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Kindle Nation Daily Readers’ Alert for Wednesday, May 19: Larsson, Sittenfeld, Summerscale, Russo, Steiner — Reading Guides and Book Group Specials in the Kindle Store

Whether you are trying to decide on your book group’s next selection or looking for good discussion questions to stimulate your strictly personal reading interest, you may find value in the Reading Group Guides, Free Excerpt Downloads, and other supplements that Amazon provides with many Kindle books.

Guides and excerpts are  generally provided as PDF files that can be read directly on some Kindles or converted to flowable Kindle-compatible text if you email the file to your you@kindle.com or you@free.kindle.com email address with “convert” in the subject line of the email. You can also download a free sample from any Kindle book at its Kindle Store product page.

Here are some recent selections with Kindle and other reading options for your fellow book group members:

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
$10.88 in paperback; $9.99 in Kindle Store; unavailable at iBooks Store

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
$7.16 in paperback; $5.50 in Kindle Store; unavailable at iBooks Store

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
$21.98 in hardcover; $10.20 in paperback pre-orders for June 1 release; $14.27 in Kindle Store; unavailable at iBooks Store

American Wife: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld
$10.20 in paperback; $9.75 in Kindle Store; unavailable at iBooks Store

Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner
$9.98 in remaindered hardcover; $10.79 in paperback; $9.99 in Kindle Store; $9.99 in iBooks Store

Amazon Adds Major Enhancements to Kindle for PC App

There are over a billion PCs in the world, and millions of the tablet computers that will be launched in the next few years will run on a PC platform. One other thing that they all have in common is that they will all run the Kindle for PC app with a free download and no Kindle required, which is why it is important for Amazon to keep improving the Kindle for PC app.

That’s what Amazon has done today with an announcement that Kindle for PC now includes the following features:

  • Choose from three different color modes: read in white, sepia, or black color modes and adjust the brightness of the display from within the app
  • View and edit notes and highlights marked on Kindle and Kindle DX
  • Read books using full-screen mode of their PC

Meanwhile, the Kindle catalog continues to grow at an astonishing rate, and numbers 566,397 book titles as I type this. How fast is it growing? Since we don’t have a radar gun, we’ll rely on these two more interesting measures of the velocity of the Kindle Store’s growth:

  • It’s growing so fast that the number of new titles added to the Kindle Store since the launch of the iPad April 3 is greater than the total number of titles reported to be in Apple’s iBooks Store.
  • It’s growing so fast that Amazon’s own press office falls woefully behind in reporting on the size of the catalog. Today’s release claims that there are over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store, which is like, so May 5th.

Nothing in today’s release, however, about when Kindle customers will be able to subscribe to Kindle newspapers, magazines, and blogs through the Kindle for PC app or other Kindle apps.

Here’s the guts of this morning’s news release from Amazon:

Amazon Adds New Features to Kindle for PC Application

Customers using Kindle for PC can now edit notes and marks, experience full-screen reading mode, change the background color, and control the brightness of the screen

SEATTLE, May 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced new features for “Kindle for PC,” the free application that lets readers around the world enjoy Kindle books on their personal computers. Kindle for PC now enables customers to edit notes and marks, experience full-screen reading mode, change the background color, and control the brightness of the screen. With Kindle for PC, readers can discover and read from over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store — the largest selection of the most popular books that people want to read — including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases from $9.99. Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for PC includes Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes a customer’s notes, highlights, bookmarks and last page read across their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and, soon, Android phones, so customers always have their reading material with them and never lose their place.

“We have been working hard to enhance our Kindle application experiences and are thrilled to be adding new features to Kindle for PC,” said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle. “Kindle for PC lets customers enjoy more than 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle, and its the perfect companion application for the millions of Kindle and Kindle DX owners.”

Now Kindle for PC has even more features to enhance the Kindle book reading experience on a PC, including:

  • Purchase, download and read more than 540,000 books, including 96 of 110 New York Times Bestsellers, plus tens of thousands of the most popular classics for free directly from their PC. Bestsellers such as “Backlash” by Aaron Allston, “Big Girl” by Danielle Steel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot and “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, and hundreds of thousands of other popular books are $9.99 or less in the Kindle Store
  • Browse by genre or author, and take advantage of all the features that customers enjoy in the Kindle Store, including Amazon.com customer reviews, personalized recommendations and editorial reviews
  • Read the beginning of books for free before they decide to buy
  • Synchronize last page read between their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and, soon, Android phone
  • Access their entire library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
  • Choose from three different color modes: read in white, sepia, or black color modes and adjust the brightness of the display from within the app
  • Choose from more than 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
  • View and edit notes and highlights marked on Kindle and Kindle DX
  • Read books using full-screen mode of their PC
  • Zoom in and out of text with a pinch of the fingers (Windows 7 users only)

Kindle for PC is available for download at http://www.amazon.com/KindleforPC.

Catching Up with Paul Biba’s “Editor’s Pick of the Week”

For those who like to keep up with everything that is going on in the ebook revolution, a subscription to Kindle Nation Daily and a regular perusal of Teleread editor Paul Biba’s “Editor’s Pick of the Week” is a great start. We’ll try to make a regular point of sharing Paul’s picks here, but as of this morning we’re playing catch up with his picks from May 7 and May 15:

Intra-Day Bulletin to Update Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert: Sidney Sheldon’s Rage of Angels Now Free for a Limited Time in the Kindle Store!

Rage of Angels (Kindle Edition)

by Sidney Sheldon (Author)

4.7 out of 5 stars  (81 customer reviews)


Print List Price: $7.99
Kindle Price: $0.00 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: $7.99 (100%)
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
This price was set by the publisher

This one couldn’t wait for tomorrow’s regular post 😉

Amazon’s New International Publishing Initiative, AmazonCrossing, May Provide Many Opportunities for Professional Translators

News flash for professional translators!

If you’re up to the job of translating serious literature from original languages into English, you should waste no time in getting in touch with Amazon. As we noted in a post moments ago, the company has just announced the launch of AmazonCrossing, a new publishing initiative aimed initially at bringing English-language translations of “exceptional” foreign-language books to readers in the U.S. and abroad with both print and Kindle editions. 


It’s a no-brainer, then, the Amazon will employ a growing group of professional translators over the next few years to render these books into English. Indeed, the AmazonCrossing’s opening web page includes an email form for translators, authors, agents, publishers, and readers to contact the company, and translators top the list.




eBooks Are Making It a Smaller World: Amazon Announces “AmazonCrossing,” a New, International Publishing Imprint

Amazon has just announced yet another major new publishing initiative, this one aimed initially at bringing English-language translations of “exceptional” foreign-language books to readers in the U.S. and abroad with both print and Kindle editions. 
The first title being published by AmazonCrossing is Tierno Monénembo’s award-winning novel, The King of Kahel, which will be released for the first time in English for readers around the world on Nov. 2, 2010,” Amazon said in a statement today. This debut title is already available for pre-order in the Kindle Store at a price of $7.99, with a paperback price of $15.95 currently discounted, for pre-orders, to $10.85.  

Amazon’s news release is adorned with a pretty classy blurb from Per Wästberg, President of the Nobel Committee for Literature, which makes a strong claim for the literary significance of a move that underlines the companies commitment to proceed full-steam ahead as a publisher of print and digital books: “As president of the Nobel Committee for Literature, I have seen how recent laureates–Elfriede Jelinek, Imre Kertesz, JMG Le Clézio, Herta Müller–were virtually unknown and unprinted in England and U.S. and only after the Nobel Prize were they able to find readers in English, yet they are in my view equal to anyone writing in English,” said Wästberg. “AmazonCrossing deserves praise and support. Such translation and distribution of good literature from so-called minor languages can only stimulate our cultures and inspire writers to widen their horizons.”  

We should expect, in the next few months, to see Amazon take equally significant steps focused on expanding its ebook catalog, platform, and alphabets to include hundreds of thousands of new titles in the same languages from which AmazonCrossing books will be translated. It might be interesting to learn whether AmazonCrossing, in some cases, will be sweetening the company’s overall relationships with some foreign publishers by paying original language publishers for translation rights. 

Here’s the guts of this afternoon’s news release from Amazon:

Introducing AmazonCrossing–Bringing Exceptional International Books to English-Language Readers

 
Amazon Announces a Second Publishing Imprint 
Focused on Translating Foreign-Language Books into English

SEATTLE, May 18, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a new publishing imprint, AmazonCrossing, which will introduce readers to voices of the world through English-language translations of foreign-language books. The first title being published by AmazonCrossing is Tierno Monénembo’s award-winning novel, “The King of Kahel,” which will be released for the first time in English for readers around the world on Nov. 2, 2010. English-language editions of “The King of Kahel” will be available in print format at www.amazon.com and globally as a wireless digital download from the Kindle Store in less than 60 seconds.

“The goal of our publishing programs is to introduce readers to terrific authors they might not otherwise have the chance to know,” said Jeff Belle, Vice President of Books. “Our international customers have made us aware of exciting established and emerging voices from other cultures and countries that have not been translated for English-language readers. These great voices and great books deserve a wider audience, and that’s why we created AmazonCrossing.”

Similar to AmazonEncore (www.amazon.com/amazonencore), Amazon’s first publishing imprint, AmazonCrossing uses customer feedback and other data from Amazon sites around the world to identify exceptional books deserving of a wider, global audience. AmazonCrossing will acquire the rights and translate the books and then introduce them to the English-speaking market through multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, and national and independent booksellers via third-party wholesalers.

“As president of the Nobel Committee for Literature, I have seen how recent laureates–Elfriede Jelinek, Imre Kertesz, JMG Le Clézio, Herta Müller–were virtually unknown and unprinted in England and U.S. and only after the Nobel Prize were they able to find readers in English, yet they are in my view equal to anyone writing in English,” said Per Wästberg, President of the Nobel Committee for Literature. “AmazonCrossing deserves praise and support. Such translation and distribution of good literature from so-called minor languages can only stimulate our cultures and inspire writers to widen their horizons.”

“There are many thousands of books out there worthy of being translated and published in English, but that are currently unavailable to us monolingual readers,” said Chad Post, Publisher at Open Letter Books. “The more international books that are available in English, the better. It’s exciting to see a company like Amazon investing in such a worthy cause like AmazonCrossing, and in a way that will definitely help expand the audience for literature in translation.”

Tierno Monénembo’s “The King of Kahel” was originally published in France in 2008 and was the winner of the French literary prize, the prix Renaudot, which is awarded to the author of an outstanding original novel published during the current year. Based on the life of Olivier de Sanderval, a man who journeyed to Guinea to build an empire by conquering the hostile region of Fouta Djallon, the book explores how Sanderval braves all dangers to build a railway that will bring modern civilization to Africa. Born in 1947 in Guinea, Monénembo was exiled to Senegal and the Ivory Coast before moving to France to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry. He is the author of nine books and one stage play.
“I’m thrilled to inaugurate Amazon’s new series of translations. American publishers lag far behind their international counterparts when it comes to publishing foreign books in translation,” said Nicholas Elliott, translator of “The King of Kahel.” “That Amazon should devote such a major effort to trying to reverse this trend–particularly one launched with a novel of the quality of ‘The King of Kahel’–is great news not only for translators but for readers and writers hungry to discover what’s going on in Norway, Argentina, Kazakhstan…and Fouta Djallon.”

For more information on AmazonCrossing and upcoming titles, visit http://www.amazon.com/amazoncrossing. AmazonCrossing is a brand used by Amazon Content Services, LLC.

Kindle Nation Daily Readers’ Alert for Tuesday, May 18: Martin Amis, Laura and Lisa Ling, Chuck Palahniuk, Isabel Allende, Damon Wayans and Other Books in the Media

Today’s edition of our fun new Readers’ Alert series features Kindle titles that have received recent attention in the media:

Other Kindle titles in the media in the past few days: