Observations While Searching for Books
I spent part of my time this week looking for something to read on Kindle. I wanted a suspense, preferably free, that met my parameters (low reviews, new-to-me). The Top lists of Free weren't giving me what I wanted, so I tried searching the 'Zon. And I learned some interesting things...
When you search 'free' on Amazon, it pops up all the Kindle Unlimited books. Which are only free if you're a subscriber, so that doesn't do me a damn bit of good. (And they aren't really free, folks, they're included in your subscription price.) So I sorted by price from low to high. It was still throwing KU books in there, but I got some actually free books that time.
A bunch of authors are doing this thing where readers get the first six or ten or whatever chapters FREE. Which isn't a whole book, it's a teaser for a whole book. As a reader, I do not approve of this. As a writer, I can totally see how that might be a good marketing thing, but I feel like it would just piss readers off. With the 'look inside' feature, readers can get a whole bunch of chapters free for every book. Listing the first x-number of chapters as a separate entity feels like a bait and switch to me. :shrug:
Other authors are doing this thing where the whole book is split into 'parts'. The first part is free, and the other parts you have to pay for. I got caught on one of these a while back. I downloaded it and got into it before I realized it was only a first part. It was a good first part, but the idea irritated me sufficiently as to make me not buy the other two parts. Isn't that how drug dealers sell their junk? Give customers a taste and once they're hooked, you've got them. I don't respond well to those sales tactics.
Another thing I noticed was books by authors I've never heard of with an obscene number of reviews. The smell test tells me something's off. Big Name Bestseller only has 500 reviews, but Joe Schmoe self-publishes and has 3000 reviews? Umm. No. It makes me wonder how much Joe paid for those reviews and it makes me think few of them are real.
I still haven't found any books to download. For now, I'll read paperbacks and keep looking for the elusive 'right book'.
Those are my observations and opinions. What are yours?
Oh, and speaking of searching for a good book to read, both Wish in One Hand and In Deep Wish are on sale today only. 99c each.
When you search 'free' on Amazon, it pops up all the Kindle Unlimited books. Which are only free if you're a subscriber, so that doesn't do me a damn bit of good. (And they aren't really free, folks, they're included in your subscription price.) So I sorted by price from low to high. It was still throwing KU books in there, but I got some actually free books that time.
A bunch of authors are doing this thing where readers get the first six or ten or whatever chapters FREE. Which isn't a whole book, it's a teaser for a whole book. As a reader, I do not approve of this. As a writer, I can totally see how that might be a good marketing thing, but I feel like it would just piss readers off. With the 'look inside' feature, readers can get a whole bunch of chapters free for every book. Listing the first x-number of chapters as a separate entity feels like a bait and switch to me. :shrug:
Other authors are doing this thing where the whole book is split into 'parts'. The first part is free, and the other parts you have to pay for. I got caught on one of these a while back. I downloaded it and got into it before I realized it was only a first part. It was a good first part, but the idea irritated me sufficiently as to make me not buy the other two parts. Isn't that how drug dealers sell their junk? Give customers a taste and once they're hooked, you've got them. I don't respond well to those sales tactics.
Another thing I noticed was books by authors I've never heard of with an obscene number of reviews. The smell test tells me something's off. Big Name Bestseller only has 500 reviews, but Joe Schmoe self-publishes and has 3000 reviews? Umm. No. It makes me wonder how much Joe paid for those reviews and it makes me think few of them are real.
I still haven't found any books to download. For now, I'll read paperbacks and keep looking for the elusive 'right book'.
Those are my observations and opinions. What are yours?
Oh, and speaking of searching for a good book to read, both Wish in One Hand and In Deep Wish are on sale today only. 99c each.
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