Amazing...even books have rebates now!

Just saw two O'Reilly books at the Local Fry's...one was Google Hacks and other name I can't remember...interesting thing was both were $9.95 with $9.95 rebates....free after rebate!

So when did this trend start!  Looks like technical publishing has become very competitive market!

Code Monkey
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Rebates are long known to be very very effective draw for sales.

Some rebate requests will be lost in the mail, and many will never be sent at all. Companies wait a long time to send rebates back, if they send them at all (there are some companies that are unethical enough to never respond, unsurprisingly).

The ultimate illustration of the power of rebates is the "free hottub". There's no catch: it's really (eventually) free, if you follow the directions. You pay for the hot-tub, then follow the very strict directions. Money is kept in escrow until enough people fail out of the rebate to pay off the ones who are left.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

>Rebates are long known to be very very effective draw for sales.

True and not only that for some to make a name for themselves against a better known competitor. I think one of the ways US Robotics stamped on Hayes in the modem market was that they gave away lot fo rebates.

But it is surprising to see a well known technical book publisher like O'Reilly take this route.  I know that some authors like Bruce Ecklel have given away soft copies of their books ("Thinking in Java") as a free download but I had not seen someone doing a mail-in rebate on a technical book before!

What next upgrade pricing for next version of the book? :-)

Code Monkey
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I know marketers need rebates to keep up the perception of "manufactorer's recommended price" and friends, but it's a darn big irritation to log into shady rebates checking operations every 2 weeks to figure out 1) whether they received your precious barcodes and 2) when they'll send the money.

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Upgrade pricing for the next version of the book would be sweet, wouldn't it?

Darren Collins
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

There is a possibility that the rebate was actually offered by Fry's or a book distributor rather than O'Reilly itself.

Chris Tavares
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

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