Rough-Cut Redux: Amazon Makes A Change We Can Believe In

Have the good folks at Amazon.com been reading this here blog? Last week, I noted the strange appearance of the all-capped phrase “ROUGH-CUT EDGE” displayed adjacent to the title of my book. That phrase was neither appealing nor accurate, and as you can see above (and here), it has now been changed to the more correct “DECKLE EDGE” (though I really wonder about the necessity of all caps that still make it more prominent than the title and—ahem—the author’s name. Why couldn’t they just write “this book has a deckle edge,” after the hardcover reference, maybe with a hyperlink to a page explaining what it is for the uninitiated.) Anyway, I’m happy to report that the change from “rough cut” to “deckle edge” is being implemented across Amazon. The deckle edge only makes the package finer, so advertising its presence in a positive way is a good thing—as opposed to a warning that might scare off some buyers. And one thing they haven’t changed: that 34 percent discount for preorders still stands.