So, John Scalzi's got a new book out. He's serialising his new novel in $0.99 chunks. I want to read it.
It's supposed to be for sale, as an ebook.
But!
Scalzididn't include a link to buy it[1], only a link to the audiobook. I don't like audiobooks and I really hate audible.com audiobooks, so I googled it, and the SECOND hit is his announcement blog post, the first hit is Tor's website.
I click Tor's website. An announcement! No link to buy.
So I click the "get Tor books here!" link and it takes me to Tor/Forge. And it's forgotten what I was looking at, so I'm on the Tor/Forge home page, not the page for The Human Division. I check "new releases", it's not there.
I eventually find a search button, put in "the human division", and find THE OTHER THIRTEEN NON-AVAILABLE BOOKS WITH THAT NAME (because this is the first serial and all the rest are showing up) before finding the only one that's actually been released.
I click that, and there's a "buy now" link, which I click. It takes me to something that says the book is 99 cents, available from "other".
There's no "buy" button.
"Other" is actually a drop-down menu, with options like "amazon" and "kobo" and "apple store" on it.
Selecting any of those doesn't open the page for this book on that site, no. It opens that site's home page.
Seriously, Tor? Would it have killed you to make ANY of the announcements, or ANY of the "buy now" links, ACTUALLY GO TO A PLACE WHERE I COULD BUY THIS BOOK SPECIFICALLY? Without running me around half your website before dumping me off at the home page of amazon.com and telling me that you were wasting my time and I shouldn't have bothered even TRYING to buy directly from the publisher who has a "buy now" link on their page?
I am trying to GIVE YOU MONEY. Why are you making this DIFFICULT? Why do you even *have* those links?
(Choose retailer first, go to retailer, give money to retailer: That works. But why the fuck wasn't the "buy now" link A SET OF LINKS TO PEOPLE WHO WOULD LET ME BUY NOW AGH. And now I'm so annoyed by the experience that fuck it, I'm not buying this book. I have enough other books and my impulse-purchase impulse has worn off. Maybe when the rest of the book comes out I'll try again.)
PS: Yes, I did find links to download it, even links to less-asshole companies. But forget it! It has annoyed me and now it suffers and does not receive my dollar.
[1]: ETA: Scalzi included a bunch of perfectly good links to buy it but I missed those because they looked superficially like facebook/twitter/g+/whatever "share this article on" buttons and I ignored them because that's what you DO to button rows on websites. That's my bad. Everything I said about Tor's website still stands.
It's supposed to be for sale, as an ebook.
But!
Scalzi
I click Tor's website. An announcement! No link to buy.
So I click the "get Tor books here!" link and it takes me to Tor/Forge. And it's forgotten what I was looking at, so I'm on the Tor/Forge home page, not the page for The Human Division. I check "new releases", it's not there.
I eventually find a search button, put in "the human division", and find THE OTHER THIRTEEN NON-AVAILABLE BOOKS WITH THAT NAME (because this is the first serial and all the rest are showing up) before finding the only one that's actually been released.
I click that, and there's a "buy now" link, which I click. It takes me to something that says the book is 99 cents, available from "other".
There's no "buy" button.
"Other" is actually a drop-down menu, with options like "amazon" and "kobo" and "apple store" on it.
Selecting any of those doesn't open the page for this book on that site, no. It opens that site's home page.
Seriously, Tor? Would it have killed you to make ANY of the announcements, or ANY of the "buy now" links, ACTUALLY GO TO A PLACE WHERE I COULD BUY THIS BOOK SPECIFICALLY? Without running me around half your website before dumping me off at the home page of amazon.com and telling me that you were wasting my time and I shouldn't have bothered even TRYING to buy directly from the publisher who has a "buy now" link on their page?
I am trying to GIVE YOU MONEY. Why are you making this DIFFICULT? Why do you even *have* those links?
(Choose retailer first, go to retailer, give money to retailer: That works. But why the fuck wasn't the "buy now" link A SET OF LINKS TO PEOPLE WHO WOULD LET ME BUY NOW AGH. And now I'm so annoyed by the experience that fuck it, I'm not buying this book. I have enough other books and my impulse-purchase impulse has worn off. Maybe when the rest of the book comes out I'll try again.)
PS: Yes, I did find links to download it, even links to less-asshole companies. But forget it! It has annoyed me and now it suffers and does not receive my dollar.
[1]: ETA: Scalzi included a bunch of perfectly good links to buy it but I missed those because they looked superficially like facebook/twitter/g+/whatever "share this article on" buttons and I ignored them because that's what you DO to button rows on websites. That's my bad. Everything I said about Tor's website still stands.
