Oh really O'Reilly? & Hockenberry's new book

O'Reilly has become one of those publishers that have embraced the ebook experience and even made early attempts with the Safari Books Online offering, in which you subscribe to get access. Unfortunately they have a confusing array of options for buying books and if you're not careful you can end up paying more than you have to.

For example if you want to get Hockenberry's "iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual" you have a range of choices. You can get the print version, the ebook version or a bundle with both the print and ebook versions (you can also get it through Safari Books Online but that's another issue).

Naturally if you get either the print or the ebook version by them selves you're paying US$39.99 and US$31.99 respectively, with a paltry $8.00 discount on the ebook ( vs. cutting down a tree and processing it into paper, shipping the paper, printing it, shipping the books to O'Reilly then shipping them to you ). If you get the bundle though, it's only $4 more than buying just the print version... hardly makes sense but that's their model.

So the bundle is only $43.99 and for the cost of a cup of coffee I get to read it on my iPad while the print version sits in my office library for others to refer to if they need to. Great I'll get that option. At this point like me you may have not paid much attention to the "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" promotional button.

Anyway if you head off to the checkout they give you a much bigger hint that you should take advantage of this offer. Directly under the shopping cart you get the big reminder that you could be saving more money!

So, being human, I give in to the impulse, and justify it by reminding myself of another iPhone OS centric book that I've been tracking called "iPhone 3D Programming - Developing Graphical Applications with OpenGL ES" by a fellow called Philip Rideout. Not surprisingly this book includes a bundle that gives you the ebook for only $4 as well (there's the doughnut to go with that coffee).

Having already made a bundle decision, you like me, would probably do it again. Here's where the problem starts - if you checkout now and use the recommended coupon code you will actually pay more than if you just brought the two bundles. That's right - don't use the promotion code OPC10 in this situation, instead just leave the code as BUNDLE which is automatically filled in for you.

Using the "OPC10" code actually ended up increasing the bundle prices, here's the comparison between BUNDLE and OPC10 for you to compare:

Four book discount?

So, if you decide to get 4 books (2 print + 2 ebook versions) use the "BUNDLE" code.

If you do manage to show some restraint and just get one extra book, don't use "BUNDLE" code. Wait what?

Yes sadly, for the situation where you have 3 books (a print + ebook bundle and 1 other), use the "OPC10" code to get the best pricing

Three book discount?

While the $6.66 saving is not as dramatic as the $19.98 (nor is it a sign of Lucifer) it's gets me my coffee and doughnut back! For people that live a little closer to O'Reilly's wharehouse it could be the cost of shipping! Yay - free shipping, well kind of.