Some Amazon changes
Amazon is ending, on December 18, its Amazon Local feature and app for locally-focused coupons. Amazon Local was launched in 2011 with the help of Living Social.
According to MarketWatch, ...the site and app will cease offering deals on Dec. 18, and the daily email featuring deals ceased Friday, though deals that customers have purchased or buy through Dec. 18 will be honored after that date."
BusinessFinanceNews adds:
... [Amazon] also [had] bought stake in ... “LivingSocial” for $200 million. [Living Social] ... recently cut its workforce by 20% and shifted its focus to long-term deals. Amazon has 30% stake in the company, which was once valued [at] $1 billion. It fell $242 million by 2014 end. According to GeekWire, Amazon recorded a $169 million write down on the investment.
'From October 30, 2015 until December 18, 2015, you can continue to purchase deals at Amazon Local as usual,' Amazon announced. 'All purchased vouchers will not be affected by this change and remain valid according to their terms.'
Special Kindle Daily Deal page offering: Up to 85% off selected Kindle books for November
Amazon's own daily deals remain, of course, and the current "Kindle Daily Deal page" is also featuring a big special for the holidays. As seen in the article image, Amazon's offering Kindle books at "up to 85% off" -- this is similar to its (now removed) "Big Deal").
REGULAR Monthly Kindle books offered at between $.99 to $3.99 [Updated to correct amounts]
This is the
ongoing MONTHLY Kindle books deal of books offered at $.99 to $3.99. The image and book links in this paragraph will take you to this particular monthly feature for November 2015's Kindle books, a feature which differs from the Special Kindle Deal page offer seen above that's for November as well. Amazon had a good quarter report with a big boost in sales and, possibly in connection with the premise of the article I saw last month in Observer, they're offering more deals than before on Kindle books.
Side Note: E-book pricing and sales:
The title of the Observer article (which references a Wall Street Journal article) is "Do E-Books Earn More Money at Lower Prices?" and it points out that while the large publishers who re-negotiated contracts that allow them to set the prices, the WSJ reports that they "reported declining e-book revenue in their latest reporting periods.
"The new business model for e-books is having a significant impact on what [the big] publishers report," said one publishing executive. "There’s no question that publishers’ net receipts have gone down."
The Observer mentions that "more writers are producing more books and making more money than ever before. A lot of that increase has occurred outside major publishers, though." And they remind us of Amazon's rare look "into its data around prices and e-book sales. The Amazon Books Team posted on the Kindle Forum, writing:"
"For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99..
So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000."
REMINDER -- NOVEMBER'S FREE Kindle books
November'sfree Kindle books (contemporary or non-classics)
October 2015 November 2015.
Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
Publication Date Bestselling
A reminder: On the first 2-3 days of the month, the current month's free Kindle books listing will have many that are chapters for a book, or shorter works, and some Not-"family-safe" content that can creep in there when Amazon is asleep. In that case, check the previous month's free Kindle books offerings ("October"), which is sorted by most-recently published first.
BLACK FRIDAY PAGE starts up again, quietly
Black Friday (US, UK, and Canada) is already back, in the form "Countdown to Black Friday," with some special deals daily until the usual official launch day. In the UK and Canada, it's more subtle, but the "Black Friday" page shows current deals that will be changing.
Here's a bit more on Amazon Flex that I meant to include earlier in the previous article. A cousin in San Francisco had a very similar positive experience to the one described below in this Geekwire article
Re the Under-1-hr free delivery for Prime members from restaurants
"After I placed my order, I could watch my delivery rider making his way across town on a real-time map. I received an automated text message about two minutes before he arrived."
. . .
"It wasn’t until after he left that it dawned on me the impressive feat Amazon had accomplished. It usually takes about 20 minutes for a restaurant to prepare a carryout order, and the restaurant I chose is about a 12 minute ride from my apartment — up an infamous hill. That leaves just 5 minutes of wiggle room for my order to be able to show up within 37 minutes like it did."
