Amazon.com

I’m an Amazon.com customer even though I love bookstores (“The Book on Amazon.com,” by Jonathan Littman, July 20). My husband and I like to prowl the bargain tables. My daughter and I, on our annual “mother-daughter get-together weekend,” always find a good bookstore. Once, in New Orleans, our hotel was overbooked, and we were prepared to spend the entire night browsing in an all-night bookstore. (We did finally end up with a room.)

So why buy books online? For one thing, as a working professional, my hours are often longer than those of most bookstores, so online is where can I browse, or purchase authors of interest, or even buy gifts with efficiency. The extra cost is small, and I consider it a fair trade-off for my time. I get e-mail notification in the areas of my choosing: author, topic, etc.

I can print lists of all books by a particular author and use it as a checklist--do I have that L’Amour title yet? By printing lists, I know what I need and can get for my “Flower Fairie” book collection. It beats the need to look at all the mail-order catalogues to make sure I don’t miss a new one. And I can do all this at 2 a.m. and on holidays as well.

Will Amazon.com replace real bookstores? Probably not. Will it get pushed out by the giants with more ties to the industry? Good chance. But I’ll continue to order from Amazon.com out of loyalty--and because competition is a good thing.

Susan Parks

Simi Valley

*

I sell books through Amazon.com on a web site that I maintain. Littman’s mention of the sales tax issue is the first I’ve seen in print, and that surprises me, as it is such an important price consideration. If you buy a book in a store, you pay sales tax, of course, but in doing business with Amazon.com, the cost of postage and handling is the trade-off.

I also appreciated the analogies to Netscape and Microsoft. This is a fascinating story, and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Gary Karz

host@investorhome.com

*

We try to buy books from Amazon.com because of its prices, courtesy and service, but alt.com bookstore offers lower prices on seven of the 15 books my wife and I have on our current wish list.

Pete Raboli

raboli@ix.netcom.com