In the second round (ok – I guess one lousy app the first week is probably not really considered a ’round’) of unimpressive releases in 2012, the Kindle store released four apps that they are billing as “An Active Fiction Series for Kindle”. I decided to try one of these new releases to see what the difference between an interactive novel and an active fiction series really is.
The new releases are as follows:
Getting Dumped by Tawna Fenske ($4.99)
Arcania – Trial by Fire by Liz Maverick ($3.99)
Dead Letter Office – Parish Mail 1 by Kira Snyder ($4.99)
Witch’s Brew – Spellspinners 1 by Heidi R. Kling ($6.99)
Each of these items is available for Kindle Touch, Kindle, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle 2nd Generation and Kindle DX.
The item I purchased was Dead Letter Office – Parish Mail 1. I am halfway through and it is a good novel. That’s it. Really. It is a good novel. Twice in the first half of the book I have had to make a decision that supposedly changes the outcome. The decisions that multiple users make is also supposed to influence the next versions of these apps – since each is designed to be part of a series.
Don’t buy this if you are expecting it to be anything more than a novel – because it really isn’t (except for wanting you to turn on WiFi every time you launch the app).
Are they worth the price? The Dead Letter Office is a good book and has me interested. I’m not sure I would have spent that type of money for an unknown author. Yes – each of these women do have a history or writing screenplays, short stories, etc. If I was the developer/writer, I would have started the first “book” at $0.99 to get people hooked on the book and wanting to try the other books in the set and buy more when they came out. Then, if people are hooked, you could raise the price a dollar or two for the second book in the series.
Given that so many people want their books or apps for free – I think it is a risky decision to price these so highly. The one I am reading so far does not make me want to shell out $5 for another book. I’ll leave the final decision to you, but thought you might be interested in knowing what is really being marketed here. It is not an app – it is a novel, plain and simple.
Filed under: Kindle App Review, Kindle App Store
