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Big Three Publishers Come at Amazon with a New Retailing Site
2
Amazon's recommendation system gets better the fewer books by the same author there are, because it will always recommend those first. When I'm prowling, I tend to use the "friend of a friend" approach -- pick the most promising Book B from Book A's recommendations, and look for a recommendation for B. But I've found far better suggestions, in history at least, from outside sources -- a lot of smarter people than me have created booklists.
The only book on the short list of titles I checked for prices where Bookish was able to match Amazon was a brand-new small press item, "This Is What We Do" by local Seattle writer Tom Hansen. Not of the others were even particularly close; for instance, "Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the US, 1861-1865" by James Oakes is $17.82 on Amazon, $24.18 on Bookish.
Bookish also doesn't address the problem of keeping local bookstores alive, which is another way of saying "keeping local neighborhoods alive", as retail continues to disappear forever from our streets.
The only book on the short list of titles I checked for prices where Bookish was able to match Amazon was a brand-new small press item, "This Is What We Do" by local Seattle writer Tom Hansen. Not of the others were even particularly close; for instance, "Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the US, 1861-1865" by James Oakes is $17.82 on Amazon, $24.18 on Bookish.
Bookish also doesn't address the problem of keeping local bookstores alive, which is another way of saying "keeping local neighborhoods alive", as retail continues to disappear forever from our streets.
4
Well they have a nice price on Child 44 which I"m reading now (highly recommended if a 20th century Crime and Punishment is your bag) and it's value priced at $2.99 same as I bought it for at Amazon.
http://www.bookish.com/books/child-44-to…
It reads with an app useable on any Android device which means I can't use my Kindle e.ink or Windows PC however.
http://www.bookish.com/books/child-44-to…
It reads with an app useable on any Android device which means I can't use my Kindle e.ink or Windows PC however.
5
I welcome any serious challenger to Amazon. Selling ebooks in their own format and making e-readers that don't accept the standard ePub format is a horrible practice. Amazon is one of the few companies that didn't need to do any of that. And yes, yes, I know how easy it is to convert formats and such. If Amazon sold their digital books the same way they sold their digital music - DRM-free and in a standard format - I would be evangelising them, but as it stands, I think it's insane to purchase ebooks through them, no matter how cheap and convenient it is.
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Note that most of the publishers required all ebook sales to be DRM'd. You can't lay that one solely at the feet of Amazon.
8
Actually Amazon encourages publishers not to DRM their books. It is the publishers who cling to DRM. The issue online isn't selling books but discovering books. I like LibraryThing and GoodReads, but I can't say that I have actually found books using those sites. I've found books using the recommendation engine, but typically it a kind of multi-factorial thing where I hear about book a number of times in various ways. Bookstores still tend to be a retail space where I will purchase books. Does anyone know of a study about how people learn about books they want to read?
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