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Apple Offers Free Books and Audiobooks to Users in U.S. for Limited Time Only

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Apple Books today sent out a push notification highlighting free books and audiobooks available to users for a limited time only. This appears to be U.S. only for now.

Apple-Books-Free-Books-and-Audio-Books-Promo.png

The push notification reads:
Enjoy a good book, on us
Explore free books, read-alongs for kids, cozy mysteries, and audiobooks for the whole family.
Click to expand...
Upon tapping on the notification, users are brought to the Free Books page in the Apple Books Store. From there users can browse through several novels from various genres, explore a wide selection of audiobooks, or select a new book from Apple's 'First in a Series, Free' tab.

Apple is likely offering this promotion as people around the world remain in their homes amid the ongoing crisis. It is unclear as to how long this promotion will last, so it is definitely worth spending a few minutes to explore the many books and audiobooks while they're available for free.

Article Link: Apple Offers Free Books and Audiobooks to Users in U.S. for Limited Time Only
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/22/apple-free-books-for-limited-time/
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I didn’t get a notification, but there’s a section in the “Book Store” tab that has a selection of books and audiobooks. The Sesame Street section will go a long way for my daughter!
 
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squelart said:
In Australia: No notifications, but I can see the same "Free Books" section in the Books app. :)
Click to expand...

It's different. The notification might have been just the Sesame Street section of this link
BUT you have to do it on a mobile device (at least I can't do it on my MacBook).

You can go to some of the sections and some books are marked "get" (which means free) but they error out (because they're going back to full price), but I got a few from some in each section for free. ALL the Sesame Street ones seemed to be free.
 
You gotta do something.... so why not read.. I've also got U.S account, so the "U.S for now" doesn't apply anyway.
 
So, I haven’t gotten any notification, but I went into the “Book Store” section of the app, and the “Featured Collection”, up at the top, is titled, “Free books for everyone, from, from kids to adults”, and it has... a lot of free books. Including 100 titles from Sesame Street, and that includes a bunch of “Read Along” books.

I note that they say “for a limited time only” - I assume that means there’s a limited time within which to “purchase” (for $0) these books to add them to your collection, not that they’re going to disappear from your collection after a limited time.
 
JokerPower said:
Why only US?
Click to expand...
The usual answer, for media like this, is: licensing rights. Often the foreign license rights have been assigned to various other companies. They can unilaterally decide to change the local price, but if they want to change prices in other countries, that involves renegotiating with the company currently handling those countries. And if you’re trying to do something worldwide, that may be a bunch of companies. And if you’ve got a bunch of books, times a bunch of countries, that can be a whole bunch of contracts to renegotiate. Gets to be a big mess. But if you hold the rights in your home country (the US in this case), and decide to do just the one country, most all of that extra headache evaporates.
 
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CarlJ said:
No, see, to be really helpful to everyone stuck at home: free iPad Pros to run all that stuff on, for all!
Click to expand...
and some of those $400 Mac wheels to put on iPads too, for all !
[automerge]1584951034[/automerge]
CarlJ said:
Well, the title of the articles does say, “in the U.S.”. And the second sentence is, “This appears to be U.S. only for now.”. But, hey, some stuff is showing up.
Click to expand...
The article has been edited to include references to the US... no sentences referenced it when originally posted. But, hey, glad you felt the need to point it out...
 
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CarlJ said:
The usual answer, for media like this, is: licensing rights. Often the foreign license rights have been assigned to various other companies. They can unilaterally decide to change the local price, but if they want to change prices in other countries, that involves renegotiating with the company currently handling those countries. And if you’re trying to do something worldwide, that may be a bunch of companies. And if you’ve got a bunch of books, times a bunch of countries, that can be a whole bunch of contracts to renegotiate. Gets to be a big mess. But if you hold the rights in your home country (the US in this case), and decide to do just the one country, most all of that extra headache evaporates.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's how it is. But a simple customer won't give a s*** about their licensing. The customer wants right now the content, which can easily be found on torrents.
 
CarlJ said:
The usual answer, for media like this, is: licensing rights. Often the foreign license rights have been assigned to various other companies. They can unilaterally decide to change the local price, but if they want to change prices in other countries, that involves renegotiating with the company currently handling those countries. And if you’re trying to do something worldwide, that may be a bunch of companies. And if you’ve got a bunch of books, times a bunch of countries, that can be a whole bunch of contracts to renegotiate. Gets to be a big mess. But if you hold the rights in your home country (the US in this case), and decide to do just the one country, most all of that extra headache evaporates.
Click to expand...
As if that wasn't bad enough, worldwide differences mean that Apple has to get approval first in some places, both for accounting and legal reasons. These issues aren't present in Apple's home country, the USA, so it's easiest to launch there first.
 
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