Lost in the Amazon

I'd really like to see Amazon change the hierarchy of photography books and I suspect photographers would too. Currently it is almost impossible to browse for books of photographs as opposed to books about photography. This is how you navigate the categories today:

• Books
• Arts & Photography
• Photography
• Architectural
• Black & White
• Children
• Cinematography
• . . .

The structure itself is not intuitive, why Arts & Photography then Photography? Why is Cinematography under Photography, I would think that it would warrant its own super category? However the real problem is just casual browsing for a book of photographs (am I the only one who does that?). If you choose the category Black & White four of the first 12 entries are "How To" books. The change I'm proposing is relatively simple and looks something like this:

• Books
• Photography
• Photo Books
• Ansel Adams
• Architectural
• Black & White
• Old Life Magazine Covers
• . . .
• How To & Instructional
• Film & Lost Processes
• Aperture: SMALL number = MORE light
• Glamour (Amateur Porn)
• . . .

Amazon will probably want to make up their own categories but hopefully they get the point. If you want a specific book a search of Amazon will suffice, but Amazon is one of the largest, if not the largest, catalogs of books in the world (I am aware that there are a number of ways to publish a book that will never appear on Amazon, regardless Amazon is still huge). I think it would benefit everyone, readers, photographers and even Amazon if photography books were better organized.

The benefit for readers is the ability to browse for photo books which is almost impossible today. The majority of books shown in the first several pages of results are How To books. There may be less of them and more photo books in later pages but after having to sift the wheat from the chaff for multiple pages of results I usually give up and move on to something else.

This would be an improvement for photographers and authors since their books would have a much better chance of being seen. People don't buy books they don't know about. This is also good for Amazon because I think they get paid by the book? My proposal is a win, win, win.

Finally thoughts: calendars should not be included among book results. "The Big Butt Book" is mis-cataloged under Portraits. And yes, I will continue to buy old fashioned books if they are photo books. I have no interest in viewing photographs by say Jerry Uelsmann on a Kindle.

Thank you for your consideration.

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