Over on the right you can see I could either buy the book with one click or I could sample the beginning of the book for free. I decided to request the no cost sample. With a single click of the "Send Sample now" button the beginning of the book was ready for me - waiting in a queue for my Kindle to download the next time I turned it on and connected wirelessly.
: I power up my Kindle and turned wireless on. It took maybe 20 seconds for the content to download. Once downloaded to my Kindle it appears on my Home screen as a "
". Here's a screen shot of my Kindle home screen showing the sample:
![](http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddbv7xjh_305hb82zzhh_b)
The book sample listed at the top - notice I've got a couple other samples I'm checking out!
Step 3: I took the time last night to read the sample preface and first chapter. I was not standing in the isle of a bookstore skimming the beginning of the book - I was sitting comfortably at home - relaxed and able to focus. I decided I'd sleep on whether I wanted to pay the $9.99 for the book. Here's a screen shot of the last page of the sample with the purchase option:
I had the option of doing nothing, buying or seeing details.
Step 4: I woke up early this morning and gave the sample another read (this time much quicker) and decided I wanted a little more detail before making a decision. On the last page of the sample I selected "
See details for this book in the Kindle Store". Here's a screen shot:
I looked at the reviews, was hooked and decided to buy.
Step 5: I selected "
Buy" and got the following message:
I was given the option to cancel the order if the purchase was buy accident. I also received an email (withing about 15 seconds) with my order summary from Amazon.
Step 6: The entire book took less that a minute to download wirelessly to my Kindle. Here's a screen shot of my Home screen showing both the entire book and the sample at the top.
Notice the entire book is tagged "
new".
That's it - easy, simple, fast and efficient. It's not just Kindle selling this way - Apple has always sold music on iTunes by providing a free sample of the first 20 seconds of a song.
So.... could a college sell courses this way? Could the first week of a 15 week course be offered as a no-cost sample? I'm not talking about a pay up front, money back if not satisfied arrangement - I'm talking no money down, no credit card required first week free. Most will probably say no - it's impossible with billing, enrollment, scheduling, etc issues - right? But.... people are getting used to buying this way - especially young people. Someone somewhere at some college is going to figure out how to make this work - maybe somebody already has.
[
I am in no way affiliated with Amazon and receive no compensation from Amazon. I purchased my Kindle and all content using personal funds.]