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PRIME DAY, JULY 15, 2015

July 15, 2015 is Amazon Prime Day.

It’s a special one-day sale event like Black Friday, but just for Amazon Prime customers.

It was advertised to have more deals than Black Friday. But is it better than Black Friday?

Visit the Prime Deals page. Just go to the home page, and if July 15, 2015 hasn’t passed yet (Pacific time, I suppose), you should see the offers.

If you’re a Prime customer, you can take advantage of them.

• It’s a great day to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. You can buy subscriptions up to 40% off up to 2 years in advance, if you’re an Amazon Prime member. (Click on the Lightning Deals banner from the Prime Deals page, look to the left and scroll down.)
• Some Kindle readers are still available, as of now. The one I wanted was gone, but there are others at good savings. One of them is just on sale; not all are Lightning Deals.
• Prime Exclusive Lightning Deals are limited-time offers with limited quantities available. You can find a list of these from the Prime Deals page.
• A separate list shows upcoming Prime Exclusive Lightning Deals so you can be ready when they start.
• There is also a list of Prime Exclusive Sales and Savings. These aren’t Lightning Deals. Most appear to expire at 2:00 a.m. (probably Pacific time).
• Amazon music has deals going on.
• Clothing and jewelry has Prime Exclusive Offers.
• There is an offer to save money on Amazon gift cards, which always come in handy.
• There are more deals than just these.

I wound up buying several print books.

I didn’t see books listed on the Prime Deals page.

And most of my print books weren’t on sale; at least, not most of my bestsellers. A few of my print books were on sale today, though not as many as usual.

But I was browsing for advanced math books, and a few of the Dover editions caught my eye. A couple were on sale for $3.99 with list prices over $20. Dover editions tend to be less expensive math books. I’m not sure how $3.99 compares to the usual Amazon price, but it looked pretty good to me. I bought a whole library of advanced math books today (not all were as cheap at $3.99).

While e-books may not have been featured on Prime Day, there is good news for authors:

• Many Prime customers purchased Kindle Unlimited subscriptions of up to 24 months, saving 25% to 40%. They will be reading a lot of books in the coming months. This helps KDP Select authors.
• Many Prime customers purchased Kindle readers today. They will need to find e-books to read in the coming months. This helps all e-book authors.

There were a lot of deals today, most of them Lightning Deals. Was it as good as Black Friday? Maybe it depends on what you were shopping for. Maybe it depends on whether you missed out on a Lightning Deal that you really wanted.

What do you think of Prime Day?

AMAZON TURNED MY FROWN UPSIDE DOWN

I admit, I was a bit frustrated at first.

This morning, I checked the Prime Deals.

I wanted to buy another Kindle reader, and the one I wanted seemed to be on sale at a very good price.

But it turned out to be a Lightning Deal.

(Note: There is at least one Kindle reader on sale that’s not a Lightning Deal, and at least one other Kindle reader with a Lightning Deal that had only been 14% claimed last I checked. It’s just the one I had my eye on that had already expired.)

And I had already missed out.

This didn’t make much sense to me:

• The more Kindle readers Amazon sells, the more Kindle e-books Amazon will sell, right?
• So why limit the number of Kindle readers for sale?
• Why not have any kind of sale on the Kindle reader after the Lightning Deal ends?
• This morning, thousands of customers had already missed out on this Lightning Deal for a new Kindle.
• Then the price shot up to regular price.
• So thousands of people started their Prime Day with the “Sorry, you missed it!” feeling.
• It would have been better to have a sale price, with lesser savings, follow the Lightning Deal, so you could at least get some savings on the Kindle reader, and not completely miss it.

I waited 15 minutes to chat with an agent, who informed me that many other Prime customers had made a similar inquiry on the missed Lightning Deal.

Just think of all the Prime customers who were frustrated over this who didn’t contact Amazon.

However, the 15 minutes turned out to be worth it. They couldn’t honor the Lightning Deal, but they did make an offer that changed my frown into a smile.

I didn’t wind up buying another Kindle today, but I did buy several other items.

Amazon does provide good customer service. I’m glad I contacted support.

I could have been frustrated over the Kindle reader and purchased nothing at all on Prime Day, but they made me happy and I wound up buying a small library’s worth of math books instead.

Write happy, be happy. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2015

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

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