The New York Times reported today on Amazon.com’s new Amazon Connect program, which started last month. The program gives authors with books for sale on Amazon the ability to address their readers in blog format. As yet, the author blogs offer neither RSS nor reader comments - but the beginnings of a solid blogging platform are there.
Meg Wolitzer - author of The Wife and The Position - is one of my favorite writers. Her blog addresses the importance of fiction and its underrepresentation in the modern American reading list. In one post, she says:
Reading has taken on some of the qualities of an obligation. There’s a sense out there that if you’re going to take the time out of your incredibly busy day to read, you’d better learn something in the process. Which, to many people, means you need to read non-fiction rather than fiction. After all, what is fiction good for, anyway? Novels, it can be said, are just invented stories about people who never existed and never will.
The Times reports that Amazon has invited about a dozen authors to their blogging table thus far - from Wolitzer to Mike Jeffress a Christian minister whose perspectives on the secularization of the winter holidays made me sorely wish that Amazon would implement a commenting feature sooner rather than later.
In time, I hope that Amazon will make their author blogs more bloggy. But the fact that they’re implementing them at all is a huge step in the right direction - both as a business decision and as a medium to further the great written conversation.
PS: Ever notice how I’m stuck on The New York Times and Steve’s stuck on The Wall Street Journal? What do you suppose it means?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Raymond Jenkins 12.27.05 at 9:03 pm
Ok on one hand this sounds like a outstanding idea with lots of possibilities. On the other….overly commercialized, fabricated web community. Do you have a lazier link I can’t seem to find any list of author blogs, other than the one you provide.
-b- 12.28.05 at 8:25 am
Amazon reviews are an example of how comments can turn negative. At least with a blog-like format, the author’s can respond constructively. Our book is up there now (not yet released) and it’d be very interesting to engage with readers there, inline with the book, reviews, and the ability to instantly purchase.
Roger Jennings 12.31.05 at 9:44 am
As others have concluded, Amazon Connect is more a collection of messages in a “walled garden” than a conventional blog. Even outbound links go through Amazon redirects.
The primary missing element is an RSS/Atom syndication feed. The only way a search engine will ever find an Amazon plog (product log) is via a link from a conventional blog site.
Some Amazon Connect cons (and a few pros) I’ve found are here.
—rj
Teresa Valdez Klein 12.31.05 at 12:12 pm
Hi Roger,
It’s true that Amazon doesn’t have real blogs yet. It’s kind of like Randy’s Journal was in the beginning. And just like Boeing, Amazon is going to have to respond to criticism from the blogosphere to make their author blogs more authentically bloggy.
Businesses still haven’t quite figured out the blogosphere yet - and it’s important to give them constructive criticism so they can get better. Thanks for passing this one along.
-Teresa