
Free Kindle books don't belong in Hot Deals

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Can we stop with posting all the free Kindle books in Hot Deals?

Not a one of these was ever sold for real money. These all should be going into 'Free Stuff', not Hot Deals.

Something given away for free that was always free is not a hot deal.

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I agree that an ebook thread would be nice or at least posted like they were separately in free stuff

dwiersma (Jan. 29, 2013 @ 7:53p) |

Is it official? Either way, it's not used often or well. Btw, posting a second post to each OP saying books aren't free ... (more)

iTEKdeals (Jan. 30, 2013 @ 2:57a) |

Thank you for the suggestion. Such information is helpful in situations like this.

In short, the current approach we're ... (more)

VBMcGB (Jan. 30, 2013 @ 9:34a) |

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If its value is over $10 then it belongs in HD. If you see some that according to their value do not belong, please send in a mod alert and we'll be happy to move it

The only problem I have with that, is the "value". Each of these books had a bogus "value" assigned to them, but strictly as a marketing device. Not a single one of these books was ever technically "sold" for any money, and that "value" assigned to them is just marketing crap. These are nothing but freebies.

Just a shame HD is getting cluttered up with these "deals" that are not deals by any stretch of the imagination. Slickdeals does not allow these in their Hot Deals forum, at all.

Yeah, I saw one that was listed at just around ten bucks, qualifies for "Hot Deals" if you go by the list price.

It didn't have a blurb, a picture of the cover, info on the author, or even a single comment or rating by anyone who'd purchased it.

These ebooks are a plague as they're being presented. Hopefully we'll come up with a solution that will keep them visible without multiplying and infesting the front page.

i'm actually writing an e-book on how to avoid this kind of thing

morecowbell, you would have earned the pink baby badge from me if you didn't have one already. That was hilarious.

Personally, I wish Free Amazon Stuff was its own forum. That way, all of the books could go there, the app of the day could get its own post (I'm SOOOO disappointed I missed out on Monopoly for Android because I don't check that thread every single day) as well as all of the few dollar credits they give out (for example, the MP3 credits). To each their own, but for me, 95% of the free stuff forum posts are really just free samples or points for some rewards program, whereas the MP3 credits, app of the day, and books (judging from the amount of green most of those individualized threads get in HD) hold massive appeal here. And Amazon is so big and popular here, if one retailer warranted its own forum, I think it would be them.

Ok, here's a solution. New rule for Hot Deals:

If it's free, then it goes into Free Stuff, regardless of it's original "value".

How's that sound?

That would defeat the purpose of the $10 value threshold. Free Stuff that is valued at $10 and more are Hot Deals (by FW definition), and should be presented that way. The issue at the moment is who defines the "value". Is an ebook that costs $0.99 a Hotter Deal than a Free ebook when both are valued at $19.99? By default, the free ebook is a better deal. It all comes down to what something is valued at. If we lumped all freebies into Free Stuff, there would be members screaming that they missed out on the deal of the century when something with an MSRP of $49.99 goes on clearance and with a coupon is Free (just an example, but I think the point is obvious). I don't have a great answer other than to allow members to filter deals in new and different ways, but that's a major change to the system to even consider...

Connman said:   That would defeat the purpose of the $10 value threshold. Free Stuff that is valued at $10 and more are Hot Deals (by FW definition), and should be presented that way. The issue at the moment is who defines the "value". Is an ebook that costs $0.99 a Hotter Deal than a Free ebook when both are valued at $19.99? By default, the free ebook is a better deal. It all comes down to what something is valued at. If we lumped all freebies into Free Stuff, there would be members screaming that they missed out on the deal of the century when something with an MSRP of $49.99 goes on clearance and with a coupon is Free (just an example, but I think the point is obvious). I don't have a great answer other than to allow members to filter deals in new and different ways, but that's a major change to the system to even consider...

So make the new rule only apply to digital content, not physical goods.

If these ebooks are OK in Hot Deals, then why aren't free tracks on iTunes and Google Music posted in Hot Deals?

HardwareLust said:   Connman said:   That would defeat the purpose of the $10 value threshold. Free Stuff that is valued at $10 and more are Hot Deals (by FW definition), and should be presented that way. The issue at the moment is who defines the "value". Is an ebook that costs $0.99 a Hotter Deal than a Free ebook when both are valued at $19.99? By default, the free ebook is a better deal. It all comes down to what something is valued at. If we lumped all freebies into Free Stuff, there would be members screaming that they missed out on the deal of the century when something with an MSRP of $49.99 goes on clearance and with a coupon is Free (just an example, but I think the point is obvious). I don't have a great answer other than to allow members to filter deals in new and different ways, but that's a major change to the system to even consider...

So make the new rule only apply to digital content, not physical goods.

If these ebooks are OK in Hot Deals, then why aren't free tracks on iTunes and Google Music posted in Hot Deals?
the starbucks free tunes are posted there in a thread or 20

morecowbell said:   HardwareLust said:   Connman said:   That would defeat the purpose of the $10 value threshold. Free Stuff that is valued at $10 and more are Hot Deals (by FW definition), and should be presented that way. The issue at the moment is who defines the "value". Is an ebook that costs $0.99 a Hotter Deal than a Free ebook when both are valued at $19.99? By default, the free ebook is a better deal. It all comes down to what something is valued at. If we lumped all freebies into Free Stuff, there would be members screaming that they missed out on the deal of the century when something with an MSRP of $49.99 goes on clearance and with a coupon is Free (just an example, but I think the point is obvious). I don't have a great answer other than to allow members to filter deals in new and different ways, but that's a major change to the system to even consider...

So make the new rule only apply to digital content, not physical goods.

If these ebooks are OK in Hot Deals, then why aren't free tracks on iTunes and Google Music posted in Hot Deals?
the starbucks free tunes are posted there in a thread or 20


Ah, my bad, I guess I never noticed.

I also think that a free 99 cent song is more valuable to a larger audience than a book on Multi-level Marketing success strategies "valued" at 150 bucks.

Maybe it's something that needs to be addressed with the guidelines, maybe it's just more common sense moderating and an understanding that guidelines are just guides, not laws.

Hoping I'm not the only staff member with an opinion on this...

DevilMonkey said:   Hoping I'm not the only staff member with an opinion on this...

Me too!

As the free ebooks postings become more rampant, I think being under hot deals make it irrelevant.

Just today, they (kindle and nook) flooded up the hot deals. personally, I think it just clutters up the hot deal.
And I agree with HardwareLust's first posting.

Or other suggestions is to have a section just for it.

How about a forum just for digital content regardless of vendor (Amazon, Google, B&N)? It could include non-freebies as well. Then, broadly speaking, Hot Deals = tangible products, and Digital Deals = VOD, mp3s, Kindle books, etc.

I agree the last day or so got really bad again.

Today the Hotdeals front page is flooded with "free" Kindle books. The free versions of anything is basically a "loss leader" to convince e-book users to visit Amazon/ Kobo/BN and then buy something while they are there. The front page of hot deals is cluttered with these now, if it keeps up I am sure many users will stop coming to Fatwallet.

I guess I am going to be forced to switch to Modern view to ignore glitterdog....... I really enjoyed classic view.....dang it.

too bad there isn't already a Free Kindle book thread that people could post to instead. Like this perhaps http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1076568/

We've seen quite a bit of feedback on the free Kindle books. It's been pretty evenly split among those who want them all in a single thread vs those who like them to have their own threads.

One more vote for a single thread for the kindle books.

To the staffs: I think it's pretty alright when once in a while, a "good" ebook is shared.

But when it gets flooded with useless ebooks that anyone can just search for if they want to. Then it's not even hot at all.
I could easily go to Amazon and then sort it in low price, and then scan thru their thousands of pages of free ebooks.

This free ebook shenanigans is like some prick trying to copy and paste the top 10 iTunes free apps in 10 different thread everyday when anyone can just see it, if they just ran iTunes and see the top free apps on the side. And the thing about these ebook is that, it's not even worth it, some aren't even rated, they don't deserve to be hot deals no matter how much the saving is. (>$10)

peckable said:   To the staffs: I think it's pretty alright when once in a while, a "good" ebook is shared.

But when it gets flooded with useless ebooks that anyone can just search for if they want to. Then it's not even hot at all.
I could easily go to Amazon and then sort it in low price, and then scan thru their thousands of pages of free ebooks.

This free ebook shenanigans is like some prick trying to copy and paste the top 10 iTunes free apps in 10 different thread everyday when anyone can just see it, if they just ran iTunes and see the top free apps on the side. And the thing about these ebook is that, it's not even worth it, some aren't even rated, they don't deserve to be hot deals no matter how much the saving is. (>$10)


^^ This.
(ETA- Not the prick part).
We've been trying to move the garbage books with inflated values to the free stuff forum. The ones I'm talking about are the books that haven't ever sold for a price, and have never had a print version, and generally speaking could be called a PDF in ebook format. We certainly don't catch them all, so please send in a mod alert if you think it belongs in free stuff. We'll take a look at it and move it if we agree.

Exists in physical print certainly seems like a reasonable criterion. Thanks.

Yes, I am agree with this. Free is always free. Free offers should never be treated as hot deals. So, i think Free Kindle books should go to Free stuff. It is the appropriate place for Free offers.

DoctorDeals said:   Exists in physical print certainly seems like a reasonable criterion. Thanks.

As long as it's not in the public domain to begin with, I agree.

Hell, I don't even mind them being posted in HD, but why not a consolidated thread?? The people who are interested it can subscribe to the thread and/or make it a sticky, and the HD forum doesn't end up cluttered with tons of free ebook threads! Everyone wins. Why is this so hard?

The problem with a consolidated thread is that every now and then there's a good freebie, which would get lost amid all the self-published crap. There may be one quality, professionally edited, widely appealing book for every 200 dreadful romance novels or recipe compilations. That one quality book probably deserves its own thread because it's of value to more people, but what's good and what's crap is largely subjective.

I'd favor a dedicated forum for ebooks, with green ratings and discussion making it easier to tell what books are worth downloading.

I'm REALLY curious as to how many people actually read this stuff. The posts get a lot of green from the same users, but there's no way one person could keep up with all the books that are posted.

DoctorDeals said:   How about a forum just for digital content regardless of vendor (Amazon, Google, B&N)? It could include non-freebies as well. Then, broadly speaking, Hot Deals = tangible products, and Digital Deals = VOD, mp3s, Kindle books, etc.

I agree the last day or so got really bad again.
Good start but there is free digital stuff that is of wide interest and of real value - that is, a Hot Deal - and then there's the rest. It really comes down to a judgement.

The good news is, it's not a tough judgement call. Aside from a few clueless posters, most people can see what's really worth something and what's not. That is, they can make the judgement. The same way they mostly do about Hot Deals.

Options to handle it:
- Deal with the posters who are lacking in judgement, that's the real issue. Have some way to flag the deal or ask the mods to clue them in. The same way we always have.

- Maybe add a technical feature. Have a box the poster has to check for sub-$1 or free digital items posted in Hot Deals. If they get too many negs they get auto-demoted to the Digital Downloads.

That has the benefit of allowing some stuff in Hot Deals that really is. Most people would prefer that, if real judgement was applied, because they don't read the other forums and don't want to because it's not worthwhile.

That is, let's keep focused on the key idea of thiswhole place - someone makes a judgement that something is actually Hot, and if they are wrong we ruthlessly let them know.

We want people to use judgement, and make good use of our attention to a topic, and it mostly works.

HardwareLust said:   DoctorDeals said:   Exists in physical print certainly seems like a reasonable criterion. Thanks.

As long as it's not in the public domain to begin with, I agree.


Great point.

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1076568/

While FW figures out what to do, I suggest using this thread in the mean time. No, it's probably not a perfect solution, but I think it can work... if the FW community buys into it and contributes on the basis of the betterment of the community (and not for the sake of some shiny trophy or a new badge)

A certain poster seems to be back at it again this morning: 12 posts in 13 minutes. Most appear to be the typical "quality."

Mods, since it seems a reasonable criteria is out there now, is it possible to publicize it? Maybe a sticky in HD?

DoctorDeals said:   A certain poster seems to be back at it again this morning: 12 posts in 13 minutes. Most appear to be the typical "quality."

Mods, since it seems a reasonable criteria is out there now, is it possible to publicize it? Maybe a sticky in HD?
http://www.fatwallet.com/search/?type=forums&query=kindle&sort=d...

30 this week... ugh

This is seriously getting out of hand. There was a point yesterday where over half of the first page of "Hot Deals" was spam from Glitterdog.

We aren't ignoring it. I suspect this will come to a halt soon.

ultatryon said:   This is seriously getting out of hand. There was a point yesterday where over half of the first page of "Hot Deals" was spam from Glitterdog.And they continued to be on the front page ALL DAY because people used them as complaint threads.

When are people going to learn ... if you don't like a post (and have nothing to add regarding the topic), ignore it! Posting only aggravates the issue.

MVP9596 said:   We aren't ignoring it. I suspect this will come to a halt soon.Thank you, it's getting really bloody annoying.

I think it also an important suggestion.

This crap can't go away fast enough. I agree that the most reasonable solution is to put all e-book deals in a single thread. Any especially good deals can get their own thread, with the warning that it needs to be something special or it will get deleted. Think of it like the Target clearance thread. Similar idea.

Skipping 24 Messages...
iTEKdeals said:   mapatsfan said:   Apparently mods are happy with people cluttering the Free Stuff forum.

Even though the books are only free for hours or a day, and there is an official FW thread where they should be posted, they're happy with the detritus a few members choose to leave behind.


Is it official? Either way, it's not used often or well. Btw, posting a second post to each OP saying books aren't free any more just to make a point isn't really helpful either, imo. As I mentioned there, I believe that is what the dead deal link is for in the original post. Mods, do speak up if that is not the case. As I said, just my opinion.

Mods, here is my suggestion, I hope it is useful. We have Hot Deals, and we have Free Deals, each section having its own "quirks," which I think most users understand. Rather than figure out which of these to use, create a new section, called Digital Deals. As I hope makes sense, this would be the new place for all kinds of deals on things for download, like books, music, apps etc. This can be for free stuff or reduced price (Hot) deals, and could even be sub-categorized by types or platform (android, iOS, Kindle, etc.) I guess it would make sense to put computer software for download in there as well.

The members, like me, who do appreciate those kinds of deals would be happy, because they are in one place, and not in the free section, which I honestly don't often even check, for good or bad. On the other hand, members who don't care or don't want to see those types of detritus in the free section could just ignore the section all together. I think it would also make Fatwallet appear as actively staying current and relevant, even being something to advertise and tout, as there is no great place online to find, for instance, all the Kindle deals. It's is obviously something that is an active topic of consideration here.

Just my few pennies worth. I hope this was useful. Best regards!
Thank you for the suggestion. Such information is helpful in situations like this.

In short, the current approach we're taking is to simply apply our guides for HD and FS to free kindle books. If a book is valued at more than $10, it will go into HD. If less, then FS. Because we know that some books can have drastically inflated prices in order to push "sale" times, we also have a bit of mod discretion regarding the perceived value of the book.

That's how we're currently handling these. What the future holds...I don't know.



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