by James Wallace Harris, Wednesday, September 4, 2018
I don’t know why, but sometimes Amazon tells me I have a promotional credit. I never know what they mean. The other day I bought a $1.99 sale ebook and was told I had a promotional credit that would last 60 days on my next Kindle purchase. I just ignored it. Then I bought a $1.99 sale book today and got another promotional credit. This time I read the email more closely.
It said I’d get 40% of my next Kindle purchase. Well, there’s a $40 Kindle book I’ve been wanting but wouldn’t buy because of the high price. It’s a textbook for teaching science fiction. Well, I checked, and it was now priced at $24, 40% less. I quickly bought it. I still think $24 is way too much of an ebook, but I’ve been wanting this book for some time now, and have almost paid the $40 for it a couple of times.
I don’t even know if this involved my promotional credit. It could just be coincidence and this book had a 40% price drop. (Tell me what price you see.)
I’ve researched these credits at Amazon and they seem rather unexplainable. I wonder if they’re just a gimmick to get us to buy more. Or Amazon’s way of justifying to publishers for offering extra discounting.
Does anyone know how these promotional credits work? They’re a mystery to me.
If you buy bargain Kindle books, keep an eye out for your promotional credit. Then go shopping for that ebook you wanted that was priced too high.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
It comes up at $23.49 for me today (5 Sept) Amazon likes me better….
And Chuck, you don’t have a “promotional credit” waiting to be used?
I guess this was just a coincidence. Maybe Amazon realized that nobody was going to pay $40 for an ebook, even if it was a giant ebook with 155 science fiction short stories in it.
No, it just must be on a special promo. It would likely be the publisher who set the sale price, not Amazon, since it looks to be self-published, as it is sold by Amazon Digital Services rather than the listed publisher. Perhaps it is on sale now to make it more affordable for students, which is nice.
I also get $23.49. And I’ve paid “too much” for Kindle books, but I remember paying close to $30 for a hard cover back in 1998 or so. Today a similar hardcover new release would cost 18.95. None of the books on my shelves is worth anything now anyway. Textbooks are notoriously high-priced – $140 or so sometimes – for 200 pages – lol. Janson’s History of Art book is about $190. Back in my day it was $40 or $50 or so – outrageous. LOL – I think books in general have never been so cheap and plentiful – same with photographs (which no one saves anymore).