For your Kindle here are some great Kindle bundle deals -
- Alex Kava’s Maggie O’Dell Bundle by Alex Kava. Rated 5 stars on 4 reviews. Price: $18. Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense. It’s $2 each for books that are around $5 each and rated 4 stars on average. Her 2 latest novels (one a preorder) are $9.99 and $14.82 so getting 6 Maggie O’Dell novels for $18.12 is a steal.
A thrilling collection of Alex Kava’s five Maggie O’Dell novels - A Perfect Evil, Split Second, The Soul Catcher, At the Stroke of Madness, and A Necessary Evil. Plus a bonus title, One False Move.
- Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove Series by Debbie Macomber. Price: $15.69. Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance. It’s amusing to see this tagged as ‘outrageous kindle price’ given it’s a huge steal at around $2.50 per book. Rated 4 stars on 7 reviews. The last 4 books in the series are available in a $9.99 bundle and lots of Debbie Macomber’s books are available at great prices. A lot of credit to her for really embracing low prices and the Kindle.
Enjoy the first six novels of Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove series in one collection, for one low price! Bundle includes 16 Lighthouse Road, 204 Rosewood Lane, 311 Pelican Court, 44 Cranberry Point, 50 Harbor Street, and 6 Rainier Drive.
- Lords of the Underworld Bundle by Gena Showalter. Price: $9.99. Genre: Romance, Fantasy & Futuristic, Paranormal Romance. Rated 4.5 stars on 16 reviews.
They dared to open Pandora’s Box, and now must carry an eternal curse. New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter’s incredible new paranormal series begins in a remote fortress in Budapest, where six immortal warriors, each more dangerously seductive than the last, are bound by an ancient curse none has been able to break.
Journey through this dark and sensual world, where the line between good and evil blurs and true love is put to the ultimate test. Bundle includes: The Darkest Fire, The Darkest Night, The Darkest Kiss and The Darkest Pleasure.
- The Lady Julia Grey Bundle by Deanna Raybourn. Price: $9.99. Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Genre Fiction. Rated 4.5 stars on 10 reviews. As multiple reviewers put it – three great books for the price of one. This has a beautiful cover though my bias should be obvious.
“To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching on the floor.”
Starting with her husband’s sudden death, Lady Julia Grey is swept into a world of mystery and deceit. It is also the world of the enigmatic and maddeningly attractive private investigator Nicholas Brisbane…
From the extravagant world of Victorian aristocrats to the wild moors of Yorkshire, experience the intrigue and romance of all three Lady Julia Grey mysteries by RITA Award-winning author Deanna Raybourn, now available in one convenient download.
Bundle includes: Silent in the Grave, Silent in the Sanctuary and Silent on the Moor.
- The Complete Father Brown Mysteries by G. K. Chesterton. Price: $1.50. Genre: Classics, Mystery, Fiction. Rated 4.5 stars on 2 reviews. You could probably find these for free on public domain sites.
Through five books armchair sleuths have followed the frumpy little priest through a jubilee of stories, near half a hundred delicious mysteries perfectly suited to lazy mornings, warm afternoons — or dark and stormy nights.
Chesterton’s plots never fail to satisfy his readers, and in this collection of the entire original Father Brown library you will find hours of enjoyment. Chesterton never stooped to mere violence to advance his stories, making this collection as suitable for younger mystery fans as it is for older fans
Thanks to the Kindle owners at the official Kindle forum who’ve been adding these to the Discounted Books thread.
Kindle Bundles are very cool
Not sure how all the kindle bundle deals have totally escaped my attention. There are some real gems.
If you’d like more bundles the Kindle Store has some good Kindle bundle deals including bundles featuring Gena Showalter, Zoe Archer, Susan Mallery, and Linda Lael Miller. Just search for ‘bundle’ and sort by ‘Bestselling’.
Kindle Thoughts for a Slow Sunday Night
It’s about time some of the software improvements in Kindle 3 made it to the Kindle 2. Doubly true for the Kindle DX 2.
What’s Amazon going to pull out of its hat for Christmas – surely it must have some improvements planned. Perhaps something to steal back attention from Nook Color.
Kindle Black Friday – Will this be the first time Amazon does something for Black Friday?
Whoever manages to make the first intelligent Kindle Store ‘Jeeves/Friendly Neighbourhood Bookstore Owner’ hybrid in software form will make a huge killing.
ReadWriteWeb makes a mess of its paper vs ebook comparison
ReadWriteWeb thinks that social highlighting, notes, and the ability to tweet quotes are amongst the top 5 advantages ebooks have over paper books. That’s remarkably myopic and exactly what you’d expect from a tech blog. At least it included Search (definitely a top 5 benefit) and Dictionary look-up (probably a Top 10 benefit) in the top 5.
It also thinks the top 2 advantages paper books have over ebooks are feel and packaging. Really?
If the top two advantages your product has over the competition are feel and packaging you better figure out something quick – or you could always try and hire Don Draper.
Does this indie author have a valid complaint?
Stephen Prospario feels he’s being let down by the lack of Kindle Store Discoverability.
He claims that 82% of people who visit his book page buy his book and the claim holds up – it’s actually 83%. He also has a 5 star rating across 25 reviews.
Do you think his book is worth it?
Dream War by Stephen Prospario. Price: $2.99. Genre: Science Fiction, High Tech Thriller, Dream a Little Dream.
Decades ago, the CIA developed the technology to enter our dreams and extract information. It was just a matter of time before they took things a little too far…
Review courtesy TMoney:
With all the copycat novels and “follow the leader”, it’s rare to find unique perspectives and stories in fantasy/science fiction these days. The world created in Dream War looks a lot like our own, it even shares some of our history, but it’s just a bit different in ways that are wildly creative and entertaining. This book pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the last page. And even then you don’t want to leave the characters that you’ve come to know and care about.
Review courtesy Sonya:
If you liked Inception or are interested in dreams, or science fiction, this book is for you.
Pricing the book at $1 would help. It’s so puzzling to see indie authors stick to $2.99 – Why would they pick $2 royalties on zero sales and anonymity over going with a $1 offer?
It’s hard to commit to an indie author at $3 – even with glowing reviews. It does, however, seem strange that a book with such glowing reviews is at Sales Rank #17,616.
Filed under: free books Tagged: | kindle book deals, kindle bundle
You ask: “It’s so puzzling to see indie authors stick to $2.99 – Why would they pick $2 royalties on zero sales and anonymity over going with a $1 offer?”
I can think of a few reasons:
1.) Many indie authors found we made more at $2.99 (qualifying for 70% royalties) than at $0.99 (35%). So long as we sell more than 1/6th as many books, we come out ahead at $2.99.
2.) There’s essentially no chance to make anything approaching a living wage (or even hitting the poverty line) at 35 cents per copy. You’d have to sell 100,000 copies a year — which MAYBE one indie author on the planet is doing — just to make $35K a year, before taxes and expenses. Better to just buy a lottery ticket: cheaper, higher chance of winning, better payout, and way less work.
3.) Amazon knows more about selling e-books than any other company on the planet. If they think $2.99 – $9.99 is the prime price range for e-books (and are trying to steer authors into that range), then I trust their experience and knowledge.
Thanks for the comment – those are good arguments. However, Amazon’s intention (to preserve the price of ebooks) and indie authors’ intentions (to get a deal, to get recognition, to get a fanbase) aren’t exactly the same.
Amazon doesn’t necessarily know what works for indie authors.
Publishers know most about producing bestsellers – that didn’t save them from ebooks.
All the authors that are getting deals are authors publishing at $1. It’s a relative thing. Off the top of my head can’t think of a single indie author who got a deal who didn’t have a $1 book.
Oh, I don’t think Amazon’s goal is to make sure I can pay rent from my book sales. But I do think they have an interest in finding the “sweet spot” for pricing, since the more their authors earn, the more they earn. I think they have an interest in creating a profitable, self-sustaining e-book marketplace that’s fair for authors and readers (and I consider their price range pretty fair from both perspectives).
I also think that, if there are too many free and 99 cent books, then it will be difficult or impossible for the vast majority of authors or publishers to make a living — tragedy of the commons, if you will. To the extent those “loss leaders” work — for authors with enough books to make money on later books in the series — they only work because they are limited. When almost all the books are free or under $1, people won’t bother with $3-$10 books. Of course, when all the books are that cheap, it stops working as a promotional tactic, too.
And, like I said, I know for a fact that the math simply doesn’t work at 35 cents royalty per copy. Recognition and fanbase is nice, but if it doesn’t put food on the table, it’s back to the day jobs and way fewer good books get written. Aside from a statistically insignificant number of outliers, the “give stuff away for free and you’ll somehow make money later” model doesn’t work.
At $0.99, I sold over 1,000 e-books a month for 6 months, but I never approached earning minimum wage. And I was consistently in the Top 500 – 1,000, so I’m sure most others would have killed to do even that well.
As for Amazon Encore picking up authors, I know they picked up Konrath when he was priced at $2.99, and I’m pretty sure there are several others (like Karen McQuestion) who were at least $1.99 or $2.99. And, once they’re picked up, Amazon prices pretty much all their Encore books at $2.99.