Amazon Kindle discussion

Unfortunately, this will be very unscientific since it's being asked of folks who now use the Goodreads forums in lieu of Amazon's forums.

I've noticed i buy significantly fewer Kindle books since the forums were closed. The fact that the wish list did not have a price sort for a long time, and STILL doesn't have the ability to filter by items with price drops, is also a significant factor for me.

Do you buy fewer Kindle books than when the Amazon forums were active? If so, is it a significant drop?

DolphinBlue wrote: "Unfortunately, this will be very unscientific since it's being asked of folks who now use the Goodreads forums in lieu of Amazon's forums.

I've noticed i buy significantly fewer Kindle books sinc..."

I don't, but I'm probably not representative. I didn't spend time on the Kindle board, I was usually over on the Top Reviewers board, and the majority of my book discussion/discovery has always been here on GR.

I do miss the forums though. I know many people enjoy the GR Groups but I find it more complicated to keep up with various Groups, then various threads within those Groups, so I end up not participating much.

No, I don't buy fewer. I still use ereaderiq to track price drops. I belong to a Sci-Fi & Fantasy forum on GoodReads as well as a Mystery forum, so I still get plenty of recommendations and get notified of price drops. Plus i subscribe to the Tor newsletter as well as the Humble Bundle website. I've purchased over 60 books so far this year (big Sue Grafton Sale a few eeks ago as well as a Phyllis Whitney sale today)

I didn't even know Amazon had forums...?

As far as wish lists go, try using eReaderIQ.com. You can set up watch lists for books and authors there, and get email notifications of price reductions. For specific books, you can even specify a set price for the notification. They also have a price history on each book, so you can see if the author regularly discounts the book.

For example, I just got a notification on this book:

https://www.ereaderiq.com/dp/B06XDV33...

I get most of my books via those eReaderIQ notifications, or through the free book lists I publish. Usually, when I grab a new book on one of those lists from a new author, and it's part of a series, I'll add the author to by eReaderIQ watch list. I even have a bookmarklet I use to go directly to the eReaderIQ page when I'm looking at a Kindle book on Amazon:

http://ogres-crypt.com/Kindle/eReader...

I've been using ereaderiq for years. However, my Amazon wish list is the most comprehensive list of books I'm interested in. But I would find many books from forum.posts.

CBRetriever wrote: "No, I don't buy fewer. I still use ereaderiq to track price drops. I belong to a Sci-Fi & Fantasy forum on GoodReads as well as a Mystery forum, so I still get plenty of recommendations and get not..."

I just recently discovered ereaderiq from your posts, and I love it. So thanks! I also watch the Kindle and Audible Daily Deals, and BookBub. On BookBub you can also set up notifications for price drops and new releases for favorite authors.

Randy wrote: "I didn't even know Amazon had forums...?

As far as wish lists go, try using eReaderIQ.com. You can set up watch lists for books and authors there, and get email notifications of price reductions. ..."

Randy: your link on Ogres Crypt didn't get me anywhere and perusing their site, I didn't see this tool. Looks interesting. More info?

Sadly, I don't find I buy fewer books. I use all the above-mentioned. I have too many books, but am powerless to stop myself when they are in the $0.99-$3.99 range.

I told myself this year, I was limiting purchases to those drops on my WishList only.

So, here's how I rationalized a non-WishList purchase just yesterday. Someone on GoodReads posted this book:We Have Always Lived in the Castle
as a drop to $2.99.

1. I liked that book when I read it 35 years ago. Might be nice to re-read.
2. I have another book of historical fiction about Shirley Jackson (unread), that might be nice to read as a companion. You know, insight on her life re writing this book.
3. Shirley Jackson books are all priced $9.99-$14.99, so this is a significant price drop.
4. This is a Penguin edition and they seldom drop.

All that equals 1-Click. Again. *sigh*

I do buy fewer books. But that is okay. It's not like I don't have enough of the little critters. :)

Oh yeah Karen. It's definitely a positive for me. Just surprising that Amazon would take steps (downgrading the wish list search/filter options, ending the forums) that cause customers to buy less of their products..

DolphinBlue wrote: "Oh yeah Karen. It's definitely a positive for me. Just surprising that Amazon would take steps (downgrading the wish list search/filter options, ending the forums) that cause customers to buy less ..."

I agree. It was very counterproductive for a bookseller to shoot itself in the foot that way. I do miss those forums. :(

I still think very few people even knew about those options - I know i didn't for years

Alexandra wrote: "Randy: your link on Ogres Crypt didn't get me anywhere and perusing their site, I didn't see this tool. Looks interesting. More info?"

It should have opened a small text file.

It's a bookmarklet. Create a new bookmark and enter the text data from that file as the URL for the bookmark. Then, when you are looking at a Kindle book page on Amazon, clicking on that bookmark will open up the book's page on eReaderIQ.

I don't buy as many Kindle books as I used to but I think it's partly because I see the same old books that have been on sale before and not as many new ones.

LoneWolfette wrote: "I don't buy as many Kindle books as I used to but I think it's partly because I see the same old books that have been on sale before and not as many new ones."

That's why I make my lists of free Kindle books from the search results, so I can eliminate the ones that I've listed before. Just looking at the search results every day doesn't help, because there are so many repeats, and perma-free books.

One thing I discovered, unfortunately about a year after I got my Kindle in 2013, is that my county library has tons of e-books. In fact, probably the last 10-15 books I've read (spanning many months) have all been from the e-library. I wish I had known that sooner and saved a ton of money.

One of my first Kindle purchases was most of Sue Grafton's letter series (something like A through Q went on sale for $1.99 each in 2013). My e-library has ALL of those! Darnit!

They have most books by popular authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and James Patterson. Now I am in the habit of checking to see if they have a book before I buy it. That has saved a ton of money. In fact, apart from a few occasional books I strongly desire to read that they don't have, I could probably just read books from the e-library for the rest of my life! I have something like 200 books on my list there to check out at some point!

I also never heard of the Amazon forums. Maybe that's a symptom of why they were closed down?

Why do you read less since the forums closed down? What made you read more because of the forums?

Tobias wrote: "I also never heard of the Amazon forums. Maybe that's a symptom of why they were closed down?

Why do you read less since the forums closed down? What made you read more because of the forums?"

I don't read less. I just buy fewer books. I have a few thousand more books than I can read already (I did get a bunch of freebies early on when I got my Kindle). It was hard resisting the good deals for books people were posting on the forums, despite that I don't have time to read all the books I already have! Now that the Amazon forum I visited most frequently is on a separate site (Goodreads) that I don't visit as much, it changed my buying habits. For the better.

I'm surprised that some Amazon customers weren't aware of the forums (they were called 'customer discussions'). Many were very active. I'm sure the daily posts across all discussions numbered well into the thousands. Some of the most popular discussion were rather silly and the boards were not moderated, so they lacked the quality of moderated boards. Some people got very snarky and unnecessarily negative and rude. But the few threads I followed were very helpful.

Randy wrote: "LoneWolfette wrote: "I don't buy as many Kindle books as I used to but I think it's partly because I see the same old books that have been on sale before and not as many new ones."

That's why I ma..."

Yes, and I was just trying to say that I don't see many books that haven't been on sale quite a few times before. Although maybe that's just a result of owning a Kindle and using the Amazon forums for years.

DolphinBlue wrote: "One thing I discovered, unfortunately about a year after I got my Kindle in 2013, is that my county library has tons of e-books. In fact, probably the last 10-15 books I've read (spanning many mont..."

The library is GREAT for ebooks and limited budgets. New and popular releases tend to have long wait lists though, which really isn't a problem unless you have to have it that minute, which I usually don't.

I will, however, buy a book I want if the price drops significantly. With a library hold, I feel obligated to bump any planned read to a later time so I can return the library book faster for the next person with a hold.

I admit, I like knowing a book is there for me at my leisure, depending on mood and whim, and knowing I got if for $1.99.

This year I'm working on backlogged series I own, so I'm not putting many books on hold because I want to focus on the goal I set.

I, too, got a bunch of free books in the beginning, many of them very good. A bunch of crap, too.

I used to be limited in my reading to what I came across at the library or Barnes & Noble. Amazon changed all that, even including the genres I prefer now. I can't tell you how many authors I've discovered thanks to Amazon and GoodReads.

Yes, I miss the Kindle forums, even though I had stopped participating much to down-voting and nastiness. There were some really kind people there.

Mostly, I'm just imposing my own sanctions not to buy as much. For instance, I personally will get most YA from the library because it's becoming repetitive and romance-angsty for me.

Really, though, it's just me and I don't have to justify my expenditures anymore, so if I want a book at the moment and the budget looks okay that day, who cares?

DolphinBlue wrote: "I'm surprised that some Amazon customers weren't aware of the forums (they were called 'customer discussions'). "

I think a lot of Amazon customers didn't know about them. I didn't, before I saw some people here talking about them. And a couple years ago Amazon hid all internal links to them,so you'd only know they were there if you already knew about them.