Order these free books for your Kindle 2 before they disappear

February 14, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

Here’s a money-saving tip for new Kindlers who are awaiting for the arrival of their Kindle 2. Amazon, publishers, and authors often get together to offer temporary “zero-price promotions” on popular books in the Kindle Store, in addition to the thousands of free public-domain titles that are now available.

Naturally, these books do not remain free forever, but you do not have to wait for the arrival of your Kindle 2 to place your order. You can order these free books today and they will be delivered wirelessly to your Kindle 2 when you power it up for the first time. Just make sure that you place the order through the Amazon account that will be linked to your Kindle.

Eight of these books are being offered free by Random House through the end of February, and many are by authors who are publishing new work in 2009.

The ninth is a real treat, a major new Kindle exclusive cookbook from Cook’s Illustrated, and it alone may help you to expand the ways you have considered using your Kindle. The promotion allows Amazon to show off how the Kindle 2’s new, crisper display, zoom feature, and better hands-free functionality are more cookbook-compatible than its predecessor.

Finally, the tenth link here isn’t free, but it’s for an accessory that I highly recommend, especially if you think you might use the Kindle 2 either as cookbook repository or as a read-aloud companion while you are in the kitchen. M-Edge, which has emerged as a leading supplier of attractive Kindle covers for the original Kindle, has come out with a great selection of Kindle 2 covers that double as stand-up hands-free Kindle platforms. They range in price from faux-leather models at the same $29.99 price that Amazon is now charging for its branded cover to $54.99 (currently discounted to $44.99) for very attractive genuine leather models in several colors. Just visit the Kindle 2 Accessories page and scroll down (if you can!) past those dreamy three-figure designer covers from Cole-Haan.

Murder List by Julie Garwood

The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro

Prague by Arthur Phillips

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston

Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich

A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston

The Cook’s Illustrated How-to-Cook Library

Platform-Compatible M-Edge Kindle Covers

Looking beyond the “Text-to-Speech” Kindle Kerfuffle

February 13, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

(My weekly post for TeleRead.com for Friday, 2.13.09)

By Stephen Windwalker, founder and publisher of the weekly Kindle Nation newsletter

This week we shall speak of robots and pirates and a kerfuffle without a cause. Or not.

Among the more intriguing innovations new to Amazon’s just-launched but still unshipped Kindle 2 is a “Text-to-Speech” Read-to-Me feature wherein a somewhat creepy and robotic “voice” will read aloud to you from any text file that you purchase or otherwise acquire and download to the device. Whether it’s the latest New Yorker, a memo your boss sent you, or The Brothers Karamazov, the Kindle 2 will read it aloud while you are cooking, driving, or dozing off (hopefully not in that order), turn its own pages for you, and mark your place in case you wish to return to more active reading later. I fully expect that a future volume of DSM-IV will have a name for at least one syndrome originating from its victims’ childhood experience of having been forced to listen to bedtime stories read by the Kindle 2.

However creepy or psychologically scarring it may be under some circumstances, Read-to-Me scores high enough on the convenient and cool gadgetry scales that Amazon may have a clear winner: a feature that will drive Kindle device and book sales by adding new and special value to the books and other content that people buy from the Kindle store. Amazon and its Kindle already have a huge edge on e-book competitors based on access to publishers, front- and mid-list titles, and readers and their credit card information and practices. Read-to-Me will only magnify that edge, if it survives.

Which, if Author’s Guild executive director Paul Aiken has a say, may be in question.

Amazon has labeled the Read-to-Me feature “experimental,” which means that it reserves the right to discontinue it at any time. When the original Kindle was launched 15 months ago, its “experimental” features included the free 3G Whispernet wireless web, which was a great selling point and a keeper of an idea, and another idea so goofy that, well, the fact that it made it as far as the Kindle’s launch suggests that it may have come right from the top. That idea was called “NowNow” — think Ask Jeeves meets the Kindle, but just don’t ask Jeeves any questions about Amazon or the Kindle! — and it was neither a keeper nor much of a starter.

So, why is Amazon applying the “experimental” label to its “Text-to-Speech” innovation?

Those of us inclined to put two and two together may divine some connection between the “experimental” hedge and the fact that Aiken has come out swinging against “Text-to-Speech” with the distinct sound of a man who is speaking to copyright attorneys about an authors’ rights lawsuit.

“We’re studying this matter closely and will report back to you,” says the Author’s Guild website, and it advises authors to be tenacious with their e-book rights. The website also notes that audiobooks “surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2007,” much higher than e-book sales. After principles can be much more compelling when they are backed by 10-figure revenues.

The Author’s Guild is not widely known as a particularly democratic, open, or truly author-driven organization — compared, say, with PEN or the National Writer’s Union — but it has received plenty of ink lately with a reasonably successful legal settlement against Google Book Search and a less effective campaign against the Amazon Marketplace used book portal. At times the Guild has diminished its own gravitas by taking positions such as one which was widely interpreted to question the right of libraries to lend books to their patrons.

Amazon’s attorneys are no slouches, and most of the smart money and the smart people are on Amazon’s side here. When lawyers parse these issues they may make distinctions between public and private practices and between recordings and the transitory rendering of a purchased text in audio form.

If Paul Aiken should walk into a public performance hall at some point and find a Kindle propped up at a lectern reading aloud to a crowd of rapt listeners, he should by all means make a citizen’s arrest. But a copyright case targeting Kindle customers who purchase an electronic book file and then use available software to listen to part or all of it in the privacy of their homes seems as laughable as the one about the library books.

Still and all, as much as I am hoping to enjoying listening to my Kindle 2 read to me, discreetly, for years to come, I wonder if this “Text-to-Speech” kerfuffle may lead us into a further roiling of the waters. After all, this “Text-to-Speech” software is the product of Nuance, the Burlington, MA, software developer behind the popular Dragon Speaking Naturally “Speech-to-Text” programs. To my knowledge, nobody yet has sufficiently hacked Amazon’s DRM-laden .AZW Kindle text files to open them up beyond the Kindle Store where untold acts of piracy might be lurking, but if “Text-to-Speech” starts talking to “Speech-to-Text,” might there not be hell — and a lot of lawyers — to pay?

Stephen Windwalker has been writing about Amazon’s strategic innovations since his niche bestseller on online bookselling in 2002, and his Complete Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle was the top-selling title in the Kindle store for 17 weeks in 2008, but on advice from Amazon’s attorneys Windwalker refuses to divulge how many books have been sold. Stephen is also publisher of A Kindle Home Page and the weekly Kindle Nation email newsletter.

Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners

February 9, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

From Amazon’s new Kindle 2 web page:

Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority.

Here’s something cool just reported by Len Edgerly of the Kindle Chronicles: The New Yorker is now available on the Kindle!

Q & A on the Kindle press conference

February 9, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

What follows are my questions. We’ll see how many Amazon answers.

What are they calling the new Kindle?

Bezos: “Today I’m excited to introduce the Kindle 2.” Here’s a link to the new Kindle 2 detail page. “If you have previously placed an order for Kindle 1, and have not yet received it, your order will automatically be upgraded to Kindle 2. You need to do nothing. “

Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners
Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority.

Has Amazon fixed the most glaring problems with the first-generation Kindle? (Gratuitous page turning, poor content management)

The page-turning buttons are much more compact, so that problem should be solved. I’ve got nothing on content management other than WhisperSynch and the fact that we can now delete content directly from the home screen. But with 1,500-title native storage, there better be folders!

What’s new about the Kindle 2 hardware?

It’s 0.36″ thick (about 3/4 as thick as the iPhone), with 7 times as much storage capacity as the original Kindle so that it holds 1500 books. The new Kindle is half an inch longer and half as thick as the old Kindle (at the widest edge of the Kindle 1’s wedge).

It looks just like the pictures that have been showing up on the web recently with improved button/bar placement and a grid keyboard. There’s an elegant 5-way controller that allows you to move the cursor through documents, preview stories, etc.

There is a built-in “text-to-speech” feature so that you can automatically listen to any book or document you are reading. Way cool, I think: Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

The battery life is 25% greater, according to Jeff. A graphic says you can read for two weeks on a single charge. (From my experience, that would be more than a 25% improvement).

The screen refresh is marginally faster: about 20 per cent. Even better, the display now features 16 shades of grayscale for much more elegant graphics.

What’s new with the Kindle 2 software?

A new feature called WhisperSynch automatically synchronizes what you are reading (including the “page” you are on) between your various Kindle-enabled electronic devices.

From the Kindle 2 product page: Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

What’s the price for the new Kindle?

$359. Interesting change: the Kindle cover is no longer included in the box, and must be bought separately. This will be a boon to third-party Kindle cover manufacturers and sellers.

When will the new Kindle ship?

“This item will be released on February 24, 2009.“

What’s the deal with Stephen King and the new Kindle?

The early word is that the Kindle may actually come loaded with a Kindle-exclusive Stephen King story that features a Kindle-like device. Product placement gone wild! The story is called “Ur,” and the Kindle in the story can access other worlds, which may be a 3.0 feature.

Has Amazon enhanced the Kindle’s audio features?

Yes, the new Kindle comes with 2 built-in stereo speaks on the back of the device. There is also a nifty built-in “text-to-speech” feature so that you can automatically listen to any book or document you are reading. Way cool, I think: Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

How about USB-recharging and improvements to the Kindle battery?

The battery life is 25% greater, according to Jeff. A graphic says you can read for two weeks on a single charge, and four days with the wireless turned on. (From my experience, that would be more than a 25% improvement).

And, on the Kindle 2 product page, Amazon says: “Fully charges in approximately 4 hours and supports charging from your computer via the included USB 2.0 cable.” (emphasis added)

What has Amazon done to keep its production in synch with its orders?

On the Kindle 2 product page, Amazon says: “… we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity.”

Questions that will wait for another day:

What is Amazon doing to get the Kindle into schools and public libraries?
How about new features like a Kindle Buffet?
Is Amazon saying anything about specific plans for a larger display or a textbook-friendly Kindle?
Is Amazon showing signs that it will see Google and Apple as partners in the growth of digital reading?
How many Kindles has Amazon shipped, and how many will it ship in February 2009?
Has Amazon provided any specifics about opening the Kindle Store to other devices?
Has Amazon made any moves toward going open source?
What is Amazon doing to support social networking among Kindle owners and other readers?
Is Amazon taking specific steps to empower Kindle owners as Kindle sellers?
When will Kindle owners be able to connect easily with the main Kindle store?
Where and when will the Kindle go global?

Recording a snapshot: from the Kindle detail page, 8:40 am EST 2.9.09

February 9, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

To see the pertinent Kindle detail as it appeared directly on the Kindle detail page in the main Amazon store as of 8:40 a.m. 2.9.09, click here.

Meanwhile, here’s a great post by Dana Blankenhorn over at ZDNet: Time for Kindle to go open source

Amazon share price at 10 a.m. – $66.55

A Stephen King exclusive for the Kindle

February 9, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

News is spreading this morning that, among other things, Jeff Bezos will announce today that Amazon has signed Stephen King on for a (temporarily) Kindle exclusive book deal. This is a great idea.

And I apologize for being a teensy bit self-referential in pasting in this paragraph from p. 92 of the August 2008 paperback print edition of The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle:

Since I ordinarily come at these things from a bookselling perspective, I’ve been thinking for a while that the time should come soon when Amazon should arrange with Stephen King or J.D. Salinger to release his or her next book for the Kindle 60 days ahead of print, and then keeping doing this about once a month. Of course Amazon already knows that: nothing sells TVs like must-see TV.

After all, this one is not rocket science. But I’ve had a crush on Sissy Spacek for over 30 years and it is great fun that somebody managed to snap that picture of her holding her Kindle….

Useful new features in the Kindle 1.2 firmware upgrade

February 9, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

With the Kindle 2.0 Jazzed Level at Code Red, it would have been easy to miss important features that are included in the version 1.2 firmware upgrade that Amazon has been zapping in waves to the 713,451 Kindles* that are currently in the field.

So the sometimes helpful Amazon Kindle Team posted this announcement on the Kindle’s own Amazon discussion forum:

A new software update for Kindle has rolled out. This update (version 1.2) adds the following features:

– Zoom any image in Kindle books or periodicals by selecting the image using the scroll wheel.
– Individual items and groups of items can be deleted directly from the Home screen. Simply scroll to the item you wish to delete and push the backspace key.
– Improved character and font support including Greek characters and monospace fonts.

To make this process as effective as possible for all of our customers, not all devices will be sent the update at the same time. When the software update is available and your Kindle is connected wirelessly to Whispernet, the update will download to your Kindle automatically. Then, the next time Kindle is in sleep mode, it will take advantage of the idle time and apply the update.

The zoom feature will be important for all of us who have been frustrated by the Kindle’s previous inability to show us useful graphics of art, maps, diagrams, tables, etc. Obviously, this feature will greatly enhance the Kindle publishing platform’s appeal for publishers of academic texts, other textbooks, and travel guides, among others.

The upgrade that allows us to clean up our personal Kindle library by deleting titles directly from the home screen is an important convenience, but like many of the features missing from the Kindle 1.0, it deserved to be more remarked “in the breach than in the observance.”

Then there is the Greek alphabet thing. H’mm. Maybe it’s a signal that the first destination for a global Kindle roll-out will be among American ex-pats on the island of Crete. Or not. Maybe it’s all about academic texts. Maybe it ties back to Jeff Bezos’ original launch day statement that the Kindle would eventually be able to access “every book ever printed” and illuminates a commitment to go all the way back to those pre-Gutenberg texts that Caesar used as Kindling 2057 years ago. In any case, I’m yet to be convinced that this one will change my life.
____________________________
* I arrived at this scientific quantification of the Kindle’s installed base by drawing from two sources: the time showing on my Kindle as I began typing, and the temperature at which paper becomes spontaneously combustible. And no, you can’t check my work.

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Order these free books for your Kindle 2 before they disappear

The Cook’s Illustrated How-to-Cook Library

Platform-Compatible M-Edge Kindle Covers

Looking beyond the “Text-to-Speech” Kindle Kerfuffle

Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners

Q & A on the Kindle press conference

Recording a snapshot: from the Kindle detail page, 8:40 am EST 2.9.09

A Stephen King exclusive for the Kindle

Useful new features in the Kindle 1.2 firmware upgrade

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