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Thousands of DRM-Free Books in the Kindle Store

April 20, 2009 by Steve Windwalker

One of the biggest misconceptions about DRM and the Kindle is that all the books in the Kindle Store are restricted by DRM. Actually, there are tens of thousands of DRM-free books in the Kindle Store, and it is relatively easy for authors or publishers to make their Kindle editions DRM-free.

Now readers, authors, and publishers have begun an effective campaign to tag and identify DRM-free books and bring positive market pressures to bear both on Amazon and publishers to make more and more titles DRM-free. Tech-publishing leader O’Reilly is the latest big publisher to make a boatload of its books DRM-free.

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!

The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle and the Warehouse to Nowhere….

November 5, 2008 by Steve Windwalker

Maybe some of this is inside baseball, but I have a few observations to share about Amazon’s once and present Kindle order backlog:

1. I can’t help but notice that whenever Amazon falls behind in shipping out Kindle orders, as they did on November 1, replacement batteries for the Kindle also show up as out of stock. A year ago when Amazon ran out of Kindles on launch day and didn’t catch up until mid-April, Kindle replacement batteries were out of stock. Likewise this week. There is no difference, of course, between Kindle batteries and Kindle replacement batteries. My own theory, that I will stick with until I see evidence to the contrary, is that it is a battery shortfall that is creating the production-and-shipping lag for Kindles.

2. While it is all well and good to talk about a battery shortage, of course, the real reason Amazon ran out of whatever Amazon ran out of is Oprah. Oprah can do anything. She elects presidents, she sells books, and she hires people who don’t answer my emails, but that’s okay. On Friday, October 28, Oprah devoted her entire show to the Kindle. As a result, according to my back-o’-the-napkin calculations, Amazon sold over 100,000 Kindles in the following 8 days. In the past Oprah has proven that she can sell $15 books like nobody else on the planet. This time, she proved that she can sell $300 gadgets. Oprah, Oprah, Oprah.

3. So Oprah sells 100,000 Kindles and Amazon runs out of Kindles at the peak of the, er, holiday season. What’s up with that, Jeff? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t get testy about this. But, well, I was enjoying the fact that the Oprah Kindle bump was creating a bit of a bump (as in, by a factor of 5) in both paperback and Kindle edition sales of The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle. They are still selling briskly, but they would be selling even better if the Kindle were shipping.

4. There is a certain irony to this thing about the Kindle selling out from time to time. One of the joys of the Kindle, for Amazon, for readers, for authors, and for publishers, is that once a title is available on the Kindle, that title never sells out. Never. Like, how many Kindle edition copies do I have in the warehouse, of Beyond the Literary-Industrial Complex: Using the Amazon Kindle and Other New Technologies to Unleash and Indie Movement of Readers and Writers? Like, over 7 trillion, or a googol, but I lost count. You get it, I am certain. But if a reader can’t get a Kindle, well, you know, that’s a warehouse to nowhere.

One of those tiny little Kindle tips that can make a big difference….

October 21, 2008 by Steve Windwalker

I had an email question from Phil in Chicago yesterday that pointed me in the direction of a tip that some Kindle users may find helpful. Phil had purchased both the Kindle edition and the paperback edition of The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle, and he was stymied trying to find a hyperlinked phrase in the Kindle edition after inferring (from the fact that it is underlined in the paperback edition) that in the Kindle edition it would probably link to other interesting content.

The question made me realize that some of the Kindle features that have become second nature for me after nearly a year of engagement may still seem counter-intuitive to many or even most Kindle users. After all, for decades we have grown used to using the index or the Table of Contents of a book to find specific items in the text. With the Kindle, those methods are the least efficient.

The reason is that the Kindle’s search feature is a far more efficient way avenue for searching out nearly anything that one is looking for on one’s Kindle. Here’s the relevant text of my email back to Phil:

Hey Phil,

If you find a phrase in any hardcopy edition and you want to locate it in an electronic version that you have stored on your Kindle, you can use the Kindle’s search feature to look it up. Just follow these steps:

1. Turn off your Kindle’s wireless switch if it is on, so that the search won’t bog down in searching Wikipedia or the web.

2. Click “SEARCH” on the bottom row of the Kindle keyboard.

3. Type in the phrase you are looking for and use the scroll wheel to click “Go.” Tip: It is important to use a specific enough phrase so that you get a short list, just as you would with a Google search. When I typed in “some intriguing,” my Kindle came up with 5 selections from documents I had onboard: 4 from the New York Times and 1 from my book.

4. Select the correct citation from the list that appears (it usually takes about 30 seconds, but of course this depends on specificity), and you will be delivered to the text you are looking for in the document.

5. If the text is a hyperlink that you want to pursue, be sure to turn on your Kindle’s wireless switch before you use the scroll wheel to click on the link.

That worked for me — let me know if it works for you.

Steve

Naturally, this process is useful whether it applies to a phrase that you found in a hardcopy, a phrase that you might remember from an earlier reading, or any other phrase. And if you turn on the wireless switch before you search, the search may take a little longer but you would also find iterations on the web and in Wikipedia.

Here’s help for you or a friend if you are researching whether or not to buy a Kindle

September 9, 2008 by Steve Windwalker

Nearly 30,000 Kindle owners have purchased and downloaded the Kindle edition of my book, The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle, making it the premier guide for Kindlers.

Now it is the first Kindle guide to be published in a paperback edition, which may be a little ironic, but the availability of a paperback edition has already proved beneficial to hundreds of readers who want to check out the guide as part of their due-diligence before they lay out $359 for a brand new Kindle.

The paperback edition, 160 pages in length, can also be helpful to Kindle owners who want to consult a hard-copy in one hand while they are working with their Kindles with the other, as well as to Kindle authors and publishers.

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