The Kindle (and other e-books) Bargain Thread

And Amazon may have discontinued the Kindle DX. /sadface.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/15/kindle-dx-no-longer-available-from-amazon/

Got an email saying to expect settlement money around Feb 2013. Anyone else get a similar email?

Yep. It's nice that it's auto-added to our accounts, but I doubt I've bought very many books that qualify.

Is there any shortcut method to tell? I bought a lot of books during that period, but I have no idea which company published which book. I guess that, combined with the fact that they arent' even sure of the amount of the return, means I should just be happy with whatever I get back.

If you have them all loaded in Calibre, it lets you sort by publisher, so that would give you a very rough estimate. Just one more reason to manage everything in Calibre...

This just arrived from Baen:

Too bad, but not really surprising. I'm sure a number of the authors will be fine with putting their older works out for free, but I don't blame ones who choose to scale it back.

StoryBundle has a new bundle up for Halloween:

• Riverwatch by Joseph Nassise
• Blaze of Glory by Weston Ochse
• Vicarious by Jon F. Merz
• The Drought by Patricia Fulton
• The Latent Dark by Martin Kee
• Taking on the Dead by Annie Walls

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $9, you get two bonus books, which are:

• Coming of Age by Douglas Clegg
• Resurrection Inc. by Kevin J. Anderson

Does anyone know of a place that sells ebooks where they can't auto-wipe your books off your account? I heard a rather disturbing story about Amazon that makes me want to shop elsewhere...

I'd imagine a third party ereader running non-proprietary epubs from a non-reader-affiliated ebook vendor would be the safe way to go there. Also even if, reading between the lines, the person in that case actually was in violation of TOS (or actually "linked to," as in married to or something a serious violator, like a major pirate or something) the "we can't tell you anything enjoy your wipe and ban" letters from Hal 9000 were pretty off-putting. I've vaguely meant to use calibre to reformat my azw files on general principles - could that be what caused their little freakout here? Since I assume Calibre has to call home to decode them or whatever?

Isn't it against their TOS to allow non-UK residents to use their site? I think there might be more than one side to this story.

I wouldn't recommend something illegal, but this is why scripts exist to remove DRM from Amazon books.

Yeah, your best bet is to strip the DRM from your books or buy from companies that offer their books DRM-free, like Tor.

Not that I would advocate any sort of action because it violates the DCMA, but it doesn't. The files are encrypted using a device key that is unique to the unit it was sent to, but there's no communicating with Amazon to get that ID, it is derived from the serial number of the device. Once the file is decrypted, it looks like any other non-DRM .mobi or .epub file.

All Glory to the DCMA, but thanks.

Thanks, all. Appreciate it.

I got the Calibre plug-ins, did some conversions, and am now trying out iBooks. Or will, as soon as I can relax a bit...

You can now subscribe to a daily email of Kindle deals, most of which have been meh since I did subscribe, but today's is decent: Fast Food Nation is $2.99 today.

So the DX is no longer available. I decided that all the combined benefits of the new PaperWhite outweighed the loss of ideal textbook/PDF size of my DX, so I put my DX up on eBay and ordered a PaperWhite.

The PaperWhite is really, really nice. Since I mostly read fiction now on it the smaller size is superior in all aspects. Much lighter and easier to carry, the integral light finally lets me ditch the numerous LED book lights I've had floating around (and which eat batteries), the screen is really nice, and it feels more responsive overall. I don't think I'm going to miss the size or 3G -- wi-fi is fine for me.

Another StoryBundle is available...

On the Riverside of Promise by Vasileios Kalampakas
Unsettling May Have Occurred by The Editors of Damn Interesting
Hunting in Hell by Maria Violante
The Select by F. Paul Wilson
The Hour Before Dark by Douglas Clegg
The Disciple, Part I by L. Blankenship

Pay $8 or more and get:
The Halo Effect by M.J. Rose
Zombies of the World by Ross Payton

Make sure to adjust the slider. 30% for the bundler? C'mon people, don't give them that much.

This isn't necessarily a bargain, but I couldn't figure out where else to put it.

Tor is reissuing a lot of Gene Wolfe books in ebook format!

my favorite free ebook blogger said she will have to stop listing free ebooks due to amazon's policy changes. she'll keep listing non-free ebooks but i mostly look for the free ones.

anyone know a good free ebook lister, one with some sort of quality control?

Was it Kogrid that you got your list from by any chance?

I also use http://www.bookbub.com/home/ I get a listing of usually 1-2 free books plus a sale or 2 book every day. I used Kogrid but I find the books here to be a bit *better*.

that one looks cool, thanks!

the old one i looked at was http://blog.booksontheknob.org. usually updated with a bunch of free books almost every day, even other sites like kobo and smashwords and for other ereaders.

StoryBundle just put up a Video Game Edition. The initial titles are:

• The Making of Karateka by Jordan Mechner
• Generation Xbox: How Videogames Invaded Hollywood by Jamie Russell
• Kill Screen Magazine Issue 2: Back To School + Issue 6: Change by Kill Screen Editors
• Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson
• Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line by Brendan Keogh
• Confessions of the Game Doctor by Bill Kunkel

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $10, you also get:

• Videogames: In The Beginning by Ralph H. Baer
• The Making Of Prince Of Persia by Jordan Mechner
• 250 Indie Games You Must Play by Mike Rose