Comments on: Would you buy an e-book as a gift?

By: JSWolf

JSWolf — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:45:15 +0000

Sony makes it very very easy to buy gift cards for others. And the gift card information gets emailed directly to the person you are purchasing for. I recently purchased some gift cards for someone and it was as easy as could be.

By: Raquel

Raquel — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:51:14 +0000

I see the gift card for an e-book store just like purchasing an i-tune gift card, which I have done!

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:31:11 +0000

Actually, I think a prepaid gift card to an e-book store (just like an iTunes gift card) is a perfect gift to give. Amazon sells gift cards and e-mailable gift codes that can be used to buy Kindle store items. I’m looking at the same service for the future.

By: Moz

Moz — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:44:36 +0000

I would, but it’s not legal to do so. Until publishers and stores stop putting “licensed only to purchaser” terms in their conditions of sale your question only applies to people like Barack Obama who think they’re above the law.

A gift certificate is not the same.

By: Rob Preece

Rob Preece — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:34:12 +0000

I’ve given dozens of eBooks as gifts. Of course it’s easy if it’s one of the books I publish. I often give Fictionwise gifts as well, though–either because I want to give a book someone else published (yes, I admit BooksForABuck is not the only publisher in the world) or when I want to give them to reviewers who just might give some of those all-important “great” clicks. I really don’t see the issue with giving eBooks. Of course, I’m a fan of non-DRMed books (and definitely not a fan of piracy).

Rob Preece
Publisher

By: Cat Faber

Cat Faber — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:04:03 +0000

I see no reason why it shouldn’t be technically possible, with a reader like the Kindle, to make it possible to purchase e-books as gifts. You’d want options for giver to include a personal message, or choose to be anonymous, or something like that. You’d want options for the recipient to decline the gift if zie isn’t comfortable with it. But that’s all very doable with the technology involved as far as I can tell.

And you bet I’d buy, and ask for, Kindle (or unprotected mobi) books as gifts. Yum!

By: Paula B.

Paula B. — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:22:59 +0000

Thanks so much for retweeting and posting my question, David. If Amazon and other providers haven’t thought about this issue, they ought to. So many books are sold as gifts–especially around the holidays!

(I was inspired to ask the question by the huge uptick in sales of my own ebooks/articles at the Kindle store over Mother’s Day weekend. I got to wondering what had caused the deluge. Guess I’ll never know.)

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:41:59 +0000

I’d only buy an ebook without DRM as a gift. For secure Mobipocket, PDF, EPub (and probably most others), I’d need to know the recipient’s device information, and for secure EReader, I’d have to share my credit card information with the recipient.