Comments on: How do you browse for e-books? Can e-stores improve browsing and sampling? And could they learn from Netflix?

By: Blue Tyson

Blue Tyson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:20:37 +0000

Yep, they are bad.

Here’s an example.

Random House – got the latest Del Rey newsletter by email.

It touts a book having been optioned as a movie deal – Peter Brett’s the Warded Man. So went to look:-

Excerpts = zero.

As it turned out, it was a crappy book, so could have saved my time, but still, completely hopeless.

By: Mike Perry

Mike Perry — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:45:09 +0000

I agree. Amazon is ugly, cluttered and confusing. That’s one reason I have high hopes for:

http://www.bookdepository.com/

Free shipping from the U.S. or U.K. to some seventy countries is impressive. But they don’t seem to be selling ebooks yet. When they do, it will fit well with their worldwide distribution. Seven-day deliveries, impressive as they are, will become seven-minute deliveries.

I’d like to see every distributor and online store offer a downloaded PDF/ePub version of the book whose contents is the choice of the author and publisher.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:01:06 +0000

Oh yes, this could be so much better. I do enjoy Powell’s.com’s website – does a better job at highlighting things I’d like than even Amazon (because it’s well curated, not because they have a sophisticated recommendation system).

eReader’s bookstore is wretched. They are always highlighting crap I have ZERO interest in.

By: ondigo

ondigo — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:44:47 +0000

I buy most of my e-books from Fictionwise. But I do my serious browsing on Amazon. Why? Because Amazon provides recommendations based on past purchases and Amazon lets me rate items that I haven’t purchased from them. This gives me a much-improved chance of finding something I will like. Also, Amazon’s summary rating algorithm is better than what FW uses.

I have written Fictionwise many times to suggest changes to improve the buyer experience. It took years before I (and presumably thousands of other users) convinced them to do the obvious: create a mobile-friendly site. I wonder how long it will be before they begin providing recommendations?

By: Jana

Jana — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:49:35 +0000

Could not agree more. I love the ease by which I can now purchase ebooks, but I hate browsing for them — on the ebook selling sites, at least. I do like some of the browsing features of IndieBound, though.

By: Pelirroja

Pelirroja — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:31:57 +0000

Other great things from Netflix that could work for books: the friends feature that lets you browse what your friends are watching and see their ratings (not unlike GoodReads or Shelfari but with a buy option), new releases, recommendations, hot titles in your local area. All this combined with good old fashioned bookseller wisdom in genre categories would be killer.

By: jim duncan

jim duncan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:09:01 +0000

Utterly agree. I have yet to find an online bookseller where I was happy or even mildly pleased with the browsing experience. Someone could likely build a reputation (and business) creating an book e-store that did things exceptionally well.