A Closer Look at the Stores
Chapter 5: A Closer Look at the Stores
4. Click the Download Song now button
You’ll find it next to the image of a CD.
Downloading music to your hard drive is just like saving anything else to your hard drive. You’ll need to decide where to put it, what to call it, and so on. So create a music folder for yourself and prepare to rock!
Essentials
Finding new music can be scary. Have you ever thought to yourself, “I want to get into jazz; I’m going to go to the record store and buy a jazz CD!”? Did you
then walk over to the record store and stand in front of thousandsof jazz CDs, feeling totally overwhelmed? Scary.
You needed Essentials — another feature in the Music store. It’s a compilation representing the work of Amazon’s expert music editors who’ve put together hundreds of must-have lists for everything from rock to baroque music.
Like Free Downloads, you can get to Essentials by clicking on it in the Music subnav. Once you’re there, you’re on your way to new music heaven. You can browse Essentials by artist, composer, style — you’ll even find Essentials by Year. Each Essentials list is accompanied by a brief history of that genre. (See Figure 5-1 for the Bebop Essentials page.) Clicking either the Classical or Jazz link under the Get Started In heading takes you to more detailed introduc- tions to these two genres of music that include an “audio tour” — very cool.
Look Inside
For so long, customers said that the reason they’d choose a physical book- store over Amazon is because they wanted to be able to leaf through the books before they bought. Look Inside eliminated the obstacle.
Look Inside allows you to view pages in the book you’re considering. You won’t find this feature on every book, but you will find it on many, and often on bestsellers. You’ll know that a book has Look Inside if there’s a little fellow peeking over the top edge of the book’s image on the detail page. To use the feature, just click on the little fellow.
Figure 5-1:
Essentials gives a brief history of the genre followed by a list of
“must- have” CDs.
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Chapter 5: A Closer Look at the Stores
The Look Inside pages look like Figure 5-2. You’ll usually be given access to an introduction, table of contents, excerpt, and index (if there is one). To get around, use the yellow arrows on either side of the book, or the Previous Page and Next Page links at the top of the page. To see thumbnails of all the avail- able pages, click on the See All Sample Pages link at the top center of the page.
Search Inside the Book
This new feature is Look Inside’s sassy little sister. It’s a feature that let’s you search the actual text of more than 120,000 books on Amazon’s site. That’s more than 33 million pages of text, thank you very much.
You don’t have to do anything special to use Search Inside, just perform key- word searches like you always do. If there’s a relevant match with Search Inside, a link to an excerpt will show up in your search results at the bottom of each entry.
A few things you should know:
You can’t read the entire book online. Sorry Charlie. First of all, Search Inside only shows the pages with your search term on them. Second of all, once you access a particular page, you can browse forward or back two pages. That’s it.
You can perform a search solely on the text of that book.Once you find a book that has Search Inside, you can go to its Search Inside area and do a search for a different term just within the book’s text.
You have to have an Amazon account, including credit card, to use the feature.When you click the excerpt link from your search results, you’ll be asked to sign in. If you don’t have an account, you’ll be asked to set one up. Amazon, in their FAQ for the feature, explains this as a means of protecting the publishers who participate in the program.
Preordering new releases
No more standing in line waiting for store doors to open. No more clobbering fellow shoppers with your handbag to get the last of the latest Harry Potter books. (Oh wait, that wasn’t you. It was me. Oops!) Amazon Preordering has civilized the shopping world.
There’s no secret magic to preordering at Amazon — as a feature it blends right in. A few months before a book is due to release, it will show up on the site. If you go to its detail page, you’ll notice that instead of it saying “buy now” in the buy box, it’ll say, “preorder now” You put it in your shopping cart or use 1-Click as usual and when the book is released, they’ll ship you one.
If you’re one of those people who have to have it on the day it’s released, don’t use this feature. Remember, they have to get it from their warehouse and then ship it to you, which takes a few days.
Specialty Stores
Are you mad about Monty Python? Batty for Barbie? Gaga for George Foreman?
Then Specialty Stores are for you.
Specialty Stores are smaller, thematic stores with merchandise culled from Amazon’s existing catalog. Some are just subsets within a category store — like the Black and Decker store in Tools and Hardware — and some are cross prod- uct, like the Disney store. There are close to 200 Specialty Stores at Amazon — too many to list here — but there is surely one that matches your interests.
To get to the Specialty Store directory, go to the main store directory page (by clicking on the See More Stores link at the top of the page next to the tabs). Then click on the link in the box that looks like Figure 5-3.
Figure 5-2:
Look Inside gives you a taste of the books you’re considering.
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Chapter 5: A Closer Look at the Stores
Got Gift? The Amazon Gifts Store
You don’t need to go to the Gifts Store to give a gift from Amazon.com. There are no products there that you can’t find in another part of the store. But if you need some help, you’ll be glad the Gifts Store is there.
The main purpose of the Gifts Store is to help those people who don’talways get just the right thing. Maybe you don’t know much about the giftee except that he’s two years old. Maybe you have no idea what to get someone as a housewarming gift. Maybe you’re on a tight budget but don’t want to look like a tightwad. The Gifts Store lets you browse for gifts by occasion, price, and recipient. You’ll also find easy access to registries, wish lists, and other gift services there. For a more detailed look at gift giving Amazon style, check out Chapter 13.
How to send free e-cards
Amazon.com has a free e-card for every occasion. And I mean everyoccasion.
I know, because for a few months, I wrote them.
You can get to the E-Cards page from the Gifts Store subnav — just click the Free E-Cards tab — or from the main store directory (and you can get there by clicking the See More Stores link at the top of the page next to the tabs).
Once you’re there, you’ll find a feast of electronic greetings for everything from Wiccan holidays to new babies. Some are animated, some are click- through cards, and some are stills.
Figure 5-3:
Click here to get to the Specialty Stores directory.
Here’s how to send one:
1. On the E-Cards page, browse the categories or use the search function