug 31.
Books on Board is offering a number of ebooks under $5.00 including:
- One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl
- The Darkest Prison by Gena Showalter
- Thorn Queen by Richelle Mead
Does anybody know: When we buy books on special (and get free books), does the author still get paid her regular royalty?
Because if not, that would take the fun out of winning contests or getting books for a dollar &tc.
I have to check out Blessed Are the Cheesemakers. Any Monty Python reference deserves at least that much.
Ok, it looks pretty good so I bought it for my Kindle.
Likari — it will vary from publisher to publisher, but generally if the book is simply discounted, the author still gets her full royalty. If it’s free, she may get a nominal fee (read: pittance :)), but in that case it’s all about promotion and getting her book/name “out there.”
Contest books are generally donated either by the publisher or the author, and those books don’t earn royalties. But again, it’s a good way to drum up interest, and way offsets the immediate, small loss in royalties by (hopefully) increasing sales down the road.
IOW, not to worry, it’s okay. ;-)
One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl~~ for under $4???? Right Now?
Got it!
Yea!
Too fan-girl? Oh well, I am!
Thanks Jane
Thanks, Karen. That makes sense.
Nonetheless — and certainly not to take anything away from contests and giveaways — this knowledge changes my attitude about these things.
I am by no means a person of means, trust me. But I spend almost as much on lattes, when you consider the tip, as many books cost. I really have no problem paying for a book that, if all goes well, will give me at least as much pleasure as a good cup of coffee!
I won a Lilith Saintcrow from Samhain this week, and now I feel guilty, ha. But you’re right. It was a way for me to sample her. I’ve peeked at the first chapter, and I can already tell I’m going to be buying more of her books. So I guess it worked.
I’m conflicted. . . .
Seriously, Likari — don’t be! Publishers and authors wouldn’t do it if they didn’t think it worked to their advantage. ;-)
I give my author copies away all the time in little contests over on eHar or my own blog. We’re not talking huge numbers, but it’s a way to a) encourage readers to check out my site and read excerpts and b) if they win and LIKE the book, maybe they’ll talk it up to other readers, either online or in person. It’s just an easy way to jump start word-of-mouth chatter, which is the most effective promo in the world.
I mean, yay for you to want to support authors with your $$$ (big smooch on behalf of all of us!), but please don’t feel bad in the least for winning a free book or finding a legitimate bargain. It all works to the good, believe me.
Oh poop. Format issues again. Do I really have to read Victoria Dahl’s book in Adobe? E-reader is so much better (of the two reader programs on my laptop). It may not be worth it, even for four bucks. Sigh.
Call me stupid but I couldn’t find Diana Holquist’s book at 1.99$. As I don’t buy Sony or Kindle I checked fictionwise and BoB without any result …
@ Sonomalass
You may want to download calibre to convert ebook files. You can buy Dahl’s book in Microsoft ereader format (lit file) and use calibre to convert it to PDF or text or html. You don’t need to have a Sony or Kindle to use calibre. I do all of my ebook reading on an old Palm and I use calibre to convert files to palm format (pdb)
When I bought the Cheesemakers book this morning I also noticed that Amazon has the Text to Speech Enabled checkbox in place. I’m happy to say the few books I looked at today did allow the TTS function.
I don’t know how long it will last, but my July Forever release, KNIGHT OF DESIRE, is still selling under the $1.99 Kindle special.
Margaret Mallory
http://www.MargaretMallory.com
Knight of Desire-Available Now
Knight of Pleasure-Dec 2009
Knight of Passion-June 2010
Free ebook from Opal Carew on the Borders romance page.
If anyone’s interested, as of this morning Fictionwise, Books on Board, and Sony are all still running the Forever $1.99 titles from July. Hopefully, they’ll have the $1.99 titles for August available soon.
Just wanted to let you know that my first book, INCOGNITO, (previously released by Grand Central Publishing) was re-released this month and the eBook and Kindle version are both $4 (or less.) I think Grand Central still has it for sale for $9.95, so make sure you look for the edition from LeMoyne House. And if you’ve already read it, please don’t buy it again by mistake because it does have a different cover. :)
Suzanne Allain
Author of INCOGNITO and MR. MALCOLM’S LIST