Tag: sales

Over 900 Ebooks On Sale!

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Amazon Big Deal 99-cent ebook sale


Better hurry. Amazon’s announced a big sale on ebooks — but it ends Wednesday. “Now through July 27, more than 900 Kindle books are on sale,” they explain on a special web page, “for $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, and $3.99.”

They’re calling the promotion “The Big Deal,” and it’s a nice way to highlight the wide selection of e-books that are now available in Amazon’s Kindle store. Besides fiction, I see celebrity biographies, plus books about cooking, fitness and parenting — and everything from Christian fiction to a satirical e-book called “Stuff Christians Like.” Even if the special prices aren’t available in your country, it’s still a nice way to imagine new things you could be reading on your Kindle. I browsed through the list today, and found some books that I didn’t even know existed!

One of the most-popular ebooks on sale today is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” — which is billed as an “expanded edition” of Jane Austen’s classic 19th-century romance novel. (“85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with ‘ultraviolent zombie mayhem,'” explains the book’s description on Amazon.) “This parody shows that Austen’s novel has remained so powerful over time that even the undead can’t spoil it,” reads another review. But it turns out it’s just one of several strange literary mash-ups that are now available at a reduced in price.

There’s also “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls” — which is billed as a prequel by a new author — as well as his follow-up effort, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After”. Through Wednesday each ebook is available for just 99 cents — and you can also purchase a similar ebook titled “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.” Someone’s even attempted a similar re-working of a famous short story by Franz Kafka — The Metamorphosis — by changing its plot so the protagonist turns not into an insect, but a cat. Its title? The Meowmorphosis. (And apparently there’s even a zombie ebook for children, titled “That’s Not Your Mommy Anymore: A Zombie Tale”…)

I’m not the only one who’s excited about the sale. “Just got my Kindle a few days ago, so the timing is perfect…” read one comment on Facebook. In fact, when Amazon announced the special prices, 538 different people indicated that they liked the deal (by pressing Facebook’s “Like” icon) — and another 101 left comments. “At $0.99, it is a perfect opportunity to try new authors,” read another comment, which added “I have found several new authors to read…”

It looks like there’s price discounts on nearly a thousand ebooks. (The best-seller list ends at #972…) But some of the ebooks are just enhanced editions where the text is already available elsewhere as a free e-book. For example, one of the special deals touts the classic Zane Grey western — “Riders of the Purple Sage” — for just $2.99, though the work is now in the public domain, and you can already find a free edition elsewhere in the Kindle store. There’s also an audio/video-enhanced version of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin for $1.99 — though if you’re looking for just the text, a free edition is also available.

I was surprised to find another ebook available for free — an indie biography (with a lot of pictures) called The Beatles: Fifty Fabulous Years by Les Krantz and Robert Rodriguez. But that just goes to show how much fun I had browsing through all of the sale-priced ebooks today. I discovered that even Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, has a funny ebook available at a special sales price, called “Your Movie Sucks” — a collection of his sharpest reviews, now available for just $1.99. And for $1.99, you can also read “Day of the Triffids” – the classic science fiction novel-turned movie that was immortalized forever in the opening song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

There’s also two food-related books seemed interesting. One was “The I Love Trader Joe’s Cookbook: More than 150 Delicious Recipes Using Only Foods from the World’s Greatest Grocery Store” — specially-priced at just $2.99. And for ketchup lovers, there’s even “H. J. Heinz: A Biography” for only $3.99.

So what other interesting ebooks are on sale today in Amazon’s Kindle Store?

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland ($2.99)
Kindle 3 For Dummies ($3.99)
The Art of War by Sun Tzu ($2.99)
The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (99 cents)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey ($5.99)
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ($5.99)
Old Yeller – $1.99
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary ($3.99)
Bermuda Shorts by James Patterson – $4.99
Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs – $3.79
Wuthering Heights: The Wild and Wanton Edition ($2.99)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ($3.99)

Click here for a complete list

Free Shipping on Kindles – and Other Father’s Day Deals!

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Free two-day holiday shipping on Kindle as a Father's Day gift

For the next two days, Amazon’s offering a special deal on new Kindles — free two-day shipping! They’re hoping to encourage customers to give Kindles as a last-minute Father’s Day gift, and they’ve extended this offer to any new model — the Kindle 3 (both the WiFi and 3G) versions, the cheaper Kindle with Special Offers, and even the Kindle DX. Since it’s an American holiday, the offer applies only in the (continental) United States, and of course it expires at midnight on Friday (Pacific Daylight Time). But it’s just one of several specials that Amazon’s offering for Father’s Day .

I was really impressed by some of the other new things that Amazon’s discounted for their countdown to the big Sunday holiday. For example, this week (through Friday) it’s “High-Def Week” in Amazon’s
“Gold Box” deals area. They’re discounting some great gift items — both high-definition video and related electronics — including HDTVs, video camera, Blu-Ray Players (plus movies and TV shows), and even video games! The free shipping on Kindles was sponsored by DeWalt — the Maryland-based manufacturer of power tools. But Amazon’s got some special offers all their own.

Every day at noon (Seattle time), Amazon reveals another big discount as their “deal of the day.” Monday it was an LCD TV screen, and for Wednesday it’s 28% off on a wearable, wide-angle (and high-definition) camera. On Thursday they’ve even slashed the price on a Blu-Ray box set of the first six Star Trek movies (which includes a bonus “Captain’s Summit” disc where actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy meet their counterparts from the “Next Generation” series — Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes).

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock

And the last deal of the week is a set of tiny high-performance speakers from Mirage…

But I’m also really tempted by some of the other gadgets Amazon’s offering in their special “lightning deals” area. Every day for a few hours, a limited quantity of a certain item is sold at a steep discount — while Amazon tracks exactly how many seconds are left for the offer, and what percentage of the item has already been sold! Wednesday morning they sold an HD Blu-ray disc player for just $99, plus a 160-gigabyte PlayStation 3 for just $199.

It’s really got me wondering what they’re going to put on sale for Thursday and Friday!

New 50% discounts at Amazon.com!

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50% off

I got a surprise when I visited Amazon.com this weekend. In orange letters, they informed me they were now were offering discounts of up to 50% off on “selected Father’s Day” gifts. (For a shortcut, just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/AmazonFathersDay). Sure enough, there’s gift-friendly categories like Small Appliances and Power Tools (as well as watches, cologne, and wallets). But there were discounts on items I could actually use myself, like a toaster over, a hand-held blender, a coffeemaker and popcorn popper!

Of course, their #1 best-selling gift item is still the Kindle (Amazon explains in big letters at the top of the page.) But there’s also special offers on DVDs and Blu-ray discs. (Another shortcut: tinyurl.com/AmazonBlurayDeals.) For example, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is just $7.99 on a Blu-Ray disc (or $10.49 as a DVD), and The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray is just $10.99 (or $7.47 for a DVD). Twilight: Eclipse is just $7.45. Caddyshack is just $4.99 (or $8.49 on Blu-Ray), and John Wayne’s version of True Grit is just $7.99.

It was like Amazon.com had suddenly become some kind of crazy bargain emporium. They’ve slashed the price on a Coleman Grill from $179.99 to just $111.26. There were 25% off deals on another classic gift item — an electric razor. And then I discovered that you can also save up to 50% every day in your own neighborhood — through a newly-launched service called “AmazonLocal”.

Amazon launched the service on Thursday by offering everyone in Boise a 50% discount on ice cream, and then a 50% discount the next day on go-kart racing! (“[W]e liked the idea of starting in a city that embraces fun,” Amazon told a local newspaper.) If you’d like to try the service yourself, just point your browser to amazon.com/local and then enter your Zip Code. Amazon promises you’ll save “at least 50% on local restaurants, spas, entertainment, and more,” with special offers that are delivered daily to your e-mail address.

Currently there are no offers available for my town, but hopefully Amazon will have some local discounts soon. And maybe someday, they’ll even get around to offering a discount on the Kindle!

Barrons says Amazon “is Smoking”

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Amazon Kindle yearly sales figures by Barrons analyst

What do things look like for Amazon — both now, and in the future? Today two technology analysts delivered their verdict: “Amazon is Smoking with Kindle”. That’s the headline at Barrons.com, in their “Hot Research” column, highlighting a report by Stan Velikov and Sandeep Aggarwal. They’re predicting that the number of Kindles Amazon sells in 2012 will be more than double the number of Kindles that they sold just last year — and that for the next 12 months, Amazon’s Kindle sales will increase by more than 50%.

“In our view,” the two analysts write, “Kindle remains the best ebook reader in the market and competition is unable to dent its market share.” They predict that over the next year Amazon will spend more money on Kindle advertising — and they think it’s a good idea, arguing that Amazon is just “strengthening its competitive moats.” They’ve also upgraded their past estimates for Amazon’s sales of the Kindle. For last year they now believe that Amazon sold a whopping 6.1 million Kindles, earning them $3.31 billion in Kindle-related revenues. Yet for this year, Barrons estimates that Amazon will sell more than 50% more Kindles than last year — earning revenues of $5.53 billion by selling another 9.3 million Kindles by the end of the year!

But what’s even more interesting is that comes out to an average of more than $500 per Kindle! I’m not sure what to make of those numbers — even if you remember that the Kindle 2 cost $260 for the first half of 2010. They’re still predicting an even higher average revenue of $594 per Kindle in 2011, when most Kindles will be much cheaper. (The Kindle 3G costs just $189, and there’s also the cheaper $139 model). It seemed like they’re estimating that the average Kindle owner spends at least $300 a year purchasing ebooks — until I remembered remember that the larger Kindle DX costs $379. But even if half the Kindles purchased were the more expensive Kindle DX, Barrons is still estimating that the average Kindle owner spends a lot of money on ebooks — about $240 apiece. I guess that’s possible — that’s $20 a month, or about two $9.99 books every month. And of course, the price of ebooks is also rising, which seems to be reflected in their estimates for the future.

So what happens in 2012? Barrons predicts that 12.5 million Kindles will be sold! (That’s twice as many as in 2010, now earning Amazon another $7.96 billion in revenue.) And these predictions are especially significant, because Barrons is the official newspaper of Dow Jones & Company (which also publishes the Wall Street Journal). In fact, Clarence W. Barron, the man the newspaper is named after, is considered “the founder of modern financial journalism,” according to Wikipedia. Barrons is publishing research from an investment firm, so it’s not the official opinion of Barrons.com.

But it’s still an authoritative prediction that Amazon’s Kindle sales…are smoking!

Amazon yearly Kindle sales (estimate by Barrons)