Pre-order D&D 3.5 books for $17.61

Nice deal from walmart.com:

D&D 3.5 books at walmart.com

i am not sure which suprises me more..the price or the walmart....

Done and done.

Thanks.

Amazon has it for ~$20 with free shipping. It's also quite easy to get a $5 off $35 coupon for Amazon. (eg: MAPAMEXCBLUE, MAPAMEXDELTA) or $10 off $75 (MAPAMEXCARDS).

How about a Share the Love thread as well? So a person who orders the books can send a share the love coupons to others and both parties receive discounts.

Here's how it works:

Save your friends--and yourself--some money
Each time you place an order with us, we'll offer you the chance to e-mail your friends and give them an additional 10% off the items you bought. (You select which items, of course.) The e-mail we send will explain the discounts and how to apply them. If anyone makes a purchase within a week, you'll get a credit to use the next time you shop!

How much will my credit be worth?
Your credit will equal the dollar amount of your friends' 10% discount. Let's say you bought a CD for $15 and decided to Share the Love on that purchase. Your friends would be able to buy the same CD for $13.50, and you'd get $1.50 (the difference) off your next purchase at Amazon.com.

Credit limits
You are eligible to receive one credit per item shared

Applying credit on future purchases
After you Share the Love, we'll give you a link to your personal Share the Love page. From there, you can apply the credit you received. You can also see and buy the items your friends have shared with you. You have 30 days after you receive credit to apply it to your account.

Eligible items
Only books, music, DVDs, and videos purchased at Amazon.com are eligible for this offer. Items from our other retail stores or from Amazon Marketplace, Auctions, and zShops are not eligible, nor are items purchased from our international or partner sites.

Amazon Friends
Amazon Friends allows you to create a private community to share product opinions, recommendations, and discounts with your friends and family. When you send a discount to friends, we'll add them to your list of Amazon Friends. To learn more about Amazon Friends, click the Friends & Favorites link in the blue bar on our home page.

Click to expand...

Anyone notice that that catalogue entry for the books from Walmart says for each of the books "Order this item now, and we will ship it to arrive to you on or just after the release date of 7/1/2003."

I'd say a few weeks just after, since the books aren't being released (AKAIK) until 7/24, at the start of GenCon.

Share the Love

If someone wants me to "Share the Love" the Amazon.com way, just give me your email address and I'll have them send you the coupon. I've just ordered 3.5 from them, together with the Complete Chronicles of Amber.

[Edit Done. Love shared with Gariig.

Okay, that's it. Wal Mart selling D&D books online for 41% off is the last straw. My pet peeve has now been mangled.

Buying massively discounted gaming books from a store that has no interest in gaming *will* destroy the gaming market.
Wal Mart, which has one of the worst reputations for destroying locally owned businesses, couldn't care a less whether the gaming market thrives much less even exists. Their only goal is make you buy products from them. Period. End of story.

I know a lot of you don't have local game stores and in many places the local gaming store closed for what ever reason. Most of those reasons of course are money related. How many of you are buying the revised books from Amazon or Wal Mart over a local game store?

Believe me, I understand everyone wants to save money but at the expense of your hobby is not the way to do it. Yeah, I know, some of you are thinking I'm nuts but I've seen what massive discounting does to small businesses and small press companies as well. Places like Wal Mart demand companies give them a certain net price or they will refuse to sell their product. So, where do small press companies sell most of their product? That's right, speciality stores and small business retailers. So guess what happens to the small press companies when they have no place to sell their product?

"But Derek, I buy all of my small press books from a gaming store!" That's well and good but many game store retailers count on money from big publishers like Wizards of the Coast to pay their rent *and* provide money to purchase smaller press books. No WotC sales makes it difficult to stay in business to say the least. Much like the comicbook store side, small press continues to thrive with the help of large press's existence.

Before some of you go off on me and say I'm just jealous because I can't sell my product at massive discounts let me just say I could but it would be pointless. There's no point being in business if you can't pay the bills and you're essentially giving books away at cost. I'm also a gamer and have been for close to 23 years now. I want to see tabletop gaming continue and thrive in a competitive market. That won't happen if you give your gaming dollar to Wal Mart or any other massive discounter.

Thanks for considering this issue!

~Derek

Sorry Derek, but I can't afford the cross-border shipping fees, so I'll be preordering from whatever canadian online retailer can give me a decent price. Right now, that looks to be Amazon.ca. If I buy them locally, I'll pay 20% over cover, and I'd rather see the only local gaming store go under rather than be gouged that badly.

Huh?

First people bitch about the new books not costing $20, because they're just the stuff that 3e should've been all along.

Then people bitch when they do cost $20. (or $17 or whatever.)

(ok, I know, not the point Derek was making, but just goes to show that gamers won't be pleased...)

There are 2 LGS' near me. One is already going out of business, and the other sells all sorts of other hobby products in addition to roleplaying stuff. I don't think purchasing my books online will put them out of business.