Following an announcement of slow pre-Christmas sales, online giant Amazon has announced plans to allow you the chance to buy sections of books rather than complete works. The first of these, Amazon Prices, will sell "just the pages needed" whether you need only a single page or one or more chapters. The second, Amazon Upgrade, will give you access to online copies of the hardback books after purchase.

Both of these technologies build on July's "Search Inside!" upgrade to Amazon's book search engine to give customers unusual flexibility in how they buy and read books.

Without an official launch date for these services though we'll have to continue buying books in their entirety, but we will keep you posted on any further news.