Sunday, January 31, 2010

A bit pissed at Amazon

A little note I just sent to Amazon:
I understand, but don't completely agree with, your battle with Macmillan over e-book content.  It's bad enough that I can't currently purchase their books from your site, but now I find that they don't even show up on my wish lists!  Being told that an item is not currently available is one thing, but I'm not even sure which items those are since they've all been replaced with placeholder images and captions stating "This title is no longer available!"  For a company that wants us to use your site as a universal wish list, you have certainly made me consider your company less than reliable for this purpose.  For what it's worth, I have three suggestions:
1) Reinstate Macmillan content on customer's wish lists so that they can at least be seen.
2) Open the Kindle device to support alternate formats like ePub.  That will allow the Kindle to be even MORE useful to your customers.
3) Let the market determine if Macmillan's $15 price point for e-books is too high (I agree with your company that it is.)