If you’ve ever tried looking for cheap, high quality books on the Amazon Kindle store, you’ve probably run into the same frustrating limitations that I have–namely, that you can’t set a specific price floor or upper limit when you perform a search. There are so many titles on the Kindle Store that it’s not practical to manually browse, screen by screen, through the listings. To make matters worse, you can’t filter out self-published, amateur, and public domain (aka “can be found for free elsewhere”) titles that junk up the listings.
Well, guess what? You can sort by specific price ranges if you use Jungle-Search.com!
This third-party website will let you narrow down your search to a particular book category, then set a price range, and then sort the results by the standard Amazon sort options. You can even filter out low-rated books if you trust the Amazon community rating system enough (I don’t).
I used Jungle-Search this morning to find Stephen King’s Duma Key for $7.99. I only read Stephen King novels every once in a while, but I think he makes for good summer reading, and I was happy to find one of his more widely-acclaimed books at such a reasonable price. Even better, the text-to-speech isn’t disabled on it, unlike some other Stephen King titles, so I had no qualms about grabbing it for my Kindle.
If you know of any other good ways to find discounted books on the Amazon Kindle store, please add them to the comments below.
By Bryan Gilmer May 17, 2009 - 1:09 PM
While you’re right that some self-published titles for Kindle are not very good, I caution you not to rule them out entirely. Many can be great reads, and because self-published authors don’t have to share the profits with a publisher, lower priced and excellent values.
My self-published crime thriller quickly shot into the top 5 hard-boiled mysteries on Kindle Store and into the top 50 Mysteries & Thrillers and is getting mostly $5 reviews. I have it priced at $4.99, to entice readers to try a new author. I’m a professional writer and a teacher of writing at one of the country’s top journalism schools, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Kindle’s Digital Text Platform allowed me to get the novel I worked hard on for more than two years into the hands of readers.
Friday, after I announced publication on a couple of Kindle message boards, here was the list of top-selling mysteries and thrillers on Kindle Store:
1. The Shack, William P. Young
2. The 8th Confession, James Patterson
3. Lee Child, Persuader (being given away free)
4. Dan Brown, Angels & Demons
5. Dead and Gone, Charlaine Harris
6. Cemetery Dance, Douglas Preston
7. Wicked Prey, John Sandford
8. Look Again, Lisa Scottoline
9. Loitering with Intent, Stuart Woods
10. Long Lost, Harlan Coben
11. Just Take My Heart, Mary Higgins Clark
12. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, Alexander McCall Smith
13. One Second After, William Forstchen
14. Stephen King, UR
15. Run for Your Life, James Patterson
16. BoneMan’s Daughters, Ted Dekker
17. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley
18. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
19. Felonious Jazz, Bryan Gilmer
20. Killing Floor, Lee Child
21. Face of Betrayal, Lis Wiehl
22. Road Dogs, Elmore Leonard
I would say to check the reviews and of course try a sample first to see if the writing’s up to par (usually, you can get a feel for the quality of writing from the product description blurb), but remember that one of the most exciting things about Kindle is that it’s letting many new voices, like mine, find their audience.
I hope you and some of your readers will choose to sample Felonious Jazz.
http://www.amazon.com/Felonious-Jazz/dp/B00295R17Y
Best wishes,
Bryan Gilmer
By Chris Walters May 17, 2009 - 2:12 PM
@Bryan Gilmer: You’re absolutely right, of course, and I painted self-published works with too broad a brush up there.
In reality, I have high hopes for self-published works. I’m not pleased with the current search system on the Amazon Store, however, because it’s *too* inclusive–you wouldn’t believe the amount of self-published stuff that clutters up the bottom rungs of a genre like horror, for example. Without some way to judge the worth of the content, you have no idea whether or not it’s even worth trying a sample. Most of the cover art is so bad that it makes it easy to ignore it completely.
I have found at least one self-published author I really liked, and am currently reading another one I have very mixed-to-negative feelings about (both in the horror genre). The one I liked could have easily been published by a mainstream publisher, while the other self-publishes for a reason. What this tells me is there’s a role for reviewers and content curators who can elevate self-published works to the top by publicizing them and saying, “Hey, this is really good, give it a shot.” Without a publisher to give a stamp of approval, there needs to be some other mechanism.
(Amazon could do this themselves, in fact, by highlighting self published authors whose works are really good. “Kindle Author of the Week” for example.)
I keep thinking I’ll be one of the people to do that, but I read so slowly and have such a backlog of titles on my Kindle that I may not ever get around to it. :/
By Sheryl May 22, 2009 - 12:25 AM
I highly recommend Duma Key. I love his earlier novels, and this one just hooked me for good. I could barely stop reading so I could get some sleep. Near the end, I wanted to toss the book across the room, I didn’t want it to end. And I was very, very afraid… I will read this many more times, I know.
By Sheryl May 22, 2009 - 12:27 AM
Karen Haber may be check out by readers. I have only read a few of her stories, but they are quite good. And the prices are right…
By Casey Lindsey June 29, 2009 - 1:55 PM
I just gotta say I love my kindle and the cheap books.
My taste is a bit rough but I enjoyed “The Misogynist” by Emily Downs.
It can be a bit vulgar at times. Be warned. But it’s cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Misogynist/dp/B001V5J4VO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246301307&sr=1-2
She is the bestselling author of “Lisa Loves Girls”
http://www.amazon.com/Lisa-Loves-Girls-ebook/dp/B002EZZJ4Q/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246298800&sr=1-7
2 books for under 2 bucks. THe kindle will own publishing.