Amazon has a new feature for Kindle users (you need to sign in). You can keep tabs on the books you are reading, have read, or stopped reading, and the notes you made on them. You can choose to make this information public.
Of course, I rushed to see if readers had highlighted anything on my books. With Remix, proudly ranking 4395th in books with Public Notes, oddly it's the first lines and my website address. With Replica, I was delighted to find this note on the thoughts of my hero, Nick Cavanagh:
Jeff shared
"She’s forgiven him, when she should have spat in his eye. What were women like? Either demanding harridans, bawling you out for nothing, impossible to please, or putting up with murder and apologizing while they did it. He reckoned he was due one of the second sort."
Note: So true !
Yikes! Would authors be able to see how many people had downloaded their sample chapters but not gone on to buy the book? As a reader, I do that quite a lot in the same way I'd browse many, many books in Waterstones before buying one. But this would feel more like me going up to the author personally and saying 'Not for me'. Which I'd never do in person!
ReplyDeleteI think I'll keep my Kindling habits private. I did notice that a book I read on it recently had a lot of underlining which I assumed was phrases other people had highlighted. To be honest, it distracted me a bit and I thought it a bad thing about Kindle.
No - only Amazon knows the proportion that buy after sampling, and they're not telling. I do agree with you I wouldn't want authors to know about the books I stopped reading; dreadfully discouraging for them.
ReplyDeleteYou can turn off the highlights on your Kindle so you don't see them. Go to Menu, Settings, Popular Highlights, and turn it off.
I think you may have to develop a 'how to use your Kindle' course for me, Lexi! I'm clearly not making the most of it so thanks for that tip.
ReplyDeleteK