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Enter by Midnight March 17, 2013

To Win a Brand New 7″ Kindle Fire HD

In Our Kindle Fire HD Giveaway Sweepstakes

Sponsored by Bradley Convissar,

author of BLOOD, SMOKE AND ASHES

May 19, 2019March 10, 2013 by KND

You’ve come to the right place to enter Kindle Nation Daily’s Kindle Fire HD Giveaway Sweepstakes!

Just scroll down to enter… and make sure you improve your chances to win Kindles and other valuable prizes by signing up for our Kindle Nation Daily Digest newsletter!

We’d like for you to be one of about 50 people who will win one of these Kindle Fire tablets from us in 2013, and all you have to do is follow the extremely easy steps at the end of this post to have a great chance to win.

But first, a word from our Sponsor….

“Not every monster is created equal.”

Blood, Smoke and Ashes

by Bradley Convissar

4.6 stars – 16 Reviews

Just Reduced: Kindle Price: 99 Cents!

Or currently FREE for Amazon Prime Members Via the Kindle Lending Library

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

In the Fall of 1955, the state of Nevada used the electric chair to execute a prisoner for the first time.

It was also the last time.

Molly Blackburn, nicknamed Jane the Ripper by the Las Vegas press after killing eleven men while posing as a prostitute, was strapped to the chair without incident. The switch was flipped.

Everything after that went horribly wrong.

Since that day, a copycat Jane the Ripper has appeared almost every decade in a different city, mimicking Molly’s choice in victims as well as her methods of murder. She kills eleven men then disappears, never to be found. The similarities between the bodies left behind each decade is uncanny. As if they are all the victims of the same murderer, not a copycat.

But that’s impossible, of course, because Molly Blackburn is dead, her execution witnessed by a dozen people.

FBI Agent Jack Shaw, the lead investigator in the Jane the Ripper cases since the seventies, finally catches a break in 2009 when the intended fifth victim manages to turn the tables on the newest copycat . Everyone believes that the horror has finally ended with her capture. Shaw is not so sure, though, wondering if someone else will take up the mantle and kill seven more men to complete the cycle. But when no more bodies with her distinctive markings show up over the next two years, Shaw allows himself to believe that maybe he has seen the end of the Jane the Ripper murders.

As it turns out, what he thought was the end was only the beginning.

His hunt will take him across the country, and even when he thinks he’s finally discovered the truth, he quickly learns that not everything is as it seems.

That not every monster is created equal.

That the nature of good and evil is not as black and white as he has always believed.

That not everything that is broken can be put back together.

That not every fractured soul can be saved.

When blood, smoke and ashes rise, no one comes out the same on the other side.

Visit Amazon’s Bradley Convissar Page

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(This is a sponsored post.)

Kindle Nation Sounds Off on eBook Prices: Over 60% of Survey Respondents Say That Big Publishers’ eBook Prices Are Driving Them to Discover Indie Authors, and They Like What They’re Finding

February 23, 2012 by KND

By Steve Windwalker

(This is one of a series of posts reporting the results of the Winter 2012 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey, which gathered responses from a record 2,360 individuals during the period from January 29 to February 15. Click here to see complete results.)

Readers are letting all of us know, more adamantly than ever, that Kindle store pricing is driving readers to change their reading habits, and indie authors whose ebooks are priced at reasonable levels are the beneficiaries of that movement. We asked survey respondents where they stood on this key statement, and the results were not even close:

Higher prices for new releases from the big publishers have driven me to try more and more indie authors, and I like what I have found

61% agreed with that statement, and only 14% disagreed. Just to make sure, we also flipped the statement:

Higher prices for new releases from the big publishers have driven me to try some indie authors, but I haven’t found much quality there so I have gone back to paying higher prices

Only 7% agreed with that statement, and a whopping 65% disagreed.

While these two formulations certainly leave some significant number of our readers who are continuing to pay agency-model prices of $12-$15 for traditionally published bestselling authors, it’s clear that price-fixing publishers are giving up more and more of the real estate on the bestseller lists to indie authors: in recent weeks anywhere from 30% to 50% of the titles among the Kindle Store’s Top 100 bestsellers have been by indie authors. That’s a lot of money that has been removed from the table for publishers, but if this reader comment is any indication, they have only themselves to blame:

“I feel angry when publishers set prices for ebooks at the same or even a higher level. I often go to the library instead of buying the ebook. It’s not that I can’t afford it, I just think it is disgusting.”

Please Help Us Frame the Important Questions For the Summer 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey! … and Win a Kindle Gift Certificate!

July 3, 2011 by KND

By Steve Windwalker

We do it twice a year: once when it’s hot and once when it’s cold. We’re getting ready to do it again, and we would love to have your help!

It’s the Summer 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey, and we think it is a great way for Kindle Nation citizens to bring everyone else in the book business — including authors, publishers, and Amazon, for starters — up to speed about what’s important to the world’s greatest readers: you and me.

At the same time, with thousands of very thoughtful respondents in our last few Kindle Nation surveys, it’s also not a bad way for us Kindle-toting readers to get to know each other, and with that in mind I would like to invite you to suggest some of the questions that you’d like to see answered by your fellow Kindle Nation citizens … either for your own edification or because you think the answers would make a difference to industry types.

Just send your ideas for survey questions to this address:

KindleNation+SurveyInput@gmail.com

We probably won’t be able to use every suggested question, but we’ll definitely use some of them, and we’ll take 10 of the emails we like best and send each of their senders a $10 gift certificate to the Kindle Store!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to check out the results to the last survey, here’s a link.

And we’ll let you know later in July when the polling place at the Summer 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey is open for all voters!

Are We Better or Worse Off, with Kindle?

July 7, 2019February 24, 2011 by Steve Windwalker

Remember the question that helped vault Ronald Reagan into the presidency back in 1980? With apologies to President Reagan’s debate prep team, a slightly different version of that question occurred to me the other day as I was finishing work on a chapter of a new book that I’m co-authoring with Martin Higgins, co-founder of BookLending.com:

“As readers, are we better or worse off than we were when the Kindle was launched on November 19, 2007?”

I put the question out there on the Kindle Nation Facebook page — by the way, stop by and say hello! — and got some interesting responses, which I will post below.

What do you think? Please post a comment on Facebook or email your thoughts to KindleNation+Better-or-Worse@gmail.com!

- John Nelson
  
  Far, far better off.
- Cindy Keim
  
  Way better off!!!!
- Pauline
  
  I know people who read MORE since they got a Kindle!
- Cliff
  
  I know I’ve read more with my Kindle, and I’ve only had it for a month.
- Brenda
  
  Better
- Emma
  
  I think we are much better off! I know I am! Revisiting classics, reading genres and authors I may never have thought of before, and reading everything faster! What’s not better off?
- Tracy
  
  Kindle is a wonderful thing ♥
- William
  
  Better off. I still prefer DTBs, but no doubt the Kindle is a wonderful invention. My wife certainly loves hers.
- Paulette
  
  Much better off. I have not met/heard anyone complain about not liking their Kindle. Certainly, I have read more and my husband loves his. Thanks KINDLE.
- Leslie
  
  I am definitely reading more, discovering new authors and genres. The only problem I have with my Kindle is that it’s so hard to put down, and I’m neglecting other things. Guess I’ll have to hire a maid!

Winter 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey Results: Kindle’s “Extra” Features Continue to Have Wide Usage

August 18, 2011February 18, 2011 by KND

(One of several Kindle Nation posts exploring the results of the Winter 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey. Click here to see a breakdown of results.)

By Tom Dulaney, Contributing Reporter

Jeff Bezos says the Kindle is and always will be, first and foremost, a dedicated ebook reader. And he’s right, of course.

But here at Kindle Nation we have been aware of the appeal of other features ever since our publisher Steve Windwalker hit the Kindle Store bestseller list back in January 2008 with the first “ebook” on how to use the Kindle for email. (The short piece later became part of the #1 bestselling book in the Kindle Store for the entire calendar year 2008.)

So, the Kindle may not be the ultimate convergence device, but readers do a lot more than buy and read ebooks on their Kindles. However, no other feature of the dedicated ebook reading tool compares to the book reading function in either usage or performance ratings.

The Kindle’s many other features find use and favor with scattered blocks of the 2,275 people who responded to the Winter 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey. Taken, together they are certainly part of the package of features that makes the Kindle the most popular ebook reader ever, and the most popular product ever sold by Amazon.

Presented here, arranged in order of usage and appeal with most popular first, are other Kindle features and our survey respondents’ ratings of them.

The three most popular non-ebook pastimes — newspaper reading, blog reading, and Kindles games — each come in with 35% to 36% of respondents.

Just over a third of respondents—a fraction under 36%–rated the Kindle for newspaper reading, and 8% say its performance is “superior” while 28% call it “useful, even if flawed.”

About the same percentage — 35% of respondents — subscribe to blogs that they read on their Kindles. About half of these Kindle Nation citizens read blogs nearly every day.

How well does the Kindle do in delivering blogs? Some 12% rate it as “superior” as a blog reader, while 20% find it “useful even if flawed” for a total of 32%. 57% of respondents saying blog reading is not important to them, 5% saying it’s a distraction, and 6% unaware of the feature.

Playing word games or using other Kindle apps and utilities occupies about 35% of readers, with 11% saying the use of such features on the device is “superior” while 24% say it is “useful even if flawed.” But 65% don’t play games for these reasons: 6% said “I was not aware of this feature,” 14% find gaming an annoyance or distraction; and 45% say it is just not important to them.

And one of our favorite features—sending personal documents and manuscripts to the Kindle—is used by 26% of all respondents, with 2% doing so daily, 6% weekly and 18% “sometimes.” About 21% said they were unaware of the feature, and 53% said they “rarely use” it.

Their ratings of the document reading feature: 25% find it useful even if flawed, and 9% rate the feature “superior.” About 53% said it was not important to them, 8% were unaware of the feature, and 5% found it a distraction.

The text-to-speech feature of the Kindle is used by a sizeable group of 25% of respondents, with 2% listening daily, 4% weekly and 19% “sometimes.” Two thirds—66%–say they use text-to-speech rarely. 8% call text-to-speech “superior” and 29% term it “useful if flawed.”

The Kindle gets significant use from owners checking email and browsing the web. In a question about usage, the survey combined email checking and web browsing. About 25% overall use the features, with 17% doing so “sometimes,” another 5% weekly, and 3% daily. And 56% said they rarely check email with their Kindles, while 19% were unaware that they could.

But that’s usage for email and web browsing. What about performance?

A second question broke out the Kindle’s two features: email and web browsing. For email, only 1% rate the Kindle “superior,” while 23% say it is “useful if flawed.”

As a web browser, only 2% rate the Kindle as “superior” as a web browser, and 28% call it “useful, if flawed.”

The survey combined two audio features to ask respondents how often they used their Kindles to listen to audiobooks and/or music. Some 12% listen to music or audiobooks on their Kindles, about half as many as text-to speech. About 1% listen daily, 3% listen weekly and 8 percent listen “sometimes.”

Winter 2011 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey Results: Kindle’s "Extra" Features Continue to Have Wide Usage

August 17, 2011February 18, 2011 by Steve Windwalker