Kobo Book Sale - Hundreds of Free Books

Kobobooks has a great coupon, valid thru midnight tonight that is good for $3 off any book that is not an Agency book (you'll get an error message that the code has expired or isn't valid if you try it on one of these, such as anything from the publisher Penguin). So far, I've seen that nov18ww3, nov18us3 and nov18ca3 can be used interchangeably for this discount.

There is no limit to how many times you can use it and if the book you want is under three dollars, it ends up being free. For example, if you search for Samhain books, I found 83 books under that $3 limit. Similarly, a search on Harlequin turned up 155 such titles. Random House is another publisher with a number of books that qualify, with a number under three dollars. The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group has eight titles that qualify, and Kensington has over a dozen as well.

You can search for any publisher name in the search box at Kobo, although you don't always get only books by that publisher, then sort by price. You may also want to check out their Free eBook List, if you haven't checked them out before, to see if there are one or two you don't have already.

If you find a book that is more than $12, you might want to try the coupon code Save25Kobo, which works with some of the NYT bestsellers (thru 12/15). If you are a true night owl, you can pick up Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything for $8.89 tonight, from 10PM to 8AM. I don't know what happens at 10PM, but right now you can use the $3 off coupon code, so I suspect when the price drops later tonight, that will still work, yielding an effective price of $5.89.

Note that all Kobo books are in EPUB format and have DRM added, even the Samhain titles that are generally DRM-free at B&N. What that means is that you can't read these on your Kindle, but they can be read on the Sony, nook and Kobo ereaders or on your PC, Mac or iPad/iPhone using one of several different apps.

Important Tip: Be sure to click on Apply after entering your promo code and verify that the amount shown above the Buy Now button is $0.00, before clicking!

The only snag I've run into at Kobo is that, due to their being a Canadian company, some US credit card companies may not let their charges go thru. You may have to contact them to get them to authorize the charges or use another card. Also, some banks and credit card companies (although not all) may charge you a money exchange fee. So far, you can't set up a gift certificate there, so you may want to just try a few charges and see how it goes. The free books, whether free before or after the coupon code, will only require the account be set up and there shouldn't be any actual activity on your card.

Starbucks Share - B1G1F Holiday Drinks

I am posting this while sitting in my local Starbucks, sipping my free Caramel Brulee Latte, typing on the Kensington KeyFolio Bluetooth Keyboard and Case for iPad, Black, K39294US keyboard that I bought for my iPad. I've tried posting on the iPad before, but without a keyboard, it was an exercise in futility. I still make a few more typos than usual, but the keyboard actually works quite well (most of my errors are due to the slightly smaller size and the MAC layout).

But, you ask, how about that free latte? It's due to Starbuck's Share program that runs thru Sunday, Nov 21: buy any of their Holiday Classics drinks and get another free, between 2PM and 5PM. I've also been trying out their Bookish Reading Club program, which allows you to read one of four books while in the store (iPad, ipod Touch, smart-phones or PC/mac only), but it has a few issues to resolve before it's ready for prime time (and I hope they are fixed by next week, as I really want to read the book I'll tell you about on the 23rd. This week, the only one I really wanted to read was Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love ($9.99 Kindle), but despite trying two days ago and again today, all I get is a content error message. I was able to open Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories ($14.99 Kindle). It's still available to read for the next two weeks, but it's so big I doubt I'll get thru it (especially since I'm looking forward to next week's book). Also, be sure to bring an Apple device or a PC notebook/netbook. I could open Atlantic on my Droid phone, but only see one blank page and no navigation worked (Oogy just showed the same content error message I got on the iPad and netbook). You can actually get as far as the "Read" button with the Kindles browser, but the reading app doesn't work (not that I thought it would).

Sudoku Returns to Kindle Store

Sudoku ($3.99), by Electronic Arts Inc., has returned to the Kindle store. After I posted this a couple of days ago, only four of you managed to buy it before it was yanked from the store. Looks like there is some problem with the original version, as when I checked it today, there is now an update available to versions 1.1 (free for those who have already purchased it). I have no idea what it "fixes" and had absolutely no problems when I played it on my K3. I especially like the notes feature on the Kindle version -- much easier than using a pencil or pen and having to erase or mark thru your notes. I haven't played the newspaper mode, but with so many variations that will be there between the classic and random games, I'm not sure I'd ever bother. Although, if you have multiple Kindles in the family, you could all load up the same game and make it a race to see who finishes first!

Book Description
Play Sudoku on Kindle - anytime, anywhere.

EA Sudoku contains thousands of built-in puzzles, as well as the ability to enter and play a puzzle from your favorite newspaper or magazine in "Newspaper" mode.

With five difficulty levels from "Easy" to "Insane," Sudoku offers plenty of fun for Sudoku players of all skill levels. Built-in game features let you make "Notes," "Undo" moves, and apply "Error Checking." If you get stuck, you can use the "Hints" feature to fill out a cell for you, or use "AutoFill" to display the notes on all open cells on the game board. You can even track your game stats to see how you progress over time.

EA Sudoku lets you exercise your mind in a fun way.

Free Book (PDF) - Formera

A PDF version of Formera Volume 1 ($9.95 Paperback), by Andrew Dobson (Author, Illustrator), can downloaded for free from Wowio's Facebook page. You'll have to have a Facebook account, "Like" them on Facebook, then click on their Offer tab. This is a graphic novel and is 57 pages in the PDF, although the print edition claims 186. Since there are only two volumes in paper and apparently 5 as ebooks from Wowio, combined with the pagecount discrepancy, I'm assuming that you'd need about two ebooks to equal the one paper volume that they linked to at the end.

Book Description
A young boy named Darian discovers he's ended up on the planet Formera and his only companion is a girl named Keisha that speaks an unknown language. A mysterious and powerful stranger seeks to put an end to Darian's search for home and Keisha must find a way to protect her new friend.

Click HERE to get the free book. You'll need a Facebook account and you'll need to click that you Like them first. If you've done that in the past, you'll see the download link right away and need do nothing extra.

Using the Kindle Book Gift Feature

First, I've already seen reports that you can't get around geographic restrictions using the Kindle Book Gift feature. In fact, it's worse than usual, as both the giver and the recipient must both reside in an area where the book can be purchased.

As you have probably guessed, I get a number of books for review (not all of which make it into the blog) and now that Amazon has added this feature, I've added this as an option for submitting a review copy. Congratulations to Dawn McCullough-White, who, as the first author to submit a review copy this way, gets her book, Cameo the Assassin ($0.99), featured in this post! I haven't had a chance to even crack them open (she sent both in the series; Cameo and the Highwayman is $2.99), but have seen at least one glowing review of the second in the series.

So, from the recipient side, here's how it works. First, you get an email from Amazon, at the address to which the gift was sent:

There's not a lot to it - click on the button to get your book. This takes you to Amazon, where you'll need to log in (if you are not, already). You can be logged into any account; in my case, my default account uses a completely different address than the one to which the gift was sent (which answers one of my previous questions). At Amazon, you'll once again see the giver's name and the message that they typed in when they sent the gift. Since I know you could just take the amount as a gift certificate, I hunted around the page to find that option, without success. So, I clicked on the "How does this work" link and this is the page that resulted:

The option is there to get a credit (or even return the money to the giver, according to the original announcement), but you have to contact Customer Service by email or phone (at least, for now) to do so. Which is exactly what you would have to do if that hardback showed up on your doorstep in the smiling brown box. This extra step should cut down on the number of gift books that are declined.

All in all, I spent a lot more time writing this post and capturing the images than it took to get the book on my Kindle. The total process from receipt of the email to reading on the Kindle is under a minute - two clicks and then checking the home page of the Kindle to find the book already waiting.

My biggest question? How many extra books do you think Amazon will sell today, just from people trying out this feature? For those that have sent a gift, what options would you like (timed delivery, perhaps?). What about those who have received a gift book? What do you think of the process?