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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.

Many people have noticed the difficulties of buying the media you care about in the country you care about when it comes to digital downloads of video and music. Some people have noticed the difficulties of buying the media you care about in the country you care about when it comes to digital downloads of video games. There has been remarkably little discussion about the issue when it comes to digital books, though, at least in part because of how little it's in your face.

Take, for example, the fantasy novel by David Eddings, Pawn of Prophecy, which starts off his series The Belgariad. Normally, if you go to Amazon.com from the US, you see no indication that an e-book version is even available. However, if you happen to come from a foreign IP... this is what you see instead:

	Hey, look! A Kindle version! ... What happens if I click on it?
	That looks like what I want! Time to buy! Sign in, and....
	Huh?
	Meanwhile, on Amazon.jp....
	Or Amazon.co.uk....
	...Or Amazon.de....

From what I can tell, this comes down to the idiotic policies of Random House, who own the copyrights in the US. They don't seem to have recognized that e-books are a great way to sell books from your back catalog, even for ones that have a fairly large following. What's even more ridiculous is that the international arm of the same publisher (Transworld Publishers) has already released electronics versions of the books!

Left hand, meet right hand. sigh

In the meantime, I'll go buy these from overseas. At least the Kindle is able to keep books from multiple accounts on a single Kindle simultaneously (unlike the mobile phone versions of the apps)....