Curiouser and Curiouser! on amazon

Amazon webservice

Tue, 16 Jul 2002 23:40:39 +0100

Press release: "Today Amazon.com launched its first version of Amazon.com Web Services, a platform for creating innovative Web solutions and services designed specifically for developers and web site owners." [Scripting News]

» Cool.

I wrote a "bookcase" tool for Radio showing what I was reading & linking back to Amazon via my associates ID. But it was such a pain getting things right that I never get around to updating my current book!

Writing computer books not recommended...

Sun, 01 Dec 2002 12:54:06 +0000

Why Computer Books Suck.

Thanks to Simon I ran across Why Computer Books Suck [ Go ]. I'd have to agree with her points 100%. Having been a co-author this year on a computer book for today's leading publisher, I'd just comment that not only is the whole book process messed up but I'd also rather have all my fingernails pulled, eat glass and drink acid before writing another computer book. I absolutely loved this section:

There's no money in it

Let's say you pour three months' worth of blood, sweat, and tears into your 500-page computer book. After taking three more months to reformat it, the publisher sends you galley proofs so you can review them and create an index. Of course, you get only a week or two for that. You mark a few minor, last-minute corrections on the proofs. You must then use the hard copy (that's right, hard copy) to create an index manually (that's right, manually). Of course, you can have the publisher do it for an outrageous fee, but most authors choose to index their own books. And most authors do a lousy job of it. By that time the author is too burnt out to do it justice, even though everyone knows the index is the single most important section of any computer book.

Finally, you're finished. The publisher dawdles for another month or so, occasionally sending you messages asking for files you've already sent them twice, and that sort of thing. Finally the book goes to print. If you're lucky, you see a couple of copies on the shelf at Border's.
Now suppose the book's list price is $40. Typically, the writer's cut is a percentage of the "net" which is a fancy way of saying half the list price. Supposedly this is to cover the cost of publishing the book. (Why does it cost that much? I'm not sure, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that three months' labor is required to reformat a book.) What this means is that if your royalty is 15%, you get 15% of $20, or $3. But that's only for domestic retail sales. Chances are, your contract contains lots of loopholes for things like international sales, book clubs, and anything else you can dream up, so on average you might get $2. That's 5% of the revenue from the sale of the book. The publisher gets the remaining 95%. Think about these two facts for a momont:

You researched, wrote, reviewed, revised, and indexed this 500-page book. You developed and tested the examples.

The publisher's cut is 95%.

Are you now suffering from severe cognitive dissonance?

Yup. Right on the money. When I emailed my editor asking about sales of the book -- AFTER he emailed me about it first he never even responded. As near as I can tell, royalties for a computer book might cover sales tax on a decent dinner out but not necessarily the dinner itself. And, finally, when I asked a professional literary agent about writing computer books, his response was "The game is rigged by publishers against the authors. If you can write ANY OTHER type of book than a computer book that's what I recommend".

Writing Computer Books? Not Recommended.

[The FuzzyBlog!]

Well that's as disappointing as it is instructive. Thank Scott.

I've always harboured a desire to author a good computer book, now I think I've got better things to do with my time. Unless...

I wonder if a way could be found to get Amazon, Barnes & Noble et al. to sell PDF books on their website from independent publishers. That is, you and I get together and write our book. We hire an editor on a percentage basis (would that work? Is that a better deal than most editors get now?) and supply the finished PDF for distribution directly to the on-line stores.

After all do computer books get marketed in the way that, say, a Grisham novel does? What does the publisher do other than supply a, seemingly incompetent, management and paper distribution function?

I know some people have tried selling e-books themselves via their own websites. But has anyone made a serious attempt to get the likes of Amazon to distribute independent efforts?

If that doesn't work is there a way to make money via a super-efficient publishing system. Same as above, the publisher is soley responsible for taking the finished PDF, printing and distribution on a percentage basis. Would anybody do it?

I'm probably showing my naivety again...

Dynamic publishing, dynamic pricing

Mon, 02 Dec 2002 09:40:15 +0000

Ack foo.

Writing computer books not recommended....
[Chomped the wonderfully depressing quote from The FuzzyBlog! ...]

I know some people have tried selling e-books themselves via their own websites. But has anyone made a serious attempt to get the likes of Amazon to distribute independent efforts?

If that doesn't work is there a way to make money via a super-efficient publishing system. Same as above, the publisher is soley responsible for taking the finished PDF, printing and distribution on a percentage basis. Would anybody do it?

I'm probably showing my naivety again...
[Curiouser and curiouser!]

I honestly must admit I have entertained thoughts of being an author, but by the looks of it, maybe not. Which is a tad scary in it's own right, I grew up in this industry reading everything I could lay my hands on. I have thousands of books. If this is how badly the publishing industry treats authors, we are going to run out of computer books RSN.

Well, the last six months of bookstore browsing has only tempted me to buy about three computer books, so maybe the drought is already upon us. Not happy, Jan.

As to whether people can publish eBooks, as say PDFs, and get make a living out of it. I don't know. I hope it can be done, but I also know I am more likely to part with $90 for a book I can read on the train than $10 for a PDF that I have to print myself. Perverse, but true.

[Brett Morgan's ~~Insanity Weblog~~ Zilla]

Me too. My printer is an HP DeskJet 940c. It's not slow and it's not terribly expensive to run. I'm happy to print lots of 8-12 page articles in draft mode. But the idea of printing a 400 page book, nah. A book tends, if done right, to be just right in your hands. 200 pages of A4 inkjet paper doesn't have quite the same Wu.

Which is why I think there is an opportunity for a new streamlined publishing company. Well more of a loosely coupled distributor really. Here's how I think it should work.

You order the book via Amazon.
Amazon take their sales cut, then pass the order on to the distributor.
Distributor "prints" the book & ships it. Recharges Amazon for their cut.
Whatever is left goes to the authors + editor on a monthly basis.

The distribution company needs to have the capability of printing in small quantities to begin with maybe <100 copies. When they have some idea of how sales are going they can shift up production run size appropriately. I think this would be best done by the distributor outsourcing printing to a number of different printing companies themselves. The distributor then acts as a hub and amortizes it's own costs. Obviously this means printing will start out very expensive and (hopefully) get cheaper as sales rise.

This is why it is essential to use Amazon (or one of its contemporaries): Dynamic pricing.

Just as outfits like LetsBuyIt leverage more customers to lower the price, Amazon could use feedback to dynamically alter the book price & percentages based upon total sales. This means that the book might start out at $60 with a %20 cut to the authors ($12), but when sales improve it could come down to $40 with a %50 ($20) cut to the authors. If authors currently make $2-$3 a pop then this could work.

I'll put my crack pipe away now and try to drift back to reality...

It's no coincidence

Fri, 20 May 2005 14:32:20 +0100

I've just ordered Arthur Koestler's Roots of Coincidence and Modeling the Internet: Probabilistic Methods and Algorithms for the Web via Amazon. The first book is out-of-print and I'm getting it via the Amazon marketplace for a quite reasonable £8. The second book is available at £45. However I'm getting an as-new copy from the marketplace for £30.

It's not the first time I've used Amazon marketplace. I also picked up a few Guy Kawasaki books this way. I'm beginning to get comfortable with the idea that the Amazon marketplace, as regulated by them, is a safe and comfortable place to buy. If these two go okay I can see myself ordering a lot more books this way.

Amazon remains, for me, the essential internet service provider.

Amazon shim

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:55:14 +0100

Something I would like would be a shim between Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk such that, when I click on an Amazon.com link I would automatically get the page from Amazon.co.uk. I'm always going to buy from the .co.uk site but I read so many American weblogs that I typically end up searching to find something I'm already looking at.

The four questions every reader should ask

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 22:11:44 +0100

Terry has just setup his own bookstore which is pretty cool since he mentions a lot of books and his and my taste seem to intersect quite a lot.

In particular How To Read A Book looks very interesting:

Mortimer Adler and Charles van Dorens book on reading methodology never fails to draw a laugh when I take it out in public. Yet its one of the most useful, and well-used, books on my bookshelf. This is a practical book, filled with solid, step-by-step instructions to help you read quickly, actively, and effectively...

One for the Amazon wishlist.

It would be neat if Amazon would let you wishlist something with the associate information intact so that they would get their cut when you (or someone else) finally buys it.

Amazon filters

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 14:47:06 +0000

I think it's high time Amazon offered me the ability to personalize my browsing experience at their online store. Here is why:

I received a gift of The Algebraist on Audio CD this Swik season. It's a 7hr abridgement, narrated by the excellent Anton Lesser, and, at the end of disc-1, I have to say it's very promising. This is my first exposure to Iain M. Banks although I have enjoyed many of his non sci-fi novels (esp. Walking on Glass and The Crow Road).

On a whim, and with a fistful of Swik money burning a hole in my pocket, I thought I would go browse Amazon for other sci-fi audio (I love audio books) but I have to say it's a frustrating experience if you're not looking for work by J.K.Rowling, Terry Pratchet, C.S.Lewis, or Philip Pullman.

I mean what the hell are Harry Potter, Narnia, or Discworld doing in the sci-fi general category anyway? I appreciate that these are popular books, I liked Northern Lights, but I find it irritating that you can't move for endless copies of this stuff.

Certainly I would appreciate it if Amazon would discontinue lumping science-fiction and fantasy together. Bookshops do it to my continual irritation but they have space and sorting problems that Amazon just don't struggle with. When you're an online store with a (hopefully) sophisticated engine I think it's pretty much unforgivable.

Cynically I have to think that this is a tactic to put works by the popular authors du jour in front of me. Maybe this works for them but it doesn't work for me. I am not buying Harry Potter books and if I can't browse to find things I actually will buy then I am going to take my cash elsewhere.

Before I give up on trying to browse Amazon completely I wonder if any enterprising soul has created a front-end (perhaps using Amazon Web Services) that allows you to filter your browsing experience? For example by allowing me to negative weight authors I know I am not interested in so that they appear, consistently, at the end of search results?

Something i've noticed about Amazon

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 15:46:04 +0000

I've gotten into the habit of leaving a bunch of stuff in my Amazon shopping cart. If I see something interesting I put it in the cart and click the Later button so I don't accidentally order it. Now, when I go back to my cart it tells me if the price of items in the cart has gone up or down. Quite often I will go there one day and find a bunch of items 5UKP cheaper. Sometimes this is a cue to me to buy them although I have resisted that urge for about 3 months now (economy drive).

It did make me wonder whether you could build a service that let me enter the price I would pay for particular items and then automatically buy those items for me if and when they reach that price. Could you do it with the Amazon API?

Snap into a Slim Jim. Oh Yeah!

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:11:43 +0100

Before I started writing this piece I had no idea what a Slim Jim was. I know now though, oh yeah!

I was reading Werner Vogels blog and discovered that Amazon have launched Industrial & Scientific and Grocery stores. My immediate thought was "Will these sites have customer reviews?"

The amazing answer is yes! Here's one of the three reviews of Kreg SML-C125 1-1/4" #2 Coarse Screw (1000-Pack)

These are great screws in their own right. I love them for pocket hole joinery but I also am using them to hang new windows. The self tapping is terrific, the pan head does not go through the plastic flashing, the the square drive holds the screw securely while I am one handed drilling them while hanging onto the ladder! I do not think they are weatherproof but after flashing and the trim, they will be protected enough. High quality screws, never have had one strip one me and the self tapping has NEVER caused the board to split even right near the edge.

The guy gave them 5-stars of course. And this was by no means the longest of the three reviews. And what about groceries? Picking at random we get Slim Jim Original, 15-Count Canisters (Pack of 12) and by golly there is a review here too:

One thing I remember most about my childhood is seeing "Macho Man" Randy Savage yelling from television set: "Snap into a Slim Jim. Oh Yeah!" Ever since then, everytime I see a Slim Jim I think of my childhood and "Macho Man". I used to eat these all the time when I was a kid. At first it may taste a little like plastic since the outer layer of skin on the sausage is pretty thick. But once you snap into the slim jim the flavor begins. I would describe the taste as a hint of pepperoni and salami mixed with beef jerky - a somewhat spicy, rather refreshing taste of beef stick. Unfortunately I can't eat these anymore as an adult since one Slim Jim has about 16 grams of fat and 150 calories. But, as a kid you don't care what you eat so grab one and "Snap into a Slim Jim! OH YEAH!"

Huggies Baby-Shaped Diapers with Gigglastic Waistband, Size 4 (22-37 Lbs), Disney, Pack of 126 Diapers had an amazing 32 reviews!

I may have written one review of a book on Amazon and I tend to be quite passionate about books. I can only imagine how passionate I would have to be to write a 5 paragraph review of a pack of screws or jerky bits.

It's an amazing world. Oh Yeah!