I buy books on the Net from amazon.com (the address is www.amazon.com) and
am grateful to have the opportunity. I haven't yet bought from any other
sites and can't say how they handle the information, but amazon.com has
privacy measures in place, lots of warnings, instructions every step of the
way, and so on. I think buying from amazon.com is no more dangerous than
any other form of credit card buying -- if you're worried about that
particular problem, the only safe way to proceed is not to have a credit
card at all. And then of course you can transfer your anxiety and begin
worrying about the ease with which criminals can access your bank account
now that there are computer-read numbers on your checks. ....
While I'm here, I'd like to mention something that people can do to support
writers and books they'd like to save from oblivion, just in case not
everyone is aware of it. Go to amazon.com. On the left you'll see a section
that says you can search by author, title, or subject. Click on author or
title and fill in the blank. When the item comes up on the screen, scroll
to the end, where you'll see a spot that says something like "I've read
this book and I'd like to review it." (Also one that says "I'm the author
and I want to comment," which has been useful to me.) Follow the
instructions.... You can review a book you love (or one you hate, of
course) and send the review, all done very quickly and efficiently, and the
review will then be available on line for others to read. I've been trying
to get to a book or two a week and post reviews for them, in a support
effort....
Those of you who are authors might be as astonished as I was at the
publications that are listed under your name if you do a search for it; I
found one book and one audio program, both allegedly by me, that I didn't
know existed. The audio program (a Spanish translation) turned out to be
real, but I'd never been told that the Spanish rights had been sold or the
translation done, nor had I been paid for either one; the book really did
*not* exist. I recommend checking. Same thing for the site at
www.barnesandnoble.com .... I was amazed at what turned up under my name.
My apologies if I'm preaching to the choir, teaching all my grandmothers to
suck eggs, and similar truck; you never know.
Suzette
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:36 PDT