Light My Kindle

I’ve had my Kindle for eight months now, and I’ve had very few complaints. I’ve previously mentioned how I would like the Kindle to auto-delete samples of books I buy (ie: when I click through from the end of a sample book to purchase the book, the Kindle should be smart enough to delete the sample for me). I’ve since found another task I wish the Kindle and Amazon were smart enough to do: Book Availability Notfications.

I preorder a lot of books, and I recently pre-ordered Denis Leary’s Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid in hardcover. At the time, it wasn’t available for the Kindle, so I clicked the “I’d like to read this book on a Kindle” button and preordered the hardcover.

Either the request buttons work very quickly (which I doubt) or a Kindle edition was already planned but not available for preorder, because the next time I was browsing Amazon I noticed that Denis Leary’s book was now available for the Kindle. I had previously had this happen with Lewis Black’s Me of Little Faith (what is it with these comedians?), and while I didn’t necessarily mind paying $10 more for the book (although I wouldn’t want to pay that price all the time), I would have preferred to read it on the Kindle.

Here’s what I want Amazon to be able to do:

• Notify Kindle owners when hardcover titles they have preordered are now available in Kindle form, before the hardcover is shipped
• Notify customers who clicked the “I’d like to read this book on a Kindle” button when that book becomes available for the Kindle

That doesn’t seem so difficult, does it? It would make me a happier customer, and more likely to preorder books. After being burned twice with this issue, I doubt I’ll be preordering books that I’d rather read on the Kindle (especially not from comedians).

Anyone else have this problem? Do you have a Kindle Wishlist item you’d like to share with the world? Email me at cj@lightmykindle.com.

As I was using my Kindle on the train ride home recently, I purchased This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession after having read the sample of it and having attended a talk by the author. The purchasing process was seamless - I reached the end of the sample and there was a link to buy the full text. I clicked the link, and it took me right to the thank you page. In seconds the book appeared on my home screen.

The only hiccup in the process was after the purchase was completed. My home screen now featured the newly downloaded book and the sample. If a Kindle II is in the works, I’d appreciate an auto-delete function so that the sample of a book that you purchase would disappear. Of course, you can currently delete the sample by accessing your Content Manager. It seems to be an unnecessary extra step for something that every Kindle owner will do anyway.

Do other Kindle owners keep their samples for any reason? Do you find it an obnoxious extra step to have to delete your samples?