TheKindleChronicle's Len Edgerly and Jeff Bezos sit down for an interesting interview on the Kindle, long-form reading, 3G, location numbers, multimedia ebooks and more

On The Kindle Chronicles blog Thursday, July 27, Len Edgerly offers some notes on his two very full days in Seattle, during which he met with Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos for an 18-minute interview.

This marked the completion of the first four years of Len's weekly podcast which is now also a blog with written articles.  Len Edgerly's site is both informative and entertaining, quite addictive for many interested in the Kindle, other e-readers, and the e-reading publishing scene in general.  His interviews are with those heavily involved in all aspects of publishing.

The energy in this interview is more youthful than I'd expected, since neither of these guys is in his 20's but you'd not know it from their enthusiasm for books, reading in general, and for finding innovative ways to encourage long-form reading in a short-form world.

  Bezo's planning has always been the long-range type, and he took some intense criticism during the first few years of a non-profit Amazon despite his having said it would take years to build.  Now he's often characterized by publishers as a ruthless future monopolist while others wonder why he's allowing the company to show lower net profits this quarter due to a good portion of revenue being put back into growing the service and distribution areas as well as its ecosystem.  But enough people understand it and the stock went up after the results were announced.

  In the interview, Bezos says, re innovators, that if you need to be always understood, then don't do anything new.  His infamous laugh may not only break the microphone but comes from a businessman who thinks of his work as fun.

Multi-media books
  There's a section on the effect or place of multimedia books, which many had felt would be the 'new' e-book, replacing the traditional book, but much that interests people in a book -- the inner dialog for one -- can't really be caught in a multimedia approach, Bezos says.

  Multimedia additions can detract from the flow of the words that the author wrote without anticipating interruptions for a video or music.  With a straight-text book, the reader does much of the work, using the imagination with what the author presents, rather than passively taking things in as we do with multimedia.  I personally like the use of multimedia at the end of a book meant only to be read, where the added material can be optional and likely very useful.

3G use on Kindles
  He has interesting things to say about the 3G versions of the various Kindles, a popular option, and this includes his statement that "people who buy that Kindle are the people who read the most."  Edgerly asks him why, and you can hear the podcast interview for the response.
  He also mentions that the 3G works globally, roaming options and all (for Kindle book downloads, Kindle bookstore, and Wikipedia).

  Most know that any 3G data, at all, is expensive to just give away -- the 3G capability alone, before one starts paying monthly data fees, costs $130 to add the option to an otherwise WiFi-only Apple iPad.

  Currently B&N offers no 3G Nook e-Ink reader in its newer models and Sony doesn't offer 3G book downloads in the U.S.

  Yet Amazon offers, globally, on its new Kindle Touch (UK: KTouch) and older Kindles, free 3G data transfers for download of Kindle books, browsing the Kindle store on the device, and browsing Wikipedia 24/7 in countries outside the US where normal carrier and AT&T partners' roaming charges are very high.  It still offers free 3G for slow web browsing in the U.S. and 60 other countries on the older Kindle Keyboard (UK: KKeyboard) and Kindle DX models.
  Bezos does explain why they do it.

  They also discuss LOCATION numbers vs Page numbers and what customers have told Amazon about that and Amazon's thoughts on that.

Future Kindles?
Len Edgerly explains that we all know that they stay mum on future products, so that kind of question was not on the list.  Probably it would have been a waste of time.

The Kindle Mission
  Now, realizing Bezos and team are first and foremost, businesspeople with bottom-line goals, who too often feel they need to be hardnosed or not particularly forthcoming, and not always making decisions in our favor, I still like Bezos' stated philosophy or sense of mission:

' Yeah, absolutely! I think it’s the love of reading personally and it’s also that we on the Kindle team take it as an article of faith that reading is important for civilization.  So we feel this powerful mission, and it’s exciting...
...
  I think if people read more, that is a better world.  So I would posit that as an article of faith. '

  Their interest in reading IS shown in all the unusual features they've made for content, such as instant-translation (for understanding) and X-Ray, pre-packaging info that people would probably want to look up, from the book, as an associated file, including instant links to each appearance of a character's name in a book if you tap the character's name in the X-Ray menu for the page you're on.

  The team also made a personal annotations webpage on Amazon servers for each Kindle owner.  This webpage holds and displays the notes and highlighting made for any of your books in the order they appear in the Kindle book (unless you opt out of the feature).  You can then copy, edit, or print these, if making a book report, say, or when discussing pages with bookclub members, etc.

At any rate, the interview is fun to hear and I like Bezos' energy.  Again, the interview by Len Edgerly (who prefaces the conversation with his entertaining observations on trying to find the meeting place and preparing to meet with the CEO who is not known for doing interviews) starts at the 11:45 mark.  Of course the Kindle news and tech tips are worth hearing too.

There'll be a link to the transcript soon, which I read today in Stephen Windwalker's emailed Weekender for his Kindle Nation Daily blog, which gets some of Len's reports a day early.

  The transcript will be available on TheKindleChronicles site soon, and I'll update this with a link later.

---

Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.

US: Updated Kindle Fire Basic  7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$249 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $299/$369 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $499/$599 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G/WiFi - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free but slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 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


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Kindle News: Amazon Cloud Player app ready for iPhone & iPod touch. Amazon to open Android app stores in Europe. Google makes major e-book deal with France. Len Edgerly's The Kindle Chronicles adds lots of Kindle news and interviews

Amazon Cloud Player app is now available for iPhone and iPod touch at the iTunes appstore.

For those of you with iPads, Amazon announced today that the Amazon Cloud Player for iOS app can now be downloaded from iTunes.

  The Amazon app is of course free, and Amazon customers, globally, get 5 GB of cloud storage for free.

All mp3's that are bought from Amazon do not count against storage maximums, so essentially they always come with free storage and, for U.S. customers at this point (maybe more later), streaming from Amazon servers.

Their press release said that "those who purchase any storage plan will receive unlimited space for MP3 and AAC (.m4a) music files at no additional cost."  Normally, that's $20 per year when they have unlimited-storage offers.

  With the app, you can download or stream your library from the cloud or play the music already on your device.  It also allows you to create and edit playlists, play music in the background, "or use Bluetooth to stream your music in your house or car."

Amazon Appstore to hit Europe this summer
3G.co.uk's Simon D Thomas is the latest of many who've been writing stories about Amazon's Appstore's expected expansion to Europe during the summer.

  The Kindle Fire has not been sold internationally, so their sales have been missing a very big market.  And many outside the US have been understandably impatient with Amazon for not having made it available.  Thomas gives some reasons why it's not happened yet:

' The problem for Amazon has been that they need to make fresh agreements for books, music and movies in every market they launch.  This can be hugely complicated and takes a huge amount of time, but it looks like Amazon have been slowly making progress. '

The site is realistic and balanced in their reviews although Thomas has a certain enthusiasm shown in his "In the US the Amazon Kindle Fire has proved hugely successful due [to] its low price-point ($200 or £150) and is thought to have prompted a response from Apple (iPad Mini) and Google (Google Nexus Tablet).  We hope it comes to the UK because it offers such amazing value that it would change our tablet market forever !"

Amazon has been making large gains with LoveFilm, the European Netflix equivalent, and I imagine that this has something to do with streaming that would become available for Kindle Fire in Europe.

Google and the e-book deal with the publishing industry in France
paidContent's Jeff John Roberts reports that Google's major deal with French authors and publishers, announced yesterday, to sell digital copies of out of print books (scanned by Google) ended a 6-year legal dispute.

  He points out in his first article on this yesterday that France passed a law this spring "that creates a new royalty collection mechanism for out-of-print works that will be owned in part by the state and managed in part by the Biliothèque nationale.

  Fair payment will always be the important factor here!  In the U.S., Google had scanned millions of books BEFORE getting permissions and there was the matter of how much control they would have over these.  A federal court rejected in 2010 the Google Books Settlement reached with some of the affected, and "Harvard Librarian Robert Darnton and others are calling for the creation of 'a digital library of America'."

The report yesterday goes into detail on how this will work -- the ground rules.

In Roberts' article today, the focus is on how this Agreement could hurt the growth of Amazon Kindle in Europe.

' According to reports in Le Figaro and publishing site ActuaLitté, the agreement does not allow the publishers to distribute the digital books through Google’s direct competitors — read: Amazon. '

That has a slightly familiar ring to it.  Big Bad Monopolist Amazon (as well as others) would be foiled again before it could really monopolize the e-book market place, the world saved from that by a small consumer-oriented company with little money and power.

  Roberts' take is that "If the Google e-books take off, Amazon will be the odd one out as the e-books can be read directly on devices made by Sony or Barnes & Noble or through the Google Play app on Apple devices."

The Nook is not sold internationally, however.

The point is iffy in that the Kindle Fire CAN read Google books directly!  He probably is focusing on e-Ink readers, but there is also the factor of reader loyalty and trust that is built on the quality of customer relations and service, and so far, we have seen how hard it is to phone or reach a human at Google when you need help.  Whenever I want to read an ePub book, I just pick up the Kindle Fire, which is priced reasonably, is very versatile and uses Android apps that read ePub books, including those with Adobe DRM via using the normal digital rights procedures.

We just saw, with the State Dept's $16.5 million contract with Amazon for Kindle Touch devices and support, how others who make buying decisions will look at more than the most basic features when money spent must be recorded and justified.

   In reviews of the e-Ink Nook and Kindle Touch devices, you'll see many reviewers mentioning these days mainly that a home page layout and a built-in led light makes the Nook the better reader, despite somewhat lowered display contrast,  and not telling their readers that unlike the Kindle, the Nook Touch has no web browser (the Kindle Touch's is quite serviceable) has no audio, therefore no text to speech or music, no X-Ray automated character search, no instant word translation (superb), no 3G wireless domestically or abroad and, most of all to some of us, it has no decent customer support policies.  The latter is really important when it comes to dealing with new digital media deivce problems.

  Roberts is right, though, that the e-ink readers that can read Google books directly will have the advantage there.  But he also points out that the Google Collection "is composed of out-of-print works which, by definition, exclude new books and bestsellers.  That means Amazon is still free to make a play for the most valuable part of the digital book market."
  There's nothing like good competition though, and that will help keep Amazon on its toes.

  It did surprise me that the French e-book market is worth only $38 million -- "or less than one percent of the country's $7.85 billion overall book market according to a new report.  He links to an article by Laura Owen, citing the costs involved and a lack of e-readers.


LEN EDGERLY'S THE KINDLE CHRONICLES PODCAST AND BLOG
Recently, as mentioned before, The Kindle Chronicles podcast with descriptive summaries, is now also a written blog (Len is  an excellent writer) and has TONS of Kindle information.

He's been reporting in detail, with enjoyable, balanced analysis, from BookExpo (BEA) and always has good Kindle tech tips and interesting interviews on an ongoing basis.

At BEA, he interviewed Russ Grandinetti, Amazon's VP of Kindle Content, taking a photo of Grandinetti for the blog interview (who doesnt look like your usual 'suit').  Engaging shot.

  The interview, on his podcast, starts at 23:38 into the mp3 audio and covers "a wide-ranging discussion of eBook pricing, Digital Rights Management, Kindle Singles [ab here: When I first saw this feature announced, I thought Amazon was branching out into dating services], social reading, and how much longer there will be a Kindle Keyboard in the lineup.  Rather than quote Grandinetti's response (which is nothing solid as that is not Amazon's style), I'll link you to the blog again so you can read it there and see what else is available.

Also interviewed recently is Eric Hellman, whose go to hellman blog is one of my favorites for thought-filled, informative, very clear pieces on what are normally considered complex topics.

The latest article is about Stephen King's apparent decision to publish, in June 2013, his latest novel, Joyland, in print form only.  Len writes:

' The author was quoted as saying, “Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.”

The actual book? '

Exactly my thought.  What's a book but the organization of words selected from the author's mind?  Is an 'actual book' a cover design? The font style? The back cover blurbs? the type of paper?
  I'm probably over-flexible but isn't it the sequence of words and the organization of them that makes a book, whether in print or in digital-form?   It's so 'retro' to even imply that an e-book is not an 'actual book'  today.  The comments to the blog entry on King's decision are not sympathetic to King, and while that's a self-selecting group (e-book reading), it's also a group that will involve a lot of lost sales.  It's bizarre.

But, do check out Len's expanded http://thekindlechronicles.com for a treat.

---

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.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

A Windows Phone 7 'Mango' update feature for the Fall. The Kindle Chronicles podcast Aug 5: textbook rentals, Kindle with Evernote

KINDLE FOR WINDOWS PHONE 7

First announced in January this year, this Kindle app was the first major eBook app for Windows Phone 7-based devices.  It has one feature I wish the Kindle itself had -- the ability to send an email to someone with a link to one of your Kindle books (rather than having this confined to Facebook or Twitter announcements).

The Windows Phone is in the news this week because those who were at Gdgt's live Seattle event Friday night got a preview of some main features coming to the "Mango" update to be ready this Fall.

' A search for a specific movie, for instance, can bring up not only websites about the movie, but connect directly to the phone's IMDb app that can play the movie's trailer.

  Scanning the title of a book, via the phone's camera, can forge a connection to the phone's Kindle app to download the book to be read on the phone. '

I thought that seemed a nice feature, while hoping it would download a sample rather than buy the book right off :-) but they probably just skipped a step when describing it.


KINDLE CHRONICLES PODCAST INTERVIEW ON AMAZON TEXTBOOK RENTALS PLUS A TECHNICAL TIP
Len Edgerly mentioned in this Friday's night's Kindle Chronicles weekly podcast that until September, the podcast will shift to a bi-weekly schedule until Labor Day.

You can, though, catch his other weekly podcast, The Edge of the Road, Len's newish Podcast on "technology and driving," short episodes of about 11 minutes each, recorded in the car, dealing mainly with Ford's new MyFord Touch system, installed in the 2012 Ford Focus.  This is a sort of grand experiment, and he reports (with Darlene's help) the ups and downs with this new technology.  Len also asks that his podcast listeners give him their experience with the built-in navigation system, made by Xanavi.  You can email him on that at PodChronicles AT gmail.com

This week's TheKindleChronicles has a short segment on the success of author Karen McQuestion, an interview with Amazon's Kindle Vice President, Dave Limp, who talks about Amazon's plans to expand the program and 'constantly improve' its usability.  That interview starts at 17:38 of the mp3 which can be streamed or downloaded to your computer.

  This week's Tech tip from the podcast: "How to to store your Kindle highlights and notes in Evernote, courtesy of a blog post by Michael Hyatt."

  Hyatt talks about the private, password-protected webpage at Amazon given to all Kindle users, to (among other things) hold and present their notes and highlighting for each Amazon book.  I've written about that little-known but highly valuable feature (especially for students) here.

  (To Kindle-edition subscribers on Kindle 3's: you can actually click the link to read it but you'll need, once you're on that page, to press Menu and then "Article Mode" in order to read it easily.)

  Also, in connection with making notes on the Kindle, there's an undocumented step that will make it easier.  Here is one section from my blog article on "Copy-paste to Note" that I'll insert here for convenience.

' ... sometimes I'd like to add a thought about something from a passage I'm reading.  I really don't want to type the passage, so I've wished for a way to copy and paste an excerpt to a Kindle book's "Notes" box and add, to that Note, shorthand thoughts.  The brief note added this way can be expanded on a computer later.
  This is doable.

The following steps are for Kindle 2's, then modified for Kindle 3's, and for Kindle DX's

  1.   Begin to highlight the sentence(s) you want to reference in your note by pressing down the 5-way button where you want to begin the copy.

  2.   5-way down, and at the last line to be excerpted, 5-way right, to the end of the referenced passage.   Do NOT press the 5-way button down to end the highlight.

  3.   Instead, press the space bar.  That'll bring up a search field.

  4.   Your now-highlighted passage is pasted into the Searchbar on Kindle 2's and DX's and into a Note-box on Kindle 3's.

  5.
  For Kindle 2's and DX's
   Now 5-way to the right, through several options, until you reach
   the "note" option.

  For Kindle 3's
   Upon a press of the spacebar, you don't get a Searchbox.
   Instead you get a Note-box as a main focus and
   with seemingly fewer options, but if you go to the bottom
   and keep 5-waying to the right, you'll see other options.
   In this case, we want to stay with making this a Note.

  6.
  For Kindle 2's, DX's
   Press down the 5-way button on "note" and you'll see
   the highlighted portion entered automatically into
   a Note-box.  You can now add some thoughts
   about the highlighted portion just pasted in.

  For Kindle 3's
   You are already in the Note-box and can save the note
   on the Kindle
   or save & share it on Facebook or Twitter. That process
   lets you write a cover note as well.

Tip: Anything you highlight, copy and paste this way, you have options to, instead, Google or search in Wikipedia or your Kindle's dictionary or on the Kindle itself.  But we've chosen "note" here because this makes notes about designated passages quite a bit easier.

'

Michael Hyatt's tutorial, linked above, on using your Amazon book annotations with Evernote looks really useful.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

The Kindle Chronicles interviews KindleLending founder. Kindle Notepads.

THE KINDLE CHRONICLES Podcast for this Friday
The Kindle Chronicles host, Len Edgerly,  interviews Catherine MacDonald, founder of Kindle Lending Club this week.

Len's text intro for the interview that begins at 16:22 of the podcast:

"Catherine MacDonald, who lives on the island of Gozo in the nation of Malta in the Mediterranean, spoke to me on Tuesday, January 18, 2011, by Skype about how she and her husband came to create the Kindle Lending Club.  It’s one of several startups taking advantage of the Kindle’s new lending capability to put borrowers in touch with lenders.  Their Facebook page already has more than 8,000 'likes,' and you can also follow the action on Twitter. "

American Consumer News distributes a Press Release about the new KindleLending site's function as a free website providing a "crowdsourced virtual library for Kindle" connecting e-book borrowers and lender via its current 7,000+ membership which has seen 2,500+ book loans in the past couple of weeks.


Taking Notes on your Kindle
On that podcast also: "Hunter Davis provides a creative solution to last week’s query about how to take notes on your Kindle." and Len suggests you try the free, downloadable Kindle Notepad from Will DeLamater's EduKindle.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

The Kindle Chronicles Friday Podcast - catching up

Since I am behind and catching up with a favorite Kindle website, The Kindle Chronicles (TKC) Friday podcast, I thought I'd pass along what I'm enjoying, realizing that many newcomers to the Kindle (and even some oldtimers) don't know about this very informative and entertaining Web feature.

 These are programs that can be listened to when there or downloaded for listening on your mp3 player while reading the weekly TKC features that include Kindle (and iPad) news, Tech Tips, Kindle Content, Comments from listeners, and above all the unique audio interviews that Len Edgerly does with those in the Kindle and e-reader universe.

  Here are the interview subjects from the last four weeks along with Len's interview descriptions for them:

'Jay Marine, Amazon’s Director of Product Management for the Kindle, spoke with me from Seattle on Tuesday, May 11. His job in such conversations is to avoid any predictions of future products or enhancements, and let’s just say he’s good at his job. But if you listen between the lines, you’ll hear encouraging passion regarding Amazon’s commitment to keep those Kindle innovations coming.'


'Mike Elgan, Silicon Valley-based columnist, writer, speaker and blogger, this week published a ComputerWorld column titled “Why iPad Owners Need a Kindle, Too.”  In our conversation on May 18th, he provided background to his list of 13 reasons why he thinks every iPad owner who loves books and reading also needs a Kindle.'

'J. A. Konrath’s AmazonEncore deal has everyone in publishing talking, it seems.  In a Skype interview on May 26 linking us in Denver and Chicago, Joe told the back story and details of the deal, in which Amazon will release the Kindle version of the seventh book in his Jack Daniels police mystery series, Shaken, on October 26, 2010, to be followed on February 22, 2011, by the paperback edition.  Click here for a free sample of Shaken and click here for a Digital Book World Roundtable discussion of Konrath’s accomplishment.'



'James McQuivey in a conversation recorded on June 1, 2010, explains why he’s worried Amazon may be about to miss a once-in-a-lifetime shot, if they don’t come up with an iPad killer.  James is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.'

Be sure to leave Comments there if you have a question or feedback about the show.

---

 Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources  Top 100 free bestsellers
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed ones. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Macmillan hard cover books return

NY Times: Macmillan Books Return After Dispute.  Brad Stone and Motoko Rich report on the end of negotations, though it's not clear what was successfully negotiated.  

They write:

' So what did Amazon hold out for?  The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages.
  Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other. '

Emphases mine.  The words 'likely' and 'may' are used to mention concessions, the concepts of which wouldn't have come from thin air.  It seems the NYTimes probably got SOME kind of word but isn't free to say so outright.

Also, while hardcover books are back, the Kindle edition copies have not shown up as of mid-Friday evening.

OTHER NEWS REPORTS - Follow links for full stories
1. Why (And How) Apple Killed The $US9.99 Ebook

' Publishers joining Apple’s iBooks store are turning their back on Amazon and its vision of the flat $US9.99 ebook. Apple forced the music industry to charge 99 US cents per song, so why are they helping publishers set their own prices?

To screw Amazon. '   [From Gizmodo.com]

2. Apple iPad Helps Publishers Get Better Price from Amazon

' Gizmodo reports that the move could mean the end of the $9.99 book.  The conventional wisdom is that publishers will set the ebook prices first proposed by Apple—from $12.99 to $14.99.  I suspect that Penguin and Simon & Schuster will follow suit and that Amazon will be forced to migrate to the agency model and match Apple pricing.'   [From beforeitsnews.com]

3. Epicenter The Business of Tech Panacea or Poison Pill:
    Who Gets to Decide About $10 E-Books?

' Hachette has become the third major publisher to publicly denounce Amazon.com’s $10 e-book model.  It joins Macmillan and HarperCollins in what seems now like the death blow to a price point that had less to do with the inherent value of the content than it did with finding a magic number readers could not resist in droves. '   [From wired.com]

It's Friday night and Len Edgerly's The Kindle Chronicles weekly podcast is up, with the final part of the 2-part interview with Forrester's James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
  The first part is at Len's The Reading Edge podcast, which reports on all e-readers -- this last week's podcasts being especially germane, as mentioned in the last blog entry here. Part 1 of a 2-part interview there is titled "Amazon Brings a Knife to a Mud Fight."
  In Part 2 James McQuivey also shares his thoughts on the Apple’s new iPad's place in all this as well as what the next Kindle may shape up to be. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

The Macmillan and iPad Effect on the Kindle

At a time when the large publishing houses are rushing to charge Kindle customers 50% more for e-books because e-books are "cannibalizing" hard cover sales (yet they like to dismiss them as a tiny percentage of book sales), some Kindle owners -- especially new ones, for whom the $10 bestseller Kindle book price was a lead feature -- have wondered out loud if they should not have bought their Kindles.

In a current forum thread, Kindle owners are asked if they would take an offer at this point to return their Kindles to Amazon for a refund (not that this is being offered but Amazon does have a 30-day return policy).
  The resulting forum discussion is an interesting read.  Click on the link to read it.

A really interesting Listen is this week's edition of the new, weekly Len Edgerly The Reading Edge podcast, which reports on all e-readers -- this week's podcast being especially germane: Part 1 of a 2-part interview with James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.  It's titled "Amazon Brings a Knife to a Mud Fight."  Edgerly mentions that

' He also shares his thoughts on how Apple’s new iPad figures in to all this.

 I’ll have the second half of this interview on The Kindle Chronicles episode 81, which will be uploaded as usual on Friday, February 5.  In that portion, James will discuss what he and his teammates at Forrester are calling “The Kindle Flame,” by which they mean the next generation of Kindle that might, if it gets certain things right, set the eBook market fully ablaze as opposed to merely kindled." '

I also browsed news articles analyzing the effect of the last week on Amazon and the Kindle.  Here are excerpts from a few:

BARRONS - "Amazon's Overblown E-Book Tussle" Excerpts:

' We believe concerns over the impact of the potential change in e-book pricing and Apple's (AAPL) iPad launch have been overblown.

Even if all of the publishers move to the agency model, which is unlikely, we still expect Amazon to capture a large share of the e-book market. We also expect physical book sales, in which Amazon has a leading market position, to significantly exceed digital book sales for at least the next five years. In addition, the iPad costs two to three times more than the Kindle, and its liquid crystal display screen provides an inferior book-reading experience...
. . .
Among our takeaways is that Amazon will likely sell fewer titles at higher prices and a higher margin from publishers instituting an agency pricing model. Some publishers are likely to maintain the current wholesale pricing structure in order to capture share, which could put pressure on companies using the agency model. '

To read the full article, click the top result of the linked Google results page if you're not a subscriber yet.

PAIDCONTENT - BARCLAYS CAPITAL
- "More Than 3 Million Could Be Sold This Year: Analyst"

' ... according to updated estimates from Doug Anmuth, analyst at Barclays Capital, in light of Amazon’s Q4 results and recent accounting change. Anmuth says he estimates 3.1 million Kindles will be sold this year ((62 percent growth Y/Y)
. . .
- Increased competition from the iPad, but Kindle is significantly cheaper & will continue to appeal to somewhat of a different market given the e-Ink screen, smaller form factor, better battery life, & lower weight.

- While the recent pricing dispute with Macmillan could signal a broader shift toward an agency model of eBook distribution, we believe higher margins will partially help offset the lower volume resulting from higher eBook prices. '

(See the customer forum thread mentioned, for reactions to how they plan to deal with this this.)
  At the general Amazon Kindle discussion forums, you'll see an avalanche of reactions, which include authors from Macmillan adding their input, with the unfortunate result that too many wind up alienating customers via posts that are hostile to the customer reactions to the 50% price increase for Macmillan, and likely for Rupert Murdoch's Harper-Collins as well as Simon & Schuster, all making similar noises to Macmillan's now.

SEEKING ALPHA - Interesting Stock market results for Apple

' Apple’s (AAPL) revenues surged 32% on better-than-expected computer sales. It beat its earnings estimate by $1.60 per share. It even introduced the iPad, a new product it hopes will take market share from Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. After an initial rally, the stock dropped 5% below where it was before the company announced all this news. '

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple WebLog)
"HarperCollins pressuring Amazon to hike Kindle prices"

I guess the below does again explain why Steve Jobs was so cocky in announcing in that video that Amazon and Apple's iBookstore would have the same prices despite the current $5-lower Amazon pricing:

'...now HarperCollins is putting the pressure on that same site to raise eBook prices from $9.99 up to $14.99 or higher. Amazon finds itself in between a rock and an iPad -- if they don't give in to publishers' demands, they could find themselves abandoned for an exclusive Apple deal, but if they do raise prices, sales will start dropping even before the iPad appears. Jobs predicted about this much last week in an interview with Walt Mossberg, saying that publishers would run afoul of the Amazon store, and Jobs would be more than happy to pick them up in iBooks.

. . . At the Apple event the other week, Jobs said on stage that prices on the Kindle and the iPad for books would be "the same," so while fleeting images of the iPad showed bestsellers at around $10 (which is what Amazon charges), it's possible that Jobs would go with the $14.99 price to woo publishers over to his side. '

[ Methodology: In asking the publishers to raise the prices, as he did, Jobs wouldn't care how few he sold, only the margin for each.  In Apple's case the focus is on the hardware. ]

THEWRAP - "Amazon Slow to Restore Macmillan Titles"

' . . . It's now been four days since Amazon said it would reluctantly “capitulate” to Macmillan, and though the publisher's books began to trickle back onto the site Tuesday, many titles were still unavailable for hardcover purchase directly through Amazon’s store.

Whether Amazon was being passive-aggressive or just lazy isn't clear. But Amazon's snit with Macmillan is just only the tip of the iceberg: Not only has Apple said its iBooks store will charge $14.99, but News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday's call with investors that he doesn't like HarperCollins' deal with Amazon -- and may challenge the bookseller's discount pricing, too.
. . .
Apple intends to price e-books at $14.99, essentially siding with book publishers in the hopes that they’ll cut deals with the iPad for exclusive releases, putting a dent into the Kindle’s market dominance. ("Publishers will actually withhold their books from Amazon," Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal, "because they are not happy with the price.")

But will Apple’s Kindle-killer strategy work?

That question could ultimately depend on e-book customers. There’s already a small movement organized by Kindle enthusiasts to boycott any e-book that is priced over $9.99.

“I think Amazon has quite successfully burned the $9.99 price point into the brains of digital readers,” said Jason Boog, editor of mediabistro.com’s book industry blog, GalleyCat. “If people are actively organizing boycotts against a certain price point, for better or for worse, Amazon has already won the price war.”

Boog predicts publishers “will be forced to offer a bare-bones $9.99 eBook edition for most books, and then build fancier ‘enhanced’ e-books for tablet computers and sell for a premium price... '

The next week should be interesting. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Bits and pieces - 09-27-09 - Update

Lots of news this last week.  Catching up here...
UPDATE 9/28/09 to add alternative smaller photos of the Kindle DX screen.  See bottom of this blog article for the smaller ones.

Len Edgerly's The Kindle Chronicles podcast continues with its weekly good stuff, and the last two weeks brought us a couple of really fun, interesting interviews.

 Friday's interview: Brad Stone.
  "Brad Stone, technology reporter in The New York Times’s San Francisco bureau, talks about secrecy at Apple and Amazon,  Dan Brown,  a Kindle developer apps store,  and the brilliant description his 22-year-old daughter had of his Kindle recently."

A trip to Belmont Library, Massachusetts:
  "Maureen Connors, left in photo, is director of the Belmont, Mass., Public Library.  She and Emily Smith, technology librarian, told me all about their impressive Kindle experiment on a visit I made to the library on Sept. 16."
  Len also provides video of the checking-out process for Kindles, including a mobile-light version also.

GOOGLE BRINGS US LIFE MAGAZINE, full original run 1936 to 1972
Google announced its partnership with LIFE Inc. "...to digitize LIFE Magazine's entire run as a weekly: over 1,860 issues, covering the years from 1936 to 1972."  I found out via a retweet by Jan Zlendich of the original tweet by @idigg of this great news.

 Don't miss The LIFE photography collection with its 10 million images, 97% of which were not published in the magazine.  These are all included in the Web and Image searches of Google.

FREE ONLINE TEXTBOOKS Offered by The University Press of Florida
The University Press of Florida will be offering free online textbooks and reduced-price print copies.  Nice trend!  

' The plan is to eventually provide free online textbooks for every general education class taught at any of Florida's 11 state universities, said Meredith Babb, director of the press.
  All they can do is offer the free books, Babb said. Professors can decide to adopt them or not.
  "Eight hundred dollars a semester [for textbooks] is stupid," she said. "Maybe the students will force the professors into some of these options. That would be nice." '

 Most of the textbooks are being made available in print as well, at 40 to 50% less than the prices of similar textbooks at other stores, she added.
  They also plan to make the e-books available in as many formats as possible.
  Thanks to Suzanne Preate and DigitalKoans for the tweeted information.

MICROSOFT'S COURIER TABLET
This pleasant surprise has even Apple stalwarts excited.  After stories that the Mac Tablet/iPAD will likely go for $800 next year when it is ever released, this one is likely to be not much cheaper, but Windows has always charged less, which is why it has about 95% of the business market despite the quality of the Apple offerings.

  GottaBeMobile summarizes the Gizmodo scoop with additional pictures and embeds the video, but here's the easier-to-read Youtube video of a computer rendering of what the 'tablet' may be able to do (these are inevitably smoother than the actual processes) .  It's said to be a prototype in the last stages of development.

  The Los Angeles Times's David Colker asks: "...but is it real?"
  Microsoft is coyly neither confirming or denying any of it :-).  ' "We do not comment on unreleased products," company spokesman Doug Free said. '

  The article points out that everything shown in the videoclip is done with fingers or stylus and no keyboard is shown. While the video'd tablet user is shown making many handwritten notes, handwriting recognition isn't shown in the video even though Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system is said to have handwriting recognition features.  That would be something.  This seems far down the road and if Apple does anything that it's rumored to be doing on a tablet, they may be out with theirs, supposedly, in February.


MY KINDLE DX - a bit off-topic about my new camera that took a picture of it)
  I got a new camera for a trip because I didn't want to bring two cameras as I had 3 years ago on my last trip.  This one will do the work of two.  Its megazoom lens goes from 28mm to 560mm with excellent clarity, though smaller cameras like this one with this kind of long-zoom flexibility always have a bit more noise/grain and also 'purple fringing' or chromatic aberration seen in big enlargements than the larger cameras will.  However, in-camera adjustments by the manufacturer at the time of shooting can cause other problems, and the fringing at 100% size (which is huge) is easily eliminated with the $25 PT lens utility, which is painless and amazing and sold by 'word of mouth' among photo nuts.

  I bought the older one (Canon SX10 IS), which is increasing in price these days because the new one (Canon SX20 IS) crams more megapixels into the same sized sensor and produces more noise and chromatic aberration than the older model.  This is okay with 4 x 6 photos but not as good at 8x10 and above.
  The attraction of the SX20 is its High Definition video.

  At any rate long-distance shots are amazingly clear and it gets closeups of things I cannot even see in the default wider/normal shooting settings.  If anyone reading has one of these, I saw good recommendations at dpreview.com forums (Amazon now owns dpreview.com, a fantastic site) to choose to shoot with sharpness =-1 and contrast =-1 and then you can edit afterward and wind up getting a very clean photo in the big enlargments.

  So, I took a photo of my DX at the ice cream shop to see if it could render the text and screen better than my other camera did, and it does.  It should, since it costs more. But it's better than I expected.  As you can see, the screen is extremely readable.

  UPDATE 9/28 - I was reminded that the photo I had originally put up was larger than the browser screen and when some browsers, by default, then resize-down the photo to make sure the full shot fits the screen, the resized version is barely legible.  So now I've now substituted the cropped version that you probably just clicked on above (it leaves the font size the same but cuts out the bottom of the Kindle) and a smaller, full shot which will fit a browser window.

(Apologies for all the experimenting.) Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Kindle in the news - an upbeat week

This week saw an upswing in positive feedback on
the Kindle in the news.

  And it brought up some thoughts of my own
that I'd posted earlier to another forum.

1. Wendy Lawton, a literary agent in Santa Rosa, California, writes:

"I was at a gathering at author Lauraine Snelling’s house. Several of us had Kindles.  As soon as someone would recommend a book, we’d all go online and buy it right then and there.  Other e-readers require a computer and an internet connection to load books.  But when you’re sitting in an airport finishing a book, those things are just not available to you."

She doesn't like non-fiction on it (I do because I use the notes and search tools) -- and because you can't share the e-books unless you share an account with someone, she finds herself buying another version of the book for someone and even an audio version.  Still, she ends:

"I’ve heard so many readers say, “I could never use an e-reader.  I love the smell of a book. . .the feel of it in my hand.”  I used to say the same thing but with each novel I read on my Kindle, I’m more connected to the look, the feel the smell of it.

  Whether it’s a book or an e-reader, it’s not the device, it’s the magic of story.  The device becomes infused with the stories, settings and characters and we fall in love"

  The 'magic of story' - I really liked that.  While she is mindful of layout and presentation (just look at how well-organized and relaxing the feel of her page is), she doesn't seem to overly miss the book cover, the paper, the layout, leafing through the book.

2. For me, who had not read much for years when not on the computer where I did 95% of my reading (but for hours), it's been interesting to see how pulled I am to read on the Kindle.  In trying to explain it to the members of a writer's blog area (Catching Days, by Cynthia Newberry Martin) who had been lamenting the popularity of the Kindle because they love the look, smell and feel of books (do visit them, very good conversations there), I wrote on June 28:

" I finally realized that the rectangle acts as a sort of magic window for me (as a paper book does for others) into other worlds, so much of it available to me at any given time, depending on my mood, my need to learn something I ordinarily wouldn’t but have downloaded a book for, and I never wonder 'where did I put that book' or regret leaving it at home when out and about.  Every book I’m currently interested in is with me whenever I leave the house.  And then there are the newspapers and magazines.  I am, most of all, info-drawn.

  We who Kindle quite a bit sometimes joke that we are book readers, not book sniffers :-)  But more seriously, what is a book ?

  A collection and special distribution of words written by someone who wants to tell me something, who wants me to get lost in the world created by that person.  When an author sits down to write, I don’t think that s/he is thinking about what the cover will look like (though that always comes later) or what the layout of the externals will be.

  What I experience when reading on my Kindle is — without attention to those eye-catching externals — something that feels like direct contact with the author’s mind..."

I got carried away and wrote a lot more, but that's essentially how I personally am affected by reading on an almost weightless 10 oz. plastic tablet with a truly strange keyboard which nevertheless works well for searches and short notes.  And now I find myself reading most of the time on the heavier but even clearer larger-screen'd Kindle DX.

3. Dolph Tillotson, president and publisher of Galveston County's The Daily News writes about the many reasons he likes, though doesn't love, his Kindle, as he feels he will miss the memories a physical book can bring when encountered years later.

4. Suranand Vejjajiva, a book lover writing for The Bangkok Post describes his reaction:

" As I got hold of the electronic reading device, I felt like the first time I held an iPod and looked back to my college days when vinyl records on turntables were the norm.  Every song could now be downloaded, and soon every book would be.  Or would it not?

... Luckily I got the new version, 1/3 of an inch thick, weighs 10.2 ounces, clear text and sharp letters and, most amazingly, it is supposed to hold more than 1,500 books in this single tablet.
  The device also has other features, such as one can highlight words or sentences, take notes along the way, remember where you left off without needing a bookmark, and at a click, a dictionary appears to automatically look up words that baffled you in the past. "

But because there is no Whispernet or cellular wireless operational there, he feels the 'cracks in the digital divide'
... all of which remind me that:

5.   This Friday's weekly The Kindle Chronicles podcast by Len Edgerly included a 'Tech Tip' on "How to buy and feed a Kindle if you don’t live in the U.S." (a hot topic on the Amazon forums).  The tip was sent to Len by Charles Tay of Singapore, and he links to online tutorials by users outside the U.S.

  The weekly interview is with Steve Shank, who was the founding president of Apple Japan and Apple Australia and has decades of experience as an industry watcher and mover, so he had some interesting views of where Amazon is, with the Kindle.  He also is a Kindle enthusiast, as is his wife.

  That brought up the now common struggle with a "family Kindle" in a home with two avid readers.   Another Kindle owner (Len Charnoff?) emailed:

' The other day I knew it was time to purchase a second Kindle.  I work part time as a Manufacturer's Rep.  When I go on long trips my wife always says " Drive carefully and give me a call when you get to the Motel".  This time all she said, " Tell me you're not taking the Kindle". '

6. By the way, as mentioned on the podcast, Stephen Windwalker has just released a book with lots of good tips on how to do things not described in the User's Guide.  Give it a look.

7. And, finally, here's an article that is so positive that I disagree with its final prediction about printed books -- The Dallas Morning News's Scott Burns feels so convinced by the Kindle and other e-readers, that he suggests that the Kindle will replace physical books in the way that digital cameras have replaced film cameras.

  But books are the end result, in any text format, while photos are the end result with both types of cameras.  A fine distinction, but in no way do I think e-readers will ever totally replace books.  That would be sad, even for someone who loves doing most of my reading on the Kindle.  I still love printed books for content for which they're vastly superior vehicles, and I still will want a printed book in addition to an e-book I really loved reading and want to enjoy in a format that stands alone. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Kindle Chronicles Interview with Nicholson Baker

Update to my blog article on The New Yorker essay by Nicholson Baker on what he felt were unattractive qualities of a reading device "not ready" for the market.  My response was a longish one to what was a long article AND to the Q&A session that followed the publishing of the report -- which caused an acolyte to dub the Kindle an "inadequate device" based on the power of words alone.

  Baker's review serves as a sincere anti-ad that counterbalances Amazon's ad campaign, which Baker clearly resents and asks be slowed down despite Kindle-user excitement that he notes.  The power of a strong dismissal from a formidable platform like The New Yorker has had large, somewhat destructive effect in the past, as the interview linked to in the next paragraph reminds us.

  But a good product should be able to take it, even if the criticism left out important context.  Balance is something we can't really expect from an opinion piece, from any side of the issue.

Len Edgerly of the weekly The Kindle Chronicle podcast has done a 47-minute interview with writer Baker, and the tape was uploaded today to TKC 55 Nicholson Baker and can be streamed or downloaded (the latter is best for sound quality).  Len is always a good listener, so Mr. Baker has good time to expand on his thoughts on things Kindle and iPod in response to Edgerly's excellent questions and observations which are never confrontational but which lead to useful conversation (rare in this world?) and it's a good interview. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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The Kindle Chronicles podcast by Len Edgerly

The Kindle Chronicles is the very popular Friday Podcast by Len Edgerly for listeners who'd like to know "All About the Kindle."  It includes sections on News, Tech Tips, a weekly Interview, a Quote, and Comments received from the Kindle community during the previous week.

 Len, after reading some of Kindleworld, invited me to be the guest this week and we talked about the latest Kindle events.   Quick, sharp, and enthusiastically curious about much more than things Kindle, he is also a relaxed, engaging interviewer.  Catch his very interesting blog "Random Reflections."

  A graduate of Harvard, and also the Harvard Business School later, he's worked as a business journalist, was an editor of an Energy magazine and an executive at a natural gas company before then getting his Masters in Fine Arts in poetry.
  Am looking forward to Len's first poetry collection for the Kindle.  Here are Len and his wife Darlene, who recently interviewed him for the podcast when an Amazon executive suddenly postponed.

  He has a large Twitter following at http://twitter.com/LenEdgerly.  Len's Kindle Chronicles, begun July 2008, is practically a log or history of the Kindle and its impact on readers and the publication world in the short time since its release.

You can review a full log of The Kindle Chronicles programs and interviews (on one page) going back to mid 2008 here.  There are options on that page to subscribe via iTunes (free) or get feeds via any of several podcatchers.  Highly recommended. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!