I am totally predictable in the mornings. I make coffee, turn on CNN, drink juice, scan the night’s email. When the coffee’s ready, I go to the New York Times online. There’s a whole litany of sites that follow: Slate’s news wrap, the Daily Beast for fun, the Guardian for books. . . but this morning I got no further than the news item that Amazon was offering a free Kindle app for iPhones. Way before 7 AM I downloaded it. Zip, zip.

There’s a button on the top of the app that says “Get Books.” Press it and you’re told to go to the Amazon/Kindle website. I did this, on my iPhone. Now, what book do I want?

My first choice was a novel called Adiós, Hemingway because a friend recommended it. Nope, they didn’t have it. Although that wasn’t terribly unexpected, it threw me for a loop. You don’t know me, but you must realize that I work for a book review magazine. On any given day, there are hundreds of books all over the floor of my office. At home, there’s a Post Office box next to the door full of books I’ve taken the time to read a chapter or two of, and discarded. On the shelves there are four generations of books read and saved and reread. I don’t have enough room to keep books that won’t be reread. How many books are up there? I don’t know the number but I know what I’ve got.

And I also know what I don’t need, what I’m not interested in spending $9.99 on, the going-price of most books in the Kindle store. I mean, I like to read mysteries as much as anyone, but $9.99 seems a wasteful, selfish amount to spend on a non-tangible, one-time-only book. At least if I buy the hardcopy, I can give it away to someone, and they can give it away to someone.

So what would I spend $9.99 on? Something I’d like to keep with me. A reference. For example, a few weeks ago I splurged on the Oxford American Dictionary app for my iPhone. I love it. I use it every day. Surely there must be something else, maybe something I’ve got in my library.

I get up with my coffee and stand in front of my bookshelves for a bit—what would be something more useful than Google to keep on my phone?

How about John Emsley’s Nature’s Building Blocks? That’d be fun. I key in the name. Nope. Sorry. There’s a book by John Emsley (same guy?) called The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison, and there’s also one (same guy) called Vanity, Vitality, & Virility: The Science Behind the Products You Love to Buy, but I’m not buying.

Okay, how about The Oxford Book of Military History. That could be useful for when I’m in waiting rooms filled with Good Housekeeping magazines. I key in the name. Nope. There’s U.S. Military History for Dummies (never understood why anyone would buy those books), and there are really odd (and suspicious) titles like The Art of Insurgency: American Military Policy & the Failure of Strategy in Southeast Asia. Who’s reading that, and where? Or even stranger, Marching Under Darkening Skies: The American Military & the Impending Urban Ops Threat. Wow. Are Special Forces guys with Kindles killing time reading this stuff in the field?

It’s getting pretty late by now. I need to get dressed and go to work. What am I going to do? All right, let’s just key in “Oxford” and see what comes up.

Lots. All sorts of weird “handbooks” on oncology, international relations, ethical theory. . . Wait! Here’s something. How about The Dictionary of Modern Quotations? That’d work. That’d be useful and fun. $9.99.

I hit the “one click” button and since I’ve already signed up for the app, Amazon recognizes my device. Apparently, if you have both a Kindle and an iPhone, your purchases will upload to both and will keep track of where you are in your readings no matter which device you use.

The WiFi at my house wasn’t working this morning, and there’s no 3G network in northern Michigan. Even so, it only took a couple of minutes for the book to show up in the Kindle app. I was immediately amused that the familiar Oxford font shows up on my phone. And the table of contents is a series of links—that’s good. Let’s try “Last Words.”

1    Bugger Bogner.

King George V. (1865 – 1936) on his deathbed in 1936, when someone remarked ‘Cheer up, your Majesty, you will soon be at Bognor again’; alternatively, a comment made in 1929, when it was proposed that the town be named Bognor Regis on account of the king’s convalescence there after a serious illness
K. Rose King George V (1983); see Last Words 190:5


I’d call this a success, wouldn’t you?

Oh Amazon.

Remember back in the old first heady days of Amazon when people like me, surrounded by farmland and little children, could discover and order a book, almost any book, and have it hand-delivered to their own personal boondocks? While savings didn’t really exist in price, the service totally made up for it in terms of hassle and availability.

When I wrote my first book and published it just last year, Amazon was also there as a storefront and potential for marketing. Just a bit ago, I even uploaded my book to Kindle for no charge.

However, there are low rumblings and sweet Amazon words coming through my email every week encouraging me to use their POD service when my shelf stock runs out. I’ve been a loyal Lulu user for a couple of years now—printing everything from our local small press offerings to class materials to books. The printed books are always perfectly bound, the pages straight, the text crisp, the covers brilliant.

But, they’re also pretty expensive, particularly as it’s difficult to have orders from Baker & Taylor or Amazon shipped directly from the store.

So here comes Amazon and an enticing CreateSpace offer last week. No set-up charge (unlike BookSurge’s $299 a pop), and single copies running about $5.70 each. Lulu costs me about nine bucks, and that’s not including shipping. So, we’re talking about half the price—big savings. Huge savings.

Let’s try it.

I did. I uploaded the same PDF files I use at Lulu. The very same ones; I didn’t change a thing. It was easy, although CreateSpace didn’t allow me to look at proof online. I had to order one. Which I did. It arrived very quickly—within a week of the upload.

Big disappointment. The title on the cover looks like it’s been chewed at the edges, ditto the spine text. The barcode on the back is blurry and the blurb almost illegible. Although the interior text is legible, it’s far from crisp, and a comparison with the Lulu copy makes it look bloated. Just all around poor printing quality plain and simple.

While I’m sure I could get away with interior text in bookstores, I’m also sure that no one but my mom is going to want to display or endorse a book with such a carelessly produced cover.

Of course, I corresponded with Amazon about the problem, but they weren’t interested.

    Please Note: This e-mail message was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

    Hello Heather,

    Thank you for your reply.

    We are sorry to hear that you are unhappy with our services. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.

    Please feel free to contact us with any other inquiries.


So what I want to know is what happens to authors like me when our shelf stock runs out? Will we be faced with a choice of sinking or swimming in Amazon’s river? And who’s name will be Mud?