Why should I provide my email address?

Start saving money today with our FREE daily newsletter packed with the best FREE and bargain Kindle book deals. We will never share your email address!
Sign Up Now!

How Much Money is Publishing’s BS Cabal Leaving on the Table? 10 Million eReaders to Be Shipped in 2010, Says Leading Display Manufacturer PVI

By Stephen Windwalker
(Originally posted February 4, 2010 at Kindle Nation Daily – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010)

Prime View International (PVI), the Taiwanese company that bought Cambridge, MA-based eInk last year and is the leading manufacturer of display components used in the Kindle and several other ereaders, anticipates now that as many as 10 million ereaders could be shipped in 2010, reports Digitimes’ Susie Pan from Taipei. Prior to this statement by PVI chairman Scott Liu, most estimates of 2010 ereader shipments have been around 6 million.

It is not known whether PVI’s projections are intended to include figures for 2010 shipments of non-dedicated devices such as Apple’s new iPad, which is slated to begin shipping in late March and by some accounts could account for sales in the 3 to 5 million unit range in 2010.


So, if the US book publishing industry’s BS Cabal (the Big Six publishers and Apple’s Steve Jobs) continue to base their strategies on a belief that they can resist the ebook revolution and pursue collusive  anti-consumer pricing and content withholding schemes, one wonders:

  • How much money they will leave on the table before they get it?
  • How many independent and/or traditionally published authors will just decide to connect directly with new technology platforms like the Kindle’s Digital Text Platform in order to make their books available and cut out the middle men so that they can enjoy all of the coming 70 percent royalties?
  • How many readers will reject the traditional publishers’ roles as gatekeepers and arbiters of taste, gradually shift their attentions to more and more independent authors and publishers?

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Thursday, February 4, 2010:

Devotions for Lent


  
The Apothecary’s Daughter by Julie Klassen (Jan 1, 2009)

Talk of the Town Lisa Wingate (Mar 1, 2008)

Daisy Chain (Defiance Texas Trilogy, Book 1) Mary E. DeMuth (Mar 1, 2009)

Peculiar Treasures (The Katie Weldon Series #1) Robin Jones Gunn (Apr 1, 2008)

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith Rob Bell (Jul 1, 2006)

Icy Heat: A Heat series story by Leigh Wyndfield

John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken (Jun 7, 2007)

His Lady Mistress
Slow Hands (Harlequin Blaze)

 

Coming to the Kindle: A Flexible Color Touch Screen?

Via a tweet from Bufo Calvin, here’s a potentially exciting rumor that is being reported today by the New York Times’ Nick Bilton and Brad Stone on their Bits technology blog:

In a sign that Amazon wants to upgrade its Kindle e-reader to compete head-on with the Apple iPad, Amazon has acquired Touchco, a New York-based start-up specializing in touch-screen technology, a person briefed on the deal said Wednesday.

According to Engadget, “the startup claims its interpolating force-sensitive resistance tech can be made completely transparent, works with color LCDs, and can detect ‘an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points’ as well as distinguish between a finger and stylus.”

There are a lot of cool Kindle developments coming our way in the next few months, but this acquisition strongly suggests that a little further out we may see a color touchscreen on the Kindle. Apparently the tiny Touchco staff is being merged with Amazon’s Lab 126 unit of Kindle engineers in Cupertino, CA.

Here’s a link to a few minutes of video on Touchco’s technology:

Did Amazon Just Blink on eBook Pricing? "Ultimately … we will have to capitulate," says company

By Stephen Windwalker

As customers and members of Kindle Nation, we can’t pick Amazon’s battles. Amazon’s Kindle Team has posted this message on the Kindle community forums within the past hour, strongly suggesting that the company does not expect to have a strategy for fighting back if publishers insist on pricing ebooks at $12.99 to $14.99. We’ll see, and I hope you will share your opinion with Amazon directly on the forums and also in comment form below:

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.

Permalink 

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Make Sure You Are Receiving Your Kindle Nation Daily Subscription

Every once in a while I receive an email from a Kindle Nation citizen expressing concern because she’s not receiving daily posts of Kindle Nation Daily pushed directly to her Kindle, and after receiving both of these messages from Jill and Heather in a 24-hour period, I felt it was time for a post.

Hello,

I had to cancel my subscription to the “pushed” Kindle Nation because I stopped receiving them around the end of December.  I put in a question to Amazon about this problem but didn’t yet receive a response – any ideas  I also had unsubscribed and resubscribed I still wasn’t receiving them.  I have now once again “unsubscribed”.

I so enjoy the updates and would really like to resubscribe.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Jill

***********

Hello,

I hope my e-mail finds you well. I am a subscriber to the Kindle Nation Daily blog and remember reading in one of the updates that the system was having some issues with wirelessly delivering the blogs to Kindle. I have not received a Kindle Nation blog on my Kindle since December 27. Has this issue been resolved? 

Thank you for your help.

Heather


Thanks, Jill, and thanks, Heather, for writing. 


While this problem does seem to crop up from time to time, it’s a Kindle system problem that can, in most cases, be easily addressed. As I write this, there have been 47 Kindle Nation Daily posts so far in the first 18 days of January, and all of them have been pushed to thousands of Kindles whose owners are subscribers to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily


If you are a subscriber and you ever notice you’ve gone a couple of days without receiving your Kindle Nation Daily posts on your Kindle, I suggest following these steps:

  1. Try a system restart using the steps below (rather than holding the Kindle power switch to the right). In many cases this will resolve some minor issue that is blocking new blog content from downloading wirelessly to your Kindle. (Here’s a previous post on this subject). Then use the Home screen menu to select “Sync & Check for Items.” If all is well, you should see the blog on your Kindle home screen within an hour or two.
  2. If that doesn’t work, go to your Manage Your Kindle Subscriptions page and make sure that Kindle Nation Daily shows up in the listing of Your Active Kindle Subscriptions. If Kindle Nation Daily shows up under Your Inactive Kindle Subscriptions, click the “reactivate subscription” link to the right of the listing. You may have to update credit card information.
  3. If another hour passes and you still haven’t received fresh Kindle Nation Daily posts on your Kindle, contact Kindle Support via the web or by calling 1-866-321-8851. To ensure that the support personnel on the other end aren’t confused, I suggest giving them the exact name and ASIN number of the blog (Kindle Nation Daily – B0029U1A08), and insisting that you know other customers — like me, for instance — who are receiving new posts.
I hope this helps, and please let me know if you’re still having problems afterward!


Step-by-Step: Kindle System Restart
  1. Make sure your Kindle is on.*
  2. Disconnect the Kindle from the USB or Power Adapter cable.
  3. Press the Home button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  4. From the Home screen, press the Menu button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  5. Select “Settings” from the Home Menu.
  6. From the Settings page, press the Menu button again.
  7. Select “Restart” from the Setting Menu.
  8. Wait a couple of minutes for your Kindle to Restart, then give your Kindle another few minutes to update files, blog posts, etc.

*If your Kindle does not come on, or seems frozen, connect it via its Power Adapter to a wall outlet and give it an hour to re-energize itself.

Price Breakdown on Kindle Store’s 300,000 Books as of June 11


Kindle Books Priced at $0.00 – 7,409 Titles

Kindle Books Price from $0.01 to $0.98 – 7.956 Titles

Kindle Books Priced at $0.99 – 21,159 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $1.00 to $2.99 – 37,202 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $3.00 to $4.99 – 47,217 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $5.00 to $7.49 – 27,729 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $7.50 to $9.98 – 25,039 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced at $9.99 – 44,230 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $10.00 to $14.99 – 6,919 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $15.00 to $19.99 – 10,120 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $20.00 to $29.99 – 3,681 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $30.00 to $39.99 – 12,545 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $40.00 to $49.99 – 7,078 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $50.00 to $99.99 – 22,272 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $100.00 to $199.99 – 17,797 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $200.00 to $999.99 – 2,032 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $1000.00 to $6431.20 – 32 Titles

Free Books in the Kindle Store

“Big Deals” on Kindle web page