THE NEW YORK TIMES PAYWALL RISES AGAINAccording to Bloomberg's Brett Pulley, a person "who declined to be identified" has told Bloomberg that the New York Times Co. will begin charging readers "less than $20 a month for full access" to the newspaper on the Web when it introduces this plan sometime this quarter. The timing was mentioned by Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson last month at an investor conference in New York.
The price would be less than the $19.95 price for special daily delivery of the NY Times on Kindle, but people accessing the web via computers have not been likely to pay that kind of price and in a previous 'exploration' of the paywall idea, they had to remove the wall they put in place for access to their popular opinion columns.
Pulley adds that Robinson also said there would be a "set number of articles for free each month, and heavy users will have to pay a subscription fee" No details were given at the time. Print subscribers will get full access with no extra charges. The print edition is $11.70/week or about $50/month.
The article has a lot more on what several newspapers have been or will be trying with web pay models.
KINDLE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE NY TIMES
As many have heard, the subscription cost of a Kindle Edition of the NY Times was raised a few months ago to $19.95 per month; this includes the Sunday Edition, with the magazine included.
For awhile, Amazon has had an extended free trial on the NYT -- instead of 14 days, it's two months and the offer expires Feb. 15.
The monthly cost is too steep for me, even with the nicely organized navigation relative to the free methods of access on the Kindle to the text (none of the pictures, usually). For those on a print subscription currently, the Kindle Edition is lighter, both physically and cost-wise, relative to $50/mo.
And now we have the NYT Crossword puzzles as Kindle games.
Sunday Edition of NYT
However, those interested in getting the Sunday edition of the NY Times can download it each Sunday (no automated delivery) for $1 per issue. That's true for any day's issue but the Sunday one is large and packed with special features, including the NY Times Review of Books. I do tend to get the Sunday edition when I remember and I just press alt-Home, select Newspaspers, US and download a copy.
NY Times - Latest News "blog" edition
The subscription I have had for 2 years though and which I think is the best deal in the shop is the "blog" edition of the New York Times Latest News, which sends fast-breaking headline news updates to your Kindle through the day, usually 8-10 stories in full (some are quite long and detailed), as they happen. The cost is $1.99 a month. Many don't know about it because it's under the "blogs" area rather than the 'newspapers' section.
This seems to be updated 5 or more times a day. Probably more but I don't leave my wireless On all the time. EACH edition overwrites the last one, so if you don't have time to read one of the updated sets, you may not see one of the stories if it's not included in the next update.
That does tend to have me deciding not to download the latest update until I read a story I'm particularly interested in, but the news stories do also overlap of course. You can 'clip' a full article for the "My Clippings" file on the Kindle, to read later, but that loses the special formatting and is seen as streamed text.
Each update has something new but will drop an older story or two.
There's a 14-day free trial on this also. I highly recommend it for news addicts who aren't around their computers all the time. This is one area where 3G cellular wireless comes in handy, as you can download the latest headlines almost anywhere you are.
AMAZON'S "DIGITAL TEXT PLATFORM" (DTP) IS NOW "KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING" (KDP)
That's a good change, as "DTP" always seemed to mean DeskTop Publishing to me, and "Digital Text Platform" seemed very vague and was hard to remember.
Anyone can self-publish e-books for the Kindle store. There's no charge for that. There's also an option to make print versions.
Here's the sign-in page to explore or try Kindle Direct Publishing
Amazon announced the change yesterday while releasing the news that Amazon's self-publishing feature with the newer 70% royalty program is now extended to books sold to Canadian customers.
' Books self-published through KDP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices. With KDP, you can self-publish books in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and specify pricing in US Dollars and Pounds Sterling. You will also find useful information on our active community forum. '
THE 2011 AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD
Amazon's Createspace asks:
"Do you have an unpublished or self-published novel you know Amazon.com readers will love? Enter your novel in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for a chance to win one of two $15,000 publishing contracts with Penguin USA and distribution of your novel on Amazon.com."
Details here.
Kindle 3's (UK: Kindle 3's), DX Graphite
Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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