discount-books-online-blog

Kindle For Christmas: Where To Get Books For It Though?

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:19:13 +0100

The Kindle is burning up the charts for electronic gifts this Christmas, but where can you get books for someone getting them Kindle? Is there anywhere you can find an online books discount for these popular items? The variety of options is quite overwhelming, so multiple services have been created to help you find the best deals available at any given time. Check these "aggregator" sites before going elsewhere to save yourself time and money; many times they have exactly what you are looking for during gift times! When looking for discount online books, don't get suckered into a second-tier website. If they look like they fly under the radar, they likely are! Aggregator sites sometimes are not style centric, but the sites that they promote and that you will give your credit card to should be 100% legit. SSL encryption, "Security Check" style verification services, a shopping cart, and other indicators will help to show you whether the site is legit or not. If you are unsure about a site, don't get risky! When you buy your online discount books, you'll have to wait to deliver it until Christmas day, but no worries! You'll have ownership of your e-book and can deliver it to the Kindle whenever you want! What kind of book to get your loved one? Well, you can go two ways. You can buy them a book you know they will like, one that fits their current reading list. Or you can buy for the "future" and buy something that you think they might be able to grow through, at some point in the future. While many times we focus on what a person will enjoy on the day of opening the present, the other way of thinking about presents is to examine what this present may do for someone if they choose to use it. You have the ability to choose any book you want for them, and while they may not read it right away, they may pick it up when their perspective has changed! Whatever book you may get your loved ones this holiday season, there are tons of great options of where to get discount books online!

When Will We Turn The Volume Down? Screamers Making Populism.

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:25:15 +0100

The ubiquity of the New York Times Bestseller list and its kin make instant winners out of their powerful voice and subsequent syndication. But what about the publishing companies? How do they choose what books to feature and which ones to throw on the discount books list? This is all important first step in the making of a popular book writer, but what are publishers looking for? Without delving into specifics, publishers are looking for a product that they believe will become popular. But we're no closer to any sort of answer, just a circle of questions. Featured works become popular, get increased attention as they sell more books, and over time become stalwarts of the book industry. So what makes any piece of work something that will become popular? From music to books, art to wall coverings, industry leaders know what will make a popular product well before it reaches the shelf. While they are from time to wrong, they have a very good idea of what the "public at large" will buy. But what do they see that we are not able to see? How do these leaders know which books should be discount paperback books, and which should be featured hardbacks? Its obvious that they are able to see that essence that allows a piece of work to be able to connect to a world of highly different individuals that have quite varied reasons for liking a product. So how can they understand what such varied groups of individuals will want to see in a particular product line? The simplest way to define the general idea behind this populism can be found in the principles of marketing. This is yet another field in which the leaders know how the public will react to images and words without ever having to do the expensive practice of "market research". But we're still walking in circles here, and have come no closer to the answer of how industry leaders in any field are able to "know" whether a product will sell well or not, whether a book will be another one of the many discount books online The reality is that the reasons behind "populism" have changed over time and location as cultures themselves have changed. So lets take our current situation as a talisman to be able to see the past and future more clearly. In our current cultural environment, intensity rules the day. Books with over the top titles and content, music with words and beats that shove emotion on your soul, and marketing that "forces" you to click it rule the day. Our cultural constructs demand that we yell at each other to be heard, and this construct can be seen most obviously in our most popular works of the day. To say that this or that will be popular is so far the place of a few industry leaders, but if other underlying trends latent in our society begin to take over the dominate ones today, we may see even this elitist trend start to decline in favor of a world where more than a small group of aristocrats tell the rest of the world what it will like on this day.

What To Get For That Picky Someone?

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:14:52 +0100

You have one on your list; that person that is just impossible to shop for! Either they've got it all, or just don't seem to want anything; and either way they are making your life hard this holiday season!

So what to do for these difficult people?! I'll walk you quickly through how you can easily pick a great present for your special person!

Many times we make it too hard on ourselves. You might be trying to be too creative with gifts when all the person would really want is a fun book or movie that they haven't seen yet. How many people do you know don't like either movies or books? That's gotta be a mighty short list indeed!

Movies can be pretty easy actually; ask if you can borrow a movie and take a long look through their collection! Talk lightly about their movies, what they like, what they don't really like, and maybe they'll even pop out with a movie that they haven't seen yet! Keep the conversation light, talk about your own interests as well, and heck they might even get some information out of you as well for their gifts for you!

And to make sure you've got enough for after the holidays, make sure to buy on discount! If you don't buy discount DVDs, you'll just be spending more for the same movie!

Books can be a little more difficult, simply because people can be a bit "hidey" about their book collection. If it is a book that is out of the norm, they might find a nook for it to hide in. So you might not be able to find out much about a person's book collection without just straight asking them about their books. You'll want to be on close terms with this person, as again, people's book selections can be quite a personal subject.

Keep your mind open when it comes to buying books, and don't get caught in the "I've bought here before" trap! Make sure you are getting a good deal and buy discount online books or discount paperback books. You'll kick yourself afterwards for spending more on the same book for your loved one!

And if these two fail, think about music! And if your "difficult someone" doesn't like books, movies, or music, you really are in trouble! These basics really define many people's lives and comfort zones, so if they don't like these types of media, they may not have that many interests at all!

The lesson? Don't make this too hard! You know tons about the people in your life already, and if you are even 90% close to a great gift, you will have done far better than generic gift cards or lame card sending. Get a cool movie, great LP, or a book they've been wanting; and you'll all have a very satisfying Holiday season!

Keep An Extra Coin In Your Pocket And Buy Your Books On Cyber Monday!

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:40:11 +0100

The whole retail world seems to be waiting. Waiting for a couple huge buying days that will kick off the holiday season. Black Friday is the store front version of the big day, and Cyber Monday is the online version. But are these great days to pick up your holiday gifts?

In a word, yes. These two days are fantastic opportunities to get some of the biggest days of the year, and to do so well before the big rush starts around Christmas time. If you aren't into pushing yourself through the door right before Christmas, then Cyber Monday is for you.

But what kind of gift is good to give your loved ones? The best gift to give is one you can open again and again. So of course a book is the best gift you can ever give!

What's great in today's world is how easy it is to find discount books online. You can search through all sorts of sites, and find wonderful deals on books online that could really affect your loved ones for years to come. Even if your book isn't opened the day or even the year that you gave it, it could very easily make a huge impression on them over time.

Remember that your gift can be opened again and again, so make sure you buy something that puts good stuff in their lives! While book sellers would have you believe that there is no difference between books, you should know better.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to read wholly, and with diligence and attention." Sir Frances Bacon

So now that you know that you want to buy your loved ones some discount books, go out and do it!

White Pages Now Going To Be "On Demand" Only

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:04:41 +0100

The "White Pages" used to be the only place that you could find your neighbor's phone number, but in the digital age, the "White Pages" have become an atavistic approach to finding phone numbers. And while the companies putting out these books haven't yet discontinued their service, they are looking at ways to pull down the extreme cost of producing and distributing these books.

One way that companies are trying to eliminate excess liability is to drop the amount of books made. AT&T is trying a new method of dropping their liabilities by making their "White Pages" only available when customers request them.

In the Houston area alone AT&T printed 728000 copies in 2009, and with the drop in demand for advertisers for all print models, it's obviously a losing proposition. This is not to mention the amount of paper used just to produce these huge books that are rarely used anymore.

So what's the use of producing these books at all?

For those from the older generation this is the primary way that they look for phone numbers, and unless there is a quantum leap in the way that these people look for information, this old style of looking for information will continue to be a part of the economy.

But as any of these people can attest to, the "Yellow Pages" are getting harder and harder to find any information in these books as less companies have any desire to advertise their services in this outmoded model. While they have consistently dropped the price to advertise in these books, there is still a marked drop in demand year after year.

Is there any future for these books? Could they even find a way to completely shift the model and start to sell them as discount books? Now that companies like Yellow Book are going online, they have started to move themselves into a model that they are completely unfamiliar with, and has far reaching consequences.

The sad reality for many of these companies is that their business model is simply outdated and will be quickly replaced by new services from the huge social networks like Facebook and Twitter. These new models completely encompass all parts of business and personal life, and are starting to out mode a variety of models of business.

So while the old services attempt to stay up with the pace of digital change, the few models that seem to be holding up is buying discount books online. It's possible that these old services might be able to shift themselves into the new millennia by using this new model, but its quite likely that they will go the way of the dodo as the world moves quickly into a new paradigm.

Should We Be Concerned About Paperback Books Going Away?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:07:46 +0100

As the world marches forward to the future, we are definitely losing some pieces of our past. Book sales are dropping almost daily with the prevalence of e-books with no sign of the trend reversing. This looks to be a simple fact of our "progress" but should we be excited, or abhorred at the way things are going?

Questions like these don't have easy answers, but let's explore the question together and we can come to our own conclusions.

Paperback books and hardcover books so far have a completely lock on one side of the coin; that they can be shared with friends and neighbors easily. But if we were to fix this issue by allowing for e-books to be "shared" with those around us, would this be the deciding factor?

On the other side, e-books are far more efficient in terms of physical ability to take them world wide. Ever thought of taking a few books on a flight and realized that the space needed and weight they add would be a little ridiculous? E-books are easily transportable on your laptop, smartphone, or electronic book reader allowing you to take a whole library with you on any trip.

Another point in the corner of the e-book world is that many times it is possible to buy discount books online for much cheaper than their paper counterparts. This only makes sense as eliminating the physical form of a book eliminates a huge amount of cost.

But what about the little things that make a book amazing? The touch of the pages, paper that doesn't shoot light in your eyes but lightly reflects the light you add, even the smell of a book; none of these can be replicated in a electronic form.

So should we have to choose, or should we just take stock of the goods and bads of all forms of these different ways to store a text? I guess I might be making a rhetorical question, but maybe you have a different opinion.

Let us know! Do you think that the world is still big enough for paperback books, hardcover books, and e-books; or are we moving to a day when buying paperback books online is as "old school" as bell bottoms?

Arab World Lacking Basic Texts; Lack Of Translators And Interest To Blame

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:07:26 +0100

A recent study done by the United Nations found that only 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years, which is roughly the same as the amount of texts translated in Spain last year alone.

The biggest obstacles to the translation of Western texts into Arabic is a lack of available translators as well as a significant lack of interest in any books that are not spiritual.

Although to many this may seem like a serious error in the culture of any people, a lack of want for outside information, this kind of thinking must be counterbalanced by other thoughts. An easy way to understand the lack of want for Western texts is that these people do not want their culture tainted by any outside forces.

This used to be a well practiced form of culture conditioning; including the closing of borders, closing of thought patterns, closing of anything that would come in from the "outside world". Tibet and Nepal were both completely closed to outsiders until recent times, and while some would argue that this is a backwards way to live, I would tend to disagree as a principle.

While the principle is decidedly xenophobic in nature, its purpose seems well beyond simple prejudice. A people attempting to sustain their culture believe in their culture, their way of life and wish for it to stay this way.

While Western thinking demands a completely open attitude towards books and literature, these people have decided that their texts are entirely enough for their own culture. To think that because a people do not have the desire to be able to purchase discount books online doesn't mean they are a backward people, it simply means they are a different people.

The efficacy of this type of thinking can be debated, but I believe all people can understand at least a portion of this thinking. Americans are well known xenophobes, again for the simple reason that they love their culture and would rather it stay the same.

So while the Arab world does not have access to Western texts, they apparently have almost no demand for such things simply because they believe their culture to be full and complete without adding another's culture to it.

This simple fact alone would explain much in why Western and Arabic nations seem so far removed from each other. The latent culture gap ensures that although we may understand each other as human beings, we may never understand each other as the cultural gap is not shrinking, but growing.

UNICEF Program To Help Poor Children In Zimbabwe Hits Logistical Wall

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:07:16 +0100

The UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) book distribution program in Zimbabwe has come up against a wall of logistical issues that are preventing 13 million books from reaching the hands of school children throughout the impoverished nation.

After years of civil war and a recently "fixed" currency crises which sent inflation % to millions per year, Zimbabwe is receiving a fair amount of attention from the United Nations. This nation was one of the top economic and political forces in Africa, but for a plethora of reasons this recent history seems almost more like a dream that never was.

But for all this attention, what seems to be lacking is true fixes to the foundational problems of poverty, ignorance, and inability to travel freely.

Although the collection of 13 million books has made its way into the country, none are as of yet distributed. The logistical issues of delivering 13 million books to 5,500 public schools through a nation lacking in an efficient government is stalling progress months beyond the expected deadline.

UNICEF put a September 31 deadline for the completion of the distribution, but with none of the books reaching schools so far, that deadline looks more like a guideline than a rule.

While this distribution could potentially bring many of these schools into the 20th century, the 21st century rolls onward with a decade already behind us. One program that has attempted to bring the poorest of the children in the world into the 21st century is another project funded by UNICEF that gives these children laptops that cost around $150.

A program like this could allow for the whole universe of books to be suddenly available to a remote village; bringing the remote peoples firmly into the 21st century. The vast amount of discount books available as well as a huge collection of books online that are free to use would give these students many of the same opportunities as their more wealthy counterparts in the US.

Although the subject has not been brought up by the large media organizations, one potential complication of such a distribution is the massive amounts of graft and outright theft inherent to such a large government program. African governments are notoriously corrupt, with government extortion generally being seen as part and parcel of doing business in many of these nations.

So while the world contributes greatly to UNICEF to attempt to help the poorest children in the world, many of those that were elected to help these same children are taking part in programs that attempt to stall progress. Is it any wonder that populations around the globe are rising up against their cruel overlords to ask for that which they have stolen; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

New Feature From Kindle Creates New Ability For E-books

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:07:08 +0100

Of all the fantastic features of a e-book device, the greatest flaw has always been the inability to either share or borrow books from friends and family. One of the oldest methods of allowing for others to read new material, e-book lending has so far been in the same category as pirating; but that looks to be changing.

The Kindle reader is now allowing users to borrow and lend their e-books to other Kindle users, so long as the publisher and author allow it. This could end up being quite a revolution in the world of e-books, and will likely go a long way in shifting the current thoughts of the cons of e-book ownership.

While mainstream authors and publishers will more than likely lock down this method of sharing, small companies and authors will have the increased ability to get massive exposure. In this digital age, the ability to lend a book will be vastly increased because of the lack of the physical limitations of a paper book.

No matter how much you try to share a paper book, there is only 1 copy and can only be used by one person at a time. When sharing e-books, you would have the potential ability to share your book with your group of friends and family all at the same time. Even if you were to buy up hundreds of discount books online you would still have the same essential problem that 1 physical book can only be in one pair of hands at a time.

It sometimes takes years for books to really catch on if they aren't marketed by a large publishing company because of the slow ways that books make their way around. By increasing the pace of this sharing, the ability to change perceptions and realities would also have a corresponding rise.

The realities of the digital age aren't quite as romantic as the days of old, everything truly can be said in zeros and ones. But what the digital age lacks in romance it makes up for in the efficiency of the movement of ideas; and this revolution of the travel of information will lead to roads unknown in the near future.

BookBrewer Partnership With Borders A Boon For Writing Community, Or Bust?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:06:57 +0100

The book industry is overcome by the e-book revolution; so far this year Amazon is selling more e-books than hardcover books. And on Friday, BookBrewer announced a partnership with Borders book store, which will give independent authors the opportunity to publish and sell their e-books through Borders' eBookstore.

On the surface this development looks like another of the great partnerships driving self-publishing above traditional publishing methods, but I would argue otherwise.

I believe this development is similar in nature and scope to the much maligned iPhone "Featured Apps". While the development process itself is open for all on the iPhone, their ability to pick and choose the Featured Apps has lead to a lot of discontentment from the development community.

I think its pretty obvious that Borders is looking to create the same situation with self published e-Books. By catering to the "needs" of the writing community by adding such features as being able to make a RSS feed into a book, they appear to be fighting for the individual writer. But now that they have the book in their system, they can decide where that book is put on their system and choose to push one e-book over the other.

Of course, for the writers, this system in and of itself is just another venue for their book to sit on in the hopes that it will receive any attention at all. Books are notoriously either extremely popular, popular with a small niche audience, or extremely obscure.

So while a writer may be placing their text on this system, it may be a "service" for the customers that they find through other more conventional promotion means. One tried and true method gaining traction in the Recession society is having discount book sales at both internet and real world locations. This method can bring in readers of many different spectra, from the discount shopper to the hardcore reader.

The moral of the story? Writers beware! There are hucksters everywhere who would happily use your text as backdrop for the products that they will really be selling!