Kindle Review: February 2011

Saturday, February 26, 2011

A GUIDE TO THE KINDLE-COLLECTIONS FEATURE

HOW TO USE KINDLE COLLECTIONS
This is a folders-like feature available for Kindle 2's, DX's and Kindle 3's (UK: K3's), implemented with 'tags' or category-labels (as seen with Google's GMail).

I'm placing here, into one blog entry, some excerpts from some earlier pieces on Collections and may modify it over the next week or two.

COLLECTIONS - BASICS
Modified from steps given us by Marc Miwords

. From Home, click on "Menu"
. Go to "Add New Collection"
. Name the Collection. Repeat as wanted *

. Go to your listing of books or documents on the Home screen
. On each title, push the 5 way controller to the right
. From that menu, click "Add To Collection"
. Using the 5 way Controller, scroll to a Collection label that you want to use for that particular book
. Click the 5 way controller
. One click ADDs it, another click REMOVES it -- from the collection but not from your device
. If you want to add a book to several collections, go down the Collections listing (alphabetized for the Add-Book-to-Collection process) until you see another Collection that should include the book and click on the Collection label to add the book. Repeat as wanted.
. Press Back button to get back to where you were in the Home screen books-listing.
. Repeat until you have all of your books in collections.
ALTERNATIVE Collections-creation method
* NOTE: You can, instead, create a Collection, name it, and THEN choose to
ADD books to it, and you will be taken to your book collection on the Kindle Home screen and you can mark the books that are to be added to the collection.
A book can be added to many collections. '

INTRO AND GUIDE - Main portion

The Kindle Collections feature was added with Kindle 2 and DX software version v2.5x and is a feature of the newer Kindle 3

Basic answers to most questions on this feature are in the online documentation.
So I've linked to the Amazon help pages that describe how this new feature works.

ALPHABETIZING KINDLE COLLECTIONS FOR THE HOME SCREEN
Amazon did not, for some reason, choose to show us our Collections-set in alphabetical order. It's as if they expected that anyone browsing a library shelf would prefer to see the book titles in the order they were last accessed by us rather than in alpha order.

So this is an introductory workaround for that.

The Home screen image starting this section is of my Kindle screen after I applied a workaround recommended by knowledgeable Kindle users from Kindleboards, including luvmy4BRATs who led an Amazon Kindle forum discussion on this, with some great ideas added by other ultra-creative people in those Amazon forums, ideas and examples which I'll use in another Collections blog entry in the future.

Using certain symbols such as '*' or '[' or '{' forces the Collections group-names into an alphabetical sort when using the "By Title" sorting-option, which people with many Collections will find more useful than the official and separate "Collections" sorting-option that is given us by the new software.

That official Collections Home-listing, as seen in the image at the right, sorts only by most-recently accessed Collection, making it quite difficult to find the right collection if you have many of them.

Note that the active Sort-type is shown at the top right and you can cursor up there to change it by moving the 5-way button to the right when you get there.

With 30 Collections and three pages of those on my Kindle 2 (U.S.), I had problems finding any Collection I knew held the book I wanted because I had to check each Collection name on the Home screens, which took forever.

Again, the image on the right displays the Default listing for sorting the Home screen books by Collections (rather than by Title, Author, or Most Recent).

Then note the image above that, at the left, for the workaround using the Titles sorting-option that I mentioned

"Drawback" and "Bonus" of using Titles Sorting-option:
Drawback: The individual books are shown BELOW your alphabetized Collections (which is why we'd make symbols prefixing the Collection titles -- to keep them above the listing of individual titles).
It should be easy to ignore the trailing list of book titles though.

Bonus: When you're viewing a Collections listing alphabetized via using the Titles sort, you can go directly to the Home screen section with the first letter of a Title if you want -- But ONLY THE FIRST LETTER because if you type two letters, the Kindle would start a Search of the entire Kindle for a word composed of those two letters. That takes an eternity, so keep it to only the first letter.

In other words, if you're looking for a title starting with the word "Nights," you'd type just 'n' and click the 5-way button, to be taken to a page with book titles starting with the letter 'n' -- this means that you can see your Collections in alpha order AND access a book title more easily when you want.

TIP
Periodicals - Amazon has a default Collection that holds your Kindle-edition subscriptions to newspapers and magazines when the issues are no longer the current ones.
When you're not using the Title/alpha sort (and instead sorting by "Most Recent" or by "Author"), you'll see Periodicals at the END of your Home Screen listing, along with the "Archived Items" Collection always created by Amazon for books you've bought from Amazon but don't have on your Kindle at the moment.
Tip2 - You can get to the last page of your home screen listing by typing the number of the last page and clicking on the 5-way button.

Following are some tips and examples from Amazon's help pages with tips I've added:

USING THE COLLECTIONS FEATURE
Information and Examples from Amazon's Online Help (all emphases mine)

* Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.

Sorting Content and Using Collections
As with earlier Kindle software, we still go up to the top of the HOME screen and navigate the SORT options, which now include (except for Kindle 1) "Collections," which are categories we create (except for "Periodicals" and "Archived Items" which are essentially Collections put in place by Amazon). The set-categories given us in earlier software (Personal Docs, etc.) are no longer offered, but we can roll our own.

The HOME screen looks the same as the Kindle 2's, but when we go up to the SORT options area at the top of the screen, we'll be able to choose to view the Collections we've created. You can see that the Collections are shown along with the number of books or documents in those Collections.
The default Sorting-option for the Home screen listing of books remains "Most Recent First" unless we arrow over, at the top, to Collections option (or Title or Author) and click to select another sort-order.
You can review the Step-by-Step for Adding Collections and books for them at the top of this blog article. You can then just use the 'Back' option on your web-browser to return here.
As you've seen, Collections are created from a Menu key option when you're at the Home screen, and Collections can be renamed or deleted later (see screen image below).
A book can be in several collections, but even if it is in only one collection, the deletion of that collection won't affect the book, which will still be shown on and accessible from the Home screen.

Collections can be transferred across registered Kindle devices and you'll be able to import collections from your other Kindle devices under the Archived Items page, using "Add Other Device Collections."
If you RE-download a deleted Amazon book that was once a part of a Collection you made, it will download to the Collection or category it was a part of before.

Except for no option for Alpha sorting of Collections, this feature is especially well thought out (except for the non-alpha order of the Sort-by-Collections listing), so it's intuitive, logical, and therefore easy to use after the initial intro to it. Collections have a tag-type structure, so that you can have a book in several groupings at any time. There is only one level of groupings though, so there's no sub-folder-like feature.

I have 30+ named Collections under which I want to find things. But it's still brought my list of 200+ books and documents way down and, as a result, it's now really easy to find the books I'm in the mood to read.

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.

View the original article here

Kindles in schools - SRC Stock Charts on Kindle - Kobo2 Review - Colour Kindle

A Story About Another School Trying Out Kindles

In fact, 200 Kindles. Nashville High School in Arkansas is using the Kindle in English classes, in hopes that it'll be possible to use them in other subject-areas as a replacement for paper textbooks.

School officials hope it'll encourage students to read more (this is likely, as it's a common experience for those who use e-Ink devices) and do their school work "more efficiently." For non-fiction books especially, the way the Search function works and also the way that Annotations are kept on both the device and the special password-protected Annotations webpage are a boon in my case.

The brief video (delivered by the tv newsperson with strange inflections) includes a response by one student, who's not only happy to be able to use a Kindle but she wants one when she graduates -- it'll be interesting to see what the e-reader field looks like at that time though.

Securities Research Company's Stock Chart Books Now Available On the Kindle
From their PRNewswire:

' Securities Research Company's Digital Division, SRC Digital (www.srcdigital.com), today announced that it has released its best-selling "The SRC Blue Book® 12-Year NYSE Stock Chart®" and five other titles in the Amazon Kindle Store using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing.
Other titles released in the Kindle Store include "The SRC Orange Book® of 12-year NASDAQ Charts®", "The SRC Industry Book® of 12-year Charts®", "The SRC ADR Book® of 12-Year Charts®", "The SRC ETF Book® of 12-Year Charts®" and "The SRC Red Book® of 21-Month Charts®". Customers can download these publications from the Kindle Store and receive weekly or monthly updates depending on the title. Additional titles will be rolled out over the next few months until all of SRC's publications are available in the Kindle Store. '

The cost is not trivial, of course.

Kobo, now with WiFi - a Review
Adam Turner reviews the new Kobo and its online store at Borders, for smh.com.au. He finds the store slow-going and feels the Search option is where the Kobo "falls short" and makes him miss the QWERTY keyboard of the Kindle. The onscreen keyboard uses the 5-way rocker to move from one letter to the next and doesn't always detect presses unless you go slowly.

He's impressed that they squeezed in the WiFi features for the same price as the old model but says it has a "long way to go before it can rival the slick Amazon/Kindle user experience." He doesn't recommend the Kobo over the Kindle "unless you're determined to stick with the ePub format rather than Amazon’s eBook format."

Our First Year With Amazon Kindle as an Independent Publisher
FutureBook's very upbeat report on the first year with Amazon as an independent publisher is an interesting read. The main reason I'm mentioning it here, though, as a news bit, is what popped out at me in the paragraphs below written by steveemecz:

' Where is it going? My contacts at Amazon can’t share anything specific, but they did say that the customer experience, both for consumers and publishers is a key focus.
Well, in 2011 we expect to see Kindle device sales and follow on book sales go from strength to strength. Amazon themselves have big expansion plans and that will mean more footfall through the Kindle stores. We expect them to launch Kindle into new countries ... and of course there has been lots of talk around the colour Kindle device. '

There has? With their Amazon contacts? Or with others? (See earlier reports.) "Show me the ~~money~~ colour!"

View the original article here

Google eBooks change alert. Flip it! Hints page. Kindle Tic Tac Toe

GOOGLE EBOOKS STORE UPDATE
The first item is to alert Google RSS users that the "A Million Free Google Books in ePub - for Kindle - UPDATE2" Google-book-conversion blog article was updated today due to changes in the Google eBookstore procedures for finding and downloading their eBooks.

FLIP IT! HINTS
Here is a requested page for Flip it! hints for the tougher levels of the 40-level game.

TIC TAC TOE - A 2-character game instead of a word game

The 7 Dragons group is at it again, after reaching Bestseller #5 status with their Flip it! game this week.

Released last night, Tic Tac Toe is an old favorite, now available for Kindle.

From the Product Description:

'Tic Tac Toe by 7 Dragons brings the simple but classic game of Tic Tac Toe to Kindle.
Similar to the pen-and-paper experience from the school days, choose your Xs or Os and try to line up three in a row. "Pass and Play" allows you to play against a friend, or choose to play against Kindle with three different difficulty levels. Game statistics allow you to keep track of high scores for each difficulty level.
Tic Tac Toe is good entertainment for kids, and a fun way to take a break! '

Also newly available (3 days ago) is Video Poker - People are forgiving its slowness, as it's free. That does go a long way. The Tic Tac Toe, at 99 cents, though, is worth a look.

View the original article here

Friday, February 25, 2011

Downloadable Bookmarks file. Revised 1/25/11 - Ongoing file

UPDATE 1/25/11
This is to let readers know that the ongoing Kindle Bookmarks file ("Mobiweb WebLinks") has been revised.

I've added the download-link for this file + upload-date to the reference column on the right side of the website so that people can check the date of the latest one.

I'll continue to add more sites as I go but won't be announcing revisions for smaller changes, so check the file every now and then.

TIP: You can bookmark pages in this 'book'-like file.
A Kindle-3 user wrote to ask about skipping past the Kindle-2 section. To do that make a bookmark with alt-b (this key-combo toggles a bookmark on and off for the page you're on -- check the dog-ear at the top right to see if it's "taken" when you do a bookmark).

To get to any bookmarks you've made in a book file, press Menu button and select "View My Notes & Marks" while that book is open.

But Kindle 3-users won't need to go further than the Kindle 3 section now, as I've added, into each weblinks listing, the individual Mobile Website-Downsizer sites (which emphasize text portions of pages to increase loading speed on the Kindle).

These include Skweezer, Cantoni, Reading the Net (new) and Web On Your Cell.

Until Amazon revises how the web browser works, I've kept in the Google-features advice on workarounds for problems accessing versions of GMail or other tools with the Kindle 3.

See the basuc information on using the file in the earlier and main Bookmarks article that explains more.

In the meantime, let me know if you have any trouble getting the file. Thanks!

Photo credit: petittscreations.com.

View the original article here

Kindle News 2/15-17, including costs of putting out a newspaper Kindle edition - UPDATE for Borders-Aus. & Lendle

KINDLE NEWS SNIPPETS actually. Saw a few interesting articles and just want to mention them and give links for those interested in reading any of them at the source. There are more than a few, so I'll keep these relatively brief.

UPDATE - 2/17 to include the new Lendle book lending site and to note that Borders Australia is telling customers that gift cards there can be redeemed only if customers buy double the amount of the card.

BARRONS: "Amazon Is Smoking With Kindle"
Barrons says they are raising their estimates for Amazon and taking their price target to $230 [from $195]. Reasons are higher unit shipments anticipated or assumed (for both models of the K3) and Amazon's web services (AWS "gaining traction much faster than expected.") It's not just a shopping place anymore. They add that:

'In our view, Kindle remains the best ebook reader in the market and competition is unable to dent its market share.
... As far as the influx of tablets is concerned, there is no doubt that reading ebooks is one of the dozens of features offered by the tablets, but we believe that for the core book readers the value proposition offered by Kindle remains unmatchable (i.e. selection of ebooks, battery life, no backlight and glaring screen, free 3G, overall form factor, convenience to buy new books, etc.). '

A lot more detail at the link, of course.

"E Ink Holdings reports record-high earnings"
Amy Su, reporting for The Taipei Times, writes that "E Ink Holdings Inc, the world’s biggest e-paper display supplier, yesterday reported record-high quarterly net earnings, aided by the global uptake of e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle series."

"Fourth-quarter net income grew more than seven times to NT$1.92 billion (US$65 million)..."

This is happening despite the flood of color tablets with e-reader capabilities flooding the market.

CNN: "Best business decision of decade: Kindle app?"
CNN Money's David Goldman writes that:
"AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson called Amazon's Kindle e-reader app the 'gutsiest and savviest business decision of the past decade' during a keynote address on Tuesday."

"At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the wireless giant's CEO said Amazon's decision to put its application on every conceivable kind of device -- even though it sells its own e-reader -- made the company 'the poster child' of the cloud computing movement."

"When Amazon met the iPad challenge by giving users a chance to buy a competitors' tablet over its own [probably knowing they are so different and complementary that they would be co-existing devices for most], analysts called it a brave and bold move. But Stephenson said it is now clear that Amazon's decision was incredibly intelligent."

The article discusses the cloud-computing aspect, which Stephenson considers "the path forward."

Computer World's report on Stephenson's talk, including opinions on Apple
There is also an extremely detailed report by Matt Hamblen on Stephenson's entire talk and his mentions of Apple policies, at Computerworld.

KindleLendingClub renamed BookLending Club
The size of the Kindle Lending Club seems to have caught Amazon's attention and it's been "rebranded" at Amazon's request. The estimated 20,000 members going to the site will be automatically redirected to its new home, BookLending.com.

LendInk - Lending club for Kindles and Nooks
The Next Web's Martin Bryant reviews a new e-book lending club, LendInk, which offers a lending hub for Kindle and Nook users. He considers using the site "as simple as could possibly be" and "the best-looking solution we've seen," adding that LendInk’s interface is "a little more streamlined and is targeting a wider audience with support for the Nook in addition to the Kindle." Obviously, there's no reason why Kindle owners interested in using the feature would not use both. While publishers might be concerned, it also creates even more interest in e-readers and e-books (though the large publishers seem queasy about e-book interest).

Update - 2/17 (Original posting 2/16, 3:40 AM)
Lendle - New lending club, this one for Kindles only
The Guardian (UK) has a story on the new lending site "Lendle" (lendle.me).
Note to publishers: Lendle founder Brian Ericford posts that, in the first week, they've actually sold more books than they've lent.
The availability of these lending sites for Kindle books should be especially useful for those lamenting the lack of public library loaning.

BORDERS and bankruptcy filing - Giftcards
One story had an interesting last thought:
"One possible upside? The demise of superstore booksellers could revitalize the neighborhood bookstore."

Update continued - 2/17
Borders did file for bankrupcy and the U.S. offices said they will honor giftcards and try to do business as normal while shutting down hundreds of stores and losing 75% of their value, with the stock at 23 cents. However, Borders in Australia announced that their customers will have to buy double the amount in order to use their gift cards. This is not going over well, per the Sydney Morning Herald.

Another story cautions those holding giftcards to use them before the bankruptcy filing sometime this week. Often they're not accepted after that, though Circuit City did honor mine.

"The True Cost OF Publishing on the Amazon Kindle" (in the UK)
PC Pro (UK explains the various costs involved with the distribution of newspapers and magazines in Kindle Edition format, in the UK -- why there are few photos (if any) in some editions (photos increase the size of a file by quite a bit relative to pure text), and the calculation of delivery costs of an issue sent over 3G wireless there (no delivery costs involved when/if delivered over WiFi).
Notes in Brackets are mine.

' Amazon charges 10p per MB [about 16 cents per MB U.S.] for delivery of newspapers and magazines in the UK.
By Amazon’s own estimates, a “typical newspaper” with 100 articles and 15 to 20 images would have a file size of between 0.5MB and 1MB – or around 10% of the overall revenue [16 cents per megabyte], considering most newspapers sell for 99p [$1.60 US] per day.
It [distribution costs] would be an even greater share of the publisher’s profits if users signed up for a cheaper subscription.
For a magazine like PC Pro those costs would be significantly greater. Each issue of the magazine has somewhere around 75 new reviews – each with a picture – plus dozens more articles and features. An issue of PC Pro with around 150 separate articles, and 100 photos would likely incur delivery costs of 50p-60p [80-97 cents) an issue. We can pop a magazine in the post to subscribers for significantly less than that. '

To make things worse -- in the UK, Value-Added Tax is charged on e-magazines but not on paper
Read more, including calculations for revenue sharing. They point out that Amazon sets the pricing of the periodicals, just as they do for the blogs. Too low a price means PCPro would "take a hit on the delivery costs" and could "severely undercut" their print edition, and if Amazon pushes for maximum profit, that can create extreme unhappiness with a newspaper's subscribers.

View the original article here

A Million Free Google Books in ePub - for Kindle - UPDATE4

UPDATE2-4, 2/6/11 - Original posting was 8/27/09, Update1 was made 4/22/10.

Google has combined its free Google books with ones they sell now, and the earlier instructions (below) on how to find downloadable, free files no longer apply.
The rest of it is the same, however.

Google seems to have combined the free books with the paid books and now may require you to (1) have a Google account for downloading Google e-books as well as (2) a credit card even to download a free book *IF it's not a public-domain book* (corrected information from @mikecane).

I had a credit card with Google already because I had experimented with buying a web-version of a paid Google Book when the Google web Bookstore was launched, and I was asked for it when I tried to download "The eBook Insider" - which is free but is NOT a public domain book.

I used it today to 'buy' this $0.00 Google eBook to test whether these are still easily convertible to Kindle format AND uploadable to Retroread (see details below), who will convert free *public-domain* Google files for the Kindle community, at no cost. If someone else has already requested a particular free Public Domain Google eBook, it'll be listed on the Retroread site as downloadable by everyone else for their Kindles.

The basic steps when I 'bought' this currently-free NON-public-domain book:

. Click on a book you want and it'll give you the option to 'buy' it even if its $0.00 AND if it's NOT a public-domain book. It'll give you the option to "Get" it if it's in the public domain, and you can then click to download it.
. After 'buying' it, I received these alerts:
"This book has been added to My Google eBooks" and
"Access all your Google eBooks at books.google.com"
. After clicking on "My Google Books," you can see the books you've downloaded, both paid and free.
. Click on the book you just received and you're given options to
"Read now" (which would be in web-browser version) OR
"Read on your device" (Nook, Sony, Kobo etc but not Kindle)
Google then offers you the following choices to be able to read the new book:
1. Installing a Smartphones app (Android) or a Tablet app (iPhone & iPad)
2. Laptop and computers (reading in web browser)
3. eReader and other devices
a. ePub
b. Adobe PDF (*IF* included)
Choose "ePub"

*NOTE*: Retroread could NOT convert my free Google book because it isn't a public-domain book and is therefore not successfully searchable on their site. I then converted it via Calibre as described below.

Again, when a Google eBook IS public domain and free, you are given the option to "GET" the book without purchasing it. When you click to accept that option, the eBook winds up in your Google library.

The earlier section below explains how to get and use Calibre to easily convert any free ePub Google file to Kindle format or use Retroread site to have it done for you if the book is in the public domain.

UPDATE1, 4/22/10 - Original posting was 8/27/09 (Kindle model info updated)
I've added, at the bottom of this post, a section about a new service that will convert a Google Book FOR you (using the method below) and send it to your Kindle if you want (Amazon charges 15 cents per megabyte of a file if Whispernet delivery of a file) OR to the email address you use for correspondence with Amazon (no cost involved).

Original Posting on How to Convert free Google ePub books to Kindle format

Aug. 27, 2009 -- Yesterday Google offered over a million free e-books in EPUB format as well as in PDF format.

These are easier to work with because they involve text-reflow instead of keeping a page exactly as originally laid out and therefore with words too small on e-screens. Also, Google has done that text-reflow for us, which should bring more reliable to-MOBI conversions for files that had originally been among the more-complex PDFs.
This will also allow highlighting, note-adding, font-size adjustments, and will be included in search results when the full Kindle is searched for key words. We just need to convert them to MOBI files.

Some newspapers are reporting the million+ free Google files are not readable on the Kindle.
They are. They just need a simple conversion.

There are currently at least three popular free tools that can convert ePub files to Kindle-compatible MOBI files: (1) mobigen.exe (not intuitive); (2) Mobipocket Reader 6.2 (loses some of the styling); and (3) Calibre, which has a nice interface, is easy to use, works with pc's and Macs, and gets the best results.

So, Calibre it is. Many use it already for organized computer records of their Kindle files or for retrieving combinations of newspaper feeds for their Kindles (not as easily navigated as the paid subscrptions).
This blog article focuses only on converting the ePub file-format to a Kindle-readable one.

If you don't already have this free software, created and maintained by Kovid Goyal, download Calibre here.

GET A FREE GOOGLE BOOK OR TWO
To get a free Google book (most written before 1923 but there are some nice older magazines there as well), go to Google's book site.

~~To find a free book (they are all mixed with $$$-books), click on "Full Preview" as those tend to be the free ones. Then do a search for what you want.~~

~~At the top right, once you choose a book, you'll see "Download" which will be a pull-down menu showing a choice of PDF or ePub.~~ (See update of Feb. 6, 2011, above.)

If you have a Kindle DXG, you might prefer to just get the PDF. If the words on the PDF are too small though, then get the ePub file. IF you download an ePub file, then:

CALIBRE
Open and run Calibre. On the LEFT will be your choices for set-up when you're converting a document. Hovering over anything will usually bring a help tip.

Accepting defaults is fine. The ability to change the "meta information" is nice - so you can have names and authors as you like them. If there is no Table of Contents you can 'force' Calibre to create one.

At the top are choices to "Edit meta information: as well as "Convert E-books." Follow the instructions, and then press the 'OK' button and the conversion will take a few minutes. I did one and moved it to the Kindle DX and it looks great.

Oh, Calibre gives you the option to optimize your converted file for the Kindle 2 or the Kindle DX.

So, yes, those million+ free Google books are fully useable on the Kindle - it just needs this added step, but it's also great to be able to customize so much of the layout if you want. Play with the software a bit.

THE BOOK STORES - MASHABLE'S POINTS
The report by Mashable's Stan Schroeder makes some good points:

"... the first major difference between the Kindle and this Google-Sony open book strategy: while Amazon only offers 300,000 titles, Google’s million books aren’t, for the most part, the most attractive ones, and Sony’s own ebook library doesn’t offer a choice as good as Amazon – at least when it comes to modern titles.
Sure, if you’re interested in an oldie, such as the Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Google’s library is a good choice, but if you’re looking to buy a digital copy of the latest bestseller, you’re more likely to find it on the Kindle than in Google’s library and Sony’s ebook store combined. You can sometimes buy an ebook online and then transfer it to your Sony ebook reader, but on the Kindle it’s simpler and easier to do.

Also see:
Read foreign-language Google-books in English online
Google describes the book conversion process
How to download any of the 30,000 Project Gutenberg books to your Kindle, direct.

UPDATE 4/22/10 - RETROREAD'S AUTOMATED GOOGLE BOOK CONVERSIONS
RetroRead (BLTC Press) offers free conversion of any free ePub Google Book to Amazon Kindle format for delivery to your Kindle or to your computer via your normal email address. As RetroRead's David Eyes describes in his Blitzes at BLTC blog you will be able to create an account through which you may upload any free Google ePub book (but ONLY Google book files), and have it converted and forwarded directly to you. He adds that the quality of the converted book can vary greatly depending on the quality of Google’s optical character recognition (OCR) conversion. The site is self-explanatory.

Once you've registered and read the Terms of Use, you can go to http://books.google.com and choose a free Google book to read, downloading the ePub version to your computer, at which point you're given the option to have that downloaded file automatically uploaded to Retroread for immediate conversion to Kindle format (using RetroReadhelper -- Windows for that though) and then either sent to your Kindle* or to your email address or linked at the Retroread site where you can download the converted file and then move it to your Kindle via the USB cable.

* If you do want the direct-to-Kindle option, you need to have created earlier a special address for files to your Kindle -- [you]@kindle.com ...
So be sure you've set up a [you]@kindle.com address first. This setup is done at your Amazon "Manage Your Kindle" page. Here's a guide for using that management page.
This would involve letting RetroRead have your [you]@kindle.com address and, as mentioned, the Amazon fee for whispernet delivery would apply (15 cents per megabyte of a book -- with most ePub books under 1 megabyte -- but the one I uploaded tonight was over 2 megs because some pages were image scans). However, you can also choose to just get the converted file and move it to the Kindle yourself. Read his blog for the additions he's made to the site's capabilities. Lots of good things.

You can also choose recently converted Google books that are listed as available for download on the left side of the RetroRead page.

For those looking for interesting less-seen free books, it's hard to do better than David's list of the Latest Converted files.

At any rate, this is a quick intro. I tried it last night and it works well. The book I converted for this blog article was used at Retroread, and the results were the 99% the same, since RetroRead uses Calibre also, although the last half of the final page, which happened to be the Table of Contents page at the end, was missing.

Many will find this service very convenient. But the service is not offered for any ePub books other than the Google books. However, you can use this blog guide to do that yourself as needed. Your own conversion from ePub to Amazon format should take about three minutes after you've had a chance to work with it.

Kindle 3 (UK: Kindle 3), 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.
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

View the original article here

Update v2.6 for Kindle for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad - Real page numbers etc

The Kindle for iPhone (also for iPod Touch and iPad) app has been updated with version 2.6 with the following new features:

Real page numbers for thousands of books in the Kindle Store. Now you can make proper citations in the classroom or follow along with people reading print books in a book club.View your percentage completed while reading [new for iPhone/iPod Touch].Home screen now shows your progress through books in list view.Look up words on Google and Wikipedia without leaving the app.Instant word lookup on included dictionary with 250,000 entries and definitions

You can see full details and download the new update by clicking the top image at the Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch app page. You'll get the same info at the Kindle for iPad app page except that it doesn't include "View your percentage completed while reading" as a new feature for the iPad (it may have been included before).

Thanks to Golf11 (Randall) again for the alert Sunday.

View the original article here

Amazon's 4th Qtr Results: Reactions, Kindle Profitability

The Wall Street Journal Blog's Dan Gallagher, after Amazon's 4th Qtr report Thursday, writes that while the Amazon Kindle is "far and away the most popular of the dedicated e-reader devices on the market"..."it remains unclear just how much profit – if any – the company is able to realize from the device and its associated e-books business."

It's an interesting angle because most of the stories are about how Amazon sold 115 e-books (not counting free ones) for every 100 paperbacks sold, during the first quarter of this year so far and that includes paperback books for which there is no Kindle edition. This would include a spurt of e-book buying after Kindles were opened during the holidays, but it's not unlikely that the new Kindle owners would continue to buy e-books more often than they'd bought printed books, as that is a common report.

Retail Gazette in the U.K. pointed out that Jeff Bezos remarked:

' Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected - and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales. '

I won't quote all the details of the dollar stats, as you can just read them in any of the financial articles, including the ones linked here, but the WSJ's Gallagher brings up an interesting point, re profitability on the Kindle.

Although the company reiterated that it has sold more units of the Kindle 3 than the final book in the Harry Potter series, making it Amazon's top-selling product ever, Gallagher continues:

'...the revenue boost may not be flowing to Amazon’s bottom line; in fact, it may even be weighing it down.
For one, it looks likely that Amazon makes little to no money on the device itself. A study by market-research firm iSuppli last year estimated the total cost of materials for the 3G Kindle at $155.56 – about $33 less than the $189 selling price for the device.
Since iSuppli’s estimates do not include the cost of software, licensing, royalties, manufacturing expenses (Amazon outsources production of the Kindle) and a cut for the wireless carriers, analysts suspect Amazon likely sells the Kindle at a slight loss. '

When asked about this during a conference call with analysts Thursday, Amazon's financial officer, Tom Szkutak, "refused" to give specifics about the Kindle's profitability.

Many have brought up the razor-razorblade model for the Kindle and Amazon's e-books. But Ben Schachter of Macquarie Research feels that "lack of profits from the device, along with Amazon’s move to sell more lower-margin electronics and general merchandise, is keeping pressure on the bottom line" and therefore there is frustration that "margins are not improving."

" 'That's why people are frustrated that margins are not improving,' Schachter says. 'Any margin improvement from e-books is being hurt by spending, the [cost of] Kindle hardware and the shift into [electronics and general merchandise] categories. Amazon is willing to push margin on that to make money over the long term.' "

Even though Net Sales increased 36% to $12.95 billion in the 4th Qtr and Net Income increased 8% to $16 million, there was "unfavorable impact" from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, and shares sank 9% after hours Thursday.

It's all about high expectations -- and even then Amazon's net income beat expectations, hitting 91 cents per share while analysts had expected 88 cents per share, per Factset. However, they'd "expected" more than 36% net sales and Amazon also "warned that operating profit could decline as much as 34 percent [AB here: or as little as 2 percent] compared with the first quarter of 2010" as they invest long-term in building the company.

Other highlights:
. It was Amazon's first $10 billion quarter.
. The U.S. Kindle store now contains 810,000 books, including New Releases and 107 of the 112 books on the New York Times best-seller list. About two-thirds of the books cost $9.99 or less, the company said.
(Barnes & Noble, as well as Sony, count the ~1.5 million free public domain Google books in their totals.)

In its SEC 10-K filing dated January 28, 2011, Amazon has to set out all the possibilities, especially the negative ones, and it's an interesting read. Of note for us customers, Authorlink.com writes:

' The company plans to rapidly and significantly expand global operations, including increasing product and service offerings and scaling infrastructure to support retail and services businesses. This expansion increases the complexity of its business and places significant strain on management, personnel, operations, systems, technical performance, financial resources, and internal financial control and reporting functions. In assessing the risks of its growth, the company said "We may not be able to manage growth effectively, which could damage our reputation, limit our growth and negatively affect our operating results," the filing said. '

That's par for the course with SEC 10-K filings.
The PR release says it, of course, more positively: "Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce and the various factors detailed..."

The SEC 10-K filing continues on in the vein quoted by Authorlink and they end the article with, "Despite these risks, the company expects significant growth next year."

View the original article here

NY Times: Web paywall soon, Kindle versions. Kindle DTP now Kindle KDP

THE NEW YORK TIMES PAYWALL RISES AGAIN

According to Bloomberg's Brett Pulley, a person "who declined to be identified" has told Bloomberg that the New York Times Co. will begin charging readers "less than $20 a month for full access" to the newspaper on the Web when it introduces this plan sometime this quarter. The timing was mentioned by Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson last month at an investor conference in New York.

The price would be less than the $19.95 price for special daily delivery of the NY Times on Kindle, but people accessing the web via computers have not been likely to pay that kind of price and in a previous 'exploration' of the paywall idea, they had to remove the wall they put in place for access to their popular opinion columns.

Pulley adds that Robinson also said there would be a "set number of articles for free each month, and heavy users will have to pay a subscription fee" No details were given at the time. Print subscribers will get full access with no extra charges. The print edition is $11.70/week or about $50/month.

The article has a lot more on what several newspapers have been or will be trying with web pay models.

KINDLE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE NY TIMES
As many have heard, the subscription cost of a Kindle Edition of the NY Times was raised a few months ago to $19.95 per month; this includes the Sunday Edition, with the magazine included.

For awhile, Amazon has had an extended free trial on the NYT -- instead of 14 days, it's two months and the offer expires Feb. 15.

The monthly cost is too steep for me, even with the nicely organized navigation relative to the free methods of access on the Kindle to the text (none of the pictures, usually). For those on a print subscription currently, the Kindle Edition is lighter, both physically and cost-wise, relative to $50/mo.

And now we have the NYT Crossword puzzles as Kindle games.

Sunday Edition of NYT
However, those interested in getting the Sunday edition of the NY Times can download it each Sunday (no automated delivery) for $1 per issue. That's true for any day's issue but the Sunday one is large and packed with special features, including the NY Times Review of Books. I do tend to get the Sunday edition when I remember and I just press alt-Home, select Newspaspers, US and download a copy.

NY Times - Latest News "blog" edition
The subscription I have had for 2 years though and which I think is the best deal in the shop is the "blog" edition of the New York Times Latest News, which sends fast-breaking headline news updates to your Kindle through the day, usually 8-10 stories in full (some are quite long and detailed), as they happen. The cost is $1.99 a month. Many don't know about it because it's under the "blogs" area rather than the 'newspapers' section.

This seems to be updated 5 or more times a day. Probably more but I don't leave my wireless On all the time. EACH edition overwrites the last one, so if you don't have time to read one of the updated sets, you may not see one of the stories if it's not included in the next update.

That does tend to have me deciding not to download the latest update until I read a story I'm particularly interested in, but the news stories do also overlap of course. You can 'clip' a full article for the "My Clippings" file on the Kindle, to read later, but that loses the special formatting and is seen as streamed text.

Each update has something new but will drop an older story or two.
There's a 14-day free trial on this also. I highly recommend it for news addicts who aren't around their computers all the time. This is one area where 3G cellular wireless comes in handy, as you can download the latest headlines almost anywhere you are.

AMAZON'S "DIGITAL TEXT PLATFORM" (DTP) IS NOW "KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING" (KDP)
That's a good change, as "DTP" always seemed to mean DeskTop Publishing to me, and "Digital Text Platform" seemed very vague and was hard to remember.

Anyone can self-publish e-books for the Kindle store. There's no charge for that. There's also an option to make print versions.

Here's the sign-in page to explore or try Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon announced the change yesterday while releasing the news that Amazon's self-publishing feature with the newer 70% royalty program is now extended to books sold to Canadian customers.

' Books self-published through KDP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices. With KDP, you can self-publish books in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and specify pricing in US Dollars and Pounds Sterling. You will also find useful information on our active community forum. '

THE 2011 AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD
Amazon's Createspace asks:
"Do you have an unpublished or self-published novel you know Amazon.com readers will love? Enter your novel in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for a chance to win one of two $15,000 publishing contracts with Penguin USA and distribution of your novel on Amazon.com."
Details here.

View the original article here

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Library E-book feature overrated? New Lending site: eBook Fling

GETTING FREE E-BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY MAY BE OVERRATED?

LibraryCity.Org reports on a blog article by Nathan Groezinger of The eBook Reader blog, opining that since more and more "people are turning to the library as a source for ebooks, the limitations of the service has [sic] become much more obvious."

He lists five problems he's noticed with this, and I'm just quoting the heading for each point and you should read the details there

(Kindle-edition readers can now follow any article link and, after the article comes up, Kindle-3 users can click on Menu -> Article Mode to get rid of the non-article side-links) and read in larger fonts, with better contrast.
Kindle-2 and DX users should use Basic mode to get larger fonts with better b&w contrast.

He gives personal experiences as reasons for his doubt, and the commenters to the page's premise make interesting points on both sides. The five problems listed (with his article-summary following the headings here) are:

#1. Limited number of copies and waiting lists
#2. 21 Days
#3. No library ebooks
#4. Fees for library cards
#5. Poor selection and random selection '

While access to library books is a real plus and the Kindle doesn't offer this feature (though the new lending sites are helping), Nathan G. wonders if libraries will be able to keep up with the demand, "especially with many publishers and authors feeling uncomfortable about library ebooks to begin with."

ANOTHER KINDLE-BOOK LENDING SITE AND THE EFFECT IT MAY HAVE
The L.A. Times's Alex Pham writes about eBook Fling as a "Netflix Instant Watch for digital books."

Their official Kindle-book lending/borrowing site opens officially today, though it was up and running yesterday, Pham says.

' Here's how it would work. Users can list any digital book they've purchased. When another member requests to borrow it, EBookFling sends the book owner a message with step-by-step instructions for lending it. Each time the user lends a book, they earn a credit, which can be used to borrow other members' books.... Each lending period lasts 14 days... [AB: because that is the time limit the publishers chose for this feature at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon.]
At the moment, the site is only registering new subscribers and letting them submit the titles they're willing to lend. Users won't be able to start borrowing for a month or so while the site ramps up to a full launch, according to Nick Ruffilo, chief information officer for EBookFling. '

Its backer is BookSwim, "a profitable, privately held book rental service that operates much like Netflix. The service lets subscribers borrow physical books via mail for a monthly fee ranging from $23.95 for 3 books checked out at a time to $59.95 for 11 books."

How will they make money in the case of e-book borrowing? Advertising?

An important point Pham makes is:

' Still, the service needs some cooperation from publishers, which ultimately get to decide whether they enable the lending feature for Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
If lending eats into sales, publishers may reduce the lending period or opt out of the feature altogether. '

However, the extremely limited terms the publishers made (14-day loan, maximum, and a book being loanable only once ever) should allay publisher-anxiety in that the positive aspects (more people aware of and reading the author) will likely make up for the negative (any loss in sales). And we can, in a way, see why they placed such heavy restrictions on the loaning feature. It can become a bit like a multi-player game.

View the original article here

"Kindle Singles" are now available and look interesting

AMAZON SINGLES FEATURE READY TO GO.
Amazon announced today that the first set of "Kindle Singles is ready, and can be seen at Amazon's KindleSingles page.

What are they?
Below is what I wrote on October 13. Essentially, they're shorter works not forced into the expected size of a regular novel, and, as a result, they're not as expensive either. Pricing is between 99 cents and $4.99 and include original reporting, essays, memoirs and fiction.
There are some really interesting looking offerings there, at good prices, and you can still get samples first.

When I first saw the PR release at MarketWatch, I thought Amazon was expanding into the Dating-Services area, but instead:

' Less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000: that is the choice writers have generally faced for more than a century--works either had to be short enough for a magazine article or long enough to deliver the "heft" required for book marketing and distribution.
But in many cases, 10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) might be the perfect, natural length to lay out a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well illustrated--whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event.
Today [Oct. 12], Amazon is announcing that it will launch "Kindle Singles" -- Kindle books that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book. Kindle Singles will have their own section in the Kindle Store and be priced much less than a typical book.
Today's announcement is a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world.
"Ideas and the words to deliver them should be crafted to their natural length, not to an artificial marketing length that justifies a particular price or a certain format," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "With Kindle Singles, we're reaching out to publishers and accomplished writers and we're excited to see what they create." '

Nick Bilton of the NY Times points out that

' This medium-length format has traditionally been difficult for writers to sell to publishers as it doesn’t fit into the mold of a printing-press distribution model.
In a digital distribution system, those pricing structures no longer exist, and a digital price can be adjusted accordingly.
By promoting this new format, Amazon can also avoid upsetting publishers who were frustrated with the company when it introduced its own self-publishing product, allowing writers to price and directly sell their content on the Kindle platform. '

Engadget's Joseph L. Flatley refers to these as "really, really short books"

To Engadget's mostly tongue-in-cheek analysis - "It looks like Amazon has finally admitted what we knew all along: most books are too long. And boring.
We need more e-publications that reflect our torn jeans, frayed hair, coffee swilling, ca. early-1990s slacker lifestyle.
Kindle Singles, as announced by "the man" in an ironic blast of "PR," are described as e-books anywhere from twice the length of a Maximum Rock'n'Roll feature article to a few chapters in a typical book...."

In the Engadget comments area, Nick Sweetman writes:

' Have you ever heard of this thing called attention span? It's when you actually get to '

IMHo predicts:

' Mark my words: in 2020 they will come out with Kindle Fractions, for page-and-a-half publications, because by then singles will be considered long and boring :) '

And, on a more serious note, jtnoel adds:

' Amazon is one of Dime Novel Publishing's distribution channels. In fact, we currently have close to 30 titles published (although Amazon does not provide publishers the ability to offer texts for free...unless you are one of the big guys).
The issue is about getting noticed. Publishers pushing short/serialized content through Amazon are, in short (no pun intended), lost in the shuffle. By breaking this out into its own model, there is a great opportunity for authors/publishers like us to get some real marketing push from Amazon. '

Dingus is amusing:

' The "Amazon Singles" name is all about branding. Because calling them "Amazon Short Stories" sounds like a comic from the '50s.
Also the acronym might not fly. '

And, on a note that might please Amazon and Singles-authors, Mark points out why this might work:

' There are probably a lot of awesome short stories by authors I love, that I don't read. Why? Because I don't want to buy compilations with other short stories I am not interested in reading. '

zippycart.com makes some good points:

' ...Others view Kindle Singles as a new revenue source [for writers]. Writers can now take a different approach, and create smaller books that have a more narrow focus.
It might take a year to write a traditional book, but Kindle Singles could be easily produced in two weeks to a month. This quick turn around time could allow writers a chance to sell more digital work, so they can have the money to allow them to spend time focusing on bigger books.
Other writers, on the other hand, may look at this as a new opportunity to carve out a unique niche, where they produce dozens of 30 to 90 page books. Either way, this new addition to the Kindle Store provides a great deal of opportunity for many. '

Technorati's Laura Zavelson writes:

' If viewed through a magazine/newspaper lens, this could be the first step in letting journalists and writers produce their own work rather than having to be on staff or go through the tedious pitch process. While the press release did not discuss the business model, there is also the possibility that writers might even be able to earn more for their work by going straight to distribution and bypassing the publishers.
... The newsstand price of a top consumer magazine runs about $5. What if you could spend less and just buy the articles you're interested in? Would you do it? '

TODAY'S ANNOUNCEMENT - January 26, 2011
Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content, said "This first set of Singles was selected by our team of editors, and includes works by Rich Cohen, Darin Strauss, Ian Ayres, and the first-ever books published by TED. We think customers will be riveted by these stories that can take them to a Swedish bank heist or to the Mexican border town of Juarez, or to consider a new way to think about happiness."

The new Kindle Singles section of the Kindle Store is now available at Amazon's kindlesingles page and are available to both Kindle device and app users.

View the original article here

Google subscription terms vs Apple's / Kindle for Android's subscription access

The New York Times's Claire Cain Miller reports on Google's announcement of their own periodical subscription offerings via its Google One Pass system.

Timed to contrast it against Apple's set of rules detailed in a much discussed press release Tuesday about Subscription-content apps for Apple devices, it offered the following:

' Publishers have control over how users can pay to access content and set their own prices. They can sell subscriptions of any length with auto-renewal, day passes (or other durations), individual articles or multiple-issue packages. Google One Pass also enables metered models '

There is a link on that page to their FAQ, which promises that, unlike conditions of Apple subscription apps:

"Publishers decide the price and terms of the content they choose to sell through Google One Pass."

Also, "Google One Pass will enable users to access content on connected, browser-enabled devices and from mobile apps where the mobile OS terms permit publishers to access the web via the app for Google One Pass transaction or authentication services."

In other words, this describes a WEB-subscription, which some columns yesterday said is more similar to a newspaper with a paywall. As the New York Times reports:

' When publishers use One Pass, which for now is limited to online newspapers and magazines, Google will keep 10 percent of the sale price and share the customer’s name, ZIP code and e-mail address unless the customer specifically asks Google not to. '

That sharing of customer information is important to publishers. Apple will share it with publishers only if the Apple customer permits it.

Q&A from today: How to find past appearances of a character in a book - Update

FROM THE KINDLE FORUMS, A QUESTION TODAY

Saw the following question on an Amazon Kindle forum today and thought it might be good to post the Q&A here as well. There are also good answers to new customers' questions on a number of common puzzlements in that thread.

Q: I have a kindle but I was wondering if there was a quicker way to go to the beginning of a book you are reading to review names from the previous pages. I have been using the back button but it takes a long time to find what you want to know. With a book you can just turn the pages. This happens frequently when you may not get back to what you are reading for days...

A: [There were several good answers at the forum. The one below was mine (slightly modified for the blog), but you might enjoy reading the other ones on that page too, and you can click on the forum link to see them.]

Update - The answer is for a Kindle 3 as there were several million new owners of these in the last few months. The steps for Kindle-2 and DX are on an earlier, separate page. End of Update

Here are the steps:

1. RIGHT on the page you're reading -
Start typing the the name of the character
whose previous appearances you
want to see again.
The searchbox will come up with your
typed name in it.
You then cursor down one step and then
cursor right one step to get "find"
as an option.
Click on that and wait for the usually
several results,
each surrounded by context and with
a link to the page that holds it.

2. If it's a complex name to type, then
Start a highlight on it instead.
Click on the 5-way button at the
beginning of the name, word or phrase
to start a highlight, and then
go to the right with the 5-way button until
you get the last letter of the name,
but -don't- click the 5-way button as
you might for an actual highlight.

Instead, press the spacebar to end it, and
that'll put the name into the
search box for you, and you can
go down one step and
go to the right one step
to get the 'find' option.

As CLS10, Bufo Calvin and others show, there are many different ways...

Getting back to the beginning of a book
As for how to get back to the beginning of a book, one can just -- as was pointed out in the forum thread -- press the Menu button and the default option will be "Go to..."

Click on that and you'll get the "Go to" box where you can cursor down one step and then cursor left to choose either "beginning" or even "cover."

Any tips you may have are always welcome in the Comments area.

View the original article here

Apple's Deadline for In-App $. European publishers alarmed. Booker Prize Judges to use Kindles.

WSJ quotes March 31 Apple deadline for newspaper and magazine apps to take payments through the iTunes store

The latest WSJ article, By Yukari Iwatani Kane and Jessica E. Vascellaro, is about a deadline that Apple has set for some digital editions.

People are wondering if the following will pertain to e-books as well, as seems to have happened with Sony this past week.

' ... Yudu, a U.K. developer of digital editions for publishers, said it recently was informed by Apple that newspaper and magazine apps that don't take payments through the iTunes store will be rejected, beginning March 31.
The company was alerted to the impending change when it applied for a new app and received an email outlining Apple's plans, Yudu Chief Executive Richard Stephenson said. '

Stephenson's company already meets the conditions and won't be affected but he said that others could be affected and that "The implications are fairly serious."

"European Publishers Plan London Summit To Discuss Apple’s New Subscription Rules"
The Cult of Mac website's John Brownlee wrote yesterday that several publishers across Europe are planning a summit in London to discuss "the threat."

' Describing themselves as feeling “betrayed”, the head of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (a body which represents almost 5,000 members in 80 countries worldwide) are planning to meet with the European Online Publishers Association to “compare notes” on Apple’s new rules.
Why are they so upset? Simple: they have already set up their magazine and newsreader apps to go through their websites, because Apple was refusing to offer an iTunes in-app subscription service. Now, Apple’s introducing such a service… while simultaneously threatening to kick out anyone who doesn’t use it. '

Gregorz Piechota, European resident of the INMA, explained that "Some say they feel betrayed. They believed that it would be a great way to access content from newspapers and magazines. So they hyped the iPad, and many of them invested in apps for it.”

“By promoting these apps, they promoted the device. Publishers in fact helped to make the iPad successful on the market.”

Brownlee can see their point. When all along, they'd clamored for an iOS subscription service but Apple wouldn’t comply, they built their digital businesses around external website payment options. "Now Apple has changed everything and is playing hardball with these same publishers who embraced the iPad and iOS despite some of the operating system’s drawbacks. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out."

Booker Prize Judges will Test Drive Kindle
I found this an interesting development.
The Independent's Arifa Akbar writes today that this year's Booker Prize judges will be given the Amazon Kindle, to help them read the ~130 titles they'll be judging for the Fall awards. They'll get the paper copies also.

' Ion Trewin, literary director of the Booker prizes, who had the idea to send out Kindles along with a physical copy of the submitted books, does not dispute that the e-read will be different from a paper one.
"I want to help the judges who have an awful lot to read. If it helps that they want to read the entries electronically, we should make that possible for them. I will be very interested once the judges start using them, whether they like them or don't like them," says Trewin.

The article examines the many possible pitfalls of using an e-reader this time.

Trewin and others feel that the look and feel of a book has an important impact on the reading experience and that a book loses a certain allure when it's in digital format.

"The judges will receive their books in both forms this year, but there is a fear that the Booker's hailing of electronic reading might set the ground, in years to come, for an eventual replacement."

Book-prize administrators, Akbar writes, are

' not leading the way in reading habits. They are responding to the sea-change which has seen Amazon sell more books for its Kindle (UK: K3) device in America than paperbacks in the last three months of 2010.
"E-readers are being spawned every day and only a Luddite would suggest that Kindles are detrimental to literary culture: it is a great thing to have people reading books – in whatever form. Yet a convenient read does not necessarily equate to a better, more thoughtful one, as this year's judges may discover. '

It always amazes me how little faith many who are wary of the trend toward digital editions have in the WORDS of the author. The distractions of a nice cover, the type of paper, and the smell of ink seem to take on more importance for them than what the author was thinking and hoped to convey while writing the book.

That doesn't mean I don't prize paper books; I do, for the books that mean the most to me. It's natural to want to touch a book that has so much to say to you, but I don't see why paper and digital versions can't co-exist, though there'll be relatively fewer print versions than we have now.

View the original article here

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Kindle forum discussions. Also, an article about a first novel at age 86

KINDLE FORUM TALK AND AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON A NEWISH KINDLE AUTHOR

Forum message-thread loading problems
Since there will be links to Amazon Kindle forum conversations here, I'll repeat a note I've been adding recently when pointing people to the Kindle forums.

NOTE: If your web browser (Firefox, IE, or Chrome) drops you onto the Amazon forum list of topics instead of bringing you to the forum thread, click on Refresh or Reload to get the message thread itself -- or click on the link again. I don't know why a 'retry' is often needed, but it is.

I found out that the above IS a problem for others on the forums, as a message thread was made about it last night and a regular, Dragi Raos, who's involved with the very thorough Unofficial Kindle Support website, mentioned he'd made an earlier discussion topic on that oddness in November. Other regular helpers on the forums such as ShirleyKat have been seeing the problem, so I guess we'll let Amazon know via feedback email. It's merely very annoying, but when a reader clicks on a link here to a recommended Kindle forum discussion and people are just left at the topic-list page (where the topic may not even be showing on the front page), that's awkward.

So the note in red above should be remembered. Just reload or refresh the page and you should ultimately get the discussion text.

Kindle and unexpected effect on young people with reading problems
A discussion on how the Kindle had unexpectedly helped young family members with reading difficulties caught my eye. It had been started some time ago, and the latest posters had not realized they were adding to an older thread. But the information remains helpful for some.

News article on the Kindle leather cover without built-in light
Attention was brought again yesterday to the fact that an Amazon Kindle cover (the non-lighted one sold for $35) has been responsible for problems with the Kindle 3 over the Winter. Some have thought it was due to the winter cold and static discharges while others have felt it was a problem only for certain batches of the cover. I've seen discussions on this at Facebook also. The problems and Amazon's response were explained here in mid-December.

Amazon Kindle Forum thread with questions on choosing the cover with a light
Many have wondered about which cover to order then, and a recent forum thread discussed whether or not getting the lighted Amazon Kindle-3 cover is a good choice.

Aside from that, those seeking a less-expensive one or an interim one until making a decision can try the Acase cover for considerably less cost or take a look at other options.

First novel at age 86
A happier item is seen in an article written by Megan Lea Buck for the Midland Reporter-Telegram. Here is the item which tickled me:

' Fern Crume admits she is not familiar with the latest technology. Sitting on an airplane last November, she watched as the woman sitting beside her pulled a small, tablet-like computer out of her bag. Curious about the gadget, Crume watched the woman turn on her Amazon Kindle and flip to the front cover of a new book.
At this point the woman noticed Crume's gaze and asked her if she had read the book, a romance novel entitled, "Love is Never Late."
Crume laughed and, much to her neighbor's disbelief, replied "I wrote that book."
Published in October, "Love is Never Late" is the 86-year-old Midlander's first novel. '

Buck started writing the novel while caring for her late husband. Finding it difficult to find a book that was 'uplifting' she felt she could do better. Later on, she completed a manuscript in just three weeks and submitted it to Tate Publishing, which she found online. She was offered a contract and then another for the next book.

"Love is Never Late" is only 124 pages long and she had intentionally gone for a length that wouldn't take more than two hours to read, as that's what she'd wanted earlier. It's fiction although it's based on her experience caring for her husband of 63 years after he was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer's disease.

I liked the newspaper story about her first novel being published at 86, but I have to say that the price chosen is very high, for a 124-page book. Maybe quality trumps quantity. It may be worth getting a sample anyway. There are no reviews on the book yet.

View the original article here

Notion Ink Adam Tablet vs Kindle & an LCD tablet in sunlight. Kindle for webOS.

NOTION INK'S ADAM, WITH PIXEL QI, VS KINDLE AND PANDIGITAL NOVEL IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT

The long awaited Adam Tablet by Notion Ink has a combo display of LCD switchable with an E-Paper display, with backlighting Off.

Good E-Reader Blog has a report and VIDEO and I've linked you to the larger YouTube one.

Here's an image-link to another, separate video, by Charbax, that also shows the e-paper display with backlight off. When the backlight is On, the display is a sort of light blue-gray in the videos. Nevertheless, both videos show reflections from the glass from the lighting above.

The first video gives you an idea of how the Adam looks in direct sunlight and how it compares with the e-ink and LCD displays.

They were disappointed to see that the dual layer of glass that it uses was "highly reflective in the sun, and even the matted screen protector is pretty useless."

' Our first comparison is with the Amazon Kindle and the Notion Ink Adam in Pixel QI mode. We give you a great visual example of how the Adam ranks against one of the premier e-ink based electronic readers. We have to give the advantage in this test to the Amazon Kindle.
The next comparison we show is how the Notion Ink Adam ranks with the Pandigital Novel 9 inch edition. This test is mainly ... to show how Pixel QI in the Adam compares to the standard LCD based tablet and e-reader combination found in most competing devices. We have to decide this contest in favor of the Adam, as the LCD was unreadable in direct sunlight. '

AMAZON ANNOUNCES KINDLE FOR PALM's webOS IS COMING
This is in connection with HP's Palm webOS press conference today.
Of special interest was the last part of the following statement:

' "We're working with Amazon to bring HP customers the free Kindle app and, along with it, the largest selection of the most popular books," said Jon Oakes, director, TouchPad Product Marketing, HP. "TouchPad's beautiful, fully featured Kindle app supports the Kindle features users already know and love, and it's one of the first Kindle applications to support the latest Kindle features like Collections." '

Collections. That last is key and I hope it shows up soon in the Kindle for PC and for Mac etc.

View the original article here

The Amazon Trade-in Program - 3 stores - Update

THE AMAZON TRADE-IN PROGRAM
This includes Movies & TV, Paper Books and Textbooks, Video Games

In general, the program enables customers to send in items to a third-party merchant in exchange for an Amazon.com Gift Card.

Amazon's Trade-in Program enables you to send in items to a third party merchant in exchange for an Amazon.com Gift Card and includes DVDs, Blu-ray discs, or HDDVDs; eligible used books and college textbooks matching editions wanted and which are in good condition; and video games in good working condition.

USED BOOKS (Paper)
Plus a side note on the book highlighted in Amazon's current ad for that

I personally didn't realize Amazon has a trade-in program for used paper books. The current Amazon used-book ad (see image at top left here) happens to show a more unusual book that I actually bought (there is no Kindle version): Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940.

This was during the years when The Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect.

There are side-notes explaining references made in most of the poems (translated to English), interesting historical photographs, and some memories from some who made it through and later became citizens.

For the few who might be interested in what that era and place was like for those getting off the boats and onto the West Coast's equivalent of Ellis Island, I made a recent photo gallery (Intro here)

of a day spent visiting Angel Island's newly restored Immigration Station detention barracks, where the Chinese immigrants were, by design, held much longer (weeks or months or even two years, instead of 2 days) until they could answer questions satisfactorily or be sent home, and it was found that many of the men carved poems of dispair on the walls, which were often painted over.

Some of the carvings (discovered one night in an inspection by Park Ranger Alexander Weiss touring the barracks with a flashlight) are now on display, with many of them reproduced and translated in this book along with history of the time, place, and of some of the people involved. The intro to my photo-set, linked above, leads to the full photo gallery, for those interested in the exhibition of life in the barracks.

The detention areas were restored only a couple of years ago as a historical exhibition of the immigration station, which was on, ironically, a quite beautiful island. At least one current docent in his 80s entered the U.S. as a child during that time when relatives of many of us arrived at the Station with their parents.

The rated "Most Helpful" customer review of the book gives a good synopsis, while the first poem he cites reminds me of how many of us use our Kindles today.

BACK TO THE AMAZON TRADING PROGRAM
For more information, see the Help pages listed on Trade-in Program home page and visit the following Trade-In stores for:

. Movies & TV
. Textbooks and
. Video Games.

Here's the Trade-in Program FAQ

STUDENTS AND TEXTBOOKS
I'm not sure many students and parents are aware of this program. Amazon recently sent out an email on this that included: "Students, no matter where you bought your textbooks you can get up to 60% back when you sell them at Amazon.com's Book & Textbook Buyback Store."

IF ONLY
If only Amazon and the publishers would add a trade-in program for Kindle books...
(Coming to my mind from a ~~Beatles~~ John Lennon song right now:
You can say, I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one...)

(Thanks to Stuart for the correction.)

On-topic note about the Kindle
In the meantime, you might enjoy the latest online newspaper column of the "No Kindle for me!" type. Laura Moyer rightly worries about the effect of the Kindle on brick and morter bookstores.

View the original article here

New Kindle game: Flip It! and Apple iStore rejects Sony E-books App - UPDATE2

FLIP IT!, a new Kindle app.

Flip It!, a new Kindle game by 7 Dragons, was released yesterday. Watch for more from them. p See UPDATE below

It's a brainteaser of a puzzle that reminds me, actually, of how e-Ink works.

In the game, you're presented tiles that are either black or white. Click on one to flip the color.
Goal 1: Flip the tiles so that all of them display as white.

As with other Kindle games, there are several levels of play and 7 Dragons's product description tells us that the puzzle seems simple in the beginning but gets more challenging as you go, exercising your mind as you "enjoy solving various patterns and puzzles."

The twist: "When clicking on a tile to 'flip' its color, all tiles touching the selected tile's four sides will also flip their colors." As you move to the next level, you're given more squares and patterns.

Goal 2: Beat your earlier "times" or complete a puzzle with fewer moves and complete all levels with the fewest number of flips.

UPDATE - Feb 3, 2011 - 12:49 PM - Just received this info from Abhi of 7 Dragons: Hints:
"If anyone gets stuck at a particular level they can go to http://kappreview.com/flip-it-hints/ for hints and walkthroughs. And can leave comments for help if the walkthroughs don't solve their question."

APPLE REJECTS SONY'S E-BOOK APP - HOW DOES IT AFFECT KINDLE & NOOK APPS
The New York Times reports, in an article by Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft, that Apple has actually rejected Sony's iPhone app, which as the Kindle and Nook apps do, lets people read e-books bought from the e-reader company's store.

The NYT report further says that Apple has told other application developers the same.

'...they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store ... from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. '

Obviously, as the NYT points out, this could affect the Amazon Kindle app. ~~Apple's~~ Sony's Haber explained:

' "It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Mr. Haber said. “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store." '

Currently, if a company app has the customer purchasing e-books or other products within the Apple app itself, Apple gets 30% of the revenue, something Amazon and B&N would not be willing to do. Instead, the apps are used to browse their stores and then the the apps are closed and customers' web browsers are opened so they can do the purchases, apart from the Apple application, at the company's own e-book store.

It's been seen that the iBook store has only about 30,000 non-public domain books and 30,000 free public domain ones. Amazon has over 810,000 titles, 16,000 of which are free public-domain books. Barnes and Noble's total counts Google's 1.5 million free public domain books (which are easily convertible to Kindle format). As a result, most iPad owners are reported, in studies, to be using the Kindle app to buy e-books at Amazon than are using the iPad's own iBook Store.

I don't see how not allowing Amazon's app will help sell iPad 2 when all the Android tablets being readied for release will let customers use ALL apps from online e-book stores (except Apple's of course, since Apple's will run only on its own products).

But if Apple doesn't allow other e-bookstores onto its iPhone or other products, without a revenue kickback, but allows the Kindle and Nook apps to stay on their devices, won't the other online bookstores be able to pursue action against what they'd consider a form of business favoritism that's not justifiable if the rules are different for each online bookstore?

Miller and Helft point out Apple has made more money selling hardware than music, e-books or apps and that the current attraction of access to more content from more sources sells more Apple devices.

They find the move surprising, as "Apple has indicated recently that it would be more collaborative, not less, with magazine publishers and other content producers that want more control over how to distribute content on the iPad."

James L. McQuivey, a consumer electronics analyst at Forrester Research, is quoted on this: "...Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device.”

So, Apple moves to an ever-more closed system? I don't see this working with the myriad of Android devices coming to market. The draw was the humongous number of apps available for the Apple devices. But if the e-bookstores with the best access to e-books are shut out, how does that make the iPhone or iPad attractive as a non-dedicated e-reader in the now intense and fast-growing market for e-books?

Maybe, Apple will set a 5% or 10% take for themselves on other online-ebookstore purchases using their devices, and the online e-bookstores accepting this would have an advantage with the number of customers able to access their stores on the millions of iPhones and iPads. But at 30% for Apple? Not likely! Or, it would eventually be another method by which Apple will help raise e-book prices.

UPDATE - February 1, 2011, at 12:22 PM (Orig'l posting at 11:30 AM)
MyKindleStuff posted an ArsTechnica article quoting Apple on its new policy toward other online e-bookstores and it doesn't look good. In the article, headlined: "Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales," Jacqui Cheng reports that Apple replies:

' "We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines," Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Ars. "We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.
. . .
Many feared that this supposed change in Apple policy would take their e-books away from their iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches.
Apple's second statement indicates that this is indeed the case—sort of. If an app lets users access content that they purchased via Amazon's website, for example, then that same app must also let users buy the same book via Apple's own in-app purchase system. If the app developer doesn't want to use Apple's in-app purchases to sell content, then the app can't access content purchased elsewhere either.
. . .
' Amazon has already gone all-in with its "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" tagline, so it probably can't afford to back out of the iOS platform now. The alternative appears to be a user interface nightmare: re-structuring its sales mechanisms in order to allow customers to buy from both Amazon and Apple (a move that will chafe Amazon execs) or from Apple alone (even more chafing).

Apple is saying that other stores' e-books apps must "ALSO" allow its users to buy the same book via Apple's own in-app purchase system.

However, Big5 publisher pricing, that Apple encouraged, would be the same at all online e-stores (also known as fixed-pricing), but Apple would get 30% of the purchase price when the e-book is bought via their devices. This is a rule made after Apple had helped bring about non-competitive pricing that the other online e-bookstores must follow.

Again, for a history of that see Apple/Big5 history.

Loyal Apple customers would buy from the Apple store, of course, as it's easier to just buy it from within the app and the pricing would be the same. I don't see that as acceptable to the other online book stores. Ars Technica says Sony has tried to negotiate a "more equitable solution" but Apple's not moving.

Upshot: Apple would be devaluing its own devices as non-dedicated readers at a time when Android devices are overtaking the Apple ones already.

This may be a reason Apple has made this decision, though I don't see it as a real plus for them; it'll drive people from iOS *to* Android devices.

View the original article here