does anyone else find this a problem

[Leef Bloomenstiel]

I have had a real problem with purchased ebooks lately. I always look at the number of printed pages, as I feel that nothing under 150 pages should be considered a "book". It should be listed as a "novella" or something. I have purchased several books lately in which I felt I have been misled. I read the review for the book and liked the premise. The number of pages stated were over 150, and I bought the book. Only to find out that the book I was interested in was probably less than 60 pages, and ended abruptly. Also, there were maybe as much as 1 - 3 OTHER stories, of which I had no interest. Had I known this, I would NOT have spent my hard earned money on the book at all. This has happened a couple of time, and I feel that Amazon has allowed me to be severely misled. Is any one else having this problem?

[Eric]

With AMZ, at least, you can "return" ebooks and get a refund. When I do this, I personally also delete the copy I've downloaded to my Kindle, since it's also deleted from your library at AMZ.

Just my USD .02 (in case you bought from AMZ).

Eric

[CBRetriever]

Leef Bloomenstiel wrote: "I have had a real problem with purchased ebooks lately. I always look at the number of printed pages, as I feel that nothing under 150 pages should be considered a "book". It should be listed as a ..."

I'm not sure I'd consider these novellas

The Old Man and the Sea
The Red Pony
The Red Badge of Courage
Animal Farm
Frankenstein
Fahrenheit 451

and lots of other books are in that less than 150 page category

if you do the "Look Inside" you can scroll up to the table of contents and see if it's the only story in the book or if there are more.

I read all lengths of books and sometimes a good book under 150 pages is more powerful and better written than a 600 page, often padded, tome

[Randy]

Leef Bloomenstiel wrote: "...there were maybe as much as 1 - 3 OTHER stories, of which I had no interest. Had I known this, I would NOT have spent my hard earned money on the book at all. This has happened a couple of time, and I feel that Amazon has allowed me to be severely misled. Is any one else having this problem"

I'm not happy with that either. It should be stated in the blurb.

I especially hate it when I'm enjoying a book and it ends at the 60% mark. I was expecting to enjoy the book a lot longer.

There was a scam a while back. As I understand it, Kindle Unlimited funds were shared between the various authors that participated that month. Their share was based on how many pages were read (i.e. highest location within the book). Authors would throw together a book that was thousands of pages long, then have the book skip to the end and get credit for all those pages.

[Beth]

I agree with CBRetriever. I understand the concern, but I've really only encountered it with some indie pubs. Most of those are relatively low-priced anyway.

I will spend good money on novellas: Tor/Forge publishes extremely fine short fiction for about $3.99. Many other short stories are available free from their website and I never begrudge them the money I do pay because it is equalized by my enjoyment.

The only other instance of this happening to me recently is when I purchased Florence and Giles / The Turn of the Screw. I paid $3.99 in February for a special edition containing "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, which I appreciated since the latter is the classic from which the former is derived and I enjoy comparative literature. Sometimes. This makes the total page count longer, but only half is the book I intentionally bought. Interestingly enough, my edition is no longer being sold. Only the John Harding story is being sold, without the Henry James inclusion, and it's $6.99. So, I got a good deal.

Upshot is, I never pay full price for anything without knowing what I'm buying. Trust me, my book dollars are earned with a lot of hard labor so I try to choose carefully. When I DO pay a lot ($9.99+), it's usually an author I have history with.

Really, there are so many great deals out there, I'm seldom disappointed.

[Randy]

Beth wrote: "Really, there are so many great deals out there, I'm seldom disappointed."

I have nearly 15,000 books in my Amazon cloud. 99.9% of them were free books. More than I can ever hope to read. I publish lists of newly free books every week or so and end up adding another 30 or 40 each time.

A few of the free books are disturbingly bad, but I've run into a lot of good authors and good stories, sometimes together in the same book. :)

If I find I'm putting the book down a lot and avoiding picking it up again, I just add it to my did-not-finish shelf and go on to the next one.

[Beth]

Randy wrote: "Beth wrote: "Really, there are so many great deals out there, I'm seldom disappointed."

I have nearly 15,000 books in my Amazon cloud. 99.9% of them were free books. More than I can ever hope to r..."

Randy, I feel so much better about my own cloud now, which boggles me at over 3,000. But yours, at 15,000! We're planning on an extended old-age aren't we? Lol.

My tastes have changed significantly since Amazon stopped the flood of freebies a few years back. Many of them I'm no longer interested in but don't want to delete them, because you just never know.

But you're right - I've found a lot of new authors from freebies and drastic price drops.

For example, I purchased Pig Island for $0.99 shortly after getting my first Kindle. I had never heard of the author before. That book stayed on my mind, so I purchased several of her Jack Caffery series for $1.99. This year, I resolved to knock out a few of those series in my cloud and this is one of them. I just finished the sixth book tonight (which I paid $9.99 for), and it was fantastic. I'm a fan for life.

I live for those price drops, which says something about my social life.

One indie author who writes prolifically offers different freebies every other week or so - Amy Cross. I'll be reading her Jack the Ripper series this year.

[Randy]

I'm not a fan of Amy Cross, even though I have a number of her books (51!?). She does offer them for free frequently. I tried reading several on different groups reads. One ended up in the DNF shelf. The other two got 2- and 3-star ratings. She writes well, but I never care about any of the characters.

I no longer purchase her books, even when free. :(

[Beth]

As many of her books as I have, I've only read the first of the Dark Season trilogy. I liked it, though there were inconsistencies.

What gets me is how prolific she is, seems like a book a week. Given that, I'm pretty sure characterization suffers and plots become formulaic.

I haven't read enough of hers to know, but it's the reason I gave up on James Patterson. He's like the Thomas Kincaid of the book world - a whole industry unto himself and a team of ghostwriters. In otherwords, fake fluff for the masses.

[Randy]

Dean Koontz is that way for me. I've enjoyed a number of his books, but it got to the point where I was wondering if I had already read any new book of his I would start to read. Characters and plots based on a similar formula. Just one twist is different.

[CBRetriever]

and James Patterson advertising his books on TV really bothers me for some reason

[Beth]

I have a friend who is a big Koontz fan. I've read a few but just never bonded. I read somewhere people are either Koontz fans or Stephen King fans - seldom both. I've been a fan of King's, both great and not-so-great, since I was 14. Even received personal correspondence to a letter I wrote him in high school. He strikes me as a good guy.

James Patterson is like a puppy mill, just not good. What got to me (and please don't think I'm racist) is an upper-class white guy writing books about a black hero who seems to be a sexual god whose women are all gorgeous blondes who wind up very dead. I read a dozen of his books when my kids were small because they were at the library and the chapters were short so I could squeeze in a few in the carpool line. But then I gave up. Everyone was too perfect. And I'm. . .not.

Commercials for books in general annoy me. Books are a private thing - don't try to grab me like a movie with actors or whatever. It's just. . .weird.

[Randy]

I'm not a big King fan either. He comes up with some great stories and great premises, but I'm rarely happy with his endings. That's a terrible thing, to be enjoying a book and then get a sour taste in your mouth at the end. And being a big fan of the horror pulp magazines when I was young, I often recognized something from them in his stories.

I tried to read The Gunslinger in a group read a year or so ago. I nearly put it on my did-not-finish shelf several times.

I actually got into Koontz because of King. I always got my books at the used book stores and saw this huge collection of Koontz books on the shelves next to the shelves of King books.

[Beth]

I can believe that, alphabetically King and Koontz would live in the same neighborhood, lol.

I was SO young when I started King, 13 almost 14, and my first was a paperback copy of Night Shift with the creepy hand of eyes on the cover. Those short stories got me. King's short fiction can be more poweful and evocative than his longer works. He was also the first author I'd read who incorporated name brands and icons into his fiction, which made it extremely realistic at the time but will probably date it in the future. The Stand, with it's abundant popular music quotes and references hit me at a particularly vulnerable point and absolutely sealed the deal for me.

I actually have a signed privately published edition of the first Dark Tower book, which I obtained through a contact of Mr. King's during the previously mentioned correspondence. As I said, he strikes me as a good man. And I've become a huge fan of his son, Joe Hill, as well.

But I have not read the whole series, nor much of his later works. The ex-husband was big into the series, though. I didn't watch the show, the casting was not true.

Horror was my first true love, but I read a lot of genres: pulp, noir, fantasy, particularly urban, thrillers, historical fiction. About the only thing I'm not into is romance or contemporary womens' fiction.

Two of my current faves are Mo Hayder (love, love, love British crime novels), and Stephen Graham Jones, who writes stellar short fiction, a lot with a Native American bent. His short story, The Night Cyclist can be read for free on the Tor website.

And just found out today Tana French has a standalone coming in October. Now, if Gillian Flynn woukld just drink some of James Patterson's juice, I'd be all set!

[Leef Bloomenstiel]

CBRetriever wrote: "Leef Bloomenstiel wrote: "I have had a real problem with purchased ebooks lately. I always look at the number of printed pages, as I feel that nothing under 150 pages should be considered a "book"...."
Yes, I have many in my library under 150 pages, and loved them. Whether I considered them books or novellas, is a personal opinion probably, and I respect anyone else's opinion that differs. My statement wasn't at all about quality vs. quantity of page. It was about being informed about what I am getting when I buy a book. I have used the page preview and sometimes it is not clear either. I did return one book, that had a great story line, but ended after only 3% into the book. Had I known that, I would not have purchased it. I have paid anywhere from the .99 to $15.99, and I think all books should present themselves in the same manner so that consumers know what they are buying, no matter the cost.

[CBRetriever]

unfortunately getting that to happen would be like trying to herd cats as it's the publishers/self-publishers who format their books and list them on Amazon including writing the blurbs and filling in the information (like number of pages) and other information in the Product Details

[Teddygrace]

CBRetriever wrote: "unfortunately getting that to happen would be like trying to herd cats as it's the publishers/self-publishers who format their books and list them on Amazon including writing the blurbs and filling..."

CB, SO glad to see you here. (This is Teddygrace.) and sorry to post this here but I can't do anything on the Amazon Digital & Devices Forum except read - can't start a thread, post a reply, get into my profile - I can sign in and out tho and see new posts by tapping Latest Post.

Help at the bottom of the page goes to the regular Amazon.com Contact Us, knew it was hopeless to contact CS but did anyway and they kept saying said to the Forum no matter ho many times I explained that that IS the problem. Had no clue what I was referring to. Can't find any way to contact anybody connected with the Forum abt this. Surely there's Forum help somewhere.

Can I impose upon you to ask a general question, maybe in the Lounge, about how/why a "person" wouldn't be able to post anything. Or how to find somebody I can ask? Or if they have a way to contact me?If I were banned for some reason, I'd think I'd get a notification, but the last one I got was 14 hrs ago, so that may not be working either.

Same thing is happening on all our computers and devices, including the ones not registered to me - rebooted, reset everything I can find, and no problems on any other websites.

If you don't mind doing this, since it looks like I can read Latest Posts, I'll check to see if the Mods have anything to say.

Thanks a million million!

[CBRetriever]

I can't post there either and the Help pages are crazy mixed up too

1. I click on Reading Basics - if flashes for a bit and goes to a "Was this information useful" screen)
2. I click on User Guides for the Voyage, it flashes on the "Was this information useful" screen) then goes to a page with "Kindle (5th Generation) Won't Stay Charged" information and a Voyage isn't even a 5th Gen Kindle

it's the same on amazon.co.uk