The Official ebook Reader Thread

Crusader said:
That's one of the 100% rebate books at Fictionwise. With the discount it works out at $15 and you get the rebate... So it's actually a better deal than on the Kindle!
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I know! Unfortunately, I bought it through Amazon when I had the separate US account.

I am still amazed at how much I've managed to save using Fictionwise. I used to work at Exclusive Books while at university, and thought the 30% discount was good :p
 
Definitely! I had some time to kill so I used Take2 to get local paperback prices for the 17 books I got at Fictionwise. Many showed as Out of stock and I used the cheapest price in all cases.

Paperback total at Take2: R1650
eBook total at Fictionwise: R318 ($42.51 x R7.5).
Total savings: R1332!

That means I almost got 50% of the cost of my Opus back in savings.
 
Crusader said:
Yes, it's definitely the publishers that cause the trouble. Can't understand how their reasoning works. We can only hope it gets sorted in the future.

Fictionwise seem to be more than happy to sell if you use the workarounds. The only problem is if you pay via Micropay then you need to use a US proxy the first time you download the file. After that it appears as normal in your bookshelf. With CC payment the proxy step isn't needed.
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Ugh... I'd love the 100% rebate on the new Dawkins book, but I am very uncomfortable having to go through a proxy while entering in my CC details.
 
BCO said:
Ugh... I'd love the 100% rebate on the new Dawkins book, but I am very uncomfortable having to go through a proxy while entering in my CC details.
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As far as I know, you don't need to. You just need to enter a valid billing address in America. I've bought 18 books so far, and no need for a proxy. YMMV.
 
fastesthamster said:
As far as I know, you don't need to. You just need to enter a valid billing address in America. I've bought 18 books so far, and no need for a proxy. YMMV.
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That worked, thanks bud.

*edit* I seem to have messed up with the whole rebate thing tho. Ended up paying R394 for 2 books. I added $25 of Micropay funds, but it seems that this amount didn't relect as a rebate on the books. :(
 
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Yes that's right. No proxy is needed to do payment via CC. You just need to enter a valid US address.

The proxy would only be necessary in some cases when you want to download the book. Some books require the extra step (only 2 I purchased needed it).

Once you bought the book, go to your bookshelf. If there's a 'Geo-restriction' notice instead of a download button you need a proxy. Change your password to a temp one, use hidemyass, go to FW, log in and dl the book. Leave proxy, change your pass back.
 
BCO said:
That worked, thanks bud.

*edit* I seem to have messed up with the whole rebate thing tho. Ended up paying R394 for 2 books. I added $25 of Micropay funds, but it seems that this amount didn't relect as a rebate on the books. :(
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Ouch! I made some mistakes with my first Fictionwise purchase too.

Sorry if this is a little late, but Crusader mentioned the 25% off voucher in the other Kindle thread, jk25. Expires tomorrow, but you can use it as often as you like.

The micropay rebates are added to your account automatically after you purchase. Don't choose to by more micropay dollars.

*edit*
On the plus side you'll be able to get about 20 books with your micropay account now, using the rebates. Try "Your inner fish" by Shubin .
 
@BCO: The Micropay rebate is credited to your account after purchase. The micropay in the cart is when you want to buy some. (NEVER do this. Rather buy any 100% rebate book since you'll basically get the book free) via CC.

Once that transaction is done you can use the Micropay to buy other books. At checkout you'll now have the option to pay via Micropay or CC. Make sure Micropay is selected and checkout normally.
 
fastesthamster said:
Ouch! I made some mistakes with my first Fictionwise purchase too.

Sorry if this is a little late, but Crusader mentioned the 25% off voucher in the other Kindle thread, jk25. Expires tomorrow, but you can use it as often as you like.

The micropay rebates are added to your account automatically after you purchase. Don't choose to by more micropay dollars.

*edit*
On the plus side you'll be able to get about 20 books with your micropay account now, using the rebates. Try "Your inner fish" by Shubin .
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Yeah I used the jk25 code as well. I guess it's nice to have some funds available for future book purchases. So next time I just checkout and don't add CC details or anything, I can just pay with micropay credits, right?
 
BCO said:
Yeah I used the jk25 code as well. I guess it's nice to have some funds available for future book purchases. So next time I just checkout and don't add CC details or anything, I can just pay with micropay credits, right?
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Yup, and with some judicious choices you can milk the last bit in your micropay account for all it's worth. The current 50-60% rebates meant that I could get 3 books with $15, bought them one at a time and used the 25% off. I still have $3 left!

So if you have some books you are tempted to get, now is the time!
 
Here's an example of how to go about it.
BookA is $10 (100% rebate CC only). BookB is $6 (50% rebate) and BookC is $7.

First buy BookA with your CC. You get $10 after rebate. Now you buy BookB with micropay and get $3 back. Now you have $4 (balance) + $3 rebate. Lastly you buy BookC for $7 using the last of your micropay.

With a bit of planning you just bought $23 worth of books for the $10 actual money you spent. Giving a price of $3.33 a book!
 
Awesome, thanks for all the help guys. I downloaded all the books in ereader format. Gotta head out for a couple of hours now, but will report back on how they work on the eSlick later today.
 
Keep us informed. I think I read that the eSlick had some issues with weird line breaks using eReader format. Might be a better option to go for ePub in the future.
 
The Que is going to be something to watch. E-book readers that are based on a plastic substrate can be larger, lighter and more robust. Hopefully it will bring the prices down as well.
 
Yeah I agree...

Even though the Que itself doesn't seem like it will be marketed as a ebook reader, but rather a document replacement.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Yeah I agree...

Even though the Que itself doesn't seem like it will be marketed as a ebook reader, but rather a document replacement.
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Yes. It's not much about the reader itself, but rather the technology behind it. The Que will be squarely aimed at business executives to replace their documents. That translates to it being very expensive... at first.
 
Here's where I read about the eSlick/eReader combo. From Robert J Sawyer's blog.

Biggest single problem:

The implementation of eReader software on the eSlick does an atrocious job of formatting text (and I mean atrocious -- was this beta-tested AT ALL?):

Periods, commas, question marks, and other punctuation wrap on their own to the beginning of new lines:

end of sentence
. Beginning of next

Or this sentence
, which has a comma

really
? That looks odd.
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BCO said:
Meh. Hopefully this will be sorted by the next firmware update. In the meantime, I have a bunch of pdf books to get through.
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They should fix it in time. My Opus had a freezing issue which got fixed with a recent firmware update - which also increased page turn speed and the general interface speed. Unfortunately the firmware also broke the metadata showing in library view, but I can live with that.
 
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