I just ended up in a rabbit hole of buying books on Amazon. Bought a fighter pilot memoir for 99 cents and saw a number of other interesting books for the same price in the “recommended” area below. And by paging through those on a few of the books I bought, I ended up with a dozen-plus WW2 pilot memoirs for 0.99-$1.20 each. I’m not sure if that’s just the going price nowadays, or if Amazon has a sale going on the category, but given how many similar books I’ve bought on paper for $5-25, it’s an amazing deal!
The list (None of these cost me over $1.20)… I linked a few of them, clicking those should take you to the others (and some other 99-cent books I already had) in the “Customers who bought this item…” section.
The last is interesting, even just from reading the reviews. After you read it, do let us know if you think the author sheds any new light. I thought it was established conventional wisdom that the dive bombers won the Battle of Midway, but also that the Devastators’ sacrifice (bringing Japanese CAP down to torpedo bomber level) was a big contributor, regardless of whether their torpedoes were hot garbage or not.
No, if you look, almost all of these are also available in print editions, and many date from back around WW2. More likely a sale, or the material is of less interest to a modern readership and they’re dropping digital prices accordingly. The authors made back their advances 70 years ago. :)
I’ll occasionally pick up a self-published book if it has a lot of positive reviews from people who aren’t obviously friends of the author, and the subject matter is enticing. But generally I prefer something professionally edited.
Traditional publishers will often put ebooks on sale for cheap prices, and there’s at least one new publisher that specializes in working with authors who have rights revert back. I believe they are called Open Road. They work with the authors to put out ebook versions. They are often on sale for cheap too. Here’s an article about them:
A heads up for those who are interested in the works of Robert McCammon. Several of his works are available for $2 or less on Amazon. Of particular note are what are arguably his 2 best novels. Both Swan Song and Boys Life are $1.99
FYI, Lovecraft’s stuff is in the public domain now, so if you do pay for it, it should be to reward someone for doing a good formatting job on a Kindle book, or to pay for the paper printing. :)