Amazonian warrior

I try to look at amazon.com as a tool. It can be a lot like taking a magician’s class. You start to learn tricks. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, sometimes I feel better informed, like I’m on an inside advantage.

To be honest, last x-mas I stumbled onto a lot of articles starting from huffing ton I believe about sweatshop warehouses. Amazon doesn’t need to lease and keep up a retail space. What they can do is hire people “part time” and put them thru unbearable working conditions in heat with the promise of fuill time work that doesn’t come. It’s seen as “paying your dues” the way some jobs pressure you into putting up with them.

So, I at least buy from used and not amazon “itself.” the descriptions are too brief, but if you believe them there are a lot of used book stores and liquidators that sell. Also, there are a lot of thrift shops that have gotten involved. It’s interesting because I have still found some good reads there, dirt cheap.

One of the reasons I’m hesitant to get a web phone is that I don’t want to be one of those people at a location, doing nothing but looking things up on the net about that location. When I’m at a book store, I want to be there if that makes sense. If I’m in the front of a restaurant I’ve never heard from, I’ll judge by the ambiance, not look it up before trying it.

When I’m at home, I have already looked up restaurants and stores I want to go to, books I want to read. And this is all very limited without an income. I’m lucky to eat out or buy something at a store besides groceries once every 2-3 weeks. Last year I made a lot of lists of things I want to try that sat undone.

I do have to spend a lot of time in stores and restaurants to listen to the employees and look at their working conditions to research job opps. Also, I go to to the library every week, even with the cutbacks they’re still open 4 days/ week.

For some reason, with a return deadline, I read library books faster than books I have owned for years. Strange phonomena. It actually helps me clear it out. I want to sell on amazon myself, but I need a faster, more reliable connection than dial up. And I need it at home to access 24/7. I usually go to the library to watch online video bits.

The reviews on amazon, I probably read as much as books. I have to stop myself sometimes, like limit myself a day every other week to do that, or I could go over them all day.

Of course, reviews have to be taken with a handful of salt. If the low reviews were about kindle service or “translation,“ cool doesn’t affect me and doesn’t make me want to buy one. I don’t want to drop something that has all my books “stored” in it, just like I see people lose their whole music library by dropping their ipod.

Also the reviews have to meet certain criteria. A couple of sentences of typos, and just opinion don’t carry much weight. But a detailed dissertaion on how the author was one sided, out of date, etc. holds a lot more credibility. However, if they mention 1 other book that’s better, that automatically raises suspicion, as people sneak promoting their book that way. And that’s wrong.

It actually helps me to write reading these reviews, especially about what not to do. Editing and grammar are critical of course. The author’s tone, also important. I adapted my writing to shorter attention spans (I hope). Smaller paragraphs, most questions answered on the same page, etc. Most of my books are reference books or books I can skip around. The worst thing I can do is get caught up in a long novel to not be satisfied at the end.

With amazon, if there’s a book I really want, I wait until it’s a dollar or less. With shipping every book I get is around $5. It works when the book was originally priced over $20.