I listened to a podcast interview the other day with innovative Smashwords.com founder Mark Coker, and as always I found him to be an interesting, imaginative guy who is attempting to do important things. He mentioned that his company has been experiencing some formatting difficulties getting its titles accepted in the Kindle Store, but that it is continuing to work with the Kindle team on the issues and has experienced some success selling independent authors’ works on other platforms including iBooks, Kobo, and the Nook.

So I was surprised to find this morning that there are about 60 Smashwords titles available now in the Kindle Store. The vast majority are erotica, available for the most part at very low prices, and let’s just say they are not for the faint of heart. Although I haven’t sampled any of them as of yet, the array of titles suggests that many of them concern themselves with incest.

Those preoccupations did not match my sense of the overall Smashwords catalog when I’ve visited its website, and without getting into this too deeply it made me wonder if the thematic concentration might have the effect of creating some unintentional and perhaps unwanted branding for Smashwords.

For Kindle Nation citizens who are trying to make sense of all the hating and whining that the traditional publishing industry is directing at Amazon these days, Ruth Franklin has a smart, thoughtful piece in The New Republic’s Books and Arts section entitled The READ: In Defense of Amazon – The corporate behemoth isn’t to blame for the book industry’s failures.  You can read it by clicking on the link or have it pushed directly to your Kindle with a $2.25-per-month subscription or 14-day free trial of the Kindle edition.

Franklin, a senior editor at TNR, concludes her piece thus:

But Amazon is a quintessential capitalist enterprise, and it cannot be faulted for exploiting the free-market system that, for better or worse, we have embraced. It offers people things they want to buy at prices they want to pay, and in so doing, it puts out of business other enterprises that are not able to match its terms. Other than continuing to make sure that Amazon’s practices fall within the bounds of what regulation we have—particularly antitrust laws—there’s not much to be done. (Although it does seem unnecessary to deliberately increase Amazon’s monopoly, as the Wylie Agency did last week with its controversial introduction of a digital publishing venture that makes classic books by the agency’s venerated stable of writers—including Bellow, Nabokov, and Rushdie—available exclusively through Amazon.) I’m not ashamed to admit that I buy books from Amazon when it’s convenient, as well as from Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores, people on the street, or whoever else happens to have what I’m looking for. And to Jeff Bezos and everyone else who brings books to the world I say: thank you.

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

Swallow
by Tonya Plank


Kindle Edition

List Price: $0.99
Buy Now

(Editor’s Note: Ordinarily I don’t say much to embellish the material provided by authors and publishers for our sponsorship titles, but it’s not often that — for a mere 99 cents — we get to play a part in discovering a new novelist who is destined for very big things, as you can see from the 5-star reviews from some of the top Amazon reviewers to the great blurbs and book description below. As one of Tonya Plank’s first readers among the citizens of Kindle Nation, I promise that you are in a for a real treat. -S.W.)

With a cast of characters that includes a pornographer father, a sister with a knack for getting knocked up by denizens of the town pen, a tough-talking fashion maven, a painter of male nudes, an eccentric Sing Sing-residing client and a bevy of privileged Manhattan attorneys and judges, Swallow is a dark comedy about the distance that can separate fathers and daughters, and about a young woman’s struggle to survive in a world of pedigreed professionals for which she has no preparation.

• GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Best Regional Fiction, Northeast Region, 2010 IPPY Awards
• GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women’s Fiction, 2010 Living Now Book Awards,
• FINALIST, General Fiction, 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards,
• FINALIST, Best Regional Fiction, 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards

“Swallow, which I’ve just started reading, hooks you from the opening pages with its breathless urgency and captures what it’s like to live in NY now, with money worries and ambition and myriad obligations breathing down your neck, and none of it written in cutesy chick-lit’ry. So give it a try.” —Vanity Fair Online, James Wolcott, January 15, 2010

A shy, young Manhattan attorney from a small-town, working-class background struggles with psychosomatic disorder Globus Hystericus, which causes her difficulty eating, speaking, and even breathing. This multi-award-winning, well-reviewed often comical novel centers on class privilege, gender equity, and the distance that can separate fathers and daughters.

Click here to download Swallow (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers: Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert! *     *     *

Free Listings!

Face of Betrayal (Triple Threat Series #1) – Thriller
by Lis Wiehl and April Henry

The Goddess Of Fried Okra – Contemporary Fiction

Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First

Your Credit Score, Your Money and What’s at Stake (Updated Edition): How to Improve the Three-Digit Number That Shapes Your Financial Future

If you enjoy a great suspense page-turner at the great price of, well, no price at all, then you won’t want to tarry about picking up the two pre-orders featured in today’s Free Book Alert. One of them expires Thursday and the other lasts just a few weeks longer….

A Nail Through the Heart: With Bonus Content by Timothy Hallinan

Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense

Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg – Mystery and Thrillers

Once Around The Track by Sharyn McCrumb – NASCAR Romance

Calling Home by Janna McMahan – Fantasy Debut

Seducing Jane Porter

Erotica by Adair, Dominique

Daniel X: Demons and Druids, by James Patterson and Adam Sadler – Free Preview

Not only is James Patterson the bestselling ebook author of all time with over 1.1 million copies sold, but he and his marketing team get it. Instead of whetting readers’ appetites with just a chapter or two, Patterson has been making a regular practice of providing real, meaty previews like this one — at 768 locations it’s longer than Stephen King’s expensive novella Billy Blockade. The full novel comes out July 26 and you can pre-order the full novel here, but you don’t have to wait until then to start reading the first few chapters by clicking here.

Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1)

by Kay Kenyon – 4.3 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

Starred Review. At the start of this riveting launch of a new far-future SF series from Kenyon (Tropic of Creation), a disastrous mishap during interstellar space travel catapults pilot Titus Quinn with his wife, Johanna Arlis, and nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, into a parallel universe called the Entire. Titus makes it back to this dimension, his hair turned white, his memory gone, his family presumed dead and his reputation ruined with the corporation that employed him. The corporation (in search of radical space travel methods) sends Titus (in search of Johanna and Sydney) back through the space-time warp. There, he gradually, painfully regains knowledge of its rulers, the cruel, alien Tarig; its subordinate, Chinese-inspired humanoid population, the Chalin; and his daughter’s enslavement. Titus’s transformative odyssey to reclaim Sydney reveals a Tarig plan whose ramifications will be felt far beyond his immediate family. Kenyon’s deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world building will have readers anxious for the next installment. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

Swallow
by Tonya Plank


Kindle Edition

List Price: $0.99
Buy Now

(Editor’s Note: Ordinarily I don’t say much to embellish the material provided by authors and publishers for our sponsorship titles, but it’s not often that — for a mere 99 cents — we get to play a part in discovering a new novelist who is destined for very big things, as you can see from the 5-star reviews from some of the top Amazon reviewers to the great blurbs and book description below. As one of Tonya Plank’s first readers among the citizens of Kindle Nation, I promise that you are in a for a real treat. -S.W.)

With a cast of characters that includes a pornographer father, a sister with a knack for getting knocked up by denizens of the town pen, a tough-talking fashion maven, a painter of male nudes, an eccentric Sing Sing-residing client and a bevy of privileged Manhattan attorneys and judges, Swallow is a dark comedy about the distance that can separate fathers and daughters, and about a young woman’s struggle to survive in a world of pedigreed professionals for which she has no preparation.

• GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Best Regional Fiction, Northeast Region, 2010 IPPY Awards
• GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women’s Fiction, 2010 Living Now Book Awards,
• FINALIST, General Fiction, 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards,
• FINALIST, Best Regional Fiction, 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards

“Swallow, which I’ve just started reading, hooks you from the opening pages with its breathless urgency and captures what it’s like to live in NY now, with money worries and ambition and myriad obligations breathing down your neck, and none of it written in cutesy chick-lit’ry. So give it a try.” —Vanity Fair Online, James Wolcott, January 15, 2010

A shy, young Manhattan attorney from a small-town, working-class background struggles with psychosomatic disorder Globus Hystericus, which causes her difficulty eating, speaking, and even breathing. This multi-award-winning, well-reviewed often comical novel centers on class privilege, gender equity, and the distance that can separate fathers and daughters.

Click here to download Swallow (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers: Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert! *     *     *

Free Listings!

The Goddess Of Fried Okra – Contemporary Fiction

Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First

Your Credit Score, Your Money and What’s at Stake (Updated Edition): How to Improve the Three-Digit Number That Shapes Your Financial Future

If you enjoy a great suspense page-turner at the great price of, well, no price at all, then you won’t want to tarry about picking up the two pre-orders featured in today’s Free Book Alert. One of them expires Thursday and the other lasts just a few weeks longer….

A Nail Through the Heart: With Bonus Content by Timothy Hallinan

Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense

Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg – Mystery and Thrillers

Once Around The Track by Sharyn McCrumb – NASCAR Romance

Calling Home by Janna McMahan – Fantasy Debut

Seducing Jane Porter

Erotica by Adair, Dominique

Daniel X: Demons and Druids, by James Patterson and Adam Sadler – Free Preview

Not only is James Patterson the bestselling ebook author of all time with over 1.1 million copies sold, but he and his marketing team get it. Instead of whetting readers’ appetites with just a chapter or two, Patterson has been making a regular practice of providing real, meaty previews like this one — at 768 locations it’s longer than Stephen King’s expensive novella Billy Blockade. The full novel comes out July 26 and you can pre-order the full novel here, but you don’t have to wait until then to start reading the first few chapters by clicking here.

Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1)

by Kay Kenyon – 4.3 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

Starred Review. At the start of this riveting launch of a new far-future SF series from Kenyon (Tropic of Creation), a disastrous mishap during interstellar space travel catapults pilot Titus Quinn with his wife, Johanna Arlis, and nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, into a parallel universe called the Entire. Titus makes it back to this dimension, his hair turned white, his memory gone, his family presumed dead and his reputation ruined with the corporation that employed him. The corporation (in search of radical space travel methods) sends Titus (in search of Johanna and Sydney) back through the space-time warp. There, he gradually, painfully regains knowledge of its rulers, the cruel, alien Tarig; its subordinate, Chinese-inspired humanoid population, the Chalin; and his daughter’s enslavement. Titus’s transformative odyssey to reclaim Sydney reveals a Tarig plan whose ramifications will be felt far beyond his immediate family. Kenyon’s deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world building will have readers anxious for the next installment. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This Week’s Kindle Pl
Nation Sponsor: Swallow

We invite you to check out this week’s sponsor: Swallow by Tonya Plank Published by Dark Swan Press Kindle Edition List Price: $0.99 Buy Now (Editor’s Note: Ordinarily I don’t say much to embellish the material provided by authors and publishers for our sponsorship titles, but it’s not often that — for a mere 99 cents — we get to play a part in discovering a new novelist who is destined for very big things, as you can see from the 5-star reviews from some of the top Amazon reviewers to the great blurbs and book description below. As one of Tonya Plank’s first readers among the citizens of Kindle Nation, I promise that you are in a for a real treat. -S.W.) With a cast of characters that includes a pornographer father, a sister with a knack for getting knocked up by denizens of the town pen, a tough-talking fashion maven, a painter of male nudes, an eccentric Sing Sing-residing client and a bevy of privileged Manhattan attorneys and judges, Swallow is a dark comedy about the distance that can separate fathers and daughters, and about a young woman’s struggle to survive in a world of pedigreed professionals for which she has no preparation. GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Best Regional Fiction, Northeast Region, 2010 IPPY Awards GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women’s Fiction, 2010 Living Now Book Awards, FINALIST, General Fiction, 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, FINALIST, Best Regional Fiction, 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards “Swallow, which I’ve just started reading, hooks you from the opening pages with its breathless urgency and captures what it’s like to live in NY now, with money worries and ambition and myriad obligations breathing down your neck, and none of it written in cutesy chick-lit’ry. So give it a try.” —Vanity Fair Online, James Wolcott, January 15, 2010 A shy, young Manhattan attorney from a small-town, working-class background struggles with psychosomatic disorder Globus Hystericus, which causes her difficulty eating, speaking, and even breathing. This multi-award-winning, well-reviewed often comical novel centers on class privilege, gender equity, and the distance that can separate fathers and daughters. “Plank has a knack for combining philosophical opinions, hard-luck family stories, discount shopping triumphs, and gently slapstick humor into a book that makes readers laugh, think, and swallow hard in sympathy.” –ForeWord Reviews “I swallowed it up, no pun intended… The novel is very chatty and engaging… A great beach read.” –Gotham Gal “…As engaging as any book I have read. Although it does seem to be a little long at first, the character development is so appealing that once you start reading you find yourself eagerly anticipating what will come next…” –Examiner.com Click here to download Swallow (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds! CLICK HERE for this week’s Free Book Alert

Here’s an interesting tidbit….

Following on items discussed here at Kindle Nation Daily on June 3 and July 16, Amazon announced this morning that the late Stieg Larsson has become the first author to sell a million paid Kindle books. Larsson is The Beatles of eBooks, as the three books in his trilogy currently rank 1-2-3 among paid titles in the Kindle Store and arer all among the top 10 bestselling titles ever in the Kindle Store:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• The Girl Who Played with Fire
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

On July 16, I posted an article entitled Move Over, James Patterson … actually, Stieg Larsson Was the First Author to Sell a Million eBooks. I later backed off the exact figure because of information that I received from a reliable source in the publishing industry. Apparently Larsson’s sales were very close to a million total ebooks as of July 6, but have now passed a million Kindle ebooks ahead of any other author, which suggests two other general trends:

• Larsson’s current ebook sales are phenomenal, and are probably continuing at something close to the 30 percent (of all copies) level I reported in my June 3 post.
• The Kindle content market share for Larsson continues to be stunning. 

It’s not a surprise that the latter is true, given that (1) the iBooks store does not stock Larsson or any other Random House author; and (2) for all of the attention paid to other dedicated ebook readers in the media, there is little sign that the Nook, or the various Sony products, or any other dedicated ebook readers have gained any real market traction beyond the lowest double digits.

The realities of Kindle content market share (among all ebooks) — 90 percent as of late 2009 according to publishing industry insiders, 76 per cent for James Patterson, 80 to 85 per cent for Larsson, and 100 percent among the tens of thousands of titles carried only in the Kindle Store — makes somewhat more vivid the recent controversies surrounding change in the publishing world.

The guts of Amazon’s press release follows:

“Larsson’s books have captivated millions of readers around the world and ignited a voracious interest in the lives of its main characters Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomqvist,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “It’s been exciting to have been a part of introducing so many people to these great books.”

All three books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy–“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”–are now in the top 10 bestselling Kindle books of all time. These three books are New York Times and international bestsellers. Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” The U.S. editions of these books are published by the Knopf Doubleday imprint of Random House, Inc.

The books in Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy are available in the Kindle Store. Kindle offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 630,000 books, including New Releases and 109 of 111 New York TimesBestsellers. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 80 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.

The “Kindle Million Club” recognizes paid Kindle book sales.

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

Ultimate Unauthorized Harry Potter Quiz Book: 165 Questions Ranging from The Sorcerer’s Stone to The Deathly Hallows by Graeme Davis – $2.99

Here’s a Harry Potter quiz book like no other. It asks questions which will develop your appreciation of the Harry Potter books and the Harry Potter phenomenon. Some of these questions are easy, quite a few are fiendishly difficult, but all are thought-provoking.

What better way to get kids or grandkids interested in Kindle reading than to use your Kindle to engage them in a Harry Potter quiz?! But no promises here that you won’t get hooked on the game yourself….

[Incidentally, the publisher tells us that although this is the “ultimate unaithorized” Harry Potter quiz book, this book has been cleared by Rowling’s attorneys — all the questions pertain to “real  facts” or literary criticism as opposed to “fictional facts”, which is what got the HP Lexicon people in trouble.]

And if you enjoy this one you’ll probably want to check out the diverse catalog of ebooks for all generations of  Kindle users from publisher Nimble Books LLC.

Click here to download Ultimate Unauthorized Harry Potter Quiz Book: 165 Questions Ranging from The Sorcerer’s Stone to The Deathly Hallows (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers: Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert! *     *     *

Free Listings!

Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First

Your Credit Score, Your Money and What’s at Stake (Updated Edition): How to Improve the Three-Digit Number That Shapes Your Financial Future

If you enjoy a great suspense page-turner at the great price of, well, no price at all, then you won’t want to tarry about picking up the two pre-orders featured in today’s Free Book Alert. One of them expires Thursday and the other lasts just a few weeks longer….

A Nail Through the Heart: With Bonus Content by Timothy Hallinan

Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense

Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg – Mystery and Thrillers

Once Around The Track by Sharyn McCrumb – NASCAR Romance

Calling Home by Janna McMahan – Fantasy Debut

Seducing Jane Porter

Erotica by Adair, Dominique

Daniel X: Demons and Druids, by James Patterson and Adam Sadler – Free Preview

Not only is James Patterson the bestselling ebook author of all time with over 1.1 million copies sold, but he and his marketing team get it. Instead of whetting readers’ appetites with just a chapter or two, Patterson has been making a regular practice of providing real, meaty previews like this one — at 768 locations it’s longer than Stephen King’s expensive novella Billy Blockade. The full novel comes out July 26 and you can pre-order the full novel here, but you don’t have to wait until then to start reading the first few chapters by clicking here.

Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1)

by Kay Kenyon – 4.3 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

Starred Review. At the start of this riveting launch of a new far-future SF series from Kenyon (Tropic of Creation), a disastrous mishap during interstellar space travel catapults pilot Titus Quinn with his wife, Johanna Arlis, and nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, into a parallel universe called the Entire. Titus makes it back to this dimension, his hair turned white, his memory gone, his family presumed dead and his reputation ruined with the corporation that employed him. The corporation (in search of radical space travel methods) sends Titus (in search of Johanna and Sydney) back through the space-time warp. There, he gradually, painfully regains knowledge of its rulers, the cruel, alien Tarig; its subordinate, Chinese-inspired humanoid population, the Chalin; and his daughter’s enslavement. Titus’s transformative odyssey to reclaim Sydney reveals a Tarig plan whose ramifications will be felt far beyond his immediate family. Kenyon’s deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world building will have readers anxious for the next installment. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.