Posts tagged ""

Scribd Beta DIY Launch for eBook Authors and Publishers Looks Viable

May 18, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

San Francisco-based startup Scribd has just launched the beta version of a potentially exciting new opportunity for authors, publishers, and readers. I hesitated before including the DIY label in the subject line because it may be misleading, given that Scribd has done some business with major publishers such as Random House, according to today’s New York Times piece, “Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Their Work and Name Their Price.” But Scribd’s roots are all about document-sharing and a Youtube-like DIY approach for those who understand that uploading is the new downloading.

Scribd stands out among innovators in the arena of connecting digital text authors and publishers with digital readers, because (1) it offers some compelling reasons for faith that it could actually work; and (2) it is not Amazon.

By “actually work,” I mean that it could actually lead to significant sales and exposure for ebook authors and other content providers. By “not Amazon,” I am getting at the notion that, if it proves viable, Scribd could actually provide authors and publishers with an effective counterbalance in a marketplace where Amazon currently threatens to establish such hegemony that the rest of us could end up feeling as if any effort to influence pricing, royalties, sales, and important issues such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and copyright is utterly ineffectual.

Scribd will allow authors and publishers to upload their content, establish their own approach to DRM, and keep 80 per cent of the proceeds from content sales. That’s not a bad start, and these claims from the Scribd site go even further:

“Tens of millions of people visit Scribd every month; your work could be discovered by the world.
Every document on Scribd gets frequently indexed by Google, which means better audience targeting for your work.
Your documents will be viewed the way it was meant to be – with its unique fonts, graphics, and other details.
Check out detailed stats on viewers, ratings, downloads, and more.
Take your document anywhere; just copy the embed code and insert it into a blog or website.”

The site also provides user-friendly uploading tools for Mac as well as PC users.

Naturally, I’ll want to have my cake and eat it too: to upload content to Scribd and to be able to read it on my Kindle. No doubt there will be a number of ways to do this, and we’ll be posting more about them in the future.

Kindle Nation Archives: May 2009

May 13, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

Kindle Nation – The Free Weekly eMail Newsletter – I:15, 5.12.2009

Click Here To Make A Secure, Easy Donation To Kindle Nation – Launch-Day Pre-Orders Indicate Kindle DX Success – Amazon Streamlines the Kindle-for-iPhone Experience – Kindle Nation to Amazon: Allow a Hassle-Free Return Credit for Kindle 2 Owners – Great Deals on Books and Other Kindle Store Content – Lawyers in Love with Their Kindles?

Kindle Nation Extra: Read All About the Brand New Kindle DX – The Free Weekly Email Newsletter – I:14A, 5.6.2009

Wireless Reading Just Got Bigger: Pre-Order the 9.7″ Kindle DX Now for $489 – Kindle DX Will “Revolutionize Learning” – Can the Kindle DX Save the Newspaper Industry? – Technical Details on the Kindle DX – 354,000 Kindle 2s in Q1 2009; 1.2 Million Kindles to Date?

Kindle Nation – The Free Weekly Email Newsletter – I:14, 5.5.2009

Changes Afoot: Charges for Personal Documents – Amazon Sets Press Conference for Wednesday, May 6 to Announce Kindle DX – Extra! Extra! Read All the Brand New Kindle DX! – From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Help Finding a File After Transferring It to Your Kindle with Mobipocket – Great Deals on Books and Other Kindle Store Content – 354,000 Kindle 2s in Q1 2009; 1.2 Million Kindles to Date? – Tips for Kindle Authors and Publishers – From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Paolo Weighs in with “10 Reasons Why I Wish I Didn’t Buy a Kindle 2”

Special Bulletin: New Personal Document Charges Begin Monday May 4 Kindle Nation – The Free Weekly Email Newsletter – I:13A, 5.1.2009

Blue Monday: Amazon Begins Charging For Converting and Sending Personal Documents to Your Kindle – Speaking of Blue: Tune in to The Kindle Chronicles Podcast Tonight for Blueberry Pancakes With Windwalker and Len Edgerly

Can You Say e-Book Empire? The Kindle, Stanza, and Fair Trade

April 29, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

Amazon Acquires e-Book Competitor Stanza’s Parent, Third-Party Vendor Seeks an M-Edge with Kindle Ads in Apple’s Subways, and the Net Whispers its Fears About World Domination

The Bottom Line: Is Kindle Content Coming to Your Computer?

In the April Kindle Nation survey, in the course of asking participants about other issues (DRM, text-to-speech, and the pricing of Kindle editions), I decided to raise another issue as quietly as possible: did respondents identify with the statement “I am concerned that Amazon may be developing a monopoly over digital books.” 129 respondents checked the box — 10.5% of the total. Enough to notice, but fewer than a third of the numbers that expressed concern about DRM, TTS, and the $9.99 controversy.

But sometimes real economic events influence public sentiment. It turns out Amazon may be serious about this Kindle thing. You heard it here first — a year ago in my guide for the Kindle 1 — that Amazon would make Kindle content available on other mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch. Perhaps you didn’t pay too much heed when I wrote in the March 23 issue of Kindle nation that “Within months … Kindle books will be available on netbooks, iTouchTablets, Blackberrys, Macs, and PCs.”

Events are moving quickly now. Last night, while Blackberry owners were dreaming about when Kindle content would make it around to them, we learned that Amazon has purchased a tiny year-old company called Lexcycle that owns the fre e Stanza e-book platform that has been downloaded by at least 1.3 million readers worldwide.

There’s plenty to sort out here. Just for starters:

Unless Amazon’s purchase of Lexcycle is a draconian move aimed only at taking Stanza out of play as a competitor, the fundamental (if not, probably, first) order of business for these unequal but newly married partners will be to make Stanza play nice with Kindle content
Stanza can be downloaded to just about any Mac or PC, any desktop, laptop, notebook, or netbook, so it seems like a no-brainer that the Lexcycle acquisition should provide Amazon with the means to push Kindle content to every kind of computing device from the most to the least mobile
Stanza works alongside an app called Bonjour for the iPhone or iPod Touch, which has functionality similar to WhisperSync
Stanza also gives Amazon an interesting set of choices to make around DRM and open publishing platforms, since Stanza reads the EPUB format that has been widely promoted as a possible publishing industry standards

So why did I begin with that passing suggestion that some Kindle owners may be concerned about the potential for Amazon to monopolize or otherwise dominate the world of ebooks? It’s pretty simple, really. While only 10.5% of our survey respondents expressed the concern, it is a growing concern among authors, publishers, and — least surprisingly of all — Amazon’s book retailing competition.

Amazon would probably love it if every one of its Kindle content and accessory partners took the approach of M-Edge, which is paying for huge ads in the New York City subways promoting the Kindle, like the one at the right (photo credit to Silicon Alley Insider). But some of us actually expect our relationship with Amazon to be a two-way street.

Personally, I have been concerned lately that Amazon seems willing to offer its marketing power very unevenly to authors and publishers. For instance, Amazon’s “right” to simply ignore small indie publishers who want to participate in the same kind of promotions that Amazon routinely makes available to Random House or Harlequin may seem like a simple contract prerogative to Amazon staff, but it’s not that simple. The more vertical and horizontal power that Amazon has in the book marketplace, the more the mega-retailer may find itself in a position similar, at least conversely, to the position of Blockbuster Video, Borders Books, and large publishers and distributors when they were litigation targets in years past for tilting the playing field to which smaller, independent business “partners” had access.

On the other hand, it is also entirely possible that Amazon will realize that its increasing digital content hegemony will increase its exposure either to litigation or fair trade scrutiny and, in a funny contrarian way, will thus become a little less arrogant, and a little more willing and able to act in ways that promote a level playing field and continue to open creative and business opportunities for independent content providers. That scenario, in the long run, would also be the best for Kindle owners, other ebook readers, and readers in general as well as the various kinds of ink-stained wretches among us.

A Detailed Roadmap for Kindle 3, 4, 5, & Beyond: Touchscreen, Flexible Large-Form, Notepad, Color, & Voila: The Kindle Reader & Mobile Net Device

April 24, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

By Stephen Windwalker, publisher of Kindle Nation

CEO Jeff Bezos was characteristically coy, during Thursday’s Amazon earnings conference call, when he was asked if the company “might unleash the computing power of the Kindle” by adding features that could make the Kindle competitive with netbook computers: “We’re really focused on purpose-built reading devices. We wouldn’t talk anyway about what we’re going to do in the future.”

Amazon may be coy, but CEO Russ Wilcox of e-Ink, the Cambridge, MA company that manufactures the revolutionary display technology used by the Kindle and the Sony eReader, recently provided the Boston Globe‘s Robert Weisman with a detailed, forward-looking chronology in which he laid out exactly what features we can reasonably expect in the Kindle 3.0 and beyond during 2009, 2010, and 2011. Although Amazon has always (during the Kindle’s brief 17-month history) emphasized the Kindle’s primary purpose as an electronic reading device, the company has not been shy about including other features that could, if optimized and augmented over time, appeal to consumers with “convergence device” or “laptop replacement” on their minds. Follow the very detailed Wilcox roadmap and we are looking, within three years, at the Kindle 4 or 5 as “an ideal mobile internet device.”

Perhaps this seems speculative, you say? But think this through with me:

If the e-Ink technologies that Wilcox describes move from prototype to product on the timetable that he describes so specifically, wouldn’t Amazon be foolish not to adopt them for the Kindle? After all, while I have always been clear about my view that the Kindle hardware is a bit of a Trojan horse, a means to Amazon’s real end of maintaining and expanding its leading role as a content retailer as we transition toward more and more digital content, it is essential for Amazon to hold onto the Kindle’s hardware market position for at least the next half-decade if it is to continue to shape and set standards for the Kindle content market. The inherent business propositions are straightforward both for e-Ink and for Amazon: e-Ink would not be investing the R&D money if its most important customer were not interested in the features, and Amazon can’t afford to turn its back on hardware device features that will be adopted by hardware device competitors (even if those devices end up selling Kindle Store content, as I expect they will).

So, here’s what we have to look forward to:

2009 Kindle-Compatible TouchTablet

Although bloggers have been buzzing for months about a large-form Kindle (first in 2008, and then, when that didn’t happen, in 2009), most of this buzz has been self-feeding, and I admit that I’ll be happily surprised, but still surprised, if there is a large-form e-Ink Kindle display in 2009. Maybe he needed to be more reticent about events closer to launch date, but Wilcox didn’t even mention 2009. He was very specific in mentioning 2010 and 2011.
Much more likely: a large-form, backlit, energy-intensive, high-end Kindle-compatible iPod TouchTablet with a price point in the $599-$699 range.

2010 Kindle

All the features of the Kindle 2, plus
Touch Screen with display-based keyboard, character recognition, and handwriting stylus for annotation and other writing-intensive activities including email, notes, and scribbling
Faster refresh
Flexible large-form e-ink display for effective rendering of textbooks and newspapers

2011 Kindle

All of the above
Plus a full-color display for effective rendering of magazines, cookbooks, comic books and graphic novels

2012(?) “Kindle Ideal” Mobile Internet Device

All of the above
Plus a full-screen, full-featured, full-color, fast-refresh, fast-loading browser
Flexible so you can fold it up and carry it with no more weight or footprint than the Kindle 2
Low electricity usage so that it can go for days between battery charges
And, dare we dream that its wireless web connection would still be free?

Among other things, I can’t help but mention that if all this comes to pass, the dumbed-down Netbook phenomenon of 2009 will be so over by 2013.

Sometimes, I know, I get accused of shilling for Amazon, or being a Kindle bore, when I throw words like “amazing” and “revolutionary” at the Kindle. But it has been this vision of the Kindle’s future — implicit in nearly every word of the Russ Wilcox video below — that I have been imagining, and writing about explicitly — since the Kindle was launched in November 2007.

Here is the Wilcox video:

That’s the hardware. Can I get a “Wow?”

But I would be remiss if I did not also point out that there is still so, so much unrealized potential in terms of Kindle software and Amazon’s relationships with Kindle customers and content providers, including:

Content-driven social networking that would empower readers and authors while providing a nice viral marketing force for Kindle content
The obvious need for Amazon and publishers to liberate Kindle content from the restrictive guck of DRM (digital rights management), which has little or nothing to do with copyright protection and amounts to the biggest betrayal yet, or ever, of Amazon’s “customer experience” mantra
A more courageous and customer-driven stance in the face of the narrowly based opposition to the Kindle’s text-to-speech feature
The need to address a bizarre, uncharacteristic, unethical and legally questionable approach to Kindle content promotion and publishing platform support, in which Kindle staff have shown a bias toward mainstream publishers while failing to provide even rudimentary support for independent authors and publishers, and may, if other reports are to be believed, be employing the kind of two-tier royalty approach that could eventually lead to federal scrutiny

No doubt it is a lot to manage, but it seems ironic that a company that has never manufactured hardware before would be doing so well on the device itself, yet so poorly on myriad issues in which Amazon has proven expertise that the device’s bed could ultimately be fouled. I hope not.

* * *

(For more free news and tips about the Amazon Kindle, subscribe to Kindle Nation, the free weekly email newsletter by Stephen Windwalker, or download a month’s worth of issues to your Kindle for just 99 cents!).

The author was the first to note authoritatively that Amazon sold half a million Kindles by Fall 2008, and the first to predict the Kindle for iPhone App.

Where Do the Citizens of Kindle Nation Stand on Text-to-Speech, Digital Rights Management, and the $9.99+ Boycott?

April 16, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

Early Results from the First Kindle Nation Citizen Survey

(This post first appeared in the free Kindle Nation weekly email newsletter on April 13, 2009).

Over a thousand Kindle Nation citizens have exercised their citizenship rights during the past week by participating in the first ever Kindle Nation Citizen Survey. The survey will remain open throughout the month of April, and you can still participate by clicking here, but that won’t keep us from sharing some response tidbits with you.

First, let’s take a look at where the Nation stands on three controversies that are now live in the ebook world. I wasn’t attempting to “poll” in the traditional sense so much as to measure interest, so I provided the following choices and got the following result:

With which, if any, of these statements do you agree? (Choose as many as you wish. Please use the comment section to further describe your views or concerns).

1. I believe that it is important for Amazon to remove Digital Rights Management (DRM) from titles in the Kindle Store.

367 33.8 %

2. I believe that it is important for Amazon to maintain Digital Rights Management (DRM) for titles in the Kindle Store.

87 8.0 %

3. The text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2 is important to me and should be maintained on as many titles as possible.

442 40.8 %

4. I will consider switching to another e-reader in the future if Amazon does not remove DRM from Kindle Store offerings.

81 7.4 %

5. I am concerned that Amazon may be developing a monopoly over digital books.

107 9.8 %

6. I would consider boycotting Kindle books priced above $9.99.

359 33.1 %

7. I’ll make my own decisions about which e-books are worth more than $9.99 to me.

723 66.7 %

Totals 1083 100%

Now for a bit of analysis and follow-up.

DRM. The only real yes vs. no faceoffs under this question came on the DRM question and the $9.99 price boycott, and participants have weighed in with a very strong 367 to 87 against DRM. Of the 81 respondents who said they might switch to another e-reader over the DRM issue, 72 had already taken position 1; so the real vote against DRM stands at 376 to 87. However, this level of response also makes it clear that a very large number of respondents (over 600) don’t know or don’t care about DRM. My guess is that “don’t know” has an edge here, and so I offer some useful Teleread links on the issue and the recently developed anti-DRM campaign, as well as another article in this newsletter:

DRM: A TeleRead primer by Chris Meadows

A Campaign to Organize Against DRM

drmfree tag campaign starts on Amazon: Help identify safer-to-own books and other items!

drmfree tag campaign on Amazon picks up steam: Endorsed by Cory Doctorow and home-paged at MobileRead. More tips, such as how to create Kindle books untainted by DRM.

Not everyone will care about DRM. But if you are buying books from the Kindle Store with the expectation that you will always own those books and be able to use them in any non-commercial way that does not violate copyright, the DRM issue may be more important to you than you yet realize.

The $9.99 Price Boycott. Two things really jumped out at me on this one. One (which exposes the fact that it is not exactly a clear faceoff) is that there has been a very high level of participation: even after subtracting the 105 people who (and this is perfectly plausible) selected both statements #6 and #7, 977 out of 1083 survey respondents (90%) weighed in on the price boycott issues. This confirms for me that, especially in our current economic circumstances, Kindle owners care deeply about price, but also understand its complexities and, in most cases, prize the access to content that the Kindle gives them. To learn more about the nascent price boycott, see this article. And the fact that fewer than 40% of the respondents who did weigh in support the boycott is also reflected in other data, such as the fact that, this morning when I checked, 5 of the top 10 titles on the Kindle Movers and Shakers bestselling (or relative velocity) list had Kindle prices over $14.

Stay tuned for more information from the Kindle Nation Citizen Survey throughout the month of April. And please participate if you haven’t done so already!

(This post first appeared in the free Kindle Nation weekly email newsletter on April 13, 2009).

The Genius of Instapaper: for ParisLemon, a reason to buy the Kindle

April 10, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

Ordinarily when I find something like the usefulness of Instapaper with the Kindle, I worry that Amazon may be moved to take steps to block the feature based on the reasonable notion that it could cannibalize K-content revenues. But here’s a guy who was already using Instapaper, had been anti-Kindle, but when he learned that the Kindle and Instapaper played nice together it was the tipping point in persuading him to buy a Kindle 2. I agree with him that Instapaper rocks, with or without a Kindle.

Here’s my March 30 Kindle Nation post about the genius of Instapaper for Kindle owners.

Just released in the Kindle Store: The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2

February 24, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

(The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2: A Kindle Owner’s Toolkit Of Over 500 Tips, Tricks, and Links To Help You Get the Most Out of Amazon’s Revolutionary e-Book Reader & Free Wireless Web Browser has been live in Amazon’s Kindle Store since Sunday afternoon and has already cracked the top 25 bestsellers there, although the book’s bibliographic metadata, product description, and sort categories are not yet live on the Amazon site. So, just to make it a little easier for you to get a sense of what the book provides while it is still being offered at a very low promotional price, I am posting the content of the Amazon product description here).

Here’s the beta version of the definitive new guide to the vastly improved Kindle 2, by the author of the 2008 Kindle 1 guide that outsold all other first-generation Kindle guides combined. Find out why the Kindle is still king among e-book readers with an astonishing array of new hardware and software features that make it a delightful snap to read anything from bestsellers to classics to your daily papers or a memo from a colleague. And with a treasure trove of more than 500 tips, tricks, resources and links Windwalker’s Kindle 2 guide will make you wonder if Amazon has evolved the e-reader that does not need a computer (Kindle 1) into the e-reader that *is* a remarkably versatile mobile computer (Kindle 2) with totally free “anywhere” wireless service paid for by Amazon.

In addition to scores of hacks and resources to help you make the most of the Kindle 2 reading experience and easily acquire fully-formatted free content for your Kindle, Windwalker also goes far beyond the user’s manual w tells you what you need to know, with updated links, so that you can use the Kindle 2’s surprisingly powerful and user-friendly free wireless web to check email, news, scores, stocks, bank accounts, favorite blogs, movie listings, book reviews, shopping choices, travel information, and even the local weather!

Written for serious readers as well as early adopters and “gadget heads,” Windwalker’s book-length guide — 40,000 words in this inexpensive beta edition — comes elegantly formatted for the Kindle with a fully interactive table of contents that make for user-friendly navigation and hundreds of links through which you can access resources directly with your Kindle browser or, if you take advantage of Windwalker’s free offer, download to your desktop or notebook computer. If you own the first-generation Kindle and you are trying to decide whether to upgrade to the Kindle 2, this book will help you with the due diligence necessary to make an informed decision, and even provides helpful information on how to help harvest some of the funds for an upgrade from the process of disposing of your Kindle 1.

Chapter Headings also include:
Great Websites for Free Content – What’s New with the Kindle 2 – Up and Running: Getting Started with Your Amazon Kindle 2 – Getting and Reading Books With Your Kindle – Sampling Books – Saving Items for Later – Getting and Reading Periodicals and Blogs with Your Kindle – Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Kindle – Using the Kindle’s Audio Features – Connecting with the World With Your Kindle – Read and Answer Email Anywhere*, Anytime on the Kindle, Without Monthly Charges – Troubleshooting if You Have Difficulty Accessing Gmail or Other Web Pages – Traveling with Your Kindle – Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases – Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas – Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide – The Kindle and GPS – Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle 2 – Downloading Kindle Editions via USB Cable – Other Tips and Tricks to Help You Get the Most out of Your Kindle 2 – Optimizing the Powers of Kindle Search – Returning a Kindle Store Purchase – Using Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Promotional Certificates to Give or Purchase Kindle Content – Recover Deleted Content at No Charge – Sign Up for an HTML File of the Links Contained in This Book – Writing and Publishing Kindle Content: 20 Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document – How to Use Kindle, Amazon and the Web to Market Your Book and Connect with Readers – Improved Content Management and Sorting – Opening, Deleting, and Restoring Kindle Content – Let Your Kindle Read to You with a New “Read-to-Me” Feature – Hands-Free Reading Options – Improved Periodical Navigation – Improved Reading and Web Navigation with the Joystick and the Back Button – and much, much more!

Why should I provide my email address?

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out The Boarding House by Sharon Sala

How can someone desensitized to death truly experience the death-related grief? Death Knell by John Misak

“A fast-moving whodunit investigation with plenty of action, deceit, and suspense.”–Seattle Book Review… Ill Intent by Geoffrey M. Cooper

“A captivating murder tale that kick-starts the beach reading season.” —Kirkus Reviews… Tune Up The Secrets of Mylin—Book I by Joe Klingler

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Secret Agent Minister by Lenora Worth

Don’t miss one of America’s top 100 most-loved novels! The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia Book 1) by C.S. Lewis

Facing society’s whispers, can Rachael and Hugh’s partnership in truth turn into a perfect romance? Wallflower Whispers by Rose Pearson

Uncovering her husband’s family secrets could cost her everything… The Woman Beneath the Stairs by Christopher Greyson

When life pitches a curveball, even the unlikeliest of love can hit a home run… Scoring With The Enemy by L.J. Grey

Will destiny find a way to bring two star-crossed souls together? Beware A Wallflower’s Wrath: A Once Upon a Widow Romance by Aubrey Wynne

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Mrs. McGinty’s Dead: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie

A jilted duke. A shy wallflower. A marriage of convenience that neither of them wants… The Duke’s Inconvenient Bride by Jayne Rivers