Buying an Amazon Short E-Book
Nine months after I first wrote about the Amazon Shorts program I finally got around to buying one. I purchased "Remaindered" by Lee Goldberg, which was released May 27, 2006 for $0.49. Turned out to be a pretty amusing short story if you're willing to overlook the lack of morals on the part of the protagonist, which I find pretty difficult to do and goes a long way towards explaining why I lost interest in modern fiction. More interestingly, from the Amazon watcher and publishing business point of view, is that I bought Remaindered by mistake!
Yes, was attracted by the title when sorting e-docs for bestsellers, yes, I clicked on the "Buy it Now" link, it wasn't that kind of mistake. The error was wholly on my part, I thought it was going to be a non-fiction story about a nightmarish experience in trade publishing where the author is out on the road promoting the book at his own expense, and the publisher is already shipping remainders to Amazon Marketplace sellers. I got that impression by reading the first two sentences of the description too quickly, and not even bothering to click for the expanded description. Am I a sloppy shopper? Not usually, it was the $0.49 that did me in. The lack of DRM on the title didn't play into the decision, I didn't even notice it was printable until just now.
I mean, how much buyers remorse can possibly result from a 49 cent purchase? None, in this case, I did enjoy the descriptions of life on the book tour, a route I've managed to avoid myself, and there was a plot twist that reminded me of some of the sleuthing books I read as a kid. And it was a very inexpensive lesson in something I hadn't cottoned to, because it usually doesn't matter to me. Price. Price does matter, it's just that we all have different impulse thresholds. I usually won't spend $25 on a book on a whim, but 49 cents I'll lose through a hole in my pocket several times over before digging out the needle and thread.
So, in this sense, I was wrong in some of my initial assumptions about Amazon Shorts, and that probably explains why some many of them hang around the e-book bestseller list as well, not that it amounts to anything in terms of revenue. The price is compelling, Amazon has eliminated the entry barrier to paying for an e-book. It may also help explain why the multiplicity of so-called adult titles do so well on the e-book bestseller list, they tend to be priced under $5.00. As soon as you move into business oriented titles, which are the other type of e-book that does well, the prices jump to the equivalent of paper book prices.
Back to Lee's story, it was worth it to read about the visitor to the signing desk who wants to know if the author has cats in his book, "Because cats make great characters." Makes me glad I gave up on writing fiction:-)
Yes, was attracted by the title when sorting e-docs for bestsellers, yes, I clicked on the "Buy it Now" link, it wasn't that kind of mistake. The error was wholly on my part, I thought it was going to be a non-fiction story about a nightmarish experience in trade publishing where the author is out on the road promoting the book at his own expense, and the publisher is already shipping remainders to Amazon Marketplace sellers. I got that impression by reading the first two sentences of the description too quickly, and not even bothering to click for the expanded description. Am I a sloppy shopper? Not usually, it was the $0.49 that did me in. The lack of DRM on the title didn't play into the decision, I didn't even notice it was printable until just now.
I mean, how much buyers remorse can possibly result from a 49 cent purchase? None, in this case, I did enjoy the descriptions of life on the book tour, a route I've managed to avoid myself, and there was a plot twist that reminded me of some of the sleuthing books I read as a kid. And it was a very inexpensive lesson in something I hadn't cottoned to, because it usually doesn't matter to me. Price. Price does matter, it's just that we all have different impulse thresholds. I usually won't spend $25 on a book on a whim, but 49 cents I'll lose through a hole in my pocket several times over before digging out the needle and thread.
So, in this sense, I was wrong in some of my initial assumptions about Amazon Shorts, and that probably explains why some many of them hang around the e-book bestseller list as well, not that it amounts to anything in terms of revenue. The price is compelling, Amazon has eliminated the entry barrier to paying for an e-book. It may also help explain why the multiplicity of so-called adult titles do so well on the e-book bestseller list, they tend to be priced under $5.00. As soon as you move into business oriented titles, which are the other type of e-book that does well, the prices jump to the equivalent of paper book prices.
Back to Lee's story, it was worth it to read about the visitor to the signing desk who wants to know if the author has cats in his book, "Because cats make great characters." Makes me glad I gave up on writing fiction:-)
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