More Eric Flint on DRM - salvos 7 excerpt

Liviu_5 · 02-23-2007, 11:04 PM

From the "Salvos Against Big Brother 7" - Books: The Opaque Market - in the 7th issue of Jim Baen's Universe (June 2007 e-arc)

For the first 5 salvos check the preview site of the magazine, where each one is available in the corresponding issue.

http://preview.baens-universe.com

Excerpt from Mr. Flint:

"Again, it's simple. The book market is so opaque that, willy-nilly, almost all book-buyers react by being extremely conservative in their buying habits. "Conservative," at least, in terms of which authors they're willing to spend money on, if not necessarily in terms of how much money they spend overall.

They simply have no choice. They have neither the time nor the money—especially the time—to do anything remotely resembling a thorough search of the market to see which authors they might like more than any other. They can't even do that in one corner of the market, such as science fiction and fantasy, much less the market as a whole.

So, with the exception of a few adventurous types, most readers stick with a small number of authors whom they've come to know that they generally like. They venture afield only rarely, for the good and simple reason that people are generally reluctant to spend money—and time, perhaps, even more so—on what amounts to a pig in a poke. Unless they have some reason to think they might enjoy an unfamiliar author, they will simply ignore them. For years, and years, and years.

I always urge every author who tries to argue with me on the significance of so-called "electronic piracy" to do a little experiment. Go to your nearest big bookstore and plant yourself somewhere that gives you a good view of the shelves where your book or books are located. Then, simply count the number of browsers in the course of an hour or two who don't even glance at one of your titles. Forget taking it off the shelves, looking at the back cover, etc. etc, and then putting it back. I'm talking about the potential customers who ignore you completely.

Try it sometime. What you'll discover is that for every potential customer who takes even a couple of seconds to consider your title, dozens will pass your books by without so much as a glance.

That's the opacity of the book market at work. The real problem faced by authors isn't theft, it's invisibility. For the overwhelming majority of their potential customers, they simply don't exist.

This is even true, by the way, for the best-selling authors, although not to the same degree. Just about every literate person today has heard of J.K. Rowling or Stephen King or Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts or John Grisham. But what percentage of their potential customers have never actually read them?

The answer is 90% and up, for even the best-selling authors. For one reason or another, even though potential readers have heard of the author—in many cases, in fact, because of what they've heard of that author—most of them simply don't consider buying their titles. And, in many cases, based on information which is completely inaccurate.

To go back to my experiment, what you will discover is that every author loses more potential sales in one day due to the opacity of the market than they'd lose from "electronic piracy" in the course of an entire year. That being so, it's simply common sense to look for any methods that improve your visibility in the market—and steer clear of any that make the opacity of the market even worse.

Like DRM.

I'll explore this further in my next essay, where I'll go into considerable detail showing how fair use has always been the author's best friend, when it comes to promoting themselves and their works. And I will demonstrate that:

1) There is nothing that is "new" or "unparalleled" about the so-called danger of "electronic piracy."

2) From the standpoint of the narrow economic self-interest of an author (or publisher), a generous and expansive attitude toward fair use is every bit as beneficial as it is to society as a whole.

3) Any author or publisher who supports DRM is, even in the narrowest terms of their own selfish interests...

Logically challenged. Most polite term I can use.

In the meantime, contemplate "invisibility" for the next two months. Try my little experiment—and then go online and spend the same hour or so trying to find pirated copies of your work.

And then, do some simple arithmetic, comparing your losses in one column to those in the other and extrapolating the result across a period of months and years. If you're still deeply fretful about "online piracy" at the end, I can only hope you never get caught in a burning building—since you'll obviously spend your time worrying about whether you're wearing the right color socks to be seen in public rather than getting out of the fire."

nekokami · 02-24-2007, 09:14 AM

I like Eric Flint's message, and I agree with his conclusions about DRM, but I think it's a logical fallacy to assume that the potential customers who obtain pirated copies of ebooks are the same ones who walk past the author's books on the shelves at the store. Someone who goes to the trouble to read a pirated book by an author probably would have at least picked up the book on the shelf and read the back cover.

I think this also ignores the recent development of suggestive selling tools at Amazon and other online retailers. I've actually "found" a number of new authors that I like based on these suggestions, and I think these tools work against the opacity Flint describes above. (But imagine how much more powerful they would be if I could read a chapter online and then immediately purchase the ebook if I like it?)

(I also think Flint could tone down the ad hominem arguments, but that's just me, I guess.)

NatCh · 02-24-2007, 01:53 PM

He's nailed it for me here:

"Unless they have some reason to think they might enjoy an unfamiliar author, they will simply ignore them. For years, and years, and years."

I saw David Weber's Honor Harrington books for 6~8 years before I picked one up because "my" authors weren't publishing anything for a while (and I figured that there were enough in the series to keep be busy for a while if I actually liked them). Now Mr. Weber is quite possibly my favorite author. Through his collaborations, I've encountered other authors I enjoy: John Ringo, and Eric Flint, for example.

Part of my reluctance to try new authors is just change inertia on my part, but a good chunk of it is not wanting to spend money on books when I don't know if I'll like them or not. That's to a large degree a holdover from when I had a lot less money to spend on books, and it's changing gradually (my attitude on the point, I mean), but still, there it is.

slayda · 02-24-2007, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

I like Eric Flint's message, and I agree with his conclusions about DRM, but I think it's a logical fallacy to assume that the potential customers who obtain pirated copies of ebooks are the same ones who walk past the author's books on the shelves at the store. Someone who goes to the trouble to read a pirated book by an author probably would have at least picked up the book on the shelf and read the back cover.

nekonami, he's not saying they are the same people. He's talking statistically, looking at numbers of people in each class.

Liviu_5 · 02-24-2007, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

(But imagine how much more powerful they would be if I could read a chapter online and then immediately purchase the ebook if I like it?)

(I also think Flint could tone down the ad hominem arguments, but that's just me, I guess.)

Why post a chapter only? Why not 1/4 of the book as Baen does with all their Webscriptions or e-arcs where about that is available free as sample chapters. With one chapter sometimes I can say that I like the book, sometimes I can say that I do not like it, but with 7-8 chapters if I get hooked I gotta read the book "NOW" (a good example of that was the 15$ e-arc of One Jump Ahead by M. VanName, which I probably would have skipped if not getting hooked on the first free 8 chapters and wanting more...). The JB Universe magazine actually offers you up to 1/2 of each story free, and some full stories free like Mr. Flint's salvos.

For real life earning numbers of a reasonably succesful SF author and quite popular blogger check the recent posts of Mr. Scalzi:

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004893.html#comments

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004895.html#comments

Considering that at least in sf circles and netwise he is quite well known and that those earnings - nice but kind of like a regular paycheck - put him in the TOP 1% of sf authors earnings, think again about INVISIBILITY as Mr. Flint puts it...

Since he does not mention names (though see TeleRead about speculations in that respect) I would not consider Mr. Flint's column as an ad-hominem attack, just a blunt pointer to economic realities versus wishful thinking ("oh man I have this book that if I put online 100000 people will buy it, but for those mean pirates so let's drm it up the wazooo" - this leaving aside the color is a true phrase from a drm exchange I had in another forum with a drm supporter)

nekokami · 02-26-2007, 08:13 AM

Oh, sure, I agree, the more of the book available before purchase, the better.

Maybe "ad hominem" isn't the right term when no names are given, but I think you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and he's being pretty abusive toward anyone who doesn't currently agree with his position. It's fun to read if you already agree with him, but not likely to win converts among the skeptics.

On the other hand, I think his suggested "experiment" is inspired.

I myself am thinking of trying to get Google (or somebody) to create a standard, open format variation that inserts text ads between chapters, pays the author (and charges the advertiser) per download, per page view (tracked while offline and uploaded at next connection), and/or per click-through. Then authors could simply post their books and actually hope they get passed around through filesharing networks. I'm not a huge fan of advertising, in general, but this seems to me more likely to work than other schemes, especially DRM. (Particularly if the ad server would have enough sense to make the ads relevant, e.g. for books by the same or similar authors. Hm. Maybe Amazon could do this better.)

Thoughts?

slayda · 02-26-2007, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

I myself am thinking of trying to get Google (or somebody) to create a standard, open format variation that inserts text ads between chapters, pays the author (and charges the advertiser) per download, per page view (tracked while offline and uploaded at next connection), and/or per click-through. Tcould do this better.)

Thoughts?

I hope they don't take your suggestion. I'd much rather buy the book without ads than have to put up with the irritation for free. Remember - TANSTAAFL.

Maybe I typify the addage, "Young people try to maximize pleasure. Old people try to minimize irritations."

Liviu_5 · 02-26-2007, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Oh, sure, I agree, the more of the book available before purchase, the better.

Maybe "ad hominem" isn't the right term when no names are given, but I think you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and he's being pretty abusive toward anyone who doesn't currently agree with his position. It's fun to read if you already agree with him, but not likely to win converts among the skeptics.

From time to time I have asked Mr. Flint several questions about his books in his Baen forum Mutter of Demons and he was quite gracious in answering, but I agree that he can be very combative in arguing various points as befits a former labour organizer who quit an academic career on political grounds (see also his extraordinary series 1632...).

Since unfortunately illusions about piracy and drm are well entrenched (always better have to blame someone concrete than just cold economic realities) I do not think than anything other than losing tons of money on drm, closure of drm companies, and making decent money on non-drm alternatives can bring converts.

Personally I do not believe that any drm scheme for e-books is going to succeed; however I think that the main issue is pricing - there is no way people are going to pay for e-books hc like prices on a large enough scale, outside of special circumstances like e-arcs, overseas books...

I do not believe that ads can support e-books either outside of narrow niches. I think that e-books can be very succesful in backlists, out-of-print books, e-arcs, and current "obscure" titles (95% of the market) as long as the price is low enough and they are drm free, but print will still be dominant for a while.

At some point I guess new business models will evolve but not for another 10-15 years at least since the external pressure is simply not that powerful, (whenever asked all publishers agree they HAVE to do something about e-books, but not that they MUST like studios say), digitization being such a cumbersome process for consumers as opposed to ripping a cd/dvd, the number of titles so vast as opposed to a limited number of movies and even albums each year, the way of "consuming" books quite different from on-the-go music listening, or social movie watching.

RWood · 02-26-2007, 01:49 PM

I picked up the ebook of "Jennifer Government" after reading one chapter online. (OK, I bought it halfway through the first chapter.)

Likewise, I have added many Baen books -- more than from the CONNECT store -- based on their free offerings. Most of them seem to offer the first in a series and then I want to go back and get the rest of the series. Sure there are a bunch of duds (duds for me, perhaps the best book in the world for others) but I was willing to invest a bit of time to see if I liked the book. Even some of the greats have books I don't care for -- even Asimov.

It is after all, all about marketing.

slayda · 02-26-2007, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RWood

Likewise, I have added many Baen books -- more than from the CONNECT store -- based on their free offerings.

Me too. I'm a slow reader & right now I have too many free books to read but am still buying more from Bean based on their free library & also on their multiple ebook formats. The Webscriptions are really good deals too - usually 4 to 8 books for $15.

Robert Marquard · 02-27-2007, 02:45 AM

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ offers the Baen CDs as legal download. More than 160 Baen books all in all. The whole Honor Harrington series is contained therein.

Steven Lyle Jordan · 02-28-2007, 07:34 AM

As I've been one of the consumers that quick-scans and "ignores" most of the titles on a sci-fi shelf, I have to agree with Flint about the opacity of the print market, and that for me, there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to devote to investigating new authors. On the other hand, I do try to find interesting new authors and material, usually based on a good title or what I can see of a cover, and occasionally crack open a book to look further. It's my impression of the content, or writing style, that sells me.

The e-book market has exactly the same issues. How many e-book authors, like me, are never going to be found by the average e-book reader? A lot. There aren't enough hours in the day for Googling hundreds of e-book sites, and untold thousands of authors, either.

So Flint is right: Piracy is the least of an author's worries. Getting discovered in this opaque market in the first place... that's the problem. Every budding author should be spending their time thinking about which writing competitions they can enter, which awards they can get entered for, or what viral marketing campaign they can run, to get their name and books out there.

And maybe, once you become Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts, you can think about how much you may be losing to piracy.

slayda · 02-28-2007, 09:14 AM

Don't forget the pbook cover art. In the past I have been initially attracted in a book store by that art. Of course there must be substance behind it.

With ebooks, probably metadata will be a key to reducing the opacity, but on many sites, the art is still important.

Steve, I just recently visited your site & again it was the artwork that initially attracted my interest. Good work there. It got me to buy my first of your books. Unfortunately there are too many books on my reader to read in several months.

Steven Lyle Jordan · 02-28-2007, 09:50 PM

Valid point: Never underestimate the power of effective packaging! I'll readily admit, the quality of a website, or a book cover, impacts my estimation of story quality and my desire to purchase. So yes, authors should work on presentation!

nekokami · 02-28-2007, 10:04 PM

I actually used to be as familiar with the major illustrators in the realm of SF&F as I was with the authors-- and would pick up books with covers by illustrators I recognized, just to give them a look, even if I didn't buy them. On the other hand, it was years before I read the Harry Potter books, because I really didn't like the first three covers. (And I did end up liking the books, though there are other books I like more.)

These days I do buy more books online than in person, and as I noted above, I'm more likely to be swayed by online bookstore recommendations (or librarything) or recommendations by people I know. As an example, Amazon kept recommending The Amulet of Samarkand and I kept ignoring it as some lame HP knockoff-- for a while. I eventually read some reviews, tentatively put it on a wishlist, and then picked up a copy-- of all places-- at a library fundraiser sale. I bought the two sequels within the week. Good stuff. I've paid a bit more attention to the Amazon recommendations since then, though they can still be pretty far off -- especially if I forget to mark purchases as gifts, in which case I end up getting recommendations for items which can be pretty far off my tastes. But their "find more like this" hints aren't bad at all.

02-23-2007, 11:04 PM	#1
Liviu_5 Books and more books Posts: 917 Karma: 69499 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: White Plains, NY, USA Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)	More Eric Flint on DRM - salvos 7 excerpt From the "Salvos Against Big Brother 7" - Books: The Opaque Market - in the 7th issue of Jim Baen's Universe (June 2007 e-arc) For the first 5 salvos check the preview site of the magazine, where each one is available in the corresponding issue. http://preview.baens-universe.com Excerpt from Mr. Flint: "Again, it's simple. The book market is so opaque that, willy-nilly, almost all book-buyers react by being extremely conservative in their buying habits. "Conservative," at least, in terms of which authors they're willing to spend money on, if not necessarily in terms of how much money they spend overall. They simply have no choice. They have neither the time nor the money—especially the time—to do anything remotely resembling a thorough search of the market to see which authors they might like more than any other. They can't even do that in one corner of the market, such as science fiction and fantasy, much less the market as a whole. So, with the exception of a few adventurous types, most readers stick with a small number of authors whom they've come to know that they generally like. They venture afield only rarely, for the good and simple reason that people are generally reluctant to spend money—and time, perhaps, even more so—on what amounts to a pig in a poke. Unless they have some reason to think they might enjoy an unfamiliar author, they will simply ignore them. For years, and years, and years. I always urge every author who tries to argue with me on the significance of so-called "electronic piracy" to do a little experiment. Go to your nearest big bookstore and plant yourself somewhere that gives you a good view of the shelves where your book or books are located. Then, simply count the number of browsers in the course of an hour or two who don't even glance at one of your titles. Forget taking it off the shelves, looking at the back cover, etc. etc, and then putting it back. I'm talking about the potential customers who ignore you completely. Try it sometime. What you'll discover is that for every potential customer who takes even a couple of seconds to consider your title, dozens will pass your books by without so much as a glance. That's the opacity of the book market at work. The real problem faced by authors isn't theft, it's invisibility. For the overwhelming majority of their potential customers, they simply don't exist. This is even true, by the way, for the best-selling authors, although not to the same degree. Just about every literate person today has heard of J.K. Rowling or Stephen King or Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts or John Grisham. But what percentage of their potential customers have never actually read them? The answer is 90% and up, for even the best-selling authors. For one reason or another, even though potential readers have heard of the author—in many cases, in fact, because of what they've heard of that author—most of them simply don't consider buying their titles. And, in many cases, based on information which is completely inaccurate. To go back to my experiment, what you will discover is that every author loses more potential sales in one day due to the opacity of the market than they'd lose from "electronic piracy" in the course of an entire year. That being so, it's simply common sense to look for any methods that improve your visibility in the market—and steer clear of any that make the opacity of the market even worse. Like DRM. I'll explore this further in my next essay, where I'll go into considerable detail showing how fair use has always been the author's best friend, when it comes to promoting themselves and their works. And I will demonstrate that: 1) There is nothing that is "new" or "unparalleled" about the so-called danger of "electronic piracy." 2) From the standpoint of the narrow economic self-interest of an author (or publisher), a generous and expansive attitude toward fair use is every bit as beneficial as it is to society as a whole. 3) Any author or publisher who supports DRM is, even in the narrowest terms of their own selfish interests... Logically challenged. Most polite term I can use. In the meantime, contemplate "invisibility" for the next two months. Try my little experiment—and then go online and spend the same hour or so trying to find pirated copies of your work. And then, do some simple arithmetic, comparing your losses in one column to those in the other and extrapolating the result across a period of months and years. If you're still deeply fretful about "online piracy" at the end, I can only hope you never get caught in a burning building—since you'll obviously spend your time worrying about whether you're wearing the right color socks to be seen in public rather than getting out of the fire."

02-27-2007, 02:45 AM	#11
Robert Marquard Delphi-Guy Posts: 285 Karma: 1151 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Berlin, Germany Device: iLiad, Palm T3	http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ offers the Baen CDs as legal download. More than 160 Baen books all in all. The whole Honor Harrington series is contained therein. Last edited by Robert Marquard; 02-27-2007 at 02:46 AM. Reason: wrong URL

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02-24-2007, 09:14 AM	#2
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	I like Eric Flint's message, and I agree with his conclusions about DRM, but I think it's a logical fallacy to assume that the potential customers who obtain pirated copies of ebooks are the same ones who walk past the author's books on the shelves at the store. Someone who goes to the trouble to read a pirated book by an author probably would have at least picked up the book on the shelf and read the back cover. I think this also ignores the recent development of suggestive selling tools at Amazon and other online retailers. I've actually "found" a number of new authors that I like based on these suggestions, and I think these tools work against the opacity Flint describes above. (But imagine how much more powerful they would be if I could read a chapter online and then immediately purchase the ebook if I like it?) (I also think Flint could tone down the ad hominem arguments, but that's just me, I guess.)

02-24-2007, 01:53 PM	#3
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	He's nailed it for me here: "Unless they have some reason to think they might enjoy an unfamiliar author, they will simply ignore them. For years, and years, and years." I saw David Weber's Honor Harrington books for 6~8 years before I picked one up because "my" authors weren't publishing anything for a while (and I figured that there were enough in the series to keep be busy for a while if I actually liked them). Now Mr. Weber is quite possibly my favorite author. Through his collaborations, I've encountered other authors I enjoy: John Ringo, and Eric Flint, for example. Part of my reluctance to try new authors is just change inertia on my part, but a good chunk of it is not wanting to spend money on books when I don't know if I'll like them or not. That's to a large degree a holdover from when I had a lot less money to spend on books, and it's changing gradually (my attitude on the point, I mean), but still, there it is.

02-26-2007, 08:13 AM	#6
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Oh, sure, I agree, the more of the book available before purchase, the better. Maybe "ad hominem" isn't the right term when no names are given, but I think you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and he's being pretty abusive toward anyone who doesn't currently agree with his position. It's fun to read if you already agree with him, but not likely to win converts among the skeptics. On the other hand, I think his suggested "experiment" is inspired. I myself am thinking of trying to get Google (or somebody) to create a standard, open format variation that inserts text ads between chapters, pays the author (and charges the advertiser) per download, per page view (tracked while offline and uploaded at next connection), and/or per click-through. Then authors could simply post their books and actually hope they get passed around through filesharing networks. I'm not a huge fan of advertising, in general, but this seems to me more likely to work than other schemes, especially DRM. (Particularly if the ad server would have enough sense to make the ads relevant, e.g. for books by the same or similar authors. Hm. Maybe Amazon could do this better.) Thoughts?

02-26-2007, 01:49 PM	#9
RWood Technogeezer Posts: 7,233 Karma: 1601464 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Virginia, USA Device: Sony PRS-500	I picked up the ebook of "Jennifer Government" after reading one chapter online. (OK, I bought it halfway through the first chapter.) Likewise, I have added many Baen books -- more than from the CONNECT store -- based on their free offerings. Most of them seem to offer the first in a series and then I want to go back and get the rest of the series. Sure there are a bunch of duds (duds for me, perhaps the best book in the world for others) but I was willing to invest a bit of time to see if I liked the book. Even some of the greats have books I don't care for -- even Asimov. It is after all, all about marketing.

02-28-2007, 07:34 AM	#12
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	As I've been one of the consumers that quick-scans and "ignores" most of the titles on a sci-fi shelf, I have to agree with Flint about the opacity of the print market, and that for me, there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to devote to investigating new authors. On the other hand, I do try to find interesting new authors and material, usually based on a good title or what I can see of a cover, and occasionally crack open a book to look further. It's my impression of the content, or writing style, that sells me. The e-book market has exactly the same issues. How many e-book authors, like me, are never going to be found by the average e-book reader? A lot. There aren't enough hours in the day for Googling hundreds of e-book sites, and untold thousands of authors, either. So Flint is right: Piracy is the least of an author's worries. Getting discovered in this opaque market in the first place... that's the problem. Every budding author should be spending their time thinking about which writing competitions they can enter, which awards they can get entered for, or what viral marketing campaign they can run, to get their name and books out there. And maybe, once you become Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts, you can think about how much you may be losing to piracy.

02-28-2007, 09:14 AM	#13
slayda Retired & reading more! Posts: 2,764 Karma: 1884247 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: North Alabama, USA Device: Kindle 1, iPad Air 2, iPhone 6S+, Kobo Aura One	Don't forget the pbook cover art. In the past I have been initially attracted in a book store by that art. Of course there must be substance behind it. With ebooks, probably metadata will be a key to reducing the opacity, but on many sites, the art is still important. Steve, I just recently visited your site & again it was the artwork that initially attracted my interest. Good work there. It got me to buy my first of your books. Unfortunately there are too many books on my reader to read in several months.

02-28-2007, 09:50 PM	#14
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	Valid point: Never underestimate the power of effective packaging! I'll readily admit, the quality of a website, or a book cover, impacts my estimation of story quality and my desire to purchase. So yes, authors should work on presentation!

02-28-2007, 10:04 PM	#15
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	I actually used to be as familiar with the major illustrators in the realm of SF&F as I was with the authors-- and would pick up books with covers by illustrators I recognized, just to give them a look, even if I didn't buy them. On the other hand, it was years before I read the Harry Potter books, because I really didn't like the first three covers. (And I did end up liking the books, though there are other books I like more.) These days I do buy more books online than in person, and as I noted above, I'm more likely to be swayed by online bookstore recommendations (or librarything) or recommendations by people I know. As an example, Amazon kept recommending The Amulet of Samarkand and I kept ignoring it as some lame HP knockoff-- for a while. I eventually read some reviews, tentatively put it on a wishlist, and then picked up a copy-- of all places-- at a library fundraiser sale. I bought the two sequels within the week. Good stuff. I've paid a bit more attention to the Amazon recommendations since then, though they can still be pretty far off -- especially if I forget to mark purchases as gifts, in which case I end up getting recommendations for items which can be pretty far off my tastes. But their "find more like this" hints aren't bad at all.

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