Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs

Brad Stone of the New York Times just tweeted that Amazon has "capitulated" (I'd say that was the right term) to Macmillan's terms.

I imagine a lot of stockholders may have called, concerned, no matter what the merits of the matter.
Here is Amazon's official statement to its Kindle Community.  It's best to see the FULL statement where it appears.

The main portion:

'We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles.

We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.  Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book... '

What happens between now and "ultimately" should be somewhat interesting.   I think that both Amazon and Macmillan will see a large slowdown in sales of e-books for MacMillan.

However, if they had done a compromise, or if they would do one, in which the pricing would be $15 for the FIRST month and then $9.99 after, most would be happy enough to either wait or buy.

As it is now, there will be resentment, affecting sales.

Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much

" The prices will be the same"

.See my earlier story yesterday for details, as this is an update to that.

The picture above is from the moment in the video'd interview when Steve Jobs needed to let Journal's Walt Mossberg know that Jobs already was completely sure that, although his own pricing for best sellers might be $14.99 vs Amazon's $9.99, that "Well, that won't be the case" (soon) and when pressed said that "the prices will be the same."

  He didn't mean that Apple would reduce its prices to match Amazon's.
But many of course felt that this must have been what he meant.  Here again is a transcript of this part of the video.

' In the video below, listen carefully to the Jan 27 conversation between The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs.  At one point Mossberg asks Steve Jobs about the price advantage ($9.99 @ Amazon vs $14.99 @ Apple’s iBooks) Kindle owners enjoy for certain Amazon.com ebook offerings.  Jobs tactfully corrects Mossberg.

Mossberg: “[first part is inaudible] why should she buy a book for $14.99 on your device [iPad] when she can buy one for $9.99 at Amazon [inaudible]?”
Steve Jobs: “Well, that won’t be the case.”
Mossberg: “You mean you [iBooks] won’t be $14.99 or they [Amazon] won’t be $9.99?”
Steve Jobs: “The prices will be the same.” '

A glimmer of discomfort was seen in Job's mouth as he turned his face away from Mossberg while somehow driven to disclose with a smile that he knew Amazon would have to meet the higher price.  It was a brag.  More to the point, it was a clear indication of what some would perceive as collusion to set higher, fixed pricing.

 Jobs went on to say that

'"Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon, because they're not happy with it."

 Offering the publishers a better percentage, Jobs cleverly asked them to set higher e-book prices (reported Jan. 26), which would then raise Apple's portion and, if the entire scheme is successful, bring in the publishers under his own tent.   [At link given here, click on top WSJ search result at Google]

  What is lost here is the great number of e-books which then would NOT be sold by anyone.  The very customers who made the Kindle and other e-readers such an unexpected success so far have been very clear in forums everywhere, including those focusing on other topics, that they will not pay this price.

  Amazon has researched the best selling points and of course would rather sell e-books than not, and a strong step is to get the crowd eager to buy them.   The results are seen in Amazon's company reports in a weak economy.  They have made e-reading attractive when prophets like Steve Jobs said e-readers were not a target area for lack of consumer interest in reading.

  Authors might be happy that the active reading audience is demonstrably larger these days.

 Macmillan is on record as in fear of the effect of e-books on its hard-cover book margins in a business where the margin with hard covers is large.

  According to discussions I saw today, Macmillan has long been opposed to the effect of e-book sales and has proposed that e-books be delayed SEVEN months after the release of the hard cover.  As mentioned, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan "explained" to his crew today in the full-page ad why he is insisting on the new "agency" model focused on a $15 e-book for best sellers.

  Book sellers would be required to sell at the publisher's price, acting only as 'agent' for the publisher.

That is certainly one way to make sure e-books have no effect, a result somewhat attractive to Sargent when the margins on $9.99 e-books are so much smaller for the publisher than for its hardcover editions.  Amazon is said to pay publishers about 50% of the list price no matter what selling price Amazon chooses for the books.

  But under Sargent's plan to delay e-books for 7 months from book-release, people will no longer be interested when there are lackluster reviews during that time or just due to the passage of time and the avalanche of other new, interesting books being discussed.

  Macmillan can then cite the low percentage of e-books sold.  Steve Job's dream that people don't read books anymore would be fulfilled based on few sales at the higher prices that he asked publishers to set.

The first reaction I see today from a larger online business site is a column by Henry Blodget at Business Insider's Silicon Alley Insider, titled "Hey, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Books, Screw You!"   The more memorable quotes in an intense, highly logical article are:

'... First, to clarify what is happening here, you are already getting your money: You are selling ebooks to Amazon at whatever price you set ($10-$15), and Amazon is turning around and selling them at a loss, sometimes for $9.99. We're not against your charging what you want to for your books. We're against your telling Amazon what it has to charge for them.
. . .
First, if Macmillan collapses, so be it. Someone else (Amazon?) will happily publish whatever good books Macmillan would have published. Macmillan's editors will find other employers, perhaps at Amazon.

Second, the world is doing just fine, thanks. Good books will always be published. Perhaps not in precisely the same form, but they'll be published. And, thanks to Amazon's new low-cost distribution model, more of them will eventually be published than ever. We don't need someone like Macmillain sitting between us and good books.
. . . [Do read the entire column at the link given.]

Did Steve Jobs seduce you with that temporary "charge-whatever-you-want" speech? Well, Steve has been known to seduce people from time to time. Just imagine what will happen once Steve has put the Kindle out of business and Steve owns the ebook platform instead of Jeff Bezos. That's right: You'll get held up even worse than Jeff's holding you up today. Just ask the music industry. Careful what you wish for.

So, bottom line, John, take your $15 ebooks and shove them. We're with Amazon on this one. '

CLOSING THOUGHT
If Amazon just gave in to this kind of pricing manipulation, every other publisher would see that they could do what Macmillan did.

That would be the immediate death of the $10 e-book. And Steve Jobs would continue smiling.

For him, it’s all a game.  His specialty is cornering the market when he’s interested.  He doesn’t care about customers who read.  watch his disdain for the meaningfulness of e-ink's 1-2 weeks of battery power vs the iPad’s 10 hours.  He impatiently explains that readers can just plug it in and charge it then.

  I see.   Sure, I'd rather carry my charger around than not.

Amazon removes Macmillan books

Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement.

Also see later Update of 1/31.
  NY Times's Brad Stone reports that Venture Beat and other blogs noticed that searches for Macmillan books on Friday night showed those books gone from the site.

  Venture Beat writes that "We found Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, but his new novel Makers and his popular debut, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, have been removed. Robert Jordan’s entire Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels is gone, except for 2005’s The Knife of Dreams.  You get inks to other sellers. But Amazon has stopped carrying them."
  They are still listed at Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk.  Some were hoping
that this was a just a "glitch."

Brad Stone was able to talk to someone in the industry who said this is due to a disagreement between Amazon and book publishers, a situation which has seen two major book publishers recently pulling e-books from being released at the same time as hardcover books.

  While insisting that e-books are a miniscule portion of book sales, these publishers also say that e-books "cannibalize" hard cover sales.  (In some quarters, you apparently can have it both ways when handing out quotes.)

I've written that there've been reports that publishers, unhappy with Amazon's low $9.99 (U.S.) price for most best NY Times sellers, are fearful that customers will come to feel that this is the proper price for books, thereby "cheapening" (in the publishers' eyes) the value of publisher offerings.  Well, yes, they'd be cheaper than publishers want.

Most are aware that electronic versions of books, once operating costs have been recouped, are pure gravy.  There's no need for additional printings, involving cost of paper, distribution, storage, delivery, etc.
  Neverheless they want the same or very similar prices as charged for hard cover books, as that would be an even better margin for them, and they don't want to lose that.

The NYTimes's Stone explains:

' Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books, said this person, who did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.
. . .
  It’s not clear yet if publishers can withhold books from Amazon while giving them to other parties like Apple. I’ve spoken to two antitrust lawyers who say it could raise legal issues. '

Steve Jobs did meet with several publishers to offer them a better percentage of sales, but in order to make this more profitable for Apple when agreeing to charge the publishers less, Jobs wants the money to come from book buyers.

  According to Wall Street Journal articles quoted earlier here, Jobs has asked publishers to set their prices higher.  Walt Mossberg of the Wall St. Journal, knowing that Amazon will be offering the Kindle for iPad app in Apple's store and that customers can decide to buy from Amazon instead, asked Jobs the other day, in a video'd interview by Boomtown's Kara Swisher, why customers would pay Apple's book prices when they could buy at a considerably lower cost from Amazon.  Here's a transcribed excerpt from Benzinga.com

' In the video below, listen carefully to the Jan 27 conversation between The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs.  At one point Mossberg asks Steve Jobs about the price advantage ($9.99 @ Amazon vs $14.99 @ Apple’s iBooks) Kindle owners enjoy for certain Amazon.com ebook offerings.  Jobs tactfully corrects Mossberg.

Mossberg: “[first part is inaudible] why should she buy a book for $14.99 on your device [iPad] when she can buy one for $9.99 at Amazon [inaudible]?”
Steve Jobs: “Well, that won’t be the case.”
Mossberg: “You mean you [iBooks] won’t be $14.99 or they [Amazon] won’t be $9.99?”
Steve Jobs: “The prices will be the same.” '

This is fairly Machiavellian.  While people have been wondering what Jobs meant and at least one online article optimistically wrote that Jobs apparently was willing to lower his prices to match Amazon's, Jobs was actually saying, though not explicitly, that either Amazon was not going to be able to sell them below $15 anymore or that Amazon might not then be able to sell them at all if Amazon didn't agree to the higher price now that the publisher could just sell them all at Apple).  Jobs apparently felt that Amazon would have to give in and sell the books at the same price Steve Jobs had set.  Some publishers seem to feel Steve Jobs will protect their margins and that he won't insist on more controls for that service.

 Job's statement reminds me of Mafia-speak.  Watch the videoclips to note the turning away of the head and the smile when he says that Amazon's prices and his will be the same.

There's more in that video'd interview with Steve Jobs, who seems to have decided that others' preferences or values have no worth if they don't coincide with his.
  On January 15, 2008, two years ago, Jobs had this to say, to John Markoff of the NY Times, who reported:

' Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” '

  Despite His dismissal of the other 60% as meaningless for his business, he'd have seen that the Kindle went 'somewhere' after all, bringing 23 other e-reader vendors trailing behind at CES 2010 in San Francisco.   This brush-off routine may explain his similar dismissal of differences in useful battery time when he said the following to Walt Mossberg in that interview -- but first he says more about the pricing differences:

' "Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon, because they're not happy with it," Jobs added.  The comment carried a different tone from his keynote, when Jobs complimented Amazon for pioneering the e-book market with the Kindle.
. . .
As for the device's uptime when reading e-books, Jobs said he believes the 10 hours provided will be more than enough for most users.  He discredited Mossberg's suggestion that a backlit LCD display, versus the e-ink on the Amazon Kindle, produces a "battery cost."

"You know, there isn't," Jobs said. "Because you just end up plugging it in. You end up docking it or whatever you're going to do with it. It's not a big deal. Ten hours is a long time. Because you're not going to read for 10 hours." '

  Jobs seems to be saying that e-book customers would not bother using the tablet in other ways between reading sessions, maybe because he concentrates on his basic thought that people just don't read enough to worry over things like battery time on a multi-purpose device, just as he insisted that "people don't read anymore."

The Apple iPad: What's missing? More to consider

I have a longer list of things that should be considered before deciding to replace the purchase of a new laptop or netbook with the Apple iPad.
Many will want to have the iPad at any rate, for what it can do, but this way they're prepared for what is missing.
Before making the iPad the main laptop, be prepared for:

1. No multitasking capability (it may come later).
2. No flash (that means no videos from Hulu, JibJab, ESPN, Disney, Netflix, etc.)
3. No webcam
4. No real keyboard for heavier writing tasks although you can get a wireless keyboard (using Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR) -- which has made some think that an all-in-one laptop might be preferable in some cases.
5. No hard drive. The base unit gets 16 gigs of solid state memory for a device advertised as making heavy use of video, so you'd not be storing many videos on it. I think most would want at least the 32-gig option, for $730, and those who could afford that will likely just choose the 64-gig one, for $830.
6. Basic file transfers require the same procedure as the iTunes syncing-transfers of iPod files via computer.
7. No SD slot
8. No ethernet connection (I used this a lot in hotels on a 3 week trip in November.)
9. NO USB port (discussed everywhere, but one person in a CNet forum explained that there is an optional SD and USB adapter for the 30-pin dock connector, which allows USB transfers. Another person said that what's included is "Just a dock to USB cable - meant to synch to other computers"
10. No drag & drop for file transfers then. As with the iPod, the iPad must be sync'd with a main computer as the primary content management system for the device.
11. The back side or bottom is not flat, as there's a hump. When you lay it down to type, it'll move some.
12. Though the ePub format is used for books, the DRM (Digital Rights Management) apparently is not via the usual Adobe method (used by Sony, Barnes & Noble (Nook), and Astak and several other ereader makers) -- it's via Apple's own proprietary method -- meaning, buyers should know that it's, like Amazon's, not compatible with other systems despite the 'ePub' label.

Also, I've seen that many haven't understood that the $499/$500 base version of the iPad does not include cellular wireless access (the type of wireless used for the Amazon Kindle's book downloads). It has only WiFi, usually on home and office networks.

The cellular network type of access will be an additional $130, plus whatever data plan is chosen, and the ones they offer are good.

However, the $15/mo. data plan, for no more than 250M of data per month, would cover mainly email needs and not video ones.
  So it's more likely most would need the $30/mo. option, which is still only half the cost of most netbook contracts with Sprint and Verizon, and the iPad does not require any term contract. What you don't use in a month is pro-rated and credited.

For comparison with the Kindles, which do have (slow) cellular wireless access to the Net (for free, and that access has been its unique feature for the last two years), the prices used should start with the iPad's $630 pricing as the base cost for cellular network access (though you can choose to go without the convenience of that form of wireless).

  Then you add the data plan you choose. That's either $180 or $360 per year, but you don't have to stay on it for a year.

Again, the $499 base price is for only WiFi access - can't use it out on the streets unless you find a hotspot with AT&T WiFi, other free hotspots, or paid access.

Internet reaction to the iPad, due to the reasons above, hasn't been entirely positive, to understate it, but a good number of people I've read on forums (including those with Kindles) do want this for its couch web browsing feature. Most do not plan to use it as an ereader for long-form book reading.

Most people discussing this on forums don't consider the iPad, at this point, an e-reader that should be compared yet with current dedicated e-readers because basic functions haven't been announced or demo'd.
  Also, it's viewed as not on a par with e-paper type displays like e-Ink, as the reading is done on a transmissive LCD display (sending light directly into your eyes) rather than the more eye-friendly reflective e-paper screen (reflecting light it gets back to you). As I've said, there's quite a difference for many, including me.  But, aesthetically speaking, the iBook app's representation of a book is otherwise beautiful.  I may get one, depending on what the coming tablets by other vendors offer.

Thoughts on the iPad from an e-book reader point of view

Besides loving to read on e-paper technology with its clarity and on the Kindle with its well-thought-out, direct reading & study features, I also love doing the Web on my 10" Samsung Netbook  (NC10-14). So the thoughts are on that also.

Re the e-reader, the Apple team was apparently given two weeks to put that together, unless I mis-read the transcript. It's made to look as if you're reading a physical book, but there were no words I saw in the live blogging transcripts (Wired, Engadget, CNet) about the e-reader functions for Searches, inline-instantly-accessible dictionary, highlighting, notes, etc.

The Amazon Kindle Store
The article last night from Engadget quoting WSJ: Apple wants e-books to be $12.99 or $14.99...for best sellers turned out to be right.

Steve Jobs wants the publishers to charge more (which is how they will get more from the deal with Jobs) than is charged at Amazon for the bestsellers (!) Then, both publishers and Apple will be happier, but what about the book-buying customers? Why would customers buy from iTunes store or iBook store rather than from Amazon in that case?

Also, if - as Jobs said - the iPad will work with all apps that currently work with the iPod (a great feature) and then the Amazon Kindlestore itself, with its lower prices for best sellers, will be available on the iPad, why would people choose to pay more at the Apple store for a best seller?

I imagine that the Apple store will offer all kinds of bonuses for buying from their store, credits to get this or that. But people tend to go for the best price, direct. Still, Apple customers are very loyal so those may go with the Apple store, but I doubt that very many would.

So, the Amazon Kindlestore would get that many more buying customers -- those who had not bought a Kindle before or who had read Kindle books only on their PCs with the free Kindle for PC app.

E-Reader Dictionary and Annotation Functions
From the photos, the iBook effect is very pretty, but I couldn't see from the photos that it will be sharp and clear in the way an e-paper display (e-Ink and others) is with a screen that's not putting light into your eyes. I guess it'll be left up to developer apps to add the searching and annotation functions? They weren't mentioned and are key.

And those who want a clear e-reader without dictionary or annotation tools can get one for about $200 with the pocketable but very readable Sony PRS-300, though it has no wireless access.

iPad vs the 6" Kindle International
More on the above when I get to Apple's decent pricing for a Web tablet -- but as pricing for an e-reader-plus, the iPad won't threaten the Kindle International ("Global") as the lead e-reader for people who want to read books comfortably (size and clarity of text on screen) at a reasonable price for both the device and the books themselves.

Every day there's a column on the Net written by a columnist who had resisted ereaders for the usual reasons (look, touch, smell) succumbing to the reading experience of the Kindle. People who love to read books are the target audience for the bulk of dedicated e-readers, rather than whose who want to surf and be visually entertained.

The DX, though, will have to be given PDF editing tools and ePub reading capability for it to be chosen in academia, not that there is editing of PDFs for the iPad at the moment either.

McGraw-Hill
We also get a clue as to why the McGraw-Hill exec was so forthcoming in that CNBC interview last night despite non-disclosure agreements normally made and respected. They weren't part of the 5 publishers highlighted today as getting with the entire program, though obviously they'll participate in some way.

iPad vs Netbooks
Some points that come to mind when Steve Jobs put down netbooks (with commenters on the live blogging sites writing back that netbooks are actually faster and more powerful than the iPad w/o a need to buy and carry add-ons to make it more worthwhile):

Jobs isn't targeting business-use laptops but I don't see that most of us who love our small but 10"-screen netbooks will want to get this, as we have 160G to 300G hard drives to store the videos he was showing and a real keyboard plus touchpad to do mousing chores. And it can do many things at once.

List of problems for the iPad vs the netbook audience it wants:
1. No multi-tasking possible
2. No flash (!) for the Web? But Jobs has been adamantly against using it.
3. 1 connection for USB port capability if you buy a special adapter
4. Storage ability not at all great for a WEB device - especially for people with laptop-use like the photographers who thought they could travel with the iPad and store their photos on it while being able to view and edit later at 64G storage, tops, at a cost of $800+.
And still photos do not begin to take the storage space of videos. Video hounds tend to want to keep many videos on at once.
5. Some commenters said it's too big for your pocket, too small for meaningful work or even play.
6. A physical keyboard means extra$ and also extra weight to carry.

For some reason, people did not expect just a giant iPod.

Pricing
The pricing, as I said, is very good for a web-device if you want one.
From the transcript:

11:22 Here are the options:
Wi-Fi only:
16GB $500
32GB $600
64GB $700

Wi-Fi + 3G:
16GB $630
32GB $740 Should be $730
64GB $830

It’ll be shipping in 60 days; 90 days for 3G models.

What's smart, and attractive, is the no-contract price of $15/mo. for 250M of data
(but it's a useless amount data for most though a few can stay under that and some will not realize they can't).

Even $30/month for unlimited cellular wireless is good because most netbooks sold on 2-year contracts with Sprint and Verizon (the netbooks are sold for $150 avg) require a $60/mo. for those 2-years for ALMOST unlimited wireless.

This part would be a coup were it not that AT&T who will provide this has been asking users not to use the wireless so much as they can't handle the capacity in a few cities. So what will they do now?

BASE price then, before add-on wireless keyboard, covers, cases, webcam (which almost all notebooks have, built in) for the 3G wireless is $630, with only 16G storage for a device that was shown doing streaming video that some will want to keep (and on their netbooks they can), and a plethora of other things.

So the most PRACTICAL starting point is really 32G at $740 $730 (the transcript is off by $10; thanks to Batman for the correction) - before the data plan is added. Kudos for the lower starting points for those who can live with the limitations on a data-gobbling device.

In the iPad's Favor
A point in the iPad's favor: Most netbooks equipped to have 3G access instead of just WiFi WILL cost $40 (ultra limited access) to $60 per month with the requirement that buyers pay this amount for 2 years. With the iPad there is no contract needed for the lower pricing of $30/mo. for 'unlimited' access (when AT&T is able to handle it).

My Take on the iPad
My take: Elegant Jack of all trades, Master of none in a lighter, but far less flexible package than a netbook. And so far I think it will suffice for e-reading for people who are not that keen on reading entire books often, but who read mainly in spurts and are interested more in newspapers and magazine reading and haven't yet bought an e-reader due to lack of interest.

Those who do want to read many books on one dedicated device but who were waiting to see what the Apple is like before buying an e-reader will look at $259 for a many-featured, efficient e-reader like the Kindle, or the Sony or even the Nook (though the Nook is currently extremely buggy in the most basic operations after update 1.11 and so inefficient that it's hard to say how it will do long-term, but readers who haven't used more direct, capable, and reliable e-readers will enjoy the Nook because it does have the best screen contrast of the e-readers, looks great and is priced well).

The Kindle-Killer hopes
For now, there is still no "Kindle-killer," as many gadgeteers like to say, where the $259 Kindle Int'l is concerned, coming as it does with free 24/7 Net access in the U.S., Japan, HongKong and Mexico for text-based lookups and with, at the least, live Wikipedia access at no cost, globally, in addition to an excellent e-paper reading experience.

The key is with long-session sequential text reading vs the random reading done with newspapers and magazines. LCD screens are not doable for most with that kind of reading focus.
I can leave this low-white-tuned desktop screen bleary-eyed, with almost blurred vision, and go read on the Kindle and then remain awake for hours caught up in the reading, with no strain on the eyes and my vision back to normal.

Amazon needs to work on the Kindle DX to make it more attractive to business and academia.
Again, ePub format support is required as is the editing of PDFs for those two target audiences.

For people like me (and there are many) I favor reading on the DX because of its extremely vivid clarity and the ability to read PDFs very well (web-info is usually offered in PDF format) while it handles illustrations in books with far better detail than the smaller e-readers. The Kindle's annotation tools and webpage support for those annotations + the design of their dictionary use are prime, and it remains to be seen how the iPad will handle these areas later as well as the effect on the eyes for any long-session reading.

That's it for now :-) Comments from others are very welcome, of course.

---

Photo Credit: Wired.com

Comparing Apple tablet sneak preview to actual - Update3

CNet has photos though they're "not allowed" - and big too. Minute by minute description here

 I'll end here, as CNet links to GadgetLab's Updates on a new page to get only the Latest live entries so you don't have to look at the earlier stuff.

UPDATE Added Engadget's live blog as they have pictures where the others had to stop.

Comments from each site, from, I would assume, Apple fans for the most part, some disappointment. But it is a sleek, "neat" gizmo. And the show isn't over.
iBook bare bones but looks nice. Where are dictionary, search routines, annotations? To be added by developers in their apps? Says the iBook people had only 2 weeks to get that together ??

Below is just the old 'sneak preview' put there for comparison.

---

I'll put the below here so we can see whether the real announcement matches this guy's sneak preview last night.

from GadgetLab today:

Apple is set to launch its new tablet today but entrepreneur and web personality Jason Calacanis seems to have stolen the company’s thunder by revealing a few key details ahead of the official event.

On his twitter feed Tuesay night, Calacanis claimed Apple gave him a tablet to test ten days ago under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). That NDA ended midnight Tuesday, he says. “It is the most amazing device ever,” Calacanis tweeted.

For those hungry to know more, Calacanis claimed to offer a peek into the Apple tablet’s features:

UPDATE3 There were maybe 3 items that were correct. The rest was his dream. So am striking through it all in case anyone thinks it's an itemization of the actual iPad.

* The tablet runs an “iPhone flavor operating system” and can handle multiple apps at the same time.
* The display is OLED but the device also offers an e-reading mode with longer battery life.
* It has two cameras–one in front, one at the back of the device so it works well for video conferencing.
* There’s a built-in HDTV tuner and PVR.
* There are thumbpads on each side for mouse gestures and fingerprint security for up to five profiles.
* The tablet will cost $600, $700 or $800, depending on size and memory
* There’s also a wireless keyboard and monitor connection for TV available, he says. [ I don't remember re the TV ]
* The tablet connects to other tablets over Wi-Fi for gaming and will include games such as Farmville, the Facebook game that has become a rage among users.
* Overall the tablet offers a battery life of two to three hours while playing games. But there’s a solar pad for recharging.

Sound too good to be true? We will know soon enough. Read Gadget Lab coverage of Apple’s tablet event live.

Since "OLED" is said to cost about $1000 on its own for a good sized screen, it's hard to imagine it's true, but we'll know soon.

McGrawHill discloses Apple Tablet info on CNBC

The Guardian's Bobbie Johnson brings us the CNBC video clip of Terry McGraw spilling lots of beans to CNBC's Erin Burnett and to us on the Apple Tablet.  Was it a controlled leak, or is Steve Jobs doing a slow/fast burn somewhere.  Here is the key quote:

"We have worked with Apple for quite a while - the tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system, and so it will be transferrable. So what you're going to be able to do now... we have a consortium of ebooks - we have 95% of all our materials that are in ebook format on that one - so with the tabloid you're going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tabloid, the tablet is going to be just really terrific."

Read Bobbie John's raised-eyebrows analysis at the link.

  And then there was this tv-reveal (or was it?) when Stephane Richard, the future CEO of Orange France, said the following (translated by MacRumors)

' Jean-Pierre Elkabbach (the interviewer) : According to Le Point (a french magazine), your partner Apple will be launching a tablet
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: ... equipped with a webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Will Orange customers also be able to enjoy it?
Stéphane Richard: Of course!, they will actually particularly enjoy it because the webcam will allow live video streaming. It's a new take on mobile video-conferencing. '

 The video is on the page, and following it is the not ultra-convincing disclaimer by Orange reported by MacRumors:

' Update: paidContent:UK received word from Orange clarifying that Richard was simply acknowledging the speculation regarding a tablet and the company's wish to support it if it does exist.

These responses in no way reflect Orange's confirmation of the existence of the rumoured device. The spokesperson was merely confirming that he is aware of the speculation surrounding a launch and that Orange would be delighted to have such a product were it ever to be available. '

$0.99 Kindle books, Apple, and e-reader meanderings

The Amazon Kindle forums tend to carry a lot of good info from the members there.  While that's centered around the device, they also discuss finding books.  There's also a specific forum to discuss Kindle books, however.

1. Here's a page for recently tagged 99-cent Kindle books.  Members and authors are doing the tagging to make them easier to find.

2. A Kindle book that actually costs money :-) has been doing well on the Amazon charts. Active Senior Living.  I'll add the product description -- it's a situation many families face one way or another and this is a more positive book than usual about it all.   (The author does live in an active senior living complex and at first reported her experiences in a blog but people told her to put these into a book.  She explains some of it in a forum thread.)

"   Jan Curran, a vivacious socialite and newspaper reporter, reluctantly moves into an Active Senior Living complex to recuperate from a brutal battle with cancer. She tackles the surprises and challenges of her new life with warmth, wit, and courage, meeting a colorful cast of unforgettable characters in an often hilarious yet profoundly moving story of friendship and hope.
    ... a short excerpt, the "house rules" for the dining room at the Active Senior Living facility:
1. No sleeping in the dining room.
2. Please use tissues rather than the cloth napkins for blowing your nose.
3. No baseball caps or other head gear in the dining room.
4. Women should not dine with rollers in their hair.
5. No bare feet.
6. No pajamas, nightgowns or robes in the dining room.
7. No wine service with breakfast.
8. Motorized scooters in designated areas only.
9. Wait staff will not be responsible for partials or dentures left on dining tables.
10. Wait staff will not be responsible for hearing aids left on dining tables.
11. Second helpings on dessert only. "

  7 customer reviews, 4-1/2 stars, $2.49

3. A Kindle book, A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion, was recently optioned for a film - announced by the author in the Kindle forums.  It's been quite popular and has 21 customer reviews, with an average of 4-1/2 stars, and is #2 under 'Family Relationsships' and #4 under "Women's Fiction "   $1.99.

4. Tomorrow, we finally hear what the Apple tablet (iPad/iSlate) actually does, after months of rumors.  It's sure to be an amazing product.

  At this point, articles are appearing that say expectations have been raised so high that it'll be harder for Apple to wow the crowd, but I think they will anyway.
  The problems it may have with buyers, including the e-reader inclined (though Apple will undoubtedly offer magazines in full color) are that the estimated cost by almost all insider word is $750 to $1000 and then a monthly data-plan similar to iphone web plans would be needed for cellular wireless access to the web, unless people just use them on WiFi networks at home or in the office.

  Apple's never given free cellular wireless but if they gave a limited number of hours, they'd probably do extremely well though it's unlikely Steve Jobs would do that.
  If they charged $600 + a reasonably priced data plan (lowest tends to be about $30-$35/month), it could sell pretty well, especially if they surprised us and have a slide-out physical keyboard so that it could replace a netbook while still being light.  For the price I would expect it to be able to replace my netbook, which I use a lot.

5.   The dual-screen EnTourage eDGe (the caps sent me on edge, actually) is attractive but it's heavier than my netbook and has no hard disk or physical keyboard, so I wonder how widely attractive that will be for $490.  That's set for shipment mid-February, as it was immediately back-ordered after a few went out.
The LCD screen and gray-scaled screen look great together, but I can't imagine reading a book on it by holding it the way I do an e-reader. It is almost 3 pounds.

  That one would be bought mainly by web-oriented people who want to be able to write on an e-Ink type gray scale screen and have it included in a file (though not with handwriting recognition as the 9" grey scale Asus DR-950 is said to be offering along with many other features although there's no pricing or availability on the Asus yet).  Estimates for that Asus are around $500.

6. The Alex reader (made by the company which is suing B&N over the 2-screen design after several key meetings with them before the Nook was released), picked up Borders as a partner but the head of Borders just resigned, as that company is not in great shape.  Even B&N is closing many stores.  The Alex, which does, unlike the Nook, have a web browser, will not be offering cellular wireless though in this version.

7. Sorry to meander but I won't be doing any e-reader round-up until later since all but the Asus DR950 were either too expensive for the consumer e-reader crowd or had many key features missing for the price and just didn't inspire me as a buyer.

8. The Plastic Logic Que, while expensive at $650 w/o wireless and at $800 with it will really have the business office formats needed (the iRex DR800s doesn't even have the editing feature ready yet), but consumers waiting for the Que(s) were disappointed by the high cost, which includes no web browsing except to stores.

 I'll be definitely watching the Apple scene tomorrow morning.

  I do send out alerts and links to e-reader stories every day.  If interested in following those, if you can stand Twitter :-), go to either http://twitter.com/andrys to see them in chronological order or use   Tweetree instead to see them as they have a more readable listing, since it shows an intro or summary or photo of stories we're linking to.  One can run through Twitter listings a bit faster though.
  In either case you'll also see what are called Retweets or forwarded alerts first found by others who are very much on top of the scene.

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LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  The ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

Another 1.5 million Free Books-Documents + Other good items

Internet Archive Text area - almost 2 million free books and documents - Kindle formats included, via ".mobi" or ".prc" files or specifically labeled "Kindle."
  Remember that the Kindle also directly reads .txt and PDF files although .prc or .mobi ones may be more readable in font size.

  There are also areas of files with somewhat questionable value, but the main sub-collections include American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, Universal Libraries (Carnegie Mellon, governments of India, China, Egypt), Project Gutenberg (another access point) -- and there are recent contributions from The Library of Congress, UCLA Scanning Center's special collections, etc.).  Thanks to Courtney who reminded me of this in a Comments area here.  I'll add this to the ongoing free and low-cost books posting next time.  Note that there is also free live music and audio linked on the home page.

The Get a Human page
This is one of my all-time favorite resources, the Get a human on the phone page.  It includes almost 1,600 companies, with each link expandable to show several phone numbers found (for each company) which can eventually get you a human, and with instructions on how to do that.  This is a webpage rather than a book, and there's no charge for the information there.

When you're away from a computer, a Kindle book with similar focus could be useful (although you can use the Kindle web browser to reach the Get a Human page even if you're away from a computer).
  Here's a Kindle book of phone numbers gathered by Mobile Reference, titled Secret Toll-Free Customer Service Phone Numbers and Shortcuts to an Operator for Nearly 600 Businesses and US Government Agencies
  2 customer reviews, 5 stars - $3.99

Also useful, maybe, Country Calling Codes, Dialing Instructions, and Worldwide Emergency Phone Numbers.
  1 customer review, 5 stars   (not a useful review but an example from the book helps) - $0.99

UNUSUAL ITEM - Microsoft WordTalk - Free
Microsoft WordTalk has been developed for use with, you guessed it, Microsoft Word, versions '97 and above. Its functions are:

"It will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes...
  It contains a talking dictionary to help decide which word spelling is most appropriate." You can:
  . adjust the highlight colors
  . change the voice and the speed of the speech
  . convert text to speech and save as a .wav or .mp3 file so that it can be played back on an iPod or mp3 player."
UPDATE 1/25/10
  I'll add that an mp3 can be played back on the Kindle by placing the file in the "music" folder of the Kindle.  These are played in the order they were placed on the Kindle though.  And mp3s take much more space than books.

  If interested, download Wordtalk at www.wordtalk.org.uk.   It's a free plug-in.  If you don't have .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 you'll need to download .Net Framework first, which you can get here.

Almost free - A Kindle shortcuts book
FIRST, be sure to check out Kindle books I've read and enjoyed, shown on the right-hand side of the webpage.

Am adding here another Kindle book (I haven't read it and can't rate it):
  Kindle Shortcuts + guides and hidden features, by Aaron Steinhardt.  Publisher: MobileReference
  31 customer reviews, 3.5 stars out of 5, $0.25


Free and low-cost books, Jan. 14, 2010 - Update3: Still current
  Miscellaneous items


MP3's from the Hope for Haiti Now Telethon, with proceeds to groups working in Haiti
  Amazon is offering an album of mp3s of songs from the telethon Friday night.  Here's the Los Angeles Times report of the event.
  From the report and some video clips I've seen, buying the album (mp3's) or some individual tracks from that night will benefit any of us as well as help the relief work in Haiti.   Amazon explains:

' All proceeds from album sales of Hope for Haiti Now will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme, and Yele Haiti Foundation. In addition, all proceeds from the special studio version of "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" by Jay-Z, Bono, the Edge, and Rihanna will go to Partners in Health. '

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LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  As ever, here is the ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

Q&A on the Kindle's My Clippings file

Mike M. wrote to ask some questions about the My Clippings file and suggested I could respond in the blog -- a very good idea, so here are his questions.

Q:  If I remove an Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, they remain in that file.  The marks (notes, highlighting, and bookmarks) are copies of what you did for your books and are actually retained in the My Clippings file even when the book is no longer on the Kindle, as that is a detailed log of the marks that you make for all your books, in chronological order, for your use in editing or printing (from a computer).

 So, even when the book is inadvertently deleted, copies of the annotations and bookmarks are still on the Kindle in straight-text format for your use.
  (This is why, in the infamous '1984' incident here, the notes taken for homework actually were still on the kindle.)

  The actual marks that are used with your Kindle book are kept in a small associated file for each book, for reference by the Kindle when the book is opened.

  The My Clippings 'book' file is a pure-text file (unlike the book's associated marks-file, which has placement coding in it).  The My Clippings file is made so that the customer can edit or print, at any time, the clippings that were saved while reading.

  To do that, you attach the Kindle to your computer, via the USB cable that is part of your power cord, and use the file manager to copy that file to your computer.  You can then edit or print that copy as you would any text file.

Q:  If I delete a non-Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, those also remain in the My Clippings file, which is a separate file kept for you so that you can work with it, apart from your book.  Each note or highlight that you make is automatically copied to that file for use in editing and printing.

 When editing a copy of the file, I recommend highlighting, copying and pasting the file's text to a WORD doc or any text-editing program you use that allows you to retain the bolding for the headings, which look like this:
      " Your highlight at location 1596 "
as that will make your actual notes easier to differentiate from the headers.

Q:  Once I load the "My Clippings" text file onto my computer:
  Is there an easy way to assemble all the clippings and marks from a single book into one location?

Unfortunately, there's no Kindle utility for that.  However, there is a WORD macro made by a Professor that will sort the file and display the notes BY book. From the professor's description:

Here’s what the macro does:

* Creates a table of highlights, notes and bookmarks.
* sorts the table by book and location in book
* removes a (now useless) column
* changes the font to a smaller one
* adjusts the column sizes

If you try it and like it, let him know.

Q:  Can I delete some of the information and copy the altered My Clippings file back on my kindle?

Yes, you can, and it's a good idea.  However, if you decide you prefer to start afresh and you remove the file from the Kindle, the Kindle will create a new one the next time you make an annotation or a bookmark.  Anyone doing that should definitely keep a backup-copy on the computer of what was done in the past in case it's ever needed.

Q:  If I delete the My Clippings file and start fresh, will I still be able to view marks previously made in a book by searching the "My Marks" from the book menu?

As long as your book remains on the Kindle, yes, you'll be able to do that because the actual marks referenced by the book you open are in the small marks-file that is associated with the book.

---

As a bonus -- although it's not a feature that Amazon advertises -- a private, password-protected annotations webpage is made at Amazon for each customer, if the customer has Annotations Backup enabled.  This feature backs up, to Amazon servers, annotations for books purchased from Amazon but not annotations for any of your other books or personal documents.

  You find that Kindle setting with Menu button/Settings/Menu button.

  If you delete an Amazon-purchased book (which then just retains it in your Archives at your Amazon page) and then decide you want to download it again, your annotations will also be archived along with the book and will be downloaded as well whenever you need to re-download that book.

  I've written a detailed explanation of how to use that very useful Amazon annotations webpage tool.

  (However, if you ever want to permanently delete an Amazon book from your Amazon highlights -- you'd need to re-buy the book if you wanted it again -- that's also possible.  Some found they hated some books they'd bought and strongly requested that permanent-removal feature.)

Hope that helps!

---

US: Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow 3G web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
  Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

HUGE: Amazon opens up Kindle to Developer Apps - Update2

Amazon announced tonight that it's inviting developers to create apps for the Kindle.  This one deserves an exact quoting of the most salient points.

' AMAZON ANNOUNCES KINDLE DEVELOPMENT KIT--SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS CAN NOW BUILD ACTIVE CONTENT FOR KINDLE

Travel books that suggest activities based on real-time weather and current events, cookbooks that recommend menus based on size of party and allergies, and word games and puzzles--just some of the possibilities with the new Kindle Development Kit.

SEATTLE, Jan 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- (NASDAQ: AMZN)--For the past two years, Amazon has welcomed authors and publishers to directly upload and sell content in the Kindle Store through the self-service Kindle publishing platform.

Today, Amazon announced that it is inviting software developers to build and upload active content that will be available in the Kindle Store later this year. The new Kindle Development Kit gives developers access to programming interfaces, tools and documentation to build active content for Kindle
...
Developers can learn more about the Kindle Development Kit today at http://www.amazon.com/kdk and sign up to be notified when the limited beta starts next month.

"We've heard from lots of developers over the past two years who are excited to build on top of Kindle," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "The Kindle Development Kit opens many possibilities--we look forward to being surprised by what developers invent."

The Kindle Development Kit enables developers to build active content that leverages Kindle's unique combination of seamless and invisible 3G wireless delivery over Amazon Whispernet, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, and long battery life of seven days with wireless activated. For example, Handmark is building an active Zagat guide featuring their trusted ratings, reviews and more for restaurants in cities around the world, and Sonic Boom is building word games and puzzles.

"As the leading worldwide publisher of mobile games, EA Mobile has had the privilege of collaborating with many dynamic and innovative companies in bringing exciting gaming experiences to new platforms," says Adam Sussman, Vice President of Worldwide Publishing, EA Mobile. "Working with Amazon, we look forward to bringing some of the world's most popular and fun games to Kindle and their users."

Starting next month, participants in the limited beta will be able to download the Kindle Development Kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle, and submit finished content. Those wait-listed will be invited to participate as space becomes available. The Kindle Development Kit includes sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops... '

UPDATE
On the Developers Kit page, added information on size and type of apps, method of delivery, and hints re charges for non-free apps, especially active apps, are described (emphases mine):

' The Kindle Development Kit includes sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops. We are excited to see what you invent for Kindle...

Revenue Share
User revenue will be split 70% to the developer and 30% to Amazon net of delivery fees of $0.15 / MB.

  Remember that unlike smart phones, the Kindle user does not pay a monthly wireless fee or enter into an annual wireless contract.  Kindle active content must be priced to cover the costs of downloads and on-going usage.

Pricing Options
Active content will be available to customers in the Kindle Store later this year. Your active content can be priced three ways:

  * Free – Active content applications that are smaller than 1MB and use less than 100KB/user/month of wireless data may be offered at no charge to customers. Amazon will pay the wireless costs associated with delivery and maintenance.
  * One-time Purchase – Customers will be charged once when purchasing active content. Content must have nominal (less than 100KB/user/month) ongoing wireless usage.
  * Monthly Subscription – Customers will be charged once per month for active content.

Active content applications have an upper size limit of 100MB.  Applications larger than 10MB will not be delivered wirelessly but can be downloaded from the Kindle Store to a computer and transferred to the user's Kindle via USB. '

  This should get us some very interesting results.  Remember that Amazon has told us that they are working on organization of customer Kindle files on the device and that this should be ready before summer.  I'll get the link for the source (Amazon) later...

Really good news.

One thing that the apps will not include is "Voice over IP functionality."

UPDATE2 - NY Times - Brad Stone
NY Times's Brad Stone and Motoko Rich do an early report on the new developments.

New 70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Digital Text Platform - Update

Today AMAZON announced, through Business Wire, its new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) that will enable authors and publishers to earn more royalties from every book sold.  For now, this is "available only for books sold in the United States."

I imagine this must be a fast response to Apple's offer to give publishers and authors more of a cut than Amazon has in the past - though the option is for publishers and authors who submit books through Amazon's Kindle DTP.  I don't know how that works with the big companies like Harper Collins, but ZDNet opines today that this would "throw them a bone" while still trying to keep prices down and reader-popular features intact.

  The option of course comes with an agreement that publishers and authors agree to allow several features such as text-to-speech for the book (well done!).

  The new option is "70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs" and "will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.  This new 70 percent royalty option will become available on June 30, 2010."

  In addition, Amazon explains:

' Delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be $0.15/MB.  At today's median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold.  This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale.  For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option.

"Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.  "We're excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books." '

And here's the important part:

' ... Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate.  In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:

 * The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
 * This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
 * The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
 * The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
 * Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books).  At launch, the 70 percent royalty option will only be available for books sold in the United States.

The Kindle Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store. To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com/ '

Excellent analysis by Silicon Vally Insider.

Paste website info to DOCs, or Print to PDFs with CutePdf

Am updating a blog entry I made April 3, with added information.

Print webpage info to PDFs with the CutePdf utility, which is free.
 You can then email these new PDFs to [you]@kindle.com (direct to your Kindle).   As of May 4, 2009 Amazon charges 15c per megabyte per file, rounded up, to send one of your personal documents direct to your Kindle, after a conversion if needed.

 You can instead email items to [you]@free.kindle.com -- which remains free -- and then usb-cable the converted files to your Kindle or Kindle DX.

  While I take notes for myself about interesting utilities, I hadn't tried CutePdf until that April blog entry.  Interested in website info about a destination, I printed the pages to CutePdf and it made a pdf out of that - text and maps together. Both Kindles can enlarge map images now. Highly recommended.

  But that works best with less complex ad-light pages.
  For more complex pages (multi-column, for example), you can Highlight text you want, Copy it, open up Microsoft WORD and Paste to a new blank document what you copied and save the file.

  The WORD Doc file can then be sent to [you]@kindle.com, etc., and Amazon will send it back, converted for the Kindle.  That's just one of many ways to do it.

Be sure to set up a [you]@kindle.com address first, of course.  This is done at your Amazon "Manage Your Kindle" page.  Here's a guide for using that management page.

HOWEVER
While PDFs of web-page articles can be useful to have on the Kindle (for example, for information on a place you're visiting) and you can choose easily-readable Black and White in the 'properties' of the print job that goes to CutePdf, the original links in the article are not active in these PDFs, as the Kindle cursor doesn't access lines in PDFs.

On the Kindle Global 6" the device normally would have to be rotated to Landscape orientation to be able to read PDF-page text more easily, as they're usually set up for 8-1/2" x 11" paper.

Many won't want to follow links on the Kindle wireless/Whispernet, but it can be done even if it's slow.

SELECTING TEXT FOR KINDLE FILE
I find it better to highlight portions of the article -- usually the middle text area, ignoring ads and links at the sides -- and copy and paste those to a program like Microsoft WORD, which handles photos along with the words and produces a layout similar to the original.  The hyperlinks stay intact this way too.

In WORD, after you've pasted the text & photos over, you can do a Ctrl-A to highlight ALL of it (maybe Cmd-A on Macs) and then pull the outer, right margin in, to about '70' to get text that won't wrap oddly on the Kindle.  On the other hand, Amazon's conversion program will just wrap it for the screen margins anyway.

While the highlighting mentioned is still active for those paragraphs, you can also increase the font if you want a larger font to show up under the "default" font of font step 3.

Then save the file as [whatever].doc and send it either to your Kindle by using [you]@kindle.com,for about 15c for direct send to your Kindle since articles will generally be under 1 meg, or send it to [you]@free.kindle.com ... Amazon will convert the WORD doc file to Amazon's Kindle format of mobi/AZW. These usually look pretty good.

Those preferring to do their own conversions of WORD doc files to Amazon Kindle 'mobi' or 'prc' format can use Mobipocket Creator (free) to do that.  But it's faster to just let Amazon do it.  The [you]@free.kindle.com conversion and send-back is quite fast and doesn't cost you anything.

A free and open Spanish to English Kindle dictionary

The Kindle's default The New Oxford American Dictionary can be changed or swapped in and out at anytime with another one via Menu/Settings options.  But they have to be set up to use the Amazon's status line for definitions and with the special Kindle formatting for an inline dictionary.

A really good example of what can be done and what is available to us at no added cost is the Spanish to English Kindle-formatted Dictionary created by Dave Slusher AKA "The Evil Genius"

Slusher describes how he got this to work and offers it for download free at his webpage, and although I could just give that link direct here I'd rather people go there and read about his work on this.  He adds:

' In order to use it, place it on your Kindle via USB or emailling it to your device. Go to “Home->Menu->Settings”, then “Menu->Change Primary Dictionary.” From that point, moving the cursor over a word will work like the dictionary used to with definitions, but with English translations of Spanish words. '

He cautions that these are machine-generated translations and that he did find and scrubbed "some bogus racist translations" inserted online and that there may be other "erroneous or malicious terms" that wind up in this dictionary.

' Over time I might try to find ways to improve this file, continue to fill out the dictionary word list and maybe even improve the translations that are already there. Keep watching this blog for future revisions. '

So bookmark his webpage if you use his dictionary and want updates on it.
  He also offers to do this for the Nook but needs directions on how to do that and some Nook volunteers.  He also has a very thorough review of his experience with the Nook, which he wants to like more.  It is almost exactly my own experience, and I hope B&N improves it later on as I'd get one for ePub files (instead of converting the files to Kindle format) if they do.

Anyway, his Spanish-to-English article also highlights how easy it is to swap another dictionary, when wanted, that has been pre-formatted for the Kindle.

The Kindle gets more roles in Hollywood

The news article from Variety yesterday about the Kindle being used to distribute and read scripts in Hollywood seems an update to the earlier story in September from Infoworld saying
  'The Amazon Kindle has landed a hot new role in Hollywood as a script-reading device.  At Lions Gate Entertainment [makers of "Crash, "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Mad Men"], instead of lugging around briefcases and satchels stuffed with 150-page scripts, some personnel are now reading scripts on their Kindles.'

  At that time they didn't mention the DX, though it was available.  A note from a staffer in a studio, to MobileRead forums, said they did convert the files, and the article mentioned that PDFs were sent to Kindle email addresses set up by Amazon which would have converted the PDFs on Kindle 2's to Kindle-compatible files that would handle annotations. Each article mentions annotations (not possible with unconverted PDF files on a Kindle)

  The Variety article focuses on the Kindle DX.  Interesting quotes from the article:

' The sleek gadget isn't cheap -- retailing for $489. Still, the paper savings for an agency or studio can be significant, never mind the savings in pricey visits to the chiropractor.

  One rep at a boutique agency says he and his brethren typically lugged home a dozen 120-page scripts a night.  Now, the agent syncs all of his night reading to an e-reader, which weighs about the same as a monthly magazine.

  WME estimates that more than half its agents use Kindles.   In fact, before the William Morris-Endeavor merger, WMA gifted all of the agency's assistants with the gadget as a holiday present in 2008.  Similarly, CAA's staff (Creative Artists Agency) has largely jumped on the Kindle bandwagon.

  Holly Bario, DreamWorks co-president of production, swears by her Kindle. "We only accept submissions now as PDFs," she says.  "No more paper for us."

They mention all the e-reader rivals these days, but clearly Kindle has sparked the interest there.

-- If interested, here is a converted to Kindle-format copy of Avatar (vs the PDF one distributed for free by FoxScreenings but which is unreadable in portrait mode on a 6" e-reader though readable in Landscape mode).  This was mentioned in the 'free books' blog entry the other day.

-- Also, I don't know if this next file will work on Sonys or Nooks, but here is an ePub version of the Avatar screenplay that I made from MobiPocket Creator.  The Nook may not rotate so may need it more.  The file works in Adobe Edition, on the PC, but I don't know for sure it'll work well (readibility) on those 6" e-readers.  Let me know.

Japanese-language Kindle? Int'l expansion in self-publishing

I was startled the other day to see The Mainichi Daily News article a couple of days ago that said "Major publishing firms are set to form an electronic book publishers' association next month in a bid to counter the expected launch of Amazon's Japanese-language Kindle e-reader."

  Where did that come from?  Haven't seen it anywhere else though I waited a couple of days after reading it.  They go on to say "With the e-book market expanding rapidly and the Japanese version of Kindle e-book reader expected to hit store shelves sometime soon, publishing companies have decided to come together to cope with the anticipated competition."

  Whether this is just a horror they're dreading or whether they have received word of such a device or not is not known where I sit.  But I do think it's an eventuality though not easy to implement for so many countries.

 In the meantime, in another step toward internationalism, Amazon has announced that its digital self-publishing arm is no longer limited to authors in the U.S. and the English language.  Its digital text platform "will support books written in German and French"

CNet's Lance Whitney adds "The Digital Text Platform enables writers to publish without the middleman (i.e. a book publisher) by uploading PDF, text, Word, or HTML versions of their books. Authors can set their own prices and in return grab 35 percent of sales."

That's it for now. Will have a bit more late tonight.

CHILE / HAITI - How to Help - Update3

The Google Crisis page has a lot of information on what people can do to help, with donation boxes added to speed up the collection and distribution of donations -- Google itself is contributing $1 million.

Bruce Keener of Keener Living adds:
"Note that the White House (and Consumer Reports) particularly recommend making contributions to the Red Cross. You can do so via your phone by SMS texting “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts."

Amazon is working with Mercy Corps and has said that their donation box provides a safe and secure platform.

The whole thing is unreal.  They just had a bad aftershock.

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Updates 2:14 pm and 2:23 pm PST - Original posting 10:29 am:
U.S. civilian flights to Haiti halted due to lack of room and resources and 11 planes were in the air at the time of the report.
 I guess military planes have other areas to land...

International Medical Corps (Santa Monica California) is one organization bringing in supplies, but the situation is really dire.  I won't be doing any regular updates in this space, as this particular report already details too well how truly devastating things are

  In the meantime the Red Cross reports they've run out of supplies.  More is being sent but no one knows when they might get there.

  Some credit card companies are skimming off the fees still.  Kudos to Capital One though whose policy is not to, in situations like this.

  State Dept number for Americans needing info on family and close friends in Haiti: 1-888-407-4747

  Huffington Post - Haiti Earthquake page has reams of ongoing coverage.

  (By February, 200,000 dead, thousands of children orphaned.)

  New York Times - In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge - July 10, 2010


UPDATE for Chile, February 27, 2010
  Huffington Post - Chile Earthquake - How You Can Help

Free and low-cost items, 1/14/2010 - Update3

1.  AVATAR SCRIPT
The Orignal Avatar script has been made available for download in PDF format by the FoxScreenings website.
  Said to include deleted scenes, here's the direct link to the PDF (was at foxscreenings/com/media servers but removed after the theater run of the film), which is unreadable in vertical or Portrait orientation but quite readable in the rotated-to-Landscape mode.

  For those who'd prefer to (also) have a Kindle-formatted copy so that you can use the inline dictionary and also be able to do Kindle searches of the book, increase/decrease the fonts, have it read to you semi-robotically, etc., I had Amazon convert mine and if you want to save time and 15c :-) click here to get the converted copy.
  Seeing that it costs only 15c to do this small file you might want to send the PDF to [you]@kindle.com to have Amazon send it direct to your Kindle though (just make sure you have a Kindle address at Amazon and send the PDF file to it BUT type "Convert" in the Subject field of the email).

UPDATE3 - an EPUB version for SONY, NOOK and other readers
-- The next file has been confirmed to work on Sonys or Nooks, so here's an ePub version of the Avatar screenplay that I made from MobiPocket Creator.  The Nook may not rotate so may need it more though I think they can enlarge PDF fonts.

2.  FREE Blackberry ad's song MP3
Blackberry is offering the All You Need is Love as a free download to either your computer or your Blackberry.  The link doesn't always work with Firefox but does with Internet Explorer.  Here's the direct link to the song for download to a computer.  The piece is contained in a zip file.
  I don't know.  This ad version just made me miss the original.

3.  FREE BOOK OF IDEAS from several authors, for the coming year
(I first saw marketing guru Seth Godin's book, What Matters Now, recommended on Keener Living - Bruce Kenner's website.
  Godin gathered, for his project, seventy writers who agreed to each share an idea with readers "as we head into the new year."

"From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Fred Wilson, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber."

Interestingly, not mentioned there is Arianna Huffington, who contributed a piece on Sleep.  But she and her book are on his information page's list of contributing authors and their books.  It's a collection of good advice.

Here's the book, What Matters Now, which is in PDF format.

UPDATE2 - There's a transcript of an interview with Seth Godin by Nora Young at Spark.
 It's a lot more interesting, to me, than this collection of what struck me as rather glib and un-new thoughts by his group of authors.  The interview in audio is also available, of course, there.  Young is a good interviewer.

UPDATE1
  For those who'd prefer to (also) have a Kindle-formatted copy so that you can use the inline dictionary, do Kindle searches of the book, increase/decrease the fonts, have it read to you semi-robotically, etc., I had Amazon convert mine (I also used MobiPocket Creator to convert another copy and it turned out exactly the same -- one flaw:  blocks of strange characters around the image of a bird)
and if you want to save time and 15c :-) click here to get the converted copy.

4.  SHOESTRING PUBLISHING'S 'SHOESTRING VENTURE', a $0.99 Kindle book temporarily

Shoestring Publishing's Shoestring Venture: The Startup Guide (Kindle edition), is being offered for 99¢ for a limited time "to celebrate the first days of the new decade."
by Steve Monas and Richard Hooker
16 user reviews, 5 stars

The book is being sold on Amazon at the regular price of $7.99 (and curiously, another copy is listed, for $9.99), but Amazon customers can select the special 99¢ promotion.  I found the right listing and linked it above.

Description in a press release:

 ' Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible is a complete, up-to-date reference on all the major issues start-up and home-based business entrepreneurs face.  Its focus on outsourcing sets the book apart from the common run of how-to business books.  Shoestring Venture gives entrepreneurs and small business owners the tools they need to start a new business or take their current business several levels higher by exploiting the resources our interconnected world offers. '

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LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  Here is the ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

PressDisplay's 1400 periodicals for the Kindle - a Hands on. UPDATE

UPDATE January 12, 2010 - Original posting was Jan. 10, 11:30 AM


NewspaperDirect's Michael Oksinski responded Tuesday to all questions I sent to NewspaperDirect and PressDisplay.com, as described in this blog posting from Sunday night.

TWO FREE ARTICLES PER NEWSPAPER PER DAY
First, the image above shows how registered subscribers to PressDisplay's "Pay as you go" option at $0.00 per month can select, from its 1,400 periodicals, up to two articles per periodical, to read online for free each day, in their original print layout.  This is, for me, a great feature apart from the ability to read newspaper issues on our Kindles with original print layout shown.

  Trying to access an article from the thumbnails on the side will cause pop-ups that tell the reader there is $0.00 credit to read an article, so don't click from the right side to choose an article on a free basis -- the Free feature's choice has to be done from the top toolbar's Table of Contents.

  Hovering over the toolbar's Table of Contents option will bring up Sections in a menu and for each option a linked popup with specific article titles you can click to read online, which includes 2 free ones for each newspaper of interest that day.  (I haven't explored what the reading-offline feature entails.)

  The key is the "Table of Contents" in the top toolbar, which in the image above shows a pull-down menu of sections to choose from after I clicked on the TOC.

 This works well for me though it's easy to click on an article I didn't intend to, while hovering over the choices, but that's my problem, so click carefully :-)  The theory is that you can choose up to two articles per newspaper to read for free per day and would be prevented from receiving a 3rd one at no cost for that newspaper that day.  It would normally cost 99 cents to read a third article from that newspaper on the same day.  (There may be a bug on our behalf tonight because I was able to choose more.)

TIP:
From any area of PressDisplay, click on top left PressDisplay label to go to Home page.

EXPORT to KINDLE function from Online reading via PressReader:
  The Export of a prepaid full issue direct to the attached, recognized Kindle (via USB cable) from online reading still doesn't work for me as it can't "prepare" the article and stays at 0% done - but they are aware of the problem for some PressReader Kindle users and are working on it.

  Workaround for now: download it to your computer, which takes maybe two seconds and just move it over to the attached Kindle.  (PressReader sees the attached Kindle automtically and places itself at the proper drive letter and in the 'documents' folder.  Your computer's 'My Library" Export-to e-reader function (with a choice of "Kindle") works without a hitch (see body of original post below) and I can read the issue from the Kindle.

  Eventually, they'll do this via wireless access to the Kindle, they say.

SOFTWARE anomalies in a downloaded newspaper file
  They are working on the problem reported with The Independent's Sunday Travel section articles missing some column content.  The USA Today issue that I downloaded to test handling of graphics on the Kindle had no problems of any type.

  As with normal copying of text online from, say, the NY Times, a graphic character used for the first alpha character in an article is missed because it's not text.   Kindle Editions from Amazon are able to handle those well.  But Amazon carries only 92 newspapers, though one of my favorite things is Amazon's 75c Sunday NY Times, so nothing takes the place of that for me.

IN GENERAL
  If someone wants to keep up, offline, with a newspaper not easily available otherwise for the Kindle, this is a good option.   And the choices from so many newspapers and magazines around the world, for Kindle reading, is pretty nice.

  Note that some newspaper publishers have expiry dates for issues in your computer's PressReader library though.  What that means for the Kindle I'll have to ask.   Options are given for shorter or longer times by our choice, possibly depending on publisher.

NEWSPAPERDIRECT replies to Kindle-feature questions
  Here is information received from NewspaperDirect's Michael Oksinski, so you can see the quality of attention he's giving to feedback on experiences with PressReader.  Also, NewspaperDirect's PressDisplay has a Twitter presence as "@PressDisplay" on that interactive service.  Additionally, PressReader users can also write comments to the PressDisplay Blog articles, but Twitter may be more immediate and nicely brief, unlike my floods of words.  From PressDisplay:

' ...
1. As for the Sunday Independent Travel section missing paragraphs, this issue has been escalated to our XML processing team for an immediate fix.
2. Regarding the Export to eReader, I have been informed that changes have been made on the server side that will eliminate the majority of errors like the one you described. Please notify me once again if it's still not working.
3. All registered users have free access to 2 articles from the current issue of any title per day, on our site. Simply select a title and click the Table of contents on the toolbar along the top of the screen (not from Table of content listed to the right of the front page). A drop down menu will appear where you can select the article you want to read, as shown:
As for the navigation of PressDisplay, there are a lot of helpful hints located on our PD help page... '

Original Kindleworld Posting of January 10:

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This is an update to the blog entry two days ago about Newspaper Direct's Press Display.Com now bringing the full-content of about 1,400 newspapers and magazines to the Amazon Kindle.

There is also a PressDisplay blog which contains an embedded video showing PressDisplay on the Kindle.  You can also watch it at youtube.

At the left is a print screen or screen grab from my Kindle's PressDisplay issue.

  You'll see, at the top, links to the Table of Contents and to next and previous page numbers.  Next/Previous are easier to do on the Kindle levers though.  The image is smaller to allow navigational text links.

  There's an error in the video about the Next and Previous button taking us to the next and previous 'article' -- this is true if the article page you're on is only one page long.  Next and Previous buttons work as they do on the rest of our documents -- they just go to the next page and previous page.

The first picture in a newspaper and for each section is always a full newspaper shot as it appears in print, and as with any photo in a Kindle book or periodical you can zoom the picture to fill the screen (though the picture resolution will seldom be good that way, except with the San Francisco Chronicle, which does a great job with its photo sizing and resolution).

  See the image on the right for the same newspaper picture zoomed.

  That image isn't meant for reading though.



 Following the newspaper image, there'll be, on the next pages, a text summary and then the full text story in regular text.


TABLE OF CONTENTS TIP
Story titles and page numbers will be shown, and when you move the cursor to them, they become bordered in a box that seems to be a barrier.   What you need to do is click on the box and then you can enter the area to choose page numbers.  I've seen this kind of oddity in the formatting of public-domain books (classics) too.

CHOOSING FROM 1400 NEWSPAPERS   [Edited to change 'members' to (registered) 'PressReader users']
PressDisplay.com is not an intuitive site.
  Be sure to take a look at the how-to videos.
  They organize newspaper options on the left by country, and this is a good place to start.

  If that's too vague, do a Search, at the top for a subject of interest.
  The results can be amazing. The search can go back from 3 days to more, depending on your subscription choice.

  Full issues to read online or download or extract to an ereader are usually 99c per issue.
  Here's the Membership or Registered User pricing page for personal use, not business.

  The odd thing is that those having "free" access can read two articles from any and all papers a day but no more than that from any one newspaper.  A third article in a newspaper will usually cost $.99 ... Free accounts can't print, or listen to the audio version, or share the article via email, or get a translation of the article.  All those are available to subscribers.

On that membership pricing page, it has the following in bold print:
"All registered users have free access to 2 articles from the current issue of each publication."

HOW DO YOU READ OR DOWNLOAD THE STORIES
This was not very clear.  The PressReader we're to download has options only for iPhone/Ipod, Blackberry phones, iRex, but none for Kindle or Sony.

  It turns out that we're to (1) download either the PC or Mac software
and install it, after which we can (2) Download the issues to our computer libraries (not unlike iTunes) for reading on the computer and for moving to the Kindle via the "Export to reader" feature.  The latter worked fine for me after it advised me that to use the Export to Kindle function I needed to install ".NET Framework 3.5" or a later version.
  For computers that need it, you can find that here.  I downloaded the Full 3.5 version, not just the bootstrapper.

WIRELESS delivery someday
  In their blog comments area, Michael Oksinski states that they'll be offering this on a wireless basis later as they do for Sony users.

CAVEAT
I've submitted a bug report to the blog page.  On the download I received, a main story I wanted is missing several columns, though I can read them fine in the online version there.  The technology online is pretty amazing but it takes time to experiment with all that is there.

FREE REGISTERED MEMBERSHIPS
I don't totally understand yet how that works. See NewspaperDirect's PR release at PRWeb which includes this:

' Free and Flexible Pricing Plans
From free plans (which offer 2 free articles from every issue every day), to our pay-as-you-go plan, to monthly subscriptions for personal, corporate or professional use, PressDisplay.com has pricing plans to suit every need and budget. '

Are the "free plans" different from the "pay-as-you-go plan," which is also $0.00 ?
  Nevertheless, the pricing page we're shown does say, as I mentioned earlier:
"All registered users have free access to 2 articles from the current issue of each publication."

Well, apologies for this somewhat confusing report of what I could find out while experimenting with this feature.  I'll be interested in others' experiences with it.

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Original posting about NewsDirect and PressDisplay was done on January 6.