January 2013: Around the Kindle store
Every once in a while, I make sure I just poke around the Kindle store, and see what they are featuring.
Sometimes that might be bargains, sometimes it’s something that stands out for a different reason. It’s not the same all the time, though. In that sense, it’s like a brick-and-mortar bookstore (I’m a former manager). You can go and discover new things.
I’ll admit it, though, that’s not usually how I find e-books to read. I often search, I do use the KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library), and I hear about books other places (like in things I read…magazines, my morning Flipboard read.
Still, it’s intriguing to see what Amazon is featuring. Let’s take a stroll down the virtual aisles, peruse the non-existent end caps, and check out what they have on display.
You might want to bookmark these so you can get back to them more easily, although they might change, of course.
Right up in the front of the store (your top left corner of the webpage, in this case…that’s the front for people who read English), is the
I do have that one bookmarked myself, and check it every day. Today, for example, they have a bunch of the American Girls series for $1.99 each. They also have the very well-reviewed Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, although I may borrow that from the KOLL. As always, check the price before you hit that Buy button.
Continuing in that “deals” section, we have
100 Kindle books for $3.99 or less
That changes every month. I’ve gotten some good bargains there.
We leave that aisle, heading for another section of the store called “Popular Features”.
Those include:
That has the top 100, updated hourly…and two lists of 100, one for free and one for paid. You can also choose specific categories, and there are a few subsections here (I guess we can think of them as shelves, although each has a hundred):
- Hot New Releases (you can also do categories here)
- Bestsellers of 2012 (you can choose other years)
- Top Rated (number of reviews seem to also be taken into account, not just average)
Just those could easily take me the minimum one hour I would have typically spent in a bookstore.
Leaving that, we see a special display. These might have been featured in the window, but you can get to them within the store:
They change these every week. Some have “stickers” on them to let you know they are new.
Over on the wall, we see the
While that’s based to a large degree on paperbook (p-book) sales, this is where you can get what might be a popular gift. You might be grabbing a book here that you read about in People magazine, or that Oprah recommended.
This next area of the store is fascinating.
While that’s what the sign says hanging from the ceiling, it also includes customer favorites broken down by year (going back to 2007, when the USA Kindle store opened), and “best of” books from earlier years. There’s a bestseller list of these, too.
We next see a new display, maybe out of cardboard, with just over a dozen books in it.
The store is promoting it, but they aren’t quite sure how it is going to go yet. They’ve had some complaints about chapters not arriving on time, but it’s not clear yet how true that is, and how much is that just people getting used to the system.
Over by the coffee shop, there’s a special section which has gotten a permanent display.
This is the kind of thing somebody might pick up to enjoy with a latte. These are also store exclusives, and they are a reason people come in and look around.
In the back of the store (you have to go through a detector gate) is the
section. There are some really expensive books here, and it’s a specialized market. You can go to a desk there and rent many of the books for a limited time for a reduced price.
Let’s skip past all the regular aisles, and check out two more displays.
One is
While I love obscure titles that the literati haven’t recognized, I also love looking at these! They have a shelf for the Edgar Awards (mysteries), Hugo Award (science fiction), Nobel, Man Booker, Newbery, Pulitzer…if you want to read books that have been recognized for their quality, this is the spot.
Let’s also take a look at what’s
That doesn’t mean new, period. Unlike a lot of people, I don’t always go to new first. However, it will also be those backlilst titles that have recently been Kindleized. Oh, and they also have popular pre-orders here! I don’t tend to do that, but I do like to see what’s coming.
There are many other sections to the store: I’ve really just stuck to e-books on this trip. Some of them, you wouldn’t see in a brick-and-mortar store.
Still, I have to say…imagining it this way was fun for me! I never thought of Amazon as being much of an analog to a physical store, but I can see it now…even if that’s not the way I usually use it. 
Any features I left out that you think people would really enjoy? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
January 7, 2013 at 5:02 am |
I’m pretty computer savy, but for the life of me I can’t find out to get to the KOLL. I know you can just search for a book and it’ll show you if it’can be borrowed, but is there a way to get to the KOLL to brouse? Thanks, Larry
January 7, 2013 at 1:12 pm |
Thanks for writing, larry!
Getting to the KOLL is easy on your Kindle, not as easy on your computer (but I’ll give you a link in a minute). I think there is good reasoning behind that. You can only borrow the book from your Kindle…if you find it on the computer, you still need to go to the Kindle to get it. I do it that way myself sometimes (search on the computer first), but I’ve seen many, many threads in the Kindle forums where people are wondering why they got charged for a book they thought they were borrowing from the KOLL. It’s generally because they were on their computers, and thought it would become a borrow when they clicked “Buy”.
That said, here you go:
Kindle Owners Lending Library
January 9, 2013 at 5:21 pm |
wow, this is like having a personal tour of the kindle site! thank you, this is super helpful.
January 17, 2013 at 1:25 am |
I appreciate the link to the NY Times best sellers. I can no longer find that page when I use my 3G connection to access to the Kindle Store from either of my K3′s. [My older K3 hasn't been upgraded to the newest software because I made the mistake of upgrading the newer K3 and discovering that their upgrade is more like a downgrade because it causes so many books that appear with left justification on the older version but full page justification on the newer version, and when you use the larger font sizes, the full justification leaves gaping holes between words.] I’ve looked through all the options, and it’s just not there. It disappeared once before and then came back through the “menu” option, but that’s gone now. I can still access it through my K1 from the Kindle Store home page.
January 17, 2013 at 2:26 pm |
Thanks for writing, Lady!
Great! I’m glad that was helpful for you.
I found it a little odd when I have to dig around to find something…and when something doesn’t work any more which was clearly valuable for Amazon. I realize that the latter may be because the new process is more valuable, of course…it just feels funny. 