Tip: Kindle's Archived-Items folder - Updated

A lot of people on the forums have asked what the 'Archived Items' folder is for while others have asked how to delete books.   At some point, people may want to re-download a book after deleting it and this is doable as well.

 This tip is only for Kindle 2's and DX's although there is one note about Kindle 1's different way of jumping to a Home listing page.  Thanks to My2¢worth for reminding me I should note this blog entry guide doesn't apply to the Kindle 1.

UPDATED to incorporate varying pop-up wording, thanks to the comment by Betty Reed.
When you want to delete a book purchased from Amazon, for which a copy is always on their servers, you just press your 5-way button to the left and a pop-up appears with the words "remove from device" on it to offer you that option for that book and you press down on the 5-way button.  That removes the book from your Kindle but it's still available on your Amazon book management page if you decide you want it back.  It is then also listed in your Kindle's Archived Items folder.

  If the book was not purchased from Amazon or if it is a Kindle periodical which is no longer on the Amazon server, your first pop-up says "Delete" and if you press that, you get another pop-up that says, "This item will be permanently deleted.  Would you like to continue.?" (Thanks to PaxtonReader for part of the info on when that pop-up appears, noting it does not appear for Amazon-purchased books.)

  If you don't want to delete the book or periodical because your cursor was on the wrong item, say, then you can either 5-way (button) to the right or hit my favorite Kindle button, the "BACK" button, and you'll be back to where you were before starting the delete function.

  If you confirm removal for any book, then the title is removed, and if you purchased it from Amazon the book is on their servers in the area they made for your book management and remains there.
  As a convenience, you'll find, as mentioned above, your removed Amazon-purchased book listed under the Archived Items folder on your Kindle as well, as an easy way to retrieve it when you do want it again.  This just tells you what is yours and available for download.
  (Remember that annotations you've made on an Amazon-purchased book are saved along with the book if you don't disable the advertised annotations backup feature under Menu/Settings/Menu option and that they are downloaded with any re-downloaded books).

It could be that you have another Kindle-compatible device on your account and if so, it may have a book sent to it that this Kindle doesn't have.  That book will show up in this Kindle's Archived Items folder because it's not listed in the Home directory as available for reading.

  My book orders are sent mainly to my most recent Kindle (a DX) but I may want to read it on the Kindle 2 as well.  In that case, I can send it to the Kindle 2 from the Manage Your Kindle page at Amazon by using my computer's web browser (where I'll find my book-library info at the bottom-left area of that page in expandable format [a "+" sign means you can open up that line and see more info and options], or I can just get my Kindle 2 and go to its Archived Items folder to click on the book title and get it that way.

How do we get to the Archived Items folder?
If you're new to the Kindle or haven't explored it much, be sure to see my blog article on Basic Kindle folders organization and access.  This shows how to limit the display to only Personal Docs, subscriptions, and books when not wanting the All My Items option.
  It also shows the 3 possible sorting methods of what you've chosen to display: by Most Recent, Title, or Author.  The images and text in that article show how to navigate the top-of-page organization options (often hidden) on the Kindle's Home listings page.

Tips on getting to the Archived Folder easily
  a. Primary method: Press Menu and then select and click on "View Archived Items"
  b. If you have your Home listing sorted by the 'default' setting, which is "Most Recent" at the top, then the Archived Folder will be at the end of your listing, which could be page 12.

  Getting to the last-page number (for any reason):
  You don't have to go through each page, as I've seen some complain we must.
  You can just start typing the number of the last page in your listing.  In this case, you'd type in '1' and then '2' (not too slowly).  Then you'll see the '12' on your search bar, but the Kindle knows you may just want a page number if the number is smaller than the number of pages for the Home listing.

  At that point press down on the 5-way button, and you'll be taken to the last page.  From there, you can type, say, '6' and press down the 5-way button again to get to page 6 if you want.

  NOTE: This Goto page-number for the Home listing works on ANY sort option - Most Recent, Title, or Author.   I don't think this is commmonly known.

  (Kindle 1 or 'Classic' model note:  You can type in the number of the last page and do not need to press anything else down to get there.)

  Getting to Archived Items folder with ANY sort option.:
  If your Home books-listing is sorted by Title, you're already at the 'A's. Then you type 'a' and the search bar will appear with the 'a' in there, at which point you can then press the 5-way button down and be shown not all the other titles that start with 'A' (or titles that begin with numbers) but only 3 items: Archived Items, Periodicals: Back Issues and any Items Not Yet Indexed (which means they haven't been catalogued for key word searches yet or that a subscription issue is no longer available).

  Notice that this is a short cut to Periodicals folder also.

  But since the sorting option is on 'Title' we could have typed 'p' to get there as well.  That typing of 'p' wouldn't work when on Most Recent sort-method though, although typing the alpha-character works with 'a' for Archived Items folder.

  The key thing is that although I mentioned getting to the Archived Items folder via Title above, you can type 'a' when your list is sorted by either Title or Author OR even Most Recent and you'll be taken to the listing of 3 items - the Archived Items, Periodicals and any unindexed items.

Again, whenever you're through with any unusual action, the BACK button is a great feature to get you back to where you were before a jump to another location was made.

UPDATE: A thanks to PaxtonReader for additional information, which has been included.

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LINKS FOR FINDING FREE OR LOW-COST KINDLE-BOOKS AND SOURCES
  A page of links and info for finding popular or latest free or low-cost Kindle-readable books

iPad's missing core apps. Free-books page update

Free and Low-Cost Books page Update
Added two free book online sources to the ongoing free-books article.  Also, Two RSS readers are not catching that article for some reason and it doesn't display for their subscribers, so this is a way to get to it.
    If there's interest, I can make a downloadable copy of it for the Kindle, for Kindle Edition subscribers, as a sort of reference, though it's currently not well-organized.

Minor Puzzle on iPAD's core apps

I first read from Trusted Review's Gordon Kelly that Apple has pulled core apps from the iPad.  While they mention the Daring Fireball blog has a possible answer, they reference a Wired article by Brian X. Chen for the basic details.

Chen noticed that Apple's press statement for the official release date of its iPad Apple suggested the iPad won't ship with all the apps that came with the iPhone.

' Apple’s press release states the iPad includes “12 new innovative apps designed especially for the iPad.”  That number presumably refers to the brand new Videos app and the redesigned iPod, Maps, Photos, Mail, Safari, App Store, iTunes, YouTube, Contacts, Calendar and Notes apps that were present on demo units of the iPad in January. '

He notes that the iPhone ships with some apps that appear to be left out from the iPad: Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather and Voice Memos.  Why?  He thinks they'll be in the Apps store for free download.

  I remember people talking about space for more core apps the way they were distributed on the screen at the time.  So, maybe they're working on revisions to suit the iPad.

  Chen mentions that blogger Kevin Fox thinks they'll reintroduce the missing apps as Dashboard widgets that run in the background, accessible with the F12 hot key, since they were originally Dashboard widgets, except for Voice Memos.

He adds: "(Contrary to popular belief, the iPhone can multitask, but it’s limited to running a select few apps made by Apple in the background...)"

See the pictures at Wired.

Trusted Reviews's Kelly explains Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber's theory that these particular apps originally made for much smaller screens just would not look very good on the iPad, either because they'd be really tiny, in a 3.5" rectangle, surrounded by a huge blank space, or the user could choose to fill the screen with it and it would then be in quite substandard resolution and the design would look odd.  Read the article for the full explanation of why it probably happened.  Gruber says they were therefore scrapped by "you know who."

The article also has a link to the long, official Apple introductory video by several excited executives using the mantra "It's the best...," "magical," "revolutionary."

 I like the look of the product but not this overdone delivery of it.

The article also carries the HP Slate video I linked to yesterday.  Competition looks fierce for both tablets and e-readers.

iPad competitors and Dell Mini that reads Kindle - Update

It seems the market will be flooded with tablets or slates competing with the iPad.

UPDATE 3/13/10 - Seven alternatives to the Apple iPad - Mainly large photos and specs, pro and con, at linked CrunchGear site.

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HP Slate
For those reading this on a computer, the HP Slate now has a 5-1/2 minute youtube video demo'g its flash support and Adobe Air (missing from the iPad) and it's very impressive.   Start it at minute 1:18 as he just talks for too long when introducing it.

ADAM by Notion Ink
Goodereader reports on the Adam from Notion Ink, the first gizmo that will be released with the Pixel QI screen, that can alternate between an e-paper type display and an LCD one and doesn't depend only on its own power source for the screen's light.
  Unlike the iPad, Goodereader says, its backlight can be turned on or off, reducing battery drain by 50% and allowing 16 hours of Internet usage while the iPad's is expected to be about 10 hours (the latest release info from Apple says the number of hours is subject to many conditions).

With a 10" screen, it uses the Android system, has HDMI output, 3 USB ports, can multitask, has GPS, a digital compass, a 3 megapixel camera, and is memory-card expandable to 32 gig. It weighs a bit over 1-1/2 lbs. Here's an article that includes an e-mail interview with the CEO (from India) and a chart of Adam features vs the iPad.

Smartmoney.com quotes a consultant who says the Adam "is probably closer to what the second-generation iPad will be than what the iPad currently is."

John Dvorak asks, "iPad killer from, uh, India?" and still wonders if there's a market for a tablet computer. Seems so! though not at some of the pricing we've seen when you want 3G cellular wireless capability and while being asked to forego multitasking capability, usb ports, webcam, flash support for the Web etc.

And here's iSlate headlining, "Notion Ink's Adam Considered to be a big contender against the iPad."  It's a detailed article if you want to read more on this.

The most attractive part from all that? Starting price will be about $325
.
DELL MINI 5 or "Streak"
Dell is apparently creating a small one that will be able to read Kindle books !   The screen size is smaller than the Kindle though but considerably larger than most smartphones and would be an "always-On" web device, running Android 2, with a 3G phone, WiFi, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera and a forward-facing camera for video calls, 1.6G internal storage (before system files) and a micro SD card slot.

Engadget received a flyer with confirmed specs and colorful models. Their earlier article on Feb. 26 reported the Dell Mini wouldn't be out for at least another month and referenced Wired's quote from Neeraj Choubey, GM of Dell's tablet division, that there'll be " 'a family of tablets' which will 'scale up to a variety of sizes' and that it'll likely be Android all the way, while Choubey also shared his company's intention to bundle 'inexpensive data plans' with the new devices...'

Choubey confirmed to Laptop that Dell is working with AT&T  (yikes, are they the carrier for most of the e-readers and tablets?).  The leaked internal document they got states:

' The second page details a content partnership that Dell may be entering with Amazon.  The document states that the Mini 5 will integrate with Amazon's Kindle, MP3 and Video services, and will include a Kindle reader app. '

  It also refers to the Snapdragon-powered device as the 'Streak.'  No solid release date or final price yet.

Hmmm, Infomobile has a huge picture of a proposed Dell ad about the Amazon deal and, in an earlier story, a brief video of the little unit, plus a description of the not-gonna-fly price - unsubsidized (no data plan: $1098 and maybe $600-$700 with plan).  It does have a phone.  See update below: Wired's writer feels Dell would tend to undercut Apple's pricing.

UPDATE - 11:35 AM, same day. Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk adds that

' The documents also indicate that — like Kindle owners — users of this Dell mini-tablet will have wireless (3G) access to the Kindle store with “no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for a Wi-Fi spot.” If that’s the case, Dell’s tablets would have a significant advantage over the iPad, which can only access the 3G network if you pay for the more expensive version of the hardware and sign up for a $15 or $30 per month data plan in addition to whatever wireless data plan you have for your phone. '

IPAD VIDEO AD
And with all tablets, there's one unusual inherent problem for users: here's Apple's first iPad video ad.  Liliputing makes sport of the new, very effective iPad ad in that they draw attention to the odd positions of everyone using the iPad in that ad - their legs are in unusual positions because it needs to be propped up.  I guess there'll be holders for it.

Clues to new Kindle capabilities at end of year

StrategyEye has been looking at Amazon's Lab126 job ads and reports that Amazon may be planning to improve the Kindle web browser, as they posted an ad for an engineer to design new features on an "innovative embedded web browser."

The article reports fears that Kindle customers who are newspaper subscribers could just go to a newspaper website for free (specifically mentioning the NY Times) and then cancel their newspaper subscriptions.  It's not clear to me that StrategyEye knows that Amazon Users can already web to the NY Times online.

We can already read the NY Times online in its full-text format, which I have a link to in the downloadable file of mobile-device-optimized websites described and available

We can also go to the regular website but that would be masochistic as that is very slow.  The text-optimized NY Times though is fully available.

Wireless use drains e-readers quite a bit, but a full-throttle web-browser would drain it very quickly.

StrategyEye reports that some believe the planned improvements are "part of a damage control exercise in prepararation for next month's release of the iPad."

  But in no way would a new version be ready by that time anyway, unless one is thinking about e-readers that are rushed to market and unreliable.
  There ARE obviously plans for a touchscreen to be ready by the end of the year and almost surely some kind of color screen with it, from all that I read (rumors are heavy about both Touchco which Amazon now owns and Mirasol, the latter dropping hints but also trying to entice all e-reader makers with their impressive technology although the colors are somewhat muted and there may be less contrast).
  EInk/PVI has stated that they could also have color ready by the end of the year also.
  So, I think any web browser improvements would be slated for a new Kindle near the end of the year.

  In the meantime it would be very good if they could improve the current model's web browsing so that it's faster and handles 'https' links. But, as StrategyEye worries, a faster browser will eat up more bandwidth, especially when people use a much faster browser much more and then 24/7 web browsing would likely be put on tiered pricing.

  StrategyEye writes that "A better browser would open up the internet to Kindle users and could put serious strain on the AT&T network."  The Kindle is already open to the Internet and is the only e-reader that gives (free) cellular wireless for this -- the other e-readers confine customers' web access to their own stores.

  And there they note the possibility that "Kindle customers could potentially cancel their subscriptions to publications such as the New York Times and access the paper's website for free."
  Certainly, with the iPad, the publishers should worry about that even more, as they could access the regular web pages of the NY Times as opposed to accessing, more practically and slowly, the mobile-unit optimized text pages of the NYT.

I've always been patient with the slow Kindle browser because it's free and I need that kind of access outside only for quick lookups.  I imagine that any decent speed capabilities will bring tiered-browsing plans, so I'm not over-excited about this.

iPad: U.S. Pre-orders Mar.12, On Sale Apr 3. Details & Analysis

The Washington Post carries partner TechCrunch's report by Leena Rao on the availability of the Apple iPad.

  Both the WiFi and WiFi+3G wireless sets will finally be available for pre-order by U.S. customers from March 12 from Apple's online store (www.apple.com), or you can reserve a Wi-Fi-only model for pick-up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

Apple announced that the WiFi-Network-capable iPad will be available in the U.S. on April 3, delayed just a bit from the expected March date.
  The recent rumors that shipment was delayed until April turned out to be true, but I hardly see it as a problem when it'll be available that early in April.

The WiFi with 3G cellular-wireless-capable models will be ready in late April.

APPS FOR IPAD
With the WiFi network (home/office), you can browse, buy and download apps from The App Store.  The iPad comes with 12 new apps designed especially for it and will run almost all of the more than 150,000 apps on the App Store, including most of the ones on your iPhone or iPod though you would likely resize them, at lower resolution, to make better use of the larger screen.

All the apps and content you download on iPad from the App Store, iTunes Store and iBookstore will be automatically synced to your iTunes library the next time you connect with your computer.

However, iBooks will be available only in the U.S. until later this year, per the announcement.

  While the iBooks app for iPad including Apple's iBookstore can be downloaded in the U.S., for free, from the App Store on April 3, other countries will be added later this year.

BATTERY
Apple's announcement has only this statement about battery life.
  "*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors.
   Actual results vary."

PRICING
Pricing for the two sets of models hasn't changed.
  The pricing, as I said earlier, is very good for a web-device if you want one without the type of cellular-wireless feature that has made the Kindle, new Sony Daily Edition, and nook e-readers popular for the ability to download books to the devices from almost anywhere you are.

  In other words, the non-3G model will be used mostly in the home or in offices, but it won't be able to do web browsing anywhere you happen to be as can be done on smartphones, including the iPhone (with monthly charges) and in a slow, monochromatic, but free way with the Kindle.

Here are the pricing options:
For Wi-Fi network use only:
  16GB $499
  32GB $599
  64GB $699

For addition of 3G cellular wireless capability (like the Kindle's)
  and (before monthly web-data charges)
  16GB $629
  32GB $729
  64GB $829

Monthly web-data charges are $15 for an almost useless amount of data (mainly email-type use but not much web browsing) and $30 for almost unlimited data, which is a very good deal.

In other words:
  For the 3G wireless capability we have with the Kindle, Sony, nook, etc., in addition to the WiFi feature:
    the lowest actual cost (for the model with the smallest amount of memory for a device usable for videos) is:

$629 + ($30/mo. x 12) which gives you
$629 + $360 for the first year = $989.
    Add the kit that lets you use USB & photo-transfers: + $29
Total of $1,018 - Lowest model with 3G cellphone wireless network + WiFi .

One can choose month to month and opt out, but it's not likely that people who pay $130 more for the 3G cellular wireless would then choose not to use it.  With 3G (rather than with WiFi-only), you can use it in a car on trips or anywhere there is no WiFi network available.


However, if you can do without the ability to carry the iPad to do any web-surfing or email wherever you're out and about and would be satisfied to be able to do this only when finding WiFi hotspots or using home/office WiFi networks, then the price is only $499 + a $29 adapter kit (not yet carried at Amazon).
Total: $528 for lowest model with WiFi-networks only.

  The "camera connection kit" includes an adapter that is needed for file transfers (it provides USB-equivalent connection for that) as well as a Dock Connector-based SD Card reader for transfer of photos.

Engadget has an article on the optional keyboard (for more intense writing), dock, the camera connection kit, and Apple case.  The article includes a hands-on report with photos.

  I was interested to see that Amazon already offers 76 search-results for iPad kits and 234 results for iPad accessories

There is no general, direct USB port nor SD slot.  For people new to the iPad details, the much-discussed missing features, important for some and not for others, include:
  . no multi-tasking capability
  . no support for Flash video on web pages
  . no webcam for video conferencing
  . no dedicated, directly usable USB port (adapter is buyable)
  . no SD slot (an SD card reader is included in the optional camera connection kit)

But you can choose, move, resize, etc., with the Multi-Touch(TM) interface, which will be a fun way to browse the web or email while on your couch, watching tv -- although probably email-writing would be best with shorter notes with a virtual keyboard, though this keyboard is said to have, relatively, a very good response.

I wrote a more detailed analysis, on January 27, of what the given and projected pricing actually includes.

Again, beginning March 12, U.S. customers can pre-order the device (all models) either online or at their local Apple retail store and pick up a WiFi-only one on April 3.
  The iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April. Other countries will be added later this year and announced in April.

International pricing will be announced in April.

The new iBooks app for iPad includes Apple's new iBookstore, of course.  As most following the news on this tablet device know, Apple's publishing partners include the Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple's online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

Amazon wants a physical presence in Canada

Quill & Quire's Stuart Woods reports, with help from Scott MacDonald, that Amazon's seeking government approval to establish physical operations in Canada.

According to documents, Amazon’s application to “establish a new Canadian business” – filed on Jan. 27 – is currently under review to see if it complies with the Investment Canada Act.  The new business would be called Amazon Fulfillment Services Canada Inc.

The article explains that if Amazon were to be given the go-ahead to open a Canadian warehouse or home office, it could mean the end of its distribution partnership with SCI Logistics.  It could also be a sign that Amazon plans to expand its offerings of non-book products in Canada.

Certainly it would be helpful for Canadians to be able to get some books that are not available to them via the U.S. Amazon site.

Apparently, members of the publishing community were the first to learn about the Privy Council review.

An unnamed industry source feels that an expanded Canadian presence for Amazon wouldn’t be a bad thing if it improved the company’s services for Canadian publishers.  In particular, the source said, a Canadian office might lead to more stringent enforcement of territorial rights on Amazon.ca: “If opening their own business in Canada means they’re going to tidy up their website, which is very frustrating for a lot of us now, that would be great.”
  I'm not sure that a more stringent enforcement of territorial rights is a great thing for customers though the publishers like restrictions that benefit them, of course.

When Amazon.ca was launched in 2002, there were objections from many in the bookselling community.
  Woods writes: "At the time, the Department of Canadian Heritage ruled that the Investment Canada Act did not apply to Amazon.ca because the company was not establishing a physical presence in Canada."

Best (paper) Books of the Month: 40% off

*NON*-KINDLE - These are paper books, but the 40% discounts should be noted, especially for books wanted when no Kindle edition has been made available.

Amazon has just created a new page that highlights what they consider "the best new books" to read every month.  These feature "editors' picks" and "reviews of the best new reads in fiction, nonfiction, and books for young readers, available at 40% off all month long."  The new page is titled Amazon's Best Books of the Month Store.  Again, these are not Kindle books.

My guess is that this was made to offset the delay in Kindle books being made available at the time of a book's release because the Big 5 (Random House excluded) want the Kindle releases of new books to be at higher rates or they delay their availability.
  Another reason would be to keep a focus on hardcover books, as publishers have been concerned that e-book sales will "cannibalize" sales of the hardback books.   And of course, it's another way to get revenue to offset losses on Kindle $9.99 books still being offered, as the traditional payment to publishers is 50% of the publisher-set List Price.

Amazon announces Free Book Collections page

At the Amazon Community Discussions area, there is an official Announcement tonight from the Amazon Kindle Customer Service account about the new Free Book Collections page:

' With over 420,000 titles, the Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read including New York Times® Best Sellers and most new releases at $9.99, unless otherwise marked.  And Amazon provides thousands of the most popular classic books for free including titles like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island with more coming.

But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, pre-1923 books online.  We wanted to make it easier to find these collections which today represent nearly 2 million titles [emphases mine].

Visit amazon.com/freebookcollections for sites with free book collections and download instructions. '

  This has an advantage for Amazon as now they can say that the Kindle can access all those books, which is, of course true, which the Amazon Community Forums have discussed for a long time and which you've seen on blogger sites such as this one's regular reminders and links.

  But this makes the free books available to the Amazon Kindle a bit easier for most people to find, and Amazon has been working on improving the formatting of free books that had been uploaded to Amazon in the past.

  The set of almost 20,000 or so free Kindle classics at Amazon now has its own page.

  At the new Free Book Collections page  (free classics and out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books available for Kindle), Amazon tells us:

' But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books online.  We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles. See the sites and instructions below to download free classic and other out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books and transfer via USB to your Kindle device or read on Kindle for PC.

Note that these large collections of older free books are typically created from scanned copies of physical books and can have variable quality. '

  In fact, the 30,000 Project Gutenberg books are very well formatted and Amazon now links us to that website, but with that particular link they encourage you to browse the site on your computer (rather than the catalog on your Kindle) and you then need to download the books to your computer and transfer them to your Kindle -- instead of directly downloading a book to your Kindle via the catalog on the Kindle (see next paragraph).

  There are ways (one of them promoted on this site) to get the catalog of Project Gutenberg onto your Kindle and browse or search it on your Kindle and when you want to download a Kindle-compatible e-book ('Mobi' format), you just click to get it, direct onto your Kindle.  The problem for Amazon is that Whispernet is used for such a download but it's direct from the Project Gutenberg area and is not chargeable as it doesn't come from Amazon servers.

  So, give that a thought.  Amazon wants to keep use of the webbrowser free (as it is now a defining, unique feature of this e-reader), and I imagine too much use of it could threaten Amazon's ability to keep that feature free.  Downloading time is extremely brief though, for a text-based book, and can't compare with time and bandwidth spent actually browsing the web, something they still encourage with their built-in web bookmarks on new Kindles.

The new Amazon page also makes it easy for people to know about and find The Internet Archives, which I wrote about here in January and which has about 1.8 million free books.

  Amazon has been paying attention, it seems, to customer interests as expressed for a couple of years now on its own Kindle Community forums in that humongous thread about free books elsewhere and on many blog pages.

  It always interested me that Amazon did allow the extremely-busy message discussions about how to find free books outside Amazon (while the world of news reporters and even e-reader analysts were -- and still are -- constantly writing that Amazon customers could buy e-books for their Kindles only from Amazon, which was never true).  In the last 3 months, I've noticed many Kindle customers now correct those news stories in the comment areas.

Amazon closes its new free-book collections page with
    "Have you seen another great collection of free Kindle books on the web?
     Drop us a line"
  So, they are really into this now.  

  It was needed since Barnes & Noble, and Sony, were advertising over a million books for their e-readers after getting the half-million free, pre-1923 Google books that are readable directly on their devices, and counting the ability to read ePub formatted ebooks.  As regular readers of this blog know, while the Kindle doesn't read the Google books direct, Kindle users can easily convert an ePub file to a Kindle-readable one in about 3 minutes using Calibre.

  The Amazon Kindle reads free MOBI files (offered on many book sites) -- in addition to WORD doc files through free Amazon conversion, and also reads pure text-files (*.txt) direct, the latter two not supported by the Nook) but has not counted the free MOBI files elsewhere.  Now it can count non-rights-protected MOBI files on other sites as directly accessible, a good thing to point out, finally, even if that takes customers away from busily buying at the Amazon store itself.  It's probably more beneficial to let people know what the Kindle can read.

Again, Amazon's own set of almost 20,000 free classics, directly downloadable by the Kindle from Amazon for some time, now has an Amazon page of its own.

You can read the Amazon forum discussions for customer reaction to this new welcome feature.

UPDATE - March 3, 2010
I've updated the ongoing Free and Lowcost books page.  Amazon's free book collections don't include feedback.com or manybooks.net, which have good formatting on them.  That continues to be covered by the free-books page here.

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LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  As ever, here is the ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

Walletpop: Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony

Walletpop reports "Battle of e-readers shows Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony."

For Kindle Edition subscribers, I'm inserting Walletpop's chart into this news alert to make it easier, but website visitors and RSS feed readers can easily use the link to walletpop to read the full story.

ALSO, Kindle Edition subscribers may use this article and chart as a very good example of what you can do on the Kindle if choosing to browse mobile-unit-optimized websites.

  This Walletpop article is a good way to get familiar with the Kindle's built-in and free web browser.  If you're at home or in an office, you can even plug in the adapter if wanting to play with the web-browser features without draining the battery.

To get the Kindle-friendly version of the walletpop article with your Kindle, click on the following link to the same article optimized for mobile units, and you'll see that when away from home you can use the Kindle pretty nicely for lookups if you know the links to mobile-device versions of various sites.
  For the sports-interested, there's a mobile version for ESPN also. As usual, when on a computer, see my mobile-web article for a downloadable Kindle file of mobile-device optimized sites linked.  That article also includes a link to my blog entry on how to use the Kindle's web-browser for faster and more readable results.

Back to the Walletpop story
For the article, Tom Barlow chose the New York Times selection of the 10 best books of 2009 -- five fiction, five non-fiction and avoided current bestsellers because they're often subject to price wars and loss-leader pricing.

He found the results startling, and I agree.  While I did not think that Amazon had raised prices already in any finalized greement with major publishers, he found that prices had risen on Amazon above the $9.99 price point for what were bestsellers in 2009.

  However, I've noted that when a book is a bit older and no longer on the NYT bestseller list, Amazon has often raised the price, which helps them recoup some of the money lost in selling bestsellers at $9.99 when they traditionally pay the publishers about $12.50-$15.00 (50% or so of the LIST price SET by the publishers).

Book	Amazon for Kindle	Barnes & Noble for Nook	Reader Store for Sony
Chronic City by Jonathan Letham	$15.37	$20.76	$9.99
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy	$14.27	$18.53	$18.16
A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore	$14.27	$19.27	$9.99
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls	$9.99	$9.99	$9.99
A Short History Of Women by Kate Walbert	$9.99	$17.82	$9.99
The Age Of Wonder by Richard Holmes	$23.76	$29.71	$40.00
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel	$9.99	$18.57	$9.99
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr	$9.99	$22.27	$9.99
Lords Of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed	$9.99	$9.99	$9.99
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka	$19.25	$26.00	$24.50
Total	$136.87	$192.91	$152.59

As you can see, many books remained at the $9.99 price, nevertheless, and Barlow notes

' the shocking difference in price between Amazon, the Reader Store and Barnes & Noble.  In just this small sample, books for the Sony Reader were 11.5% more expensive, while the ones for the Nook cost 41% more. '

 He asked Mary Ellen Keating, senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Barnes & Noble, about this price disparity.  To be fair to the writer and the paper, please go to the story to learn how she explained the price differences.  It's sort of a marvel.

Barlow sums it up this way:

' ...those of us who read books on another platform, Blackberry in my case, have a choice between versions of the Nook and Kindle readers.  Guess which one I'll be using. '

Photo credit: Librarian by Day

Google book settlement: What's it all about? Pros and Cons

CNet's Greg Sandoval reports on the Google book settlement plan drawing fire in court.

For those who wonder what it's all about, CNet describes the "disparate and dissenting constituencies" that showed up in federal court Thursday, Feb. 18, to comment on Google's plan to create an all-encompassing digital library.

After giving a description of the scene in court, Cnet states the basics:

' Google wishes to create a vast and unprecedented digital library and has reached an agreement with groups representing book publishers and authors that would allow the search engine to display digital snippets of out-of-print books still covered by copyright.  Their representatives appeared before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to seek approval for the deal.

Perhaps best known for presiding over the Bernie Madoff securities-fraud case, Chin is now tasked with determining whether the controversial settlement is fair to authors, publishers, Google's competitors, and the public.

  One main issue is that Google would have the right to exploit titles belonging to authors who have not given their approval. '

Chin wasn't about to issue a ruling before first hearing from stakeholders, an important one being the U.S. Department of Justice, which has not been smiling on Google's plans for what is termed the "orphaned books."

Supporter Lateef Mtima, a Harvard law professor and director of Harvard's Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, told the Judge:

  "Copyright was intended to be an engine of cultural development,
    not a brake."

Paul Courant, a professor at the University of Michigan who oversees the school's libraries, said that digitizing books frees knowledge from the restrictions of geographical locations.  Most books at the University can't be read unless you are there, in Ann Arbor.

However, of those who addressed the court, settlement opponents outnumbered supporters 3 to 1.  CNet continues:

' Detractors claimed Google's plan poses an unprecedented threat to the privacy of book readers.  Several authors argued that the agreement would desolate copyright law.  Competitors, such as Microsoft and Amazon, said the settlement is an attempt by Google to set itself up as the all-powerful emperor of digital information.

Nothing drew more fire than the settlement's plans to force authors to "opt out" in order to prevent Google from scanning snippets of their books.  Critics say that Google has everything backward here.  They ask why is it that authors must go out of their way to opt out in order to prevent Google from exploiting their work?

Doesn't copyright law already require that they give their permission first before someone can license their work? '

One might think the Dept. of Justice opinion carries some weight...

' William Cavanaugh, an assistant U.S. attorney general told Chin that the publishers and the Authors Guild do not have a right to enable a third party such as Google to use an author's work without their permission.  "This (settlement) has the effect of rewriting contracts," said Cavanaugh, who also told the judge that the government continues to investigate whether the agreement violates antitrust laws. '

Privacy is another concern.

' Representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Center for Democracy & Technology described worrisome scenarios whereby information about people's reading habits could be tracked with Google's proposed service.  For example, Google would possess records of a person who read a sexually explicit book or some other controversial title.  In addition, Google would have the ability to log even the pages the person read. '

Google's attorney told the court that the company IS interested in getting rights to the "orphan works," titles for which the author isn't known or can't be found.

CNET closes with

' The question of properly paying someone who is entitled to compensation under Google's plan but may not be aware of it has been a hot issue. Google said that the money earned from orphan works is what will make the digital library a feasible business. Google's attorney said that others, such as Microsoft, who attempted to digitize books in the past couldn't monetize their efforts this way and that's why they failed. '

FROM COMMENTS AT CNET
1. 'By smilin - Out of print doesn't mean what you think.  It just means a book isn't being printed at the time.  Almost always the copyright holder does an additional run.

What if the publisher doesn't want to opt-in?  If you do an opt-out policy then you have essentially forced an opt-in.  The logic one would use to make this seem OK just makes my brain lock up.  Copyright owners would likely not opt in because they OWN the rights and intend to excercise them to make money.  If you take said right away then you have just stolen that opportunity from them." '

  I've got a friend who is an author of a recent yet out of print book.  They have plans to publish this as an e-book on Amazon.  What happens when they try to sell such a book and the customer has already found a copy of it for free on Google?

2. By orbital_bruiser - February 19, 2010 1:18 PM PST
  '...At issue is people [Authors Guild and non-related publishers] that don't own the copyright on material giving Google the right to scan and charge access without permission.  Not only that, the people that don't have the rights to works in question are agreeing to allow ONLY Google to do this...'

3. By ACLU_NorCal - February 19, 2010 9:39 AM PST
  'There are serious privacy implications of google book search that were raised yesterday by the ACLU, EFF, and CDT.  Because the settlement does not contain any privacy protections for users, Google's system will be able to monitor which books users search for, and even which pages they read and how long they spend on each page.  Google could then create a massive "digital dossier" that might be vulnerable to fishing expeditions by law enforcement or civil litigants.

Read more about the privacy implications on the ACLU-NC's website: bit.ly/9LCadq

- ACLU of Northern California '

4. By job514 February 20, 2010 12:04 AM PST
  'Opt-In is a ridiculous concept for this occasion.  These books have fallen out of print because the publisher in most cases has neglected it.  Google is offering a way to monetize these books again.  If the author is dead and/or the publisher is out of business then who is going to represent the rights of this book?  No one!  Who gets to see this book?  Depending on how many copies are left in existence... and how close you are to the library that has it.

  For a repository to be of true value it must include as many works as possible.  If I am researching the occurrence of the word "communism" in books from 1970's-1980's, and half of the out of print books are missing because the publisher neglected the work then I'm S.O.L.  Then again... if these books do indeed have continuing value then the author/publisher if he/she is still around will have incentive to claim it.  Google doesn't get the money in the mean time either...  It is set aside for a period of time for the right-holder to reclaim.  Copyright has failed us. Google has come up with a win/win solution. ' '

Amazon won't be undersold on book pricing

The New York Times's Nick Bilton confirms what many of us suspected: that Amazon would not have agreed to a fixed pricing that allowed Apple, Barnes & Noble, or any other bookstore to offer a lower pricing than Amazon's despite Macmillan's insistence on higher pricing while Apple has negotiated a $9.99 pricing for bestsellers.

There were several news stories that asked if Apple might have 'burned' or 'undercut' Amazon by suggesting that publishers raise e-book prices, with four publishers then pressuring Amazon to go along with this because they'd have Apple to rely on based on Apple's recommendation of those higher prices.

MacNewsWorld, in an article Feb. 18, titled "Apple's E-Book Pricing Flip: Chaotic or Cunning?," wrote:

'Apple's reasons for the pricing change, if the report is correct, remain murky.  They could be evidence that Apple's gaming the market.  "Apple's trying to play both sides of the fence," Andrew Eisner, director of content at Retrevo, told MacNewsWorld.  "On the one hand, it's trying to appear friendlier to book publishers with its willingness to let them charge higher prices; on the other, they know they're going to be out there doing battle with the likes of Amazon and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), who already skirmished in a book price war late last year."

Or, Apple could be wracked by internal dissension. "It sounds like there could be several different people working on this, and I wonder if Steve Jobs was involved at all," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told MacNewsWorld. "It does seem like the change is kind of fast, and it's scaring all the publishers." '

  After the ensuing brouhaha with Macmillan's John Sargent insisting on his $15 new e-book pricing, the NY Times found that Apple had inserted language into their "Agency" agreements that the publishers, whom they'd encouraged to raise their pricing, would have to allow Apple to sell e-books for $9.99 once they hit the bestsellers list.

  What?  Yes.   They'd be allowed to do what has been Amazon's policy all along.  Note all the Amazon Kindle marketing about NY Times bestseller books for $9.99 since the birth of the Kindle.

  So, we're to think that the publishers had no idea of the $9.99 bestseller-provisions going into their 'Agency' agreement with Apple?  If they weren't aware, then Apple inserted these in a later version.

At any rate, I'd opined in the comments-area here that Amazon's lawyers would have added language to ensure that Amazon would not be undercut by any other book-selling entity   (if any new changeover to the Apple-style "Agency" agreement effective March 2010 had been signed or finalized with Macmillan so soon after the iPad launch and corresponding Macmillan deal with Apple's Steve Jobs).

 In fact, the NY Times wrote at the time that there was "likely" some kind of language to protect Amazon plus a bit more:

' So what did Amazon hold out for?  The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages.
  Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other. '

Today's NY Times article by Bilton makes it clear that Amazon hasn't been standing still in this area:

' Amazon...is determined not to be out-priced by Apple or any other rival.

Since December [before the iPad launch], Amazon has been pushing publishers to sign a new round of legal agreements that would guarantee that the Kindle price for their content is always the same or lower than the price on other electronic reading devices, such as the iPad or the Sony Reader.  The clause, a variation of a legal concept known as “most favored nation,” would guarantee that Amazon’s customers would always get the best price for electronic versions of magazines, newspapers and books. '

What I didn't know was that "many e-publishing contracts with Amazon are still in a month-to-month cycle as the publishers negotiate to try to gain more revenue or more control over their content."  For some reason I had just (wrongly) assumed they were yearly or at least quarterly (which Macmillan's appears to be).

The article also notes Amazon's more complex negotiations with newspapers and magazines, which has to do with the "tiny slice" of revenue (typically 30%) for the publishers.   I've written earlier that insiders have been quoted as saying that Amazon shares the rest of the revenue with the wireless providers, who deliver the subscription content on a daily (or more frequent) basis.

  Despite subscription-publisher discontent with the Amazon contracts, some are considering signing the new Amazon contract while offering for the iPad a free, limited application for their content, as they'd rather not lose their current subscribers on the Kindle.  Also, the publishers have not been ecstatic about their current negotiations with Apple.

When the Kindle can display richer types of media (probably near the end of this year), subscription publishers could then, Bilton writes, release a paid product that looks and works the same across multiple devices.

British Library's 65,000 free books for Kindle: Update3

This is an update to (1) the detailed original report, the (2) follow-up story on reactions and questions about the file format used and (3) a look at what the Penny Dreadfuls collection is.

Information Today's Barbara Quint reports on The British Library's press release of February 23.

Much has been written about the final product looking exactly like the copies of the original editions, but in my mind it hasn't been totally clear from the Library whether that pertains to the Kindle edition or to just the print-on-demand copies that one can buy.  In an earlier update I wondered about the file-format and how they would retain the look of the originals without their being images rather than text.  I still haven't found anything solid on that, though I did quote NextWeb as writing that "...users of their Kindle eReader" would be able to "access historically accurate digital representations" but that could mean the printed copies available on-demand (and for $) to Amazon Kindle users.  Let us know if you hear anything definitive on that.

 Will the subsidiary of Amazon that provides printed copies be printing from Kindle copies or the copies that Microsoft originally scanned?  Could be the latter.  The Kindle copies are being made secondarily.  I guess we'll know fairly soon as they're due out in the Spring and the Library's press release is otherwise full of info. The provider of printed copies will be CreateSpace.com (originally CustomFlix Labs and BookSurge, Inc. and now a DBA for On-Demand Publishing LLC).  BL will receive some revenue from the Print-On-Demand sales, which will help it fund more digitization.

Quint writes:

'  How would you like to read a copy of a book by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen that looks exactly like the copies those authors held in their hands, ink fresh from the printers?  How would you like to read some of the books that the first readers of those books probably wouldn't admit they read-the so-called "penny dreadfuls"?  Last year, Microsoft completed its digitization obligations to The British Library (BL; www.bl.uk) and handed over 25 million pages in 65,000 19th-century books.  As yet the digital copies, like the hard copies, have only been readable by visitors to The British Library Reading Room.

  Later this spring, however, the digital copies will be available to any and all users of the Amazon Kindle ebook reader for free. A print-on-demand service will provide optional paperback copies to readers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France. Expect to see the digital collection appear elsewhere as well. The Amazon arrangement is nonexclusive. '

As was said in the first newspaper report, "To meet the ever increasing demands of our users the library is negotiating with other key industry players to ensure we maximise potential for access."
  The Kindle is just the first e-reader for which an agreement was reached.

Today's article by Quint explains how it happened that Microsoft arranged to digitize the books, begun in 2005-2006.  After they halted their "Live Search Books" project, which was begun to compete with the new Google Books project at the time, they finished the scanning of the books and, per BL, completed the agreement but "gave us the content to do with what we wish and waived all their rights."
  Jacob Lant, The British Library's press officer, pointed out that BL "...provided the space and expertise in preservation and collection management, while the third-party scanning was paid by Microsoft."

As we know, about 35-40% of the items are unique to the Library or inaccessible in major libraries elsewhere.   The 65,000 Kindle books will cover, Quint writes, philosophy, history, poetry, and literature.

You can go to the Library press release and the Information Today article (links above) to read much more about this, including details of the offerings

Dame Lynne Brindley, chief executive of The British Library, again referred to the deal with Amazon as a "landmark agreement" in many ways.  The Library is talking to other potential partners, and they expect to supply more content to Kindle and Amazon.

NOTE:
  Interestingly, Lant mentions that Google had approached them in the past but the Library didn't agree to the terms.  "In the future, we might talk to them, but all deals must be on our terms as rightsholders."

Microsoft and Amazon sign a patent cross-license agreement

Microsoft announced it's signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon, which gives each company access to the other's patent portfolio.  This covers the Kindle, "which employs both open source and Amazon's proprietary software components ... and Amazon's use of Linux-based servers."

  Specific terms of the agreement are confidential, but Amazon will, in addition, pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount and gets access to Microsoft's patent portfolio, described by its deputy general counsel for Intellectual Property ("IP") and Licensing, Horacio Gutierrez, as "the largest and strongest in the software industry."

I guess so.  Microsoft's press release reports that it has entered into similar agreements with such companies as Apple Inc., HP, LG Electronics, Nikon Corp., Novell Inc., HOYA CORPORATION PENTAX Imaging Systems Division, Pioneer Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd.

TechSpot.com says, "Some suggest Amazon agreed to the terms to avoid a patent-infringement suit from Microsoft" and points out that Microsoft sued Tom Tom (GPS devices) over 8 patents, 3 of them related to Tom Tom's implementation of the Linux kernal, which Microsoft claims violates some of its patents.

TrustedReviews.com says that the agreement

'... allows Microsoft to get its hands on the Kindle tech, so expect it to be heavily integrated into the Windows environment over the coming months.
  For its part Amazon gets to dive into Microsoft's monstrous array of IP as it looks to expand its range of services, software and hardware ...
  All of which makes core Kindle integration into Windows Phone Series 7 about as nailed on as the chance of rain in London this decade. '

Kindle DX review from Gadgeteer

I've noticed in my rounds that people are still buying Kindle DX's despite the iPad's expected release in March for the WiFi network version though the cellular-wireless 3G one is not due until June.  The interest is still there, despite the iPad's lowest-step basic model being only $11 above the DX, but I think some reasons are:

  1. The type of screen. For people interested in reading books rather than surfing tidbits on the web, many have seen the difference between an admittedly unexciting grayscale screen with sharply etched-looking text that can be read outdoors and without light shining into the eyes (it was never about "refresh rates" as a NYTimes article's quote mentioned the other day) and the laptop style LCD screen -- when having to read sequential text for prolonged periods of time.
  I'll add a link here for some photos of mine with web and PDF content in both portrait and landscape orientation.

  2. Cellphone-style wireless access to information sites, free 24/7 even if slow.  There is nothing slower than something that doesn't exist.
  The fact that with the Kindle, in the U.S., there is no extra fee for a cellular modem for the wireless, nor any monthly data charges.  And outside the U.S., there is at least free Wikipedia for Kindle International users who just want more information on what they're reading, wherever they might be (many don't have home WiFi networks).
  If you have a smart phone with web-access and monthly data plan, you won't need this for web lookups, though Wikipedia access from a book you're reading on the Kindle can be useful.

  3. Outside the U.S., Apple is not currently selling e-books from their iStore even if someone buys an iPad (and many will).   Nor have they announced they will be selling e-books internationally in March or June.  They just haven't mentioned it.  This is of importance only to people who would buy a gizmo specifically out of a desire to read e-books on it.  The iPad would still be fun, even with all the missing features and connectors.

  4. The iPad's missing pieces, as listed here.  It's dampened enthusiasm, overall, as seen in columns and comments, even in the U.S., although I think subsequent models will add those items.  As mentioned, the item will still be popular with Apple fans and people who just want to surf and do email while watching TV.  But most of us know what buying a basic lowest-rung model means - it's missing something you'll wish you had after paying quite a bit.  Apple device buyers seldom put the budget first - it's quality and capabilities that are key.

GADGETEER REVIEW
So, today I saw yet another Kindle DX review, this one actually more like a detailed report, one of the most through I've seen (I usually ignore them now, seeing DX reviews as 'old news').
  But this article will be useful for (1) DX owners who want to become more acquainted with what it can (or can't) do and (2) for people who wonder if it would really be something they'd want (or not).
  There are many photos in the review that act as guides and there are also video clips showing how to use a feature or showing how fast/slow the feature might be.
  They're silent videos but they show the steps.  The review is by "cobinrox" (whose first name is Robin) and it's well worth a read.

 While going through it, I saw that there were some questions, and some observations made by cobinrox brought other things to my mind, so I wrote a fairly lengthy comment on it.  Some parts of that might be of interest to people reading this blog, so I'll include the full comment (with links added) here:

' A lot of really good work you put into this. Probably the most thorough report on the DX that I've seen. Very helpful !

A few comments:
1. The reflection you showed. Doesn't that come from the flash on your camera when taking a picture? My DX is matte finish and doesn't show much of a reflection unless a light bulb is right over it

2. Weight of holding it, with cover
I agree. As a result I don't use the cover when reading. Also, M-Edge has a 'Platform' cover for the DX, which lets you just sit it up on your lap or on a table.  Photos of that cover in use for my smaller, 6" Kindle are at this page, and I did buy the version for the DX also.  I usually just use it at a table

3. Yes.   .mobi and .prc files do have the same viewing and annotation features as the Amazon Kindle books - it's essentially the same format but without Amazon's digital rights or book-identifying numbers on them as they are downloadable from elsewhere. So, yes, the zoom feature works on images in those also.

4. True.   mp3 files are played in the order in which you put them into the Kindle's 'music' folder.  Primitive.  But that would allow you to read an mp3-book with multiple separate chapters (or you can get a free utility to combine mp3 files and also save the combined mp3 as encoded-32k which will usually make it all smaller).

  Some say that you can put an mp3 in the 'audible' folder or in the 'documents' folder and then play it on-demand. But if you do, it'll play as foreground material and you can't read a book at the same time that way.

5. Annotations: if you haven't tried it yet, go to http://kindle.amazon.com and sign in.  You can go to the bottom left of a list and ask that ALL those for a book be shown on one page.  I've added a sample of what you'd see (from my own Amazon Kindle page.

6. Web browsing -- since [the reviewer likes] the CNN news feature, try the free download of my file with several mobile-unit-focused websites.  Go to http://bit.ly/mobiweb.  There's a guide to faster Kindle web-browsing in that section too.

7. Absolutely right re folder organization or the lack of it (though we can choose to see only Books or Personal Documents or  Subscriptions [Periodicals] -- sorted by title, author, most recent).  Kindle support has written on the forums and Facebook that they expect an update for organizational capability will be due by the summer.

8. My books that have figure boxes etc. (I have history books) -- these usually have a link.  If they do and you click on one, then you press the 'Back' button to get right back to where you were before the "link-jump" via the 5-way button.

9. When paging ahead or backwards, doing a search for a word or content you're looking for can help.  Press 'Back' button to get back to where you were after looking at the various results. I sometimes set the location numbers back or ahead.

10. No, the iPad won't be allowing multiple screens. It can't multitask at all, which is odd for a web-browser.  No listening to Pandora FM while web browsing or reading a book.  Some say the iPad music playback can't be done at the same time either but I don't know if that's true.  The iPad also doesn't have USB ports or Flash support.  [On the Kindles, you can listen to mp3s on the Kindle while reading, though it takes more battery use.]

Thanks again for this helpful page. I'll let people know about it. '

Photo credit: Gadgeteer

UK Kindle someday + Kindle-Blackberry review + Apple-Adobe conflicts

Amazon to launch a non-import international launch for the Kindle, writes Martin Bryant for The Next Web, UK.  No date was given, but Amazon's Brian McBride "has confirmed that plans are definitely afoot for a proper international launch for the device."

' “Will Kindle become a bigger thing in the UK?  Absolutely, because we have not yet launched a UK version.” '

Instead of importing Kindles and paying higher prices for the books, Kindle owners in the UK would be able to buy locally.

  In the meantime, Apple is currently selling e-books only in the U.S.


KINDLE FOR BLACKBERRY REVIEW AND A WORKAROUND IF NEEDED
We already have a review of Kindle for Blackberry and a fix for a possible downloading problem, by James C. of Kindlelove.

While I will sum up what James says in the report, please go to the site for the full lowdown, well-written, and for Shortcuts that he has there for this app, as well as details of the fix for an app-download-to-Blackberry problem that some might encounter.

Basically, James finds that the Blackberry app loads quickly (2.5 seconds), the books open and download quickly, and you can select Fullscreen display by pressing 'F'...

There are 6 fonts available and James goes into detail re number of locations shown for each size.

Non-copyright-protected MOBI format files from other sources downloaded or transfered to the Blackberry do open in the Kindle app but they should, as that is the basic format that the Kindle uses.

"eBooks, calibre-created newspapers/magazines/blogs, Instapaper files—all work and include the navigable table of contents.  Hyperlinks open in the BlackBerry browser."

Again, go to the page for his clear instructions on what to do if this new app doesn't download to your Blackberry, giving instead an error message.


APPLE CHOOSES OWN DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT ("DRM") OVER ADOBE'S FOR "STANDARD" EPUB FORMAT
Computerworld's Eric Lai headline the other day was that Apple disses our DRM for iPad, Adobe says (and Adobe's Flash too).

Word has been that Apple Inc. will offer publishers its own FairPlay DRM technology to copy-protect iBooks for its iPad and this seems to confirm that.  FairPlay, a source told Computerworld, has been used by Apple to protect TV shows and movies and was used until 2009 for songs sold via iTunes.

' ...But Apple's plan to use FairPlay instead of Adobe's flavor of copy protection will lock customers in to Apple's ecosystem, says [Nick Bogaty, senior business development manager at Adobe], as iPad owners will only be able to buy from Apple's iBookstore, and will not be able to transfer their purchases to other devices.

"With iBooks, there's no freedom of choice," he said. [That's the complaint some have lodged against Amazon's kindle format.]

While Adobe's flavor of DRM isn't an official standard, it's widespread enough, argues Bogaty, that consumers will "be able to use any e-reader they want, and purchase from any point of sale that uses [Adobe] Content Server."
  ...
Opponents of copy protection for e-books decry Apple's use of digital locks. "[FairPlay] is another in a varied number of DRM schemes that will ultimately confuse the consumer and harm e-book adoption," said Paul Biba, editor of the e-book blog TeleRead. '

Apple's Steve Jobs has refused to include support for Adobe's Flash, despite its use all over the Web, which led some to wonder how he could promise at the iPad launch "the best" web browsing experience you've ever had, since it will be displaying empty rectangles where flash videos are (ESPN, Hulu, JibJab etc.)
  There can be workarounds with apps created for that and also with the increasing use of HTML5 in place of or in addition to Flash (which Jobs and others consider bloated and buggy).

' ...Apple blocks the Safari Web browser for the iPhone and iPad from using any plug-ins but Apple's own Quicktime and Preview (for PDFs). That keeps out Flash, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

That's despite claims by Adobe that 7 million people hit its Web site in December alone looking to download a Flash player for their iPhone.

Bogaty says that while e-books that contain interactive elements such as Flash videos might not play fully on the iPad, they should still be able to sell via the iBooks app.  Readers will see a static screenshot of the video, he said, while the text will be unaffected. '

There are solutions for Flash video support in e-books and publications though, as detailed in the article.  Flash-enabled publications would be sold through the App store.

' The advantage is that it will let the Times and Wired directly track what customers are reading.
[ Oh, that's nice, and Plastic Logic's Que is planning that too.. ]

Such usage data is key for newspapers and magazines, who can use it to more effectively demonstrate to advertisers the value of the space for sale in their publications.

Such data would be harder to get if they were sold via the iBooks app's digital newsstand, something those publishers already fear, the Financial Times reported earlier this week. '

A new 99c Kindle book. Publisher says E-reader buyers can afford higher book prices.

New Kindle book offerings in the news - PR releases, maybe of interest:

Essondale - by Canadian psychiatrist and novelist David Laing Dawson.
  "Is this hell, or just a psychiatric hospital? Dr. Robert Snow isn't sure.  Waking from a drunken stupor in a small green room, the doctor finds he's on the other side of the diagnosis..."
  Description from PR release.  The book is a small one, at 207 KB file size, so you may want to get a free sample first.
  $0.99  (The paperback is $19.95 and a Used copy is offered for $29.)


Legion by UK Author B.J. Kibble
  Full description from PR release.
  His expensive paperpback, Dry Rain, has 4 customer reviews and 5-stars average from regular readers, so it may be worth trying a free sample of Legion.
  $5.56   (The paperback is $13.95.)

The Consumerist's Chris Walters reports on what a publishing industry expert advised in a piece about e-book pricing written last weekand and, worse, what he said about people who buy e-readers.

 Walters' article links to a summary of Professor (and publisher) Michael Cader's piece written for Publishers Lunch's paywall area.  The Consumerist article is quite long and interested readers ought to go there for the full piece and for the link to a summary at Idealog.com (which consults for the publishing industry), as it's too easy to take things out of context in a very polarized atmosphere.

  Having said that, I will quote a bit from Walters' piece to give the gist of the Consumerist response.

' Among [Cader's] advice to the industry is this one:

"People who can afford an ereading device can afford all proposed ebook prices."

By that, Cader means that it's unreasonable for a consumer to say he can't afford to pay more for an ebook.  Cader and other publishers may be justifiably upset that Amazon rolled their products up into its own marketing for the Kindle, but the truth is that there are plenty of customers who indeed bought a Kindle to save money over the long term.  The idea is to invest in a special device that can serve as the physical manifestation of any book you load onto it.

On a more basic level, what consumers are willing to pay for a device and what they're willing to pay for an ebook are two different matters and can't be compared.  But since Cader is doing so, let's take a look at them... [ A good listing ]
...
So you're right, publisher;  maybe I can afford to buy an ereader device.  That doesn't mean you can jack up the price on your crappy digital copy that currently offers less usefulness than a physical copy, and then hide behind the device's potential and cry, "I want to be treated like I make expensive baubles too!"  Because you don't.  You currently make poorly proofread digital files stripped of most of the qualities that make digital content awesome. '

Then Walters gives some great advice to publishers.

The next point is especially strong:

' For example, the fourth Twilight book came out in August 2008, but as of February 2010 the publisher feels the digital version should cost the same as the hardcover--an astounding $22.99.  (And yes, that publisher's owner is one of the companies arguing for more control over pricing.)

It's true that in the recent spat between Macmillan and Amazon, the publisher pointed out that it would price new releases at $15 or less--but based on past pricing patterns, there's no reason to believe that any publisher would subsequently drop the book to a $10 or less price point after it's been out for a while. '

Do go read this.  And, in the meantime, maybe write acknowledgement notes to Random House for supporting customers against the 'Agency' plan.
  Random House's imprints include Crown, Knopf/Doubleday, Ballantine, Bantam, The Modern Library, Fodor's Travel, and many others.   See the Kindle Community Forum topic for the full listing.

---

LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  As ever, here is the ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

Free Kindle for Blackberry "beta" is ready for download - Update2

UPDATE, 2/19/10 - I've added links below for each supported Blackberry model to its product description pages, as forums are showing many who now want to upgrade their Blackberrys to get the free Kindle for Blackberry app.

The app is available only to customers in the U.S.
  Here is Amazon's list of future improvements to be added soon (still promised for the Kindle for PC as well, and the Kindle for Mac was to be ready soon too).

Future Improvements - as listed by Amazon:

"As with all our services, we will continue to improve the Kindle for Blackberry application.  Below are some of the features to be added in the near future:

* Scrolling
In addition to page-by-page navigation, you will be able to scroll text line-by-line.
* Create Notes and Highlights
Along with viewing the notes and highlights you created on other Kindle devices, you will be able to create and edit notes and highlights.
* Search
You will be able to search within your book."

---

Original posting of Feb. 17, at 7:52 PM follows.
The free Kindle for Blackberry (or, for some of them) is finally ready for download.  The information was first tweeted by Bufo Calfin.

Note that you can type "amazon.com/kindlebb" into your BlackBerry browser to download it.

The models supported, all available at Amazon, are the
Bold 9000,   Bold 9700,   Curve 8520,   Curve 8900,   Storm 9530,   Storm 9550,   Tour 9630

Now, where is the Kindle for Mac ? Soon, I imagine!

UPDATE2, Feb. 19 - An email reply from Kindle Customer Service to a customer requesting info on the Kindle for Mac app was received today:

' We're working on a Kindle for Mac application, which will be available in the next few months. If you'd like us to e-mail you when Kindle for Mac is available, sign up for that e-mail notification here. '

A bit of sun with Apple provisions for lower ebook pricing

NY Times's Motoko Rich reports today that Apple's prices for e-books may be lower than expected.

The image I used for this is a bit over-optimistic, but Rich begins her article by saying that "Maybe e-book prices won’t be rising so much after all."

We've seen public statements by Macmillan; Simon & Schuster; Murdoch for HarperCollins; and Hachette, expressing happiness over eventually being able to push Amazon to change their traditional Bookseller-Publisher wholesale price agreements to the 'Agency' fee contract modeled on Steve Jobs' Apple plan with publisher-set customer-prices of $13 to $15 for new bestseller e-books.

 The aim was to prevent Amazon -- Macmillan said -- from 'devaluing' their books by selling the e-books for only $9.95.

  Motoko Rich wrote in an earlier NY Times article (Oct '09):

'But some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.
  ...
  As digital collections grow, [John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan] said he feared a world in which “pretty soon you’re not paying for anything.”

  Partly because of such concerns, Macmillan does not allow its e-books to be offered in public libraries. '

  In the current NYT article, Rich explains the Apple loophole:

' ... When Steven P. Jobs showed off the iPad last month, he announced agreements with five of the six largest publishers to offer their content through a new iBooks application. Those publishers ... agreed to terms under which they would set e-book prices and Apple would serve as an agent to sell the books to consumers...
  ...
Publishers indicated that e-book editions of most newly released adult general fiction and nonfiction would sell in a range from $12.99 to $14.99, under a complicated formula that pegs e-book prices to the list prices of comparable print editions.  Publishers liked Apple’s deal because it resulted in a marked increase above Amazon’s $9.99 price for most new releases.

But according to at least three people with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke anonymously because of the confidentiality of the talks, Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99 [AB: All emphases mine].

  Essentially, Apple wants the flexibility to offer lower prices for the hottest books, those on one of the New York Times best-seller lists, which are heavily discounted in bookstores and on rival retail sites. So, for example, a book that started at $14.99 would drop to $12.99 or less once it hit the best-seller lists.

Moreover, for books where publishers offer comparable hardcover editions at a price below the typical $26, Apple wanted e-book prices to reflect the cheaper hardcover prices.  These books might be priced much lower than $12.99, even if they did not hit the best-seller list.

Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, declined comment.

  ... Amazon has effectively lost money on each sale at [$9.99] because it buys and resells e-books as it purchases printed books, by paying publishers a wholesale price generally equivalent to half the list price of a print edition.

  That means that on a $26 hardcover book, Amazon would typically pay the publisher $13, losing just over $3 on a digital edition it sells for $9.99. '

I quoted a lot of that rather than try to paraphrase it, as the NY Times did an unusually clear piece on the traditional pricing arrangements.  Read the full article on their site for more details.

Amazon has used the $10 pricing as a loss-leader, with sometimes higher pricing on some of its older e-books -- and earnings over the past year (in a bad economy) show that's worked very well for the stockholders and customers.

  It's a hardball tactic that has left publishers fearful that other bookstores can't compete on that basis and Amazon would have too much control over the e-book market.  After seeing the attempt at a 50% increase in bad times, I'd rather the publishers not set the customer prices but continue to set the wholesale ones and get their money, which they say is more money for them than with the agency plan.  I would think authors would like that too, unless Macmillan is not sharing that added amount with them.

  NO small factor is Random House's recently stated position that it does not plan to go to the Agency plan, leaving one big publishing house selling e-books at considerably lower pricing, putting more pressure on the other large publishers.

New post to make an update show up in Google Reader

Google Reader is not seeing the Update (10th) to the Free and Low Cost books made today.  So this is just a link to the blog update for people using that reader.  Apologies for the eye-sore

Authors and Kindle publishing

In A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, Joe Konrath, aka Jack Kilborn, continues to write about how he has managed to do very well on Amazon book seller lists with the many books and short stories he releases through the Kindle Digital Text Platform ("DTP") feature, and this is before Amazon starts paying 70% to publishers using the platform in June 2010.

The current blog entry, titled "Kudzu and Kindle," explains:

' There's a plant known as kudzu, which is widely hated in the south because it takes over cropland. It grows fast, and uses runners to spread. Kudzu can quickly saturate an entire field. One patch becomes two patches, then four patches, then sixteen patches, and pretty soon it's everywhere you look.

I'm noticing a similar phenomenon with writing in general, and ebooks in particular. '

There have been a number of success stories though the weed-like aspect threw me, including (of the ones I've run across) one writer whose Kindle book was doing very well, partially with the help of some exposure at the three most-attended Kindle community forums, and he subsequently was signed with Simon and Schuster, an end obviously helped by the attention his Kindle book was getting at Amazon.

  Here's a far more detailed story of how a very proactive Morrison marketed his books (and himself, an important factor) to build on his writing and some great blurbs from bestselling authors (whom he'd met years ago at a writer's conference) for books that had received rejection slips.

  In the Q&A session quoted, he mentions and links to the Kindle forums in which he received very positive responses and gives tips on how not to overmarket ('spam') the forums since that would only irritate the assembled who will associate some bad things with the titles of one's novels :-)

  As his writer friend, Susan Tunis, describes at her blog, he took his rejection slips in stride and just started working on a new story.  But he was

' a pretty savvy guy... He didn't just offer them for sale, he joined several online Kindle user's sites and made contact with potential readers... Before he knew what was happening, unknown, unpublished author Boyd Morrison was climbing the Kindle bestseller charts.  His agent thought it might be time to shop The Ark again.

Suddenly the New York houses were a lot more receptive.  And Boyd may well have made history.  He may be the first author to turn Kindle success into a major publishing contract!  Boyd has a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster and The Ark has also been sold in seven foreign markets!   You'll see the hardback release of The Ark on store shelves next summer... '

Obviously, some very effective writing was at the heart of the success but the Kindle provided the opportunity.

The Kindle book A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion, was recently optioned for a film - announced by the author in the Kindle forums.  It's been quite popular and has 25 customer reviews, with an average of 4-1/2 stars, and is #2 under 'Family Relationships.'

Jan Curran, writing of her new life in what's termed an "active senior living facility," has had an enthusiastic response from Kindle readers on the forums, and her book, Active Senior Living, currently has 14 customer reviews, and an average rating of 5 stars out of 5.

The level of success varies of course but it's at least easier to find an audience now and actually be read -- and be paid for it.

Joe Konrath ends today's advice on his blog with:

' I used to be known as the guy who wrote nine unpublished novels and got over five hundred rejections before landing a book deal.

Now I'm known as the guy who pays his mortgage selling books on Kindle that NY rejected.

Be the kudzu. Join the revolution before everyone else figures this out and it's harder to get noticed. '

AND FROM A KINDLE READER'S POINT OF VIEW
I noticed the following comment under JA Konrath's blog post on "Kudzu and Kindle" and remembered that I see this change of heart on almost a daily basis as I wander the news columns and comment areas.  It usually comes from writers, those for whom words are Life, but who love traditional books and have resisted the Kindle.

' I just received a kindle for my birthday, and I had a very negative view of the thing.  Now that I'm using it, I LOVE it. I can see more and more people moving in this direction. '