Kindle First Choices available for July 2016 (pick 1 from 6)

It’s July 1st, and the start of a new month means a new six pack. What??? A new six pack of e-books for Amazon Prime members to pick from. One of the Prime Benefits is one FREE pre-release e-book from a choice of six every month. These are books that eventually appear in Kindle Unlimited (KU) as well, so if you are not a Prime member but you are a KU subscriber, you can read them for free next month after they are officially released.

So here are the six choices for July 2016:

  • “The Daughter of Union County” by Francine Thomas Howard in Historical Fiction
  • “Emotional Rescue” by Ben Greenman in Nonfiction Essays
  • “Midair” by Kodi Scheer in Literary Fiction
  • “Everything We Keep” by Kerry Lonsdale in Contemporary Fiction
  • “Rage” by Zygmunt Miloszewski, Antonia Lloyd-Jones in Crime Fiction
  • “Doubt (Caroline Auden)” by C. E. Tobisman in Legal Thrillers

Since these are brand new releases, they have very little in reviews, so if none of them jumps out at you, simply wait for a week or two, and by them there should be enough reviews to potentially help you make a decision. Remember, you have until the end of the month (July 31st) to pick one, so unless you need something to read right now, just add an entry in your calendar to recheck again in a couple of weeks.

Interestingly, this is the first month in a while where there are no fantasy or science fiction books. They are typically one of the six.

July 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

50% off one Google Play Movie Rental

Digital movie rentals can be insanely high for newly released for-rental movies, so coupons and special promotions are a good idea if you want to watch a new movie now, and not wait for it to make its way to Netflix or cable TV. Which brings us to Google Play, if you go to the Google Play store and look at the main offers there, one of them is a promotion that gets you 50% off the rental price of one movie. The promotion is good until 8/7/16. But once you rent the movie, you have the usual 30 days to watch it.

You should see something like this in Google Play (screenshow below):

half_off_google_play_movie_rental

You must first add the offer to your account, and then their checkout system will automatically apply the discount when you try to rent an eligible movie. There is no coupon code to enter, just add the offer to your account. If you have multiple Google accounts on your device, make sure you add it to the correct account!

June 30, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: ,

June 2016 Free eBook Options for eligible Samsung Devices

If you have an eligible Samsung device (not all of them are qualifying for this promotion) AND if you have also installed the Kindle app from Samsung’s own app store, then you can get a free e-book from a choice of four options every month. These previously released ebooks are also part of the Kindle Unlimited subscription (KU), so if you have that, and your Samsung device is not eligible, you can read them through KU.

The offers run anew in each calendar month, but as usual, don’t wait until the very last minute to get them as time zone differences and IT issues may cause you to miss them. This particular round is good until June 30, 2016.

samsung_june_2016_ebooks

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June 25, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

The Kindle First selections for June 2016 are out: Pick One from Six

A new month is here, that’s right, it’s June 2016 and among the many things this month brings is a new selection of e-books for Prime members to pick from as part of the Kindle First program, one of the many Prime benefits.

As usual, you pick one free pre-release from a choice of six for FREE and you get to read it right now, before its official release on July 1st. Many of these end up in Kindle Unlimited (KU), so if you like more than one and you are a KU subscriber, check there once they go live.

kindlefirst_june2016

So here we go, the choices for June 2016 are:

  • “Pierced by the Sun” by Laura Esquivel, Jordi Castells in Literary Fiction
  • “The Last Woman Standing” by Thelma Adams in Historical Fiction
  • “The Temporary Agent” by Daniel Judson in Thrillers
  • “Intrusion” by Mary McCluskey in Psychological Suspense
  • “Journey’s End (Gilded Promises)” by Reenee Ryan in Romance
  • “Cold (A Joe Tiplady Thriller Book 1)” by John Sweeney in Thrillers

As usual with these, since they are brand new, there are very few reviews on the first day of the month, so if none of them stands out for you, you can simply wait for a few days and monitor the reviews to see if anyone emerges as a good candidate. You have until 6/30/16 to pick one of these, so there’s no rush. They won’t run out of e-books 🙂

June 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 BluRay for $5.30 (not a typo!)

If you are missing the second half of the final season or if you only want to have the last ten episodes, the BluRay with Season 4.5 of the rebooted Ronald D. Moore “Battlestar Galactica” TV series is on sale for around $5.30 at Amazon.com, and that’s not all. This is Prime eligible, ships from Amazon’s warehouses, and it is not an Add-On item, so if you are a member, you get it delivered to you without the need for additional purchases to get free shipping.

This comes in three discs, with a total of ten episodes, episodes 4-11 to 4-20. If you don’t remember what’s what, refresh yourselves with the episode list at the very useful and very lightweight on the browser epguides.com.

May 28, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Earn 1500 Plenti Points on New Hulu subscription

The Plenti rewards program is having a new limited time promotion. If you were not a Hulu subscription during the last 12 months, and you start a new paying Hulu subscription, you will receive 1500 Plenti points after your first monthly charge. Hulu comes with a 7-day free trial, but you will earn the Plenti points after your first monthly payment.

plenti_hulu

You must link your existing Plenti card to your Hulu account. After you do that, you can also take advantage of various 200 point promotions from Plenti-Hulu (eg watch 10 comedy episodes get 200 Plenti points).

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May 12, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Kindle First eBook Options for May 2016 are up

If you are a Prime member, one of the many benefits is a free pre-release e-book from a choice of 4 or 6 every month. The choices change on the 1st of every month, and you can pick one per month. If none of them speak to you immediately, wait a few days until they pick up more customer reviews ~ sometimes those can be helpful in deciding.

Without further delay, the May 2016 choices are:

  • “Enemy (On the Bones of Gods Book 1)” by K. Eason in Fantasy
  • “A House for Happy Mothers” by Amulya Malladi in Contemporary Fiction
  • “We’re All Damaged” by Matthew Norman in Modern Fiction
  • “The Butterfly Garden” by Dot Hutchison in Thrillers
  • “About the Night” by Anat Talshir and Evan Fallenberg in Literary Fiction
  • “Time Heals No Wounds (A Baltic Sea Crime Novel)” by Hendrik Falkenberg and Patrick F. Brown in Mysteries

To see the options and read customer reviews of them, check Kindle First page by 5/31/16. Here’s a partial screenshot of that page:

kindle_first_may_2016

May 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , , ,

Free Samsung Book Deals options for May 2016 are up

If you have an eligible Samsung device, and you have installed the Kindle app from the official Samsung App store ~ whatever its name is these days 🙂 ~ and you are logged on to it with your Amazon account, you can receive one FREE e-book for May 2016 from a choice of four ebooks.

All four of these ebooks (and previous selections) are part of Kindle Unlimited, so they typically have plenty of customer reviews to help you decide whether to get them or not. You have until 5/31/16 to make a choice.

You can see the May 2016 options in the screenshot below:

samsung_book_deals_may_2016

TIP: the price has to be $0.00, otherwise you will be charged!

May 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

[DEAD] FREE for T-Mobile Customers: 1 Year of MLB.tv Premium Subscription (sign-up by 4/10/16)

This surprise free subscription offer from T-Mobile expired on 4/10/16…

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April 4, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , , ,

Kindle First options for April 2016: pick one from six choices

If you are a Prime member, one of your included benefits is Kindle First. Every calendar month, you can get a free pre-release e-book from a choice of six e-books, and read it one month before the rest of the world.

The choices for April 2016 are:

  • “Blood Defense (Samantha Brinkman Book 1)” by Marcia Clark in Thrillers
  • “Golden Age (The Shifting Tides Book 1)” by James Maxwell in Fantasy
  • “The Eagle Tree” by Ned Hayes in Literary Fiction
  • “The Secret Healer” by Ellin Carsta, Terry Laster in Historical Fiction
  • “Star Sand” by Roger Pulivers in War Fiction
  • “Deliver Her” by Patricia Perry Donovan in Suspense

You can see the available choices at the Kindle First page. Happy reading 🙂

Since these just came out, it make take a few days before they build up enough reviews for you to get helpful feedback on which one to pick. Remember, you have until April 30 in 2016 to pick one, but don’t wait until the last minute. The options do not roll over. If you don’t pick an ebook during a particular month, it doesn’t carry forward.

April 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Samsung Book Deals for April 2016 are out

If you have an eligible Samsung device (phone or tablet), you may be able to get a free Kindle e-book every month from a choice of four. To do that, you must download the Kindle app from the Samsung app store – whatever its name is this time 🙂 This special version has the Samsung Book Deals “baked” in the app, but that’s not all. The app is also S-Pen optimized, so for example, you can use the S-Pen to quickly highlight text or change pages while reading.

samsung_book_deals_april_2016

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April 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

[DEAD] Watch for FREE: Season 1 of Outlander (Starz)

UPDATE (April 12, 2016) Since the original post, Starz launched their own standalone subscription option and updated their apps. The promotion mentioned below is no longer available.

You can still start a 7-day free trial (directly from the Starz apps or thru Prime) and if you don’t like it, you can cancel. It is a month-to-month subscription (like Netflix). Note that if you sign up through Prime, you don’t get a Starz account, you have to watch through Amazon’s own video apps (Instant Video, Web Browser, etc) and channels (Roku, FireTV, etc).

I believe some cable companies are having a weekend binge promotion that includes Starz (I think Comcast Xfinity) but I don’t know if that’s open to all or only their own customers or even further restricted to their TV subscribers.

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March 29, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Used “Space Above and Beyond” DVD set for $19 shipped

The scifi TV series “Space Above and Beyond” was a bit ahead of its time, back in the era 20+ episode seasons without the necessary budget. For whatever reason, it cannot be found on any of the major streaming services in the USA, which has kept the prices of its DVDs higher than other TV shows that are streamable.

If you don’t want to pay new condition prices [currently $40] for it, you can get it for $19~ shipped in “Used – Very Good” condition by Go Hastings through Amazon. This ships directly from GoHastings, so you can’t avoid the shipping fee even if you are a Prime member. This ships from Texas.

NOTE: there’s another seller offering it for a similar price but that one ships from the UK and it’s probably Region 2. So pay attention to who the actual seller is over there before buying!

PS: it’s one and only season had a total of 24 episodes (with the pilot included) ~ see EpGuides for details.

March 8, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Plenti Offer: Earn 1000 Points with a Hulu Subscription

If you are part of the Plenti Rewards program [see our earlier write-up if you are not familiar with it], AND you haven’t been a Hulu subscriber in the last 12 months, AND you are interested in starting a Hulu subscription, they have a new promotion in your account. You earn 1000 Plenti Points ($10 equivalent) when you start a new Hulu subscription.

hulu_plenti_new_subscription

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March 7, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Free PreRelease Animated Movie on Google Play: BLING

This is a bit strange, but for a limited time, Google Play is offering for FREE a pre-release movie. That’s right, the movie hasn’t come out in the theaters yet, but you can digitally own it for $0.00 on Google Play. This is an 81-minute animated movie called “Bling”.

It’s certainly one way to generated buzz about the movie, or perhaps apologize why Taylor Kitsch and Tom Green are voice-starring in it [meow!].

March 3, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: ,