Les Orchard over on 0xDECAFBAD has started a series&nbsp_place_h older;on Amazon wishlists and programmatically placing purchases on a monthly basis.

Freaky timing as I've been playing with a wishlist calculator.&nbsp_place_holder; Ever been to an iTunes Music Store playlist like this.&nbsp_place_holder; One of the cool features is "Buy all songs" option with the price of the entire list.

I would love to see a running total on my amazon wishlist.&nbsp_place_holder; I would love to see a columnar comparison between the price of my wishlist if purchased from Amazon vs purchased used/new from an&nbsp_place_holder; Amazon reseller.

Whenever I evaluate something from my wishlist, I go through a multi-step process:

1. Does my local library have the book - use Jon Udell's quite excellent Libary Lookup
2. Does the book exceed my built-in cost threshold?&nbsp_place_holder; If so goto step 5
3. Does amazon have access to a "good quality" or "new with remainder mark" copy of the book for $5.00 or less under the cost of amazon retail offering.&nbsp_place_holder; Affiliate sales typically result in a $3.95 shipping charge.&nbsp_place_holder; If it's close, I'll stick to going for free super shipping
4. Buy from amazon retail ensuring that I can get free shipping
5. If the book is "unavailable" from amazon, I tend to look at Alibris, eBay, Froogle or sometimes Google to try and find the right supplier.

I would suggest that my book purchasing has been cut in half at least by #1 alone.&nbsp_place_holder; #3 typically results in a two for one cost benefit.&nbsp_place_holder; I get two books in general for the price of one from Amazon retail.&nbsp_place_holder; #5 helps avoid getting gouged on rare and out-of-print books.

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Other wishlist items for my wishlist would include "Move item to Listmania List" - I tend to keep records of books read by adding them to a listmania list.

It will be interesting to see where Les goes with his Amazon Wishometer.