Category amazon

Jan 11 2013

E-readers: A Love/Hate Relationship

She unties the ribbon, peels the wrapping paper off, and opens the box.  What is it?  A Kindle Fire!  That’s awesome!

She turns it around to find the power button.  It doesn’t come on.  Hmm.  Oh yeah, it needs to be charged.  She finds the charger and plugs it in.

A while later, the Kindle is charged and turns on.  Service?  What?  It doesn’t come with free service?  It needs wireless service!  Let’s see.  There is free wireless at the coffee shop, but a router must be installed in order to access the internet from home.

After a trip to the electronics store, she has a router.  It should be easy to install, right?  Where is the modem?  She crawls under her desk, bending her body so that she can connect cables to the back of her CPU, modem, and telephone.  So dirty!  Electronic devices are dust magnets!

It’s time to try it out.  Not yet.  Need to wash those hands first.  What?  Still no service!  Of course.  The hardware is connected, but the software hasn’t been installed.

Where are those instructions?  Setup.  Three easy steps.  She follows the directions to install the software.  She tries using the Kindle again.  It still doesn’t show up.  So frustrating!  Ah, finally!  There it is.  Enter the password.  Ta-da!

Receiving a present sure can be a burden!  But well worth it.  Now it’s working.  Just look at the graphics.  What is that design?  Gears?  It looks incredible!

She wonders what to do first.  Let’s get a book!  Click ‘books.’  That was easy.  Sort by ‘title.’  Wait a minute!  There aren’t any books here.  Where are the books?  Okay, there aren’t any books on the ‘device.’  Better click ‘store.’

Best sellers, popular categories, daily deals.  So many choices.  It’s almost time to start preparing dinner.  How about a cookbook?  That might not be a popular category.  Where are the other categories?  Let’s hit ‘browse.’  Didn’t work.  What?  That’s not a button.  Maybe cookbooks will be a popular category.  She clicks ‘popular categories’ to find out.  Way down at the bottom, there is ‘all books.’

Wow!  This is really cool.  It’s like having a bookstore in the living room, on a bus, or in an airplane.

Huh?  All of the books are in order on a single list.  Where are the categories?  Oh, there is a ‘refine’ option.  Is it an ‘eBook’ or a ‘single’?  What is the difference?  Try ‘eBook.’  Finally!  There is a ‘cooking, food, & wine’ category; subcategory ‘meals.’  Where is dinner?  Ugh!

She puts her Kindle down and logs onto her desktop computer.  She visits Amazon, finds Kindle, and clicks on ‘Kindle eBooks.’  Oh, this is so much easier!  That’s the book.  Kindle for PC?  No, not for PC; for a real Kindle.  Hmm.   There is a ‘deliver to’ option.  What is a ‘cloud’?  This word ‘cloud’ was on the Kindle.  Let’s see…

All right!  There is finally a cookbook on her Kindle Fire.  Need to turn a page.  Oh, it works like a cell phone.  Small picture.  Is there a zoom button?  Where are all the buttons?  That’s power…  When she presses the screen, some touchscreen options come up at the bottom.  She increases the font size, but the pictures are still small.  These other buttons don’t zoom either.  She finds more touchscreen buttons at the top.  Still no zoom, but there is a ‘more’ button.  Must be under ‘display.’  Nope.  Where is the instruction booklet?  She checks the packaging for the instructions.  No instructions!  Which evil genius designed this infuriating gadget?

She touches the picture.  Nothing happens.  She touches it twice quickly.  The picture opens on its own page, larger than before.  What was that?  Double-click to zoom?  It’s not like there is a mouse…

After finding a suitable recipe, she begins following directions to prepare lasagna for dinner.  Why is the Kindle off?  It must have timed out…  She turns it back on and retypes the password.  Incorrect password!  Must have touched the wrong letter.  Try it again.  She continues cooking.

She returns to the Kindle to read the next step.  What is that on the screen?  A smear!  Already?  It’s brand new!  Need to get a screen protector… and a case.

What is that message on the screen?  Fifteen minutes of battery left.  No way!  Dinner won’t be ready for another thirty minutes.  Better find the charger…

During dinner, she reflects on her first experience with her new Kindle Fire.  There was a slight learning curve, but it wasn’t too bad.  She is getting the hang of it.  It’s really convenient.  The graphics are awesome.  It functions like a great big cell phone.  Not only can she buy any book and read it anywhere on a fairly big screen, she can even browse the internet anywhere that she has wireless access.  Very cool!

Later that night, with her Kindle fully charged, she begins reading a science fiction book that she found.  Which is more convenient ─ portrait or layout?  She settles on portrait mode.  Trying to scroll onto the next page, she accidentally turns back a page.  No biggie.  Another time, she holds her finger on the spot a little too long, and the word is highlighted.  A window pops up, showing the pronunciation key and definition.  A built-in dictionary.  That’s amazing!  She also sees ‘note’ and ‘highlight’ options.  Impressed, she tries to do this again with another word.  A display comes up instead.  No, not that.  She tries again, holding her finger in place longer.  Aha!  That’s it.

As she continues reading, she notices that some of the indents are longer than others.  That’s strange.  Why isn’t there a standard size for the tabs?  A while later, she finds a little square in the middle of a sentence.  What is that little box doing there?  How funny.  Several pages further, she discovers a hyphen-ated word in the middle of a line.  Aren’t hyphens used at the end of a line?  In the next chapter, she spots a misspelled word.  Really?  This is the age of technology.  The book is digital.  The author must have used a computer to type it.  Neither the author nor the editor used spellcheck?  How is this possible?

Attempting to scroll onto the next page, suddenly an internet browser opens.  What is going on?  She is reading a book, not going online.  When she closes the internet browser, she spots a hyperlink in the middle of the page.  Oh.  Must have clicked that by mistake.  This book is like a minefield.

The next day, a friend inquires, “So what do you think about your new Kindle Fire?”

She replies, “Oh, I absolutely love it!”

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Dec 14 2012

Customer Book Reviews – Can’t Live With ’em, Can’t Live Without ’em

Twenty years ago, we would stand in our favorite aisle in the bookstore, hoping to select a few good books.  There weren’t nearly as many books to choose from back then – we only had to choose from the limited selection of books that the publishing houses deemed fit for us to read.  If there were any reviews to guide us, they were printed in newspapers and magazines.  We didn’t have customer opinions to help impact our buying decision – unless friends or family happened to have read the book.  The only customer reviews that we saw in the bookstore were the biased quotes and testimonials that appeared on the cover and on the first pages.  If you wanted to express your opinion, you had to have your own printed article.

How times have changed!  Now we can sit in our PJ’s and sip coffee while browsing for books online.  Customers express their opinions and even rate the books on a scale of one (*) to five (*****) stars in customer book reviews.  Everyone has an opinion, and anyone is free to share it.  You don’t have to be an expert to be a critic.  In fact, experts are often ineligible – since other authors who have expertise writing in the same genre are not allowed to review books in that genre.  For example, who would be better qualified to review a sci-fi book than someone who has been both reading and writing sci-for for thirty years?

But that’s okay.  We’re not really looking for experts to tell us what we should or shouldn’t read.  We want to know if we will enjoy the book or not, so we look at the opinions of other customers like ourselves.  So when we pull up a few pages of search results, we look at two things – price and rating.  Naively, we expect five star (*****) books to be awesome and one star (*) books to be awful.  After all, five stars (*****) means you love it, three stars (***) is neutral, and one star (*) means you hate it.

Then we find some of our favorite books online and see that they have three stars (***).  Why don’t the books we used to love have rave reviews?  Then we buy some five star (*****) books and learn that some don’t live up to our expectations.  Experience tells us not to rely solely on the rating.

Next we start reading the reviews.  This is when it really gets interesting.  Five people can say, “It’s the best book ever,” while three others can say, “Don’t buy it.  It stinks,” and yet everyone is talking about the same book.  This is characteristic of most books that have dozens of reviews.  Best-selling established writers who have hundreds of reviews often have a rating from three (***) to four (****) stars, including several customers who hate it and love it.  People form a wide variety of opinions, and some people like to disagree.  This is definitely reflected in the reviews.

So how do you know whom to believe?  You can discount any review that doesn’t provide a good reason for why they love it or hate it.  You can also discount anything that isn’t useful.  But you may still be left with plenty of reasons to read it or pass on it.  These days we can make well-informed buying decisions.  Too bad so much of the information is conflicting!

If you appreciate the struggle of sorting through these conflicting reviews as a customer, just imagine the emotional state of the author who only has a few customer reviews.  The fate of the self-published author, especially, often hinges upon every review.  If one of the first reviewers leaves one star (*), the poor author feels crushed.  This must be a tough blow after putting so much time, effort, and thought into a book to be shared with the rest of the world.  If you come across a book that has a single one star (*) review, would you buy it?  If a book has 100 reviews, we know that we will personally disagree with many of them; but for some reason, if a book has a single one star (*) review, instinctively we trust that review and avoid that book.

The books with just a few reviews are tough for both customers and authors.  The authors need more reviews to help customers judge whether or not the book suits them.  Potential customers also want more reviews for the same reason.  If a book has three reviews, it pretty much doesn’t matter what the rating is, it will be difficult to judge the reliability of the reviews.  For example, some customers shy away from a book that has three five star (*****) reviews because it seems suspicious.  Maybe these were all friends of the author..?

Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of books are actually reviewed.  Just look at the bestsellers.  A book that has sold tens of thousands of copies may only have hundreds of reviews.  Very often, one out of a few hundred customers will actually take a few moments to express his or her opinion.  That’s fine for popular books.  Once a book has a hundred reviews, another review isn’t going to matter much.  But when a book only has a few reviews, every review is critical – for both the author and for other customers.

If a book has dozens of reviews, that’s a sign that the book has been purchased frequently – at least, it appears to have been good enough for several other customers to try.  As long as the system hasn’t been abused.  The idea behind the customer review process is to provide an assortment of honest feedback about the book in order to help other potential customers make more informed purchasing decisions.  Unfortunately, the system can also be abused in a variety of ways, such as shill, sham, and paid reviews.  A small percentage of authors have created multiple accounts to leave themselves reviews, get family members and other parties who have a financial interest in the book to leave reviews, or even pay others to leave book reviews.  This practice hurts customers and all of the scrupulous authors.  Customers and authors alike need for the customers to be able to trust the system.

Personally, I’ll take the many conflicting reviews – which often times are entertaining to read – and occasional abuse of the system – versus sitting in the bookstore aisle completely uninformed about the books.  If you want to improve the system, the answer is pretty obvious:  If you happen to read a book that doesn’t have hundreds of reviews, take a moment to voice your opinion.  But beware!  If someone doesn’t like your opinion, you may get a No vote under, “Was this review helpful to you?”  We not only express our opinions on the book itself, but we even express our opinions on the opinions!  Have an opinion on that?

– Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers