As you may have gathered from my previous post, I have a Kindle. In this case, it's a second generation Kindle Paperwhite, which I purchased so that I can access the Amazon.co.jp marketplace (my previous third-generation Kindle Keyboard was unable to do so).
I've been checking out several e-books that are available, and rather understandably, I've downloaded several samples. And... some of them really make me wonder what the hell the publishers are smoking. Cases in point:
- IS <Infinite Stratos> volume 1, where you get to read an amazing 12 sentences of the book to decide whether you want to purchase it.
- Which is an improvement over Strike the Blood volume 1, where you get to see the title pages for chapter 1, and that's it.
- Or Date A Live Touka Dead End, where you get to see the disclaimers for the book, and that's it.
- The same holds true of Bungaku shoujo, where you don't see anything from the first chapter.
- This isn't restricted to light novels, either. In Kami nomi zo shiru sekai volume 1, you get to see the "prologue" and the first chapter's title page, and that's it.
- Which is admittedly better than Mahou senki Lyrical Nanoha Force volume 1, where they cut you off before showing any story.
You'd think that publishers would realize that a sample should be, well, a real sample so that a customer would be able to make an informed decision, but... maybe not?
This isn't to say that all of them are bad. Several of them are quite good, such as the samples for Hidan no Aria volume 1 and Kikou shoujo wa kizutsukanai volume 1 on the light novel end of things, and Minami-ke volume 1 for manga.