SECOND Class Action Suit Against Apple, this time w/ the Big6. Apple accused of altering 2nd photo in Samsung suit.

"Finkelstein Thompson Files Class Action Suit Against Apple
Teleread's Chris Meadows points to the ebooknewser story today on the new lawsuit that, in this 2nd case, also includes Random House.

Finkelstein Thompson, a consumer rights and antitrust law firm, filed the new class action complaint in New York against Apple and the Big6 book publishers, alleging a conspiracy to fix eBook prices.  Details at the link.  Here's the press release


Earlier articles on the Class Action lawsuit:
. Class action lawsuit against Apple and Big 5 publishers re price fixing of ebooks.  History and sourcing provided.
. Reactions to Price-Fixing Lawsuit


"Apple Accused of Altering Second Photo in Samsung Suit"
Apple had been successful in halting Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in Europe and elsewhere, on the basis that Samsung had copied the Apple design, a large factor being the rounded corners of the device (!)

Later, the Injunction was lifted across Europe but the injunction still applied to Germany, for jurisdictional reasons.  August 25 is the court date set "for Apple and Samsung to plead their respective cases."

  On August 17, Tomsguide.com reported that "Researchers accused Apple of doctoring an image of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in an effort to make it look more like the iPad in terms of size. Some felt it could have been accidental.

  Today's news is about a second picture that was submitted as part of the IP suit, this one showing the iPhone and Galaxy S "looking almost exactly the same size," although the accompanying illustration shows it to be quite a bit larger.  It has those "rounded corners" though! :-)

  Tomsguide has a tough crowd commenting.  An amusing thought:

' "I'm going to have to take a second look at these Samsung products.  They must be pretty good for Apple to risk so much. '

  Another one pointed out that if you open both phones, they "have a lot of the same components" so therefore Samsung is copying Apple, he says.  He adds a PS that the components they have in common are made by Samsung.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Class action lawsuit against Apple and Big5 publishers re price fixing of ebooks. History and sourcing provided.

Per a story run by paidContent.org, Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman filed a class action lawsuit tonight against Apple and five of the “big 6” publishers (known as the Big5 when Random House declined to join the other five large publishers in fixed-pricing moves during the first year, explaining that bookstores probably understood pricing and customers more than RH did -- and as a result, Apple iBook Store did not allow the Random House eBooks in their store during that time).  Random House did join when the 2nd year started.

  The law firm claimed "that they illegally fixed e-book prices (through the agency model, in which case book publishers set their own e-book prices) in order to 'boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

Defendents named: Apple, Hachette, Simon & Schuster (NYSE: CBS), Macmillan, HarperCollins and Penguin.

Plaintiffs: Anthony Petru of Oakland, California and Marcus Mathis of Natchez, Mississippi.  Backgrounds on all can be read at Laura Hazard Owen's story at paidContent's website.  It's of interest that the law firm is based in Seattle (and Berkeley, California).

Here's more on "What's in it."

The complaint: Owens writes that the complaint begins by saying that Amazon's Kindle

' had "the potential to massively reduce distribution costs historically associated with brick-and-mortar publishing.  But publishers quickly realized that if market forces were allowed to prevail too quickly, these efficiency enhancing characteristics would rapidly lead to lower consumer prices, improved consumer welfare, and threaten the current business model and available surplus (profit margins).

  So, faced with disruptive eBook technology that threatened their inefficient and antiquated business model, several major book publishers, working with Apple Inc. (‘Apple’), decided free market competition should not be allowed to work -- together they coordinated their activities to fight back in an effort to restrain trade and retard innovation.  The largest book publishers and Apple were successful.” '   [Bolding was by Owen.]

This was of course considered more than potentially disruptive to the publishers' long-established way of doing things.

I've provided a history of stories and sources from that time, at the bottom of this blog article.

  The main complaint voiced by publishers was that the lower cost of Amazon's e-books (especially those on the NY Times bestseller lists) were "devaluing" their paper-bound books, especially the hardcover editions.  They openly wanted higher pricing on e-books and found not only an ally in Steve Jobs but an encourager (sourcing is in list of articles below).

  The complaint goes on to say that the publishers and Apple coordinated between themselves" to "force Amazon to abandon its proconsumer pricing" and that Apple "facilitated changing the traditional eBook pricing model due to what the plaintiffs describe as the Kindle's "competitive threat to Apple's business model."

  In my own eyes, Apple wanted to now join the e-book march finally, once Steve Jobs realized people DO still read after all (will insert source later), but the idea was to join or enter the field as its leader and the publishers were more than willing, as Apple's bookstore gave them leverage over Amazon.  For me, that would be normal business -- if they hadn't set fixed pricing for all stores, and with no online store allowed to sell below Apple's pricing, a condition which the publishers accepted -- and when Amazon said that the publishers should not then allow another store to offer lower pricing than Amazon, some raged at Amazon's daring to set this return-condition.

  paidContent goes on to add that the complaint points out that

the publisher-defendents "almost simultaneously announced that they were switching from a wholesale pricing model to an Agency model for eBook sales" in January 2010 and “the announcements to shift to the Agency model coincided with the release by Apple of the iPad tablet computer.

"In fact, when Apple announced the launch of the iPad on January 27, 2010, the Publisher Defendants agreed to allow Apple to use their trademarks in connection therewith.

  The same day Apple announced launching the iPad, it was also announced that Apple already struck deals with Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillian, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster to switch to the Agency model for Apple’s iBookstore -- the application on Apple’s iPad that functions as an eBook reader (thus competing directly with the Amazon Kindle).”

Re the 5 publishers switching to the agency model, the complaint says:
  “As a direct result of this anticompetitive conduct as intended by the conspiracy, the price of eBooks has soared.  The price of new bestselling eBooks increased to an average of $12 - $15 -- an increase of 33 to 50 percent.  The price of an eBook in many cases now approaches -- or even exceeds -- the price of the same book in paper even though there are almost no incremental costs to produce each additional eBook unit.   The price of the Publisher Defendants’ eBooks sold on the iBookstore, facing no pricing competition from Amazon or other e-distributors for the exact same eBook titles, has remained at supra-competitive levels."

paidContent notes what appears to be an assumption on the part of the plaintiffs that the $9.99 pricing (or less) for NYTimes bestsellers Amazon used was the "correct" price for an e-book.

  They also note something generally known now by long-time Kindle users but not so much by those new to e-readers, who blame high pricing on Amazon and other online stores who must follow the same publisher policies:

  "The agency model requires publishers to price their e-books the same at all e-bookstores.  Publishers can also put their e-books on sale and extend sale prices across all e-bookstores."

I've left out portions of the article of course. Go to Owen's article to read the rest of it.  She'll have "More to come after I have interviewed the parties involved and done some more research on this."

You can download the full complaint in PDF format.


HISTORY OF THE PRICING WARS IN ARTICLES, WITH SOURCING
Background
For those new to the situation and interested in the background of the e-book pricing wars, earlier stories posted here include the following articles, which I'll later put on a separate page, with a bit more info.

  . Amazon removes Macmillan books - Jan. 30, 2010
  . Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs - Jan. 31, 2010
  . Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much (a key one) - Jan. 31, 2010
  . Amazon plays hardball to keep lower pricing option - Mar. 18, 2010
  . Amazon and Hachette e-books (and missing buy buttons) - Apr. 2, 2010
  . WashPost: State AG probes Apple, Amazon over e-Book prices. What? - Aug. 3, 2010
  . Why are some e-book prices higher than hardcover ones? - Oct. 6, 2010
  . Newspapers headline Amazon UK forum rebellion against Agency pricing - Nov. 3, 2010

More on raids in price-fixing probe. Publishers "explain" high ebook pricing.

The title should read, "...try to explain" the fixed higher-pricing of e-books.  See earlier article here on the raids.

The Guardian has a piece today on the raids, which includes quotes from some publishers trying to explain or defend the fixing of pricing so that prices are generally much higher and must be the same at all online bookstores needing Agreements with the Big 5, with no way for the online stores to offer sales or lower prices no matter what the case.  Random House has decided not to join Agency pricing in Europe during this time of probing questions.

Benedicte Page and Leigh Phillips report from Brussels, where they say that officials there have "refused to say how many or which publishers were targeted although a spokesman for Hachette, famed for its dictionaries, confirmed that it was among them.  The inquiry is understood to be focused on French companies."

Excerpts of particular interest, emphases and bracketed comments, mine:

' The EU competition spokeswoman, Amelia Torres, said: "We have suspicions of collusion to keep prices high.  But if our suspicions prove to be founded, this would have an impact across the EU because ebooks are sold across borders."  She added that the firms involved face fines if the commission finds "hard evidence".

The development comes on the heels of an investigation in January by the UK's Office of Fair Trading into whether arrangements between certain publishers and retailers over the sale of ebooks "may breach competition law".

Investigation teams have asked many of the biggest London publishing houses, including HarperCollins, Hachette and Penguin, for all records and documents relating to ebook sales.
. . .
Publishers see the agency model as crucial because it allows them to trade with Apple [which created the Agency plan and insists on it], which was already using it for iTunes, and also to control the price at which their ebooks are sold.
. . .
Ronald Blunden, Hachette's head of communications, denied that the company engaged in price fixing. "Emphatically no," he said. "We are dealing with distributors [such as Amazon] who have considerable clout.

"We found that in the US, electronic retailers began to apply large discounts on ebooks, driving the cost down.  Steadily the spread between the price of a printed book and an ebook became so substantial that we felt it was just unacceptable."

"It's important for the publisher to control the retail price," Blunden continued. "We don't want the items sold below cost, as the perceived value of books becomes damaged.  Once this happens, can we expect online retailers to absorb the cost of financing the editing and publishing of books?"

John Makinson, the Penguin group chief executive, argued that the "very important" agency model contributes to a competitive ebooks marketplace.  "To have vibrant competitive markets, it's important that Apple and the other digital vendors have a place in that market.  The agency model made it possible to have that choice," he said.

Makinson added that he saw "a certain irony" in an OFT [Office of Fair Traiding - UK] investigation designed to ensure competition and consumer choice.  "That in our view is what the agency agreement has provided," he said.

Their view of 'competition' is that the online booksellers must not be allowed to offer lower prices, which means online bookstore "Sales" are no longer possible and the customer cannot look for a lower price elsewhere as it would be fruitless.  Some consider this 'price fixing' while others consider it necessary publisher-control of book pricing, no matter how artificial or without reason.]

Novelist Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone-Away World, agreed. "If the agency model is really a problem under EU law, the law is the problem, not the industry," he said. "Otherwise you fall back into a situation where Amazon controls the market.  This is not to demonise Amazon, but they are a massive portion of the physical market and if their wholesale model also dominates the digital book market, it becomes much harder to negotiate with them." '

The Bookseller's deputy editor, Philip Jones, feels that if you let the market decide, then ebooks will become "too cheap" and they'll be unable to pay authors, editors or all the infrastructure that sustains the industry."

Yes, if an industry or individual companies (as we saw with digital music and with companies still limiting themselves to distributing physical copies of DVDs) cannot find a way to adjust to a vastly changing world, they won't be able to sustain the infrastructure as it stands.  The answer is not unceasing efforts to Stop the World from moving naturally (and insisting customers just pay up, and up) but to modify their infrastructure to reflect the real world and evolving technology, no matter how upsetting it may all be for them to have to change anything.

Read more at The Guardian story.

EARLIER BLOG ARTICLES ON THE E-BOOK PRICING WARS, WITH SOURCING
A Kindle World Blog history of articles on the e-book pricing wars


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Newspapers headline Amazon UK forum rebellion against Agency pricing

KINDLE CUSTOMER ANGER AT AGENCY 'PRICE FIXING'

That was the big headline at The Bookseller.com site yesterday when reporter Graeme Neill reported on the Amazon UK forum message thread that I pointed to the day before.

Besides accusing the publishers of "greediness" and vociferously suggesting that the actions of Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins could lead to piracy when people had been happy to pay the earlier prices, they have started a boycott which seems a bit stronger than the one already causing innocent authors no small distress in the U.S.:

' "I can't believe I'm saying this . . . because I have never ever downloaded files illegally. Not even once. And now I'm considering it. Because if publishers want to rip ME off, maybe it's not so wrong to rip them off?" '

That, by Caroline P was a popular sentiment.  As I mentioned in the earlier report, one forum writer had been upset that "One book, Just After Sunset bought at under £5 the other day, was seen to be £17.99 today, a price shown as 'set by the publisher' as they decided to do in the U.S. (where some customers ignore it and still blame Amazon for the pricing)."

The Bookseller picked up that message (out of 452 that were there when I last looked -- and there are right now about 700 postings there).  After some forum members decided to give Kindle book reviews 1-star ratings due to what they considered sudden, heavy overpricing, Neill reports:

' The move by Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins has lead [sic] to Amazon.co.uk's Kindle chart being dominated by non-agency publishers.

  Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles (Penguin, £12.99) has tumbled out of the top 20, while his first memoir, Moab is my Washpot (Random House, £2.69) was in the top 15 this morning (2nd November). '

While some of us feel this method of protesting is unfair to authors, there's little question that it's effective in bringing to the attention of the world the depth of unhappiness over the current raised pricing which is to be the same at all online e-book stores.

  To make it worse, a spokesperson at HarperCollins uttered an inept, meaningless statement that was like throwing oil on water:

' Experience has shown in the US, where the market is more mature, this is the best way to stimulate competition by offering good value to consumers and maximising the number of channels to market." '

  Stimulate competition? By making sure all online e-book stores charge the same higher price for an e-book ?  The UK has stronger regulations against what could be seen as price-fixing, and reporting the situation to agencies has been another method some forumners have used in the last week.

  However, in a posting that was just made as I write this, forumner Neilleeds advises the forum that, on the £17.99 book Just After Sunset "...the price has dropped to 50p below paperback for this now so the point is not as valid as it was!"  Maybe the many reports to regulatory agencies are having an effect.

  In the meantime, The Guardian's headline was "Kindle users revolt against delays to ebook editions."   Their focus is on "Angry Kindle fans" who "have sabotaged the Amazon rating of a bestselling new book, Game Change, an exposé of the 2008 US presidential elections, to punish its publisher for delaying the digital edition of the book until February.

  The newspaper reviews on that book have been highly positive but, the Guardian says, "the book has been punished with one-star reviews at Amazon.com from frustrated Kindle users" and Neill counted about 142 forum reviewers giving the book one star and writing that the publishers are shaming themselves by "excluding and alienating a huge market that would have bought your book if you weren't so shortsighted" and advising that topical books released later and no longer timely will never be bought now.

  Last year Amazon had predicted, during the U.S. equivalent of this reaction in the UK, that "authors get the most publicity at launch and need to strike while the iron is hot.  If readers can't get their preferred format at that moment, they may buy a different book or just not buy a book at all."

  For one thing, that also leaves time for would-be-readers to see any bad reviews or to find that this is no longer a book others are talking about and they drop the impulse to buy it.

  At that time last year, Simon & Schuster chief executive Carolyn Reidy had told the WSJ, "We believe some people will be disappointed.  But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of ebook reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible."

Random House, who said No to the new fixed-higher-pricing of the Agency Plan and therefore was not allowed into the Apple iBook Store, is the largest publisher of all and has not joined the other large publishers in this UK phase of the Agency plan and appears to be thriving.

Background
For those new to the situation and interested in the background of the e-book pricing wars, the earlier stories posted here include:

  . WashPost: State AG probes Apple, Amazon over e-Book prices. What?
  . Amazon removes Macmillan books
  . Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs
  . Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much
  . Amazon plays hardball to keep lower pricing option
  . Why are some e-book prices higher than hardcover ones?


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Amazon UK Switches to Agency Plan with 3 Publishers

As mentioned here on Oct. 15, Amazon told its UK customers about its battles to avoid the 'Agency Plan' created by Apple with the larger publishers and that the latter would 'require' online booksellers to accept the plan to fix prices to be the same at all online stores (notably higher in most cases).  See the recent story for details of what Amazon said to its customers in a posting on the Kindle forums.  The short version is:

' Recently, you may have heard that a small group of UK publishers will require booksellers to adopt an "agency model" for selling e-books. Under this model, publishers set the consumer price for each e-book and require any bookseller to sell at that price. This is unlike the traditional wholesale model that's been in place for decades, where booksellers set consumer prices.

It is indeed correct that this group of publishers will require Amazon and other UK booksellers to accept an agency model for e-books. We believe they will raise prices on e-books for consumers almost across the board. For a number of reasons, we think this is a damaging approach for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers alike. ... '

  But Bookseller.com reports it's come to pass in the U.K. now, also, with "publishers Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin now setting their own e-book prices.  Customers buying an e-book from the Kindle store from any of the three publishers are told: "This price was set by the publisher." A Penguin spokesperson said: "I can confirm we are now on the agency model with Amazon as of today."

  Hachette, the leader of the 3 (or the one who required this first) switched to agency pricing in September. Bookseller says that Amazon is the first online e-bookseller to make the switch and that no Penguin or Hachette e-books are yet available for sale on either Waterstones.com or W H Smith's website.

  It seems they just withhold the e-books if the retailer refuses to go on the Agency plan.  With Amazon, the customers tend to blame Amazon, as they did in the U.S., if the e-books are not in the store and many posted on forums they'd rather have a choice and pay more than not have access to the books at all or have to find them elsewhere.  Most posted though that they didn't intend to pay the publishers' new higher prices, since they were often 50% higher.

  The reaction in the UK's forums is more angry than even what we saw in the U.S. forums.  One book, Just After Sunset bought at under £5 the other day, was seen to be £17.99 today, a price shown as 'set by the publisher' as they decided to do in the U.S. (where some customers ignore it and still blame Amazon for the pricing).  However, I just looked and they're removed the price for the Kindle edition and haven't replaced it yet. Also, Bookseller.com adds:

'A small number of HarperCollins' e-books are available at Waterstones.com and W H Smith, with a note from Waterstones.com indicating that loyalty card points do not now apply to e-book purchases.

  It is believed that an issue over loyalty card payments was behind the removal of Hachette titles from sale at Waterstones.com when the publishers switched to agency in September, suggesting that the wrinkes [sic] in the transition may soon be ironed out across all booksellers who agree to the new terms.  One retailer said: "It's still a bit fluid.  Everything is still being resolved."

The only publishers who have signed up to the agency model but have yet to implement its pricing are Canongate, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. '

See the earlier story for more details and links to sourcing for the history of the e-book pricing wars.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Texas Atty General Questions E-book Publishers

Wall St. Journal reports that the Texas attorney general has approached two of the Big5 publishers -- Hachette Book Group and News Corp's HarperCollins.  The latter said they've received a request for documents, and they've declined further comment.  News Corp owns the Wall Street Journal.

  WSJ's Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Yukari Iwatani Kane point out that electronic book market pricing has been "shaken up by Apple Inc. and the way e-books are sold for the iPad."

  They add that the probe was reported earlier by the book-industry publication Publishers Marketplace, which said Apple was a target of the preliminary inquiry.  Both Apple and the Texas Attorney General's office declined to comment.

' ... One possible focus is Apple's e-book pricing and its impact on consumers.  Apple, in seeking to attract content for the iPad, opted for an agency pricing model in which publishers set their own retail prices and receive 70% of the price while sellers receive the remaining 30%.

The move boosted prices on some popular e-book titles.   Although some best-sellers are still sold at $9.99 -- the original norm on Amazon's Kindle reader -- many of the e-books written by leading authors are now priced at $12.99 or $14.99 as a result of Apple's move.

Five of the six major publishing houses have embraced the agency model, which reversed traditional practices in which retailers set the prices.
...
But antitrust agencies have been taking a closer interest in Silicon Valley companies in general, and Apple in particular. The Justice Department is making preliminary inquiries about Apple's practices in the music business, people familiar with the situation said last week. '

For more, see The Wall St. Journal story.

---

 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics
   Top 100 free Kindle bestsellers

Latest temporarily free Kindle books - Two from HarperCollins

Remember that at the end of most recent posts here you'll see a reminder like the one just below, so you won't have to wait for a blog entry to see the latest free nonclassics.  You can check for yourself at any time:

=======
"See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
  Check often: Latest free non-classics, shortcut http://bit.ly/latestfreenonclassics.)
  You can also check Free late-listed non-classics , shortcut http://bit.ly/latelistedfreenonclassics"
=======


Today checking the links above, you'll find two newcomers from HarperCollins (one of the Big5), both of which are free temporarily as promos.  If interested, get them while they're free.

 There are other new ones out of the 60 or so that are available at any given time, and rather than seeming to recommend any, I offer the two prepared links above that show a filtered small grouping (omits the hundreds of Excerpts) and you can see if any of the usual temporarily free offerings are of interest.
  The new free promos for HarperCollins books are unusual and usually gone within a day or two after the release date.


The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material by Vicki Pettersson (Kindle Edition - May 11, 2010)
  $0.00  Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on May 11, 2010.


Dragon Keeper Free Edition with Bonus Material by Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm by Vicki Pettersson (Kindle Edition - April 27, 2010)
  $0.00  Available for Pre-order. This item is released eff. April 27, 2010.

New Free Kindle Books 3/13-3/14 Updated 3/26

NEWLY/TEMPORARILY FREE BOOKS - NOT Recommendations, but only Alerts
UPDATED 3/26/10 (Orig'l post was dated 3/13 at 11:50 AM)
Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform, by Amazon.com.   315K size (small)   Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, March 14, 2010
No customer reviews yet, current price $0.00

Text-to-speech: Enabled.  Genre: Desktop publishing, Graphic Design, Reference
From Product Description:  "A guide to publishing your book on Kindle with Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP).  DTP is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their titles for sale in the Kindle Store.  If you have an Amazon.com account, you're already signed up with Digital Text Platform. ...  Digital Text Platform gives you everything you need to become your own publisher today."

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith, by Ann Spangler.   802K size (normal)   Publisher: Zondervan, June 1, 2009
42 customer reviews with 4-1/2 stars out of 5, current price $0.00

Current hardcover price: $14.95.  Audio: $15.59 Genre: Christology, Bible, Faith
From Product Description:  What would it be like to journey back to the first century and sit at the feet of Rabbi Jesus as one of his Jewish disciples? How would your understanding of the gospel have been shaped by the customs, beliefs, and traditions of the Jewish culture in which you lived?

UPDATED 3/24/10 (Orig'l post was dated 3/13 at 11:50 AM)
The Twelve Sacred Traditions of Magnificent Mothers-in-Law, by Haywood Smith.
6 customer reviews with 5 stars out of 5, current price $0.00

Current paperback price $9.95. Genre: Family Relationships
From Product Description:  A very Southern mother-in-law's humorous advice to mothers-in-law everywhere. From the multiple New York Times bestselling author of The Red Hat Club.

UPDATED 3/14/10 (Orig'l post was dated 3/13 at 11:50 AM)
Take One (Above The Line Series #1), by Karen Kingsbury.
34 customer reviews with 4-1/2 stars out of 5, current price $0.00

Current hardcover price $14.99; paperback price $6.00.  Digital List price was set at $11.99. This Kindle book is published by Zondervan with a displayed date of March 10, as a free Kindle book promo, I guess.  As with so many of Amazon's faster-selling Kindle books lately, this is labeled Christian Fiction.  It's about two who decide to make a feature film in Hollywood and their travails with that process.  There aren't any external newspaper reviews cited though.

---

The Dark Tide (Free for a Limited Time - With Bonus Material), by Andrew Gross
55 customer reviews with 4 stars out of 5, current price $0.00.

This is a pre-order for March 23 release date (Harper Collins)
At its former Amazon Kindle listing (without the bonus material) where the reviews are shown, the Kindle price is listed as $7.99. The free copy will be, as usual, temporary, for a relatively newer book (2008).

---

Rides a Dread Legion Free, with Bonus Material, by Raymond E. Feist.
33 customer reviews, with 4 stars out of 5, current price $0.00

This is another pre-order for March 23 release date (Eos)
At an alternate Amazon Kindle listing (without the bonus material) where the reviews are shown, the Kindle price is listed as $7.99 although the little box underneath the main header says that the Kindle Edition is $12.59. A new paperback edition, with the extended title of Rides a Dread Legion: Book One of the Demonwar Saga (Mass Market Paperback) is being released on April for $7.99 according to that little box.
The free copy will be, as usual, temporary, for a relatively newer book.

---

Stopping Time, Part 1 by Melissa Marr March 16 pre-order Temporary price $0.00

Stopping Time, Part 2 by Melissa Marr March 23 pre-order Temporary price $0.99 - now $0.00

Young adult novels, fantasy genre. Her Ink Exchange for Harper Collins received a positive review by The Washington Post's Mary Quattlebaum: "As the sequel to last year's popular Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange is even more compelling, thanks to Melissa Marr's more nuanced characterizations..."

HarperCollins is putting a lot of teen-market money behind Marr. See the video they've produced.

---

See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
There's also a page of links that confine searches to mid-range priced e-books.