[LINK] NextGen Publishing

[Tom Worthington]

On 12/01/12 19:55, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 07:39 PM 12/01/2012, TKoltai wrote:
>> Although the Amazon brand is synonymous with reading material, tendrils
>> are reaching out  ...
>
> Amazon is a strange beast. I buy different things from there, most
> recently an ice cream maker ...

Last thing I bought from Amazon was a glow in the dark hammer: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2012/01/glow-in-dark-car-emergency-hammer.html

Beat that for strange. ;-)

Amazon sell an amazing range of items and people buy some odd things. I 
am an Amazon Associate, so I get a cut of the money from sales referred 
from my web site. This does not bring in much revenue (much less than 
Google Ads do), but I do get a very interesting list of what people buy.

 From 2007 to January 11, 2012, my Amazon report lists 2,492 items 
ordered (35 items were returned). Of these 1,189 were from Amazon itself 
and the rest from third parties Amazon lists in its catalogue. The 
average item cost $US46. Orders were mostly for single items, but 
someone did buy 38 Heavy-Duty Retractable Key Chain Reels, after I 
suggested they could be used to secure flash drives holding military 
secrets.

As well as the expected books like "How to Design and Teach a Hybrid 
Course" there is "Knitting Lingerie Style" (not I topic I cover in my 
blog). Many more Kindle eBooks are sold than paper books, but many of 
the eBooks are 99 cent DIY efforts of questionable quality (including 
some by me).

Books make up only a small proportion of Amazon sales. The most 
expensive item listed is a $2,000 46" LCD HDTV (these are now down to 
about $US600). Some items are small and hard to find elsewhere, such as 
a replacement cap for specific camera lens or a bulb for projector 
(Amazon lists 18,000 projector bulbs). But some items would seem easier 
to get elsewhere, such as six gallons of sealing liquid for a Waterless 
Urinal or 360 golf balls.

Popular Amazon items are AM/FM Radio Headsets, On-Board Diagnostics 
Electronic Scanners for car engines, Self Watering Plant Pots, Robot 
Vacuum Cleaners, plastic clogs, battery packs for portable tools and 
books about shipping containers. But that perhaps says more about what I 
like to write about in my Blog, than what the average Amazon customer is 
interested in. ;-)


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/