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!

Amazon Allows Kindle Owners to Set a Charge Limit for Transmission of Personal Documents

If, like me, you frequently send full-length book manuscripts or other large files to your Kindle for its reading and annotation convenience, you may not be aware that Amazon makes it easy for Kindle owners to manage the wireless transmission costs involved and avoid the kind of unexpectedly large charges that can occur, for instance, if you inadvertently send (or receive) a text document that is embedded with a lot of full-color graphics or other multimedia elements or send (or receive) a large document while traveling internationally with your Kindle.

Amazon generally charges wireless transmission fees of 15 cents per megabyte (rounded up) for sending personal documents to your Kindle via the Whispernet; or 99 cents for U.S. Kindle owners traveling internationally. To set a Personal Document Charge Limit, go to your Manage Your Kindle page and scroll down to the heading that reads “Your Personal Document Charge Limit.”

As noted there you can then set a maximum charge anywhere from $0.00 to $49.50, and any personal document exceeding this charge will be sent to your you@free.kindle.com address and a notification will be sent to your Kindle.

Click here for more information about sending files to your Kindle from a pre-approved email address.

Here’s Your Live Link to an Archived Copy of the Latest Edition (April 20) of Kindle Nation’s Free Weekly Email Newsletter & Digest of Kindle Nation Daily Posts

Greetings from Kindle Nation!

Even with the remnants of some post-operative medication, I’m pretty sure that it’s time for a fresh issue of our free weekly Kindle Nation newsletter. So, it’s nice to see you again, and here we go.

Thanks to all of you who have been in touch to wish me well or offer assistance. I’m pleased to report that the recovery is going splendidly and I’m actually contemplating a walk to Arlington Center sometime after I cross my final “t” and dot my final “i” on this week’s issue.

Speaking of which, it’s probably in those details of typographical correctness that I may fall short of your expectations this week, and I appreciate your indulgence and any available relaxation of standards should you spot such errors. As of a couple of days ago I was a little concerned about the quantity and quality of Kindle Nation content this week, but then I remembered that in a few of the first issues of this newsletter I actually made promises to limit its weekly length to no more than 1,000 words! All I better say on that subject now is that I have run this week’s entire issue through my Google Docs “word count” calculator and, well, let’s just not go there….

Cheers,
Steve

To read, the entire issue in our Kindle Nation Archives, just click here.

 Contents:
Available Now in Kindle Store with Buzzworthy Publishing Details: “Blockade Billy,” Stephen King’s Macabre New Novella With a Baseball Backdrop
Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert: “Living Organized,” Leslie Parrott’s “The First Drop of Rain,” “The Divine Commodity,” and Dozens More
U.S. Kindle Store Surpasses Half a Million Book Titles
Bestselling Author M.C. Beaton Offers eBook Exclusives of Two Previously Out-of-Print Historical Romance Series, “Six Sisters” and “The Traveling Matchmaker.” in the Kindle Store
Welcome to the Kindle Team, Scott Ambrose Reilly, and Here’s a Job for Week 1: How to Make Kindle Periodicals Much More Inviting for Subscribers and Publishers
Categories Uncategorized Tags

"Blockade Billy," Stephen King’s Macabre New Novella with a Baseball Backdrop, Available Now in the Kindle Store with Buzz-worthy Publication Details


By Stephen Windwalker
Originally posted April 20, 2010

Ur, Er, Play Ball!

Stephen King has served up a nice fat pitch for Kindle owners to hit out of the park with what appears for now to be the Kindle-only publication of a macabre new novella with a baseball backdrop, and the details of the release — discussed below — are likely to create serious buzz among readers, authors, publishers, and retailers. (Update: Blockade Billy is beginning to turn up at various prices at other ebook venues including Sony and B&N, but is still unavailable at the iBooks Store).




Kindle owners may remember Mr. King, a novelist who makes his home in Bangor, Maine, but spends many hours each Spring, Summer, and Fall in a pretty good seat at Boston’s Fenway Park. A little over 14 months ago King traveled to New York to appear on stage with Jeff Bezos for the launching event of the Kindle 2 and of Ur, a novella that featured excellent product placement for a Kindle that was, perhaps to some tastes, pretty in pink.

Later in 2009, Kindle-packing King fans were disappointed when King’s bestseller Under the Dome was one of the first books to be “windowed,” i.e., withheld in ebook format to give its hardcover launch a better chance. Today’s announcement of the Kindle availability of Blockade Billy, five weeks ahead of the book’s scheduled May 25 hardcover release, suggests an instance of reverse windowing that is unlikely to be upsetting to Kindle readers.

It appears that King has bifurcated or trifurcated his negotiation of book contracts for Blockade Billy, and published the Kindle edition under his own Storyville imprint, for which the only other Kindle publication has been Ur. Amazon has, at this point, discounted Blockade Billy‘s hardcover pre-order price by 33% from $14.99 to $10.11, and set a Kindle price of $7.99. Amazon’s product pages for the novella show Storyville as the Kindle-format publisher, no publisher line for the forthcoming hardcover, and Simon & Schuster as the publisher for a forthcoming audio CD release, scheduled for May 25 at a price of $19.99.

In addition to the discounted hardcover, Amazon’s news release and its website reference a limited edition hardcover that may have already sold out at a $25 price from tiny Maryland-based horror publisher Cemetery Dance Publications, with illustrations by Alex McVey.  The product page for the Kindle edition shows that the Kindle’s text-to-speech feature is enabled for Blockade Billy.

Under the Dome, one of the books at the center of a price war between Amazon and some big-box retailers last fall, was widely discounted then to prices below $10 in both its hardcover and ebook formats. Its Kindle edition is currently priced at $16.99 under the agency model, with a hardcover price discounted from $35 to $20 and paperback pre-orders discounted from $19.99 to $13.99 ahead of their July 6 release.

Your humble reporter’s initial research indicates that, as of 9 a.m. April 20, 2010, Blockade Billy is not available in Apple’s iBooks Store. That could change at any time, and Amazon’s news release does not refer to the novella as a Kindle exclusive. (Update: Blockade Billy is beginning to turn up at various prices at other ebook venues including Sony and B&N, but is still unavailable at the iBooks Store).


However, as long as Blockade Billy effectively remains a Kindle exclusive, not only is it likely to help Amazon sell Kindles but, just as importantly, it is likely that to drive iPad owners to the Kindle for iPad app and increase public awareness that the Kindle Store provides iPad owners with a free catalog-rich, convenient “No Kindle Required” reading environment.

Here’s the guts of today’s news release from Amazon:

Bestselling and Iconic Author Stephen King Publishes New Novella “Blockade Billy,” Available in the Kindle Store

 

Kindle customers can now download Stephen King’s “Blockade Billy” and begin reading in under 60 seconds
 
SEATTLE, Apr 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that the new novella by bestselling author Stephen King, “Blockade Billy,” is now available in Amazon’s Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) for $7.99. The Kindle Store now includes over 480,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York TimesBestsellersand New Releases. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle, including titles such as “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Treasure Island.”

“We’re excited to be able to offer our customers Stephen King’s new novella in the Kindle Store, especially after seeing customer enthusiasm for King’s Kindle-exclusive novella ‘UR,'” said Melissa Kirmayer, Director, Kindle Content. “‘Blockade Billy,’ a shorter format book with a limited physical print run, is not only a great example of the publishing freedom Kindle allows writers, but also the rich content Kindle customers can find in the Kindle Store.”

“Blockade Billy” tells the story of William “Blockade Billy” Blakely. He may have been the greatest baseball player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first–and only–player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game’s history. Blockade Billy has a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse… and only Stephen King can reveal the truth to the world, once and for all. Publishers Weekly writes of the book: “As King’s fiction goes . . . a deftly executed suicide squeeze, with sharp spikes hoisted high and aimed at the jugular on the slide home.”

The Kindle edition of “Blockade Billy” features both the cover illustration by Glen Orbik and the interior artwork of Alex McVey from the limited-edition hardcover published by Cemetery Dance Publications.

Stephen King has written more than 40 books, including “Misery,” “The Green Mile,” “Cujo,” “IT” and “Carrie.” He is the winner of numerous awards, including the Bram Stoker Award, O. Henry Award, Horror Guild Award and was the 2003 recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

“Kindle is a great way for authors to make different lengths of their writing available and to reach diverse audiences with their work,” said Stephen King. “I’m excited to be able to offer ‘Blockade Billy’ in the Kindle Store.”

Kindle is in stock and available for immediate shipment today at www.amazon.com/kindle

10% Off Kindle Prices on Amazon Marketplace — Are Kindle Owners Jumping Ship?

There probably aren’t enough Kindles available at these discounts for the prices to last for long, but it seems worth mentioning here that it’s a pretty good time to pick up a new or used Kindle at a discount price through Amazon Marketplace.

Are some Kindle owners jumping ship for the iPad or other devices? It’s possible, and we are seeing some offerings of the latest generation global wireless 6″ Kindle at prices in the $230 to $240 range, alongside Amazon’s own $259 direct retail price. With Amazon Marketplace quantities extremely limited, further price fluctuations are very likely, but I’ll post the applicable links below so that you can check for yourself.

As always, special care is necessary on the front end of such transactions to make sure that you are buying the Kindle you want, in the condition you want, from a seller who inspires your trust. That being said, Amazon offers considerable support to buyers in its Amazon Marketplace program.

One thing that may be keeping some Kindle owners from jumping ship, ironically, is that there is some misleading information being passed around about the hardware requirements for buying and reading Kindle content with the free Kindle for iPad app. “Unless you have a Kindle, you cannot send yourself books so you are limited to the Amazon Kindle store content and any previously purchased content can’t be read using the Kindle App,” says the usually reliable Dear Author website in a purported review of the free Kindle for iPad app and other iPad-compatible reading venues that is also referenced at Teleread.

The fact of the matter, of course, is that all of the Kindle apps (for the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the PC, the Mac, and the Blackberry) are “No Kindle Required” apps that work just fine whether you have a Kindle — or have ever had a Kindle — or not.

Meanwhile, it’s also worth following up on our earlier mention of the fact that, with continued shipping delays (currently 5 to 7 days) of the the wifi iPad at the Apple Store and postponement of the 3G iPad’s ship date from “late April” to “May 7,” there are brisk sales of those models — at premium prices — among Amazon Marketplace sellers. As of the afternoon of Monday, April 19, the iPad family is represented at the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists for Tablet Computers:

Around the Kindlesphere, April 19, 2010: Participate in The New Yorker’s Live "Ask the Author" Session with Ken Auletta on Jeff Bezos, the Kindle, and Amazon

This week’s New Yorker magazine has a fascinating piece by author Ken Auletta on the Kindle and the iPad, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, and Amazon and Apple.

The magazine is also holding what’s sure to be an interesting “Ask the Author” session to follow up the piece this Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 3 p.m. EDT. You can participate by navigating to http://bit.ly/AulettaQAKindle. Kind of makes me wonder which Thursday afternoon session will be more interesting, the New Yorker’s or Amazon’s live quarterly earnings conference call that’s scheduled to be webcast the same afternoon at 5 p.m.

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Monday, April 19: "Living Organized," Leslie Parrott’s "The First Drop of Rain," "The Divine Commodity," and Dozens More

Three new free listings in the Kindle Store this Monday morning!
by Sandra Felton
4.5 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
by Leslie Parrott 

The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity
by Skye Jethani
4.6 out of 5 stars  (16 customer reviews)

Saving Sailor: A Novel

Saving Sailor: A Novel

U.S. Kindle Store Surpasses Half a Million Book Titles

The ebook catalog in Amazon’s Kindle Store for U.S. customers has just passed half a million titles. Here’s a link to the Kindle Store’s book listings, which numbered 500,461 as of 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, April 18, 2010. There were fewer than 90,000 Kindle books when Amazon launched the Kindle on November 19, 2007.

Adjust free public domain titles out of the titles listed for both venues, and this leaves the Kindle Store with, roughly, a 16-to-1 advantage over the commercial title listings of what is now seen as its leading ebook retailing rival, Apple’s iBooks Store. (This extrapolation is based on the fact that Apple launched its iBooks Store with 60,000 titles, half of them free public domain titles; the figure may have grown since but the iBooks Store is not available for the kinds of search, browse, and sort functions that would make it easy to check).

Although some might use that temporary metrics gap as a basis for concluding that this much-hyped rivalry is rather like the rivalry between the hammer and the nail, that’s not how I see it.

The iPad is a lovely and — from the point of view of a competitor — formidable ebook reading environment, and here at Kindle Nation Daily and our sister site iPad Nation Daily we’ll continue to cover and illuminate its reading-friendly features with various applications including the free Kindle apps, iBooks, and other apps. Continued competition is bound to improve both companies’ devices and their reading and listening apps, and we’ll be paying close attention and making plenty of suggestions along the way. From where I sit, each company needs the other, but more on that later.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Amazon issues a news release on this major benchmark, or lets the news pass quietly in the night.