#74:  If you’re a patient consumer, you’ve probably read reviews of products when visiting your favorite online retailer.  If you’re a smart consumer, you’ll ignore those one-liners which state “this product is (no) good” and give the product five stars (respectively one star).  Book reviews on Amazon are no different.  A well-written review goes beyond the one line and explains what the reviewer found good and what she found bad about the product (book).

A similar criticism can be applied to ranking systems, especially on Amazon.  One or two bad reviews can skew the total ranking of a book (who can figure out their ranking system anyway?).  It’s similar to those car insurance rankings in some states where you’re golden if you’ve never had a moving violation but on some black list if you look cross-eyed at a traffic cop.  The Amazon ranking is just as unfair as your car insurance ranking.  Professors use something similar for true-false tests—plus one for a correct answer, minus two for incorrect.  Amazon’s system is probably worse than most professors’.

Bottom line:  for an expensive book (eBook price > $9.99?), read reviews other than Amazon’s; for an inexpensive book (eBook price < $4.99?), you might want to just take a chance (for $0.99 or less, what can you lose?).

#75:  Speaking of eBook pricing, you might recall that I’ve written about my confusion on this issue elsewhere in this blog.  Visiting Joe Konrath’s blog yesterday ( jakonrath.blogspot.com ), I noticed an interesting post and discussion about the subject.  The post was a guest post from Elle Lothlorien (December 6).  After recalling my own confusion, I commented that I have concluded that understanding eBook pricing is like understanding the stock market—both are too volatile to allow one to come up with a good set of rules.  Elle makes the argument that there’s a sweet point where below that price readers think the product must be inferior and above they think the product is overpriced.  Now, if someone can just tell me how to find that sweet point.  (I don’t buy Elle’s comparison to Starbucks Coffee, by the way.  I think all their coffee is equally bad in that it all tastes like burned hickory.)

#76:  Speaking of Joe Konrath, in his December 7 post co-authored with Barry Eisler, a recent Hachette memo on what that publishing company does for writers is debunked.  Maybe it was because it was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, but the verbal bombs dropped against Hachette and other legacy publishers were many.  Of course, Hachette deserves it.  Their memo shows they’re completely out of touch with reality.

#77:  Authors have certainly noticed and readers overseas are probably happy campers too, as Amazon begins to go more and more international.  The online retailer has many critics (how many are associated with legacy publishing?), but they’re selling books, benefitting both readers and writers everywhere.  Moreover, buying online with them is becoming more and more like browsing in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.  Where all this will shake out is unknown, but Eisler and Konrath’s post discusses some interesting possibilities.

#78:  I’m not sure of how effective Patterson and Lynch will be in their advertising of the Nook.  I’m not sure a writer or actor is technical enough to make people choose between a Nook and Kindle.  I tend to listen to people who are a bit more savvy who can compare pros and cons of each device.  Moreover, I find both commercials annoying.  Come on, Patterson, you kicked the bar that opens the door—I can do that.  And Lynch, does everything have to be a hidden commercial for Glee with you?

#79:  On the other hand, the girl friend buying the two Kindles is just as annoying.  Moreover, the advertisers are working off the stereotype that women are Luddites.  That’s right up there with saying girls can’t do math.  Amazon, you should know better.

#80:  Don’t like eBooks?  You’re not alone.  There are stats to show that eBook purchases are biased towards women and commuters (there’s an overlap, of course), but there are plenty of people who can’t get their head around reading a book on a screen, no matter how convenient or easy it is.  Some of these write notes in the margin or mark pages with dog ears, something I’ve found hard to remember how to do with my Kindle.

If you want to have that feel of a physical book in your hands, you’ll find my first four books (The Midas Bomb, Full Medical, Soldiers of God, and Survivors of the Chaos) in trade paperback (pBook) format.  For these books, buying directly from the publisher is more economical.  However, you’ll still pay more for the pBook than the corresponding eBook.  In any case, enjoy your reading in any format (except for Soldiers…real soon now I’ll have an eBook version).

#81:  I wish all my readers and writing friends happy holidays and a prosperous 2012.

In libris libertas….

 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2011 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.