Kindle News: Amazon's 50 Kindle books at up to 75% off thru' Aug 13 + Spotify app for Kindle Fire + textbook rental + today's Kindle Deal - UPDATE

See Update under Spotify for added information.

Amazon's new (temporary) discount feature - Kindle Books up to 75% Off

These are 50 "Select Titles," categorized by time period, with a discounts of up to 75% off through August 13 (that's through next Monday).

Categories:
Life in Biblical times, the 1700s, and the 1800s
Life in the early 20th century
Life in the 1940s and 1950s
Life in the 1960s and 1970s
Life in the 1980s and 1990s

Spotify (Kindle Fire Edition)
 
Spotify is a streaming music subscription service that many are already using, and if you already have the subscription to millions of songs "on demand," you can use the app on the Kindle Fire now to make playlists and share the music with others.

  The app has one free feature, which that is radio-streaming only.
  The more popular use is unlimited streaming, without ads, of new music on-demand (and the ability to play some of it offline) and that costs $9.99/mo.  You can start a 48-hour free trial "when you log in" (via Kindle Fire or another mobile device) "to Spotify with your Facebook account," and if you like the service, you can choose to extend your free trial by 30 days.  If you're happy with only the free radio-listening part, you can use that for free.

  It's version 0.5.2.89, and the current version doesn't have a Landscape mode.  I've never used the service but have read that others enjoy it quite a bit.

  Update - Just read some caveats that Spotify users should know about:

' Although users can stream music for free from the desktop client, free streaming is limited to 2.5 hours per week and 10 hours a month (unused time stacks up to 10 hours).

 Listening for free will play ads regularly, usually for around 30 seconds. Unlimited streaming subscriptions, sans advertising, begin at just $5.99 a month, rising to $9.99, and include offline listening and the ability to play music through connected devices
  ... [ More details and then this summary below ]
  Spotify currently holds a 4- out of 5-star rating and is almost essential for users not planning to buy music. The service finds itself in a market with rivals including Last.fm and Rdio.  Spotify's draw is that, although buying music buying is an offered feature of the service, it is not a requirement.  In fact, $5.99 is the cost of an album on iTunes.  How many albums could be listened to over a month on Spotify? '

See more details at mobilenapps.com


Reminder that textbooks can now be rented
It's almost September, so the reminders are cropping up on my screens quite a bit.
  An earlier Kindleworld blog article explains how this works, and here's the Amazon page for textbook rentals.


Today's Kindle Daily Deal (Wednesday) is Random Harvest, a novel about a man's long-buried memories of World War I resurfacing suddenly at the start of World War II, threatening "to fracture the peaceful life he has worked so hard to create."
  It has 26 customer reviews, with an average rating of 4.6 stars.
  $9.99 on Tuesday, it's discounted by $8 today and is $1.99 for Wednesday only.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links

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 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.

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Amazon's Kindle Textbook Rentals - Up to 80% off - UPDATE

AMAZON'S NEW KINDLE TEXTBOOK RENTAL PROGRAM

Business Insider's Ellis Hamburger has a tabloid-type headline about Amazon wanting to kill bookstores all over again.  The earlier Google title for the page merely says,
"Amazon's New Kindle Textbook Rentals Will Save Students A TON Of Money‎."

That last part seems true.  You can see the details at the Amazon page for the Kindle Textbook Rental page, which is headlined "Save up to 80%..." and then explains that this would be "off the list price of the print textbook."

TIME.com considers this "Good News, Students..."

How Renting Works
  The shorter the rental, the less it costs.   The minimum-length rental is typically 30 days, and with that the savings are 80% off the list price.

  After that you pay for added days, and the Amazon page provides a calculator-box that shows you how much it would be for a date-range.  The maximum number of days is 360.
  Students can also choose to purchase the book they're renting at any time.

  "Read Once, Read Everywhere" - The textbooks can be read on Kindle reading apps for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android device, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry or, of course, on a Kindle.

  Amazon adds that "Tens of thousands of textbooks are available for the 2011 school year from leading textbook publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis."

  Annotations stay accessible - normally lost when a rented book is returned.

' "We've done a little something extra we think students will enjoy," continued [Dave Limp, vice president, Amazon Kindle].  "Normally, when you sell your print textbook at the end of the semester you lose all the margin notes and highlights you made as you were studying.

  We're extending our Whispersync technology so that you get to keep and access all of your notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, available anytime, anywhere - even after a rental expires.   If you choose to rent again or buy at a later time, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced." '

UPDATE
Here's the page for Finding textbooks, which I left off yesterday but which is in tiny print on the Textbook Rental information page.

  I tried by entering 'chemistry' to see what they had.  The search results included hardcovers and paperbacks; however, they also have "Format" at the top left and you can choose "Kindle edition" -- which gives you books about types of chemistry you probably wouldn't have in mind.  But turn the page and there'll tend to be more relevant results

  I had MUCH BETTER RESULTS by typing "chemistry textbooks" (it seems to me they should have search logic for 'textbook' in a textbook search but they don't, maybe because not all textbooks are identified with that key word (I don't know).

  A good feature, by the way, in case you're assigned several textbooks, is the ability to enter at one time, one or more ISBN numbers, with dashes removed and ISBN numbers separated by a comma, space, or Return.

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For daily free ebooks, check the following links:

Temporarily-free books - Non-classics - USA: by: NEW:  May  June  July 2011    Publication Date   Late-listed    Bestselling   High-ratings UK: PubDate   Popular What is 3G? and "WiFi"?       Battery Care Highly-rated under $1,  Newest: $1-$2, $2-$3

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK):    Top 100 free UK-Only:    Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle (U.S. only, currently):   99c Notepad 1.1,   99c Calculator,   99c Calendar,   99c Converter

Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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