Kindle News 10/25/11 - UPDATE - 39 free Kindle books Tuesday. Also, Kindle Fire, Amazon customer service, Steve Jobs's cancer.

KINDLE FIRE SELLING FASTER THAN EXPECTED BY J.P. MORGAN

Mobile Entertainment's Zen Terrelonge writes today that J.P. Morgan is "eating its words" that the Kindle Fire wouldn't do well relative to the iPad, and the financial services firm's hardware team now projects that Amazon will move 4.5 to 5 million devices in the 4th quarter.

  This is based on checks of supply chains that show production on this model has increased due to a large number of pre-orders and vendors reporting "an abundance of rush orders over the past fortnight."

  Douglas Anmuth, an internet analyst there who monitors Amazon, anticipates several models in 2012, including 7" and 10" devices with 3G and WiFi.

  One J.P. analyst disagreed saying the tablet is under-featured, something that was said about the iPad last year too.  Consumers seem to have different requirements from those with a largely technical focus, from what has been seen in pre-orders.  Other articles have explained that the minimum iPad cost of $500 has been more than some want to spend, and some want a smaller, maybe more personal style tablet for web browsing and email.

  Considering the streaming media content that Amazon offers (12,000 streamig-videos, including more current PBS ones, that come with Amazon's Prime package of free two-day shipping on most products for $79/yr ($6.58/mo.), it's not a surprise that this new, smaller tablet is doing so well on pre-orders.

  Amazon currently has over 100,000 movies and tv shows at a time that Netflix has lost about 800,000 subscribers due to their pricing decisions.  Despite better earnings than expected, Netflix stock plunged.  I'm a fan of Netflix's streaming video library, though, which works well through my Comcast.  At least we have several options these days.


Amazon expected to to show a profit dip this quarter due to low margins (if any) on the Kindle Fire
Slashgear's Chris Davies reports that some believe Amazon is taking a loss on the Kindle Fire, relying instead on resulting digital media sales to be enjoyed on the tablet.

Geeky-gadgets's Roland Hutchinson writes that Google's Andy Rubin has said there were around 6 million Android tablets out there, so if Amazon sells as many the next quarter as most analysts are expecting, the Kindle Fire would be the most popular Android tablet released so far.

  In the meantime ViewSonic will launch the 7" ViewPad 7e tablet soon, with several more features but an inferior display (800x600) and touchscreen ("resistive").  While Amazon should welcome the release of more tablets that can access their content, I imagine they'll be customizing (beyond the special accelerating features of the Silk browser on the Fire) content for their own tablet.


Reviews of Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson (Fixed link)
SecondAct's Patrick J. Kiger has a good summary round-up of reviews of Isaacson's book, which Amazon thinks could be the year's bestseller.

A couple of observations from the roundup:
  His summary of NY Times critic Janet Maslin ends,"Isaacson also explains that Jobs' mean streak, unpleasant as it was, also helped drive Apple to its phenomenal success."

  Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams focuses, he writes, on Jobs's controversial decision of postponing conventional medical treatment for a tumor in 2003.  As a cancer survivor, who knows how unpredictable cancer can be (and how unnecessarily destructive some treatments), I noted her sensible, "Jobs lived eight years after his initial diagnosis.  Anyone with experience of cancer will tell you that five is considered a relative triumph."

  I've known many who obeyed all the doctors' recommendations, and even when after the requisite operations their lymph nodes were diagnosed to be free of spread beyond the local area and they were announced to be cancer free, they were given chemo for 'prevention' and were dead in a few months to two years.  Others fare well.  It's just not utterly predictable as has been presented by too many about Jobs' cancer.

  I think people should get off his case, post mortem, for his personal decision though of course he would wonder what would have happened had he had the operation.  Not only did he survive 8 years with the less aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, he led a quite productive life during those 8 years.


CBS News story on Amazon's good customer service noted on Reddit (Link fixed)
CBS News's Chenda Ngak writes about a Reddit thread and Ngak's own experience with customer service.  I've posted a link to a recent customer support forum thread on the Kindle forums.


Tuesday's free Kindle books
UPDATED on Wednesday to show each book link for Tuesday, since most will stay free for a few days.  These will be shown on the 'next' page showing "More", so that those wanting to go through the details can do so by: clicking on "MORE" just below)
*****

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The usual TEMPORARILY-Free Books:  Alerts from the Amazon Kindle forums - via the tireless "Happy Reader" Joyce, who is ever on the lookout on behalf of forum members.

  NOTE: The alerts are quoted from Joyce's collecting of mostly temporarily-free books.  They're *not* recommendations by anyone but are a popular, unfiltered daily set of forum release-alerts by Joyce, logged here for those who don't or can't make it to the forums.  The eBooks usually become no longer free within days, sometimes, within hours.  Thanks to Joyce for gathering and organizing them for us.

' Happy Reader "Joyce" says:

Sweet Ophelia (A Romantic Comedy)
Author: Kenneth Rosenberg
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

DESCRIPTION: Warren August is down and out in Hollywood, flat broke and living on the streets. When he stumbles onto a movie set in search of food, he sets in motion a chain of events that could finally turn his life around. He might even have a chance to win back his beloved Ophelia. Sweet, sweet Ophelia, who broke his heart three years before. But can he hold it together long enough to redeem himself? And will she ever take him back? This novel is a clean romantic comedy about discovering what true love really means. Formerlytitled "Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues."

*****

Shedding Skin
Author: Robert Ward
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

DESCRIPTION: "A tour of the 1950s and 1960s recounts the author's coming-of-age experiences in a period torn between idealism and despair, chronicling his journey between Baltimore and Haight-Ashbury and his witness to the historical events of the time.This classic novel, the 1972 winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Award, turns, providing an essential companion piece to The King of Cards. Illuminated by the author's personal experiences, this authentic coming-of-age novel presents a cavalcade of memorable characters and adventures.A tour of the 1950s and 1960s recounts the author's coming-of-age experiences in a period torn between idealism and despair, chronicling his journey between Baltimore and Haight-Ashbury and his witness to the historical events of the time.
This classic novel, the 1972 winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Award, turns, providing an essential companion piece to The King of Cards. Illuminated by the author's personal experiences, this authentic coming-of-age novel presents a cavalcade of memorable characters and adventures."

*****

A Wee Christmas Homicide (Liss MacCrimmon Mystery)
Author: Kaitlyn Dunnett
Genre: Women's Sleuths

DESCRIPTION: Using Tiny Teddies, highly collectible bears, to launch a Twelve Days of Christmas marketing ploy should be a totally benign means of attracting customers for the business owners of Moosetookalook, Maine, but Liss MacCrimmon's brainchild brings in a frenzy of bear hunters-and a crazed killer-in Dunnett's lively, clean-as-a-whistle third cozy to feature the co-owner of the Scottish Emporium (after 2008's Scone Cold Dead). When the supply of Tiny Teddies wanes, Liss is approached with an offer of a new batch of these impossible-to-acquire fur balls. Knowing to steer clear of anything illegally transported from Canada, Liss declines, apparently unlike Gavin Thorne, proprietor of the Toy Box. Thorne's demise soon follows an unknown assailant's shooting an overpriced bear to stuffings. Dunnett (the pseudonym of Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of the Lady Susanna Appleton historical series) stirs smugglers, lovers and thieves into a healthy helping of foul play.

***** [22 more]

The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Alexander

Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data

Going to Jackson

A King in a Court of Fools

Iron Rain

Abyss

Zero Sum Book 1 - Kotov Syndrome

The Woman Event

Stingray (Vince and Cat Next Generation)

Nightmares

Wild & Steamy

LORD OF MY DREAMS

The Source (The VooDoo Follies)

Grayson House

Call Me Ishmael

The Avatar Path: The Way We Came

When the Walls Fell (Out of Time)

Claim Me (Erotica An erotic menage suspense novel)

Harvest Moon

Pollywogs & Watermoccasins

The R Factor: At First Glance

Haunted Ground: Ghost Photos from the Gettysburg Battlefield

***** [14 more]

THE ACCIDENTAL EXORCIST

Knowing the Truth About Salvation

My Only Regret

Ten Tales of Spotty Ruin (Ten Tales Series)

The Kult (A Prosper Snow novel, Book 1)

Gullhanger - Or How I Learned To Love Brighton & Hove Albion

Hollowland (The Hollows, #1)

Out of Time: A Time Travel novel

Unsaid Words of My Life

Siren

Three books of occult Philosophy or Magic

Exploring the Nicene Creed

Air (A Novelette) (Elements of the Undead)

The Viscount and the Witch, short story (The Riyria Chronicles) '


[These were from Joyce's free-books alerts Tuesday in the forums, Morning - 3;   More - 22 more; Late afternoon - 14 more.][

To: Kindle-Edition Subscribers:
A favor:  Let me know, if you care about it, at andrys [at] panix.com, whether you prefer to have the individual book-link listings on the Kindle or whether they're not usable and you'd rather not see them.
  You can actually click through the log of Joyce's links via the Kindle, click on the Zoom box if needed to read the Amazon page better.  Thanks for any feedback.



  Tuesday's Kindle Daily Deal was

Carry Yourself Back to Me, by Deborah Reed, 24 customer reviews, 4.5 stars

Kindle Daily Deal - (Changes at midnight, Click for latest)
  Monday's price: $7.99; Tuesday's discount: $6.00
  Kindle Daily Deal Price: $1.99 (75% off)

"In her first literary novel, Reed (who writes suspense fiction under the penname Audrey Braun) triumphs with this thoughtful, graceful story of singer/songwriter Annie Walsh." --Publishers Weekly




Kindle Touch 3G   Kindle Touch WiFi   Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindle News: With corrections of some inaccuracies. Kindle for PC updated with Collections. Less-known Kindle features.

KINDLE NEWS, AUGUST 2

FoxNews: Features Amazon should emphasize
FoxNews's Clayton Morris writes, "Things Amazon Should Tell Us About the Kindle," a well-intentioned article with some good points but which has a couple of errors that need correcting.

While pointing out that most people don't know about the 'Collections' feature (folder equivalents that are implemented with 'tags' or labels) or the text-to-speech ('TTS') function by which the Kindle voices (male or female) can read aloud to you from books, subscriptions, or personal documents if you're too busy doing something else, he laments that "Amazon doesn't do a very good job marketing the Kindle as a service as well as a consumer device" and he's found that people are more inclined toward the device once they're made aware of what it can do besides presenting e-books for reading.

  It's true that the computerized voice (taken from the recordings of words by humans -- see the Tom voice for more info on the 'Tom' voice -- cannot replace actor renditions.  The TTS is serviceable though, for short sessions, and not as robotic as most computer voices.

  However, he complains that when he creates Collections on his Kindle, these won't be available to a replacement- or new Kindle.  Actually, they are -- as long as you don't delete the contents of the first Kindle before you replicate the Collection.  The User Guides explain how this is done.

  I wrote the following in Comments to Morris' article, as I couldn't find an email address for him. (Bracketed words are added for the blog.]

' Clayton,
1. Update your Kindle for PC, as it now has Collections.
      [This is included in the latest update, though it is somewhat buggy for a few people but fine for most, per what I see on the forums.]

2. Also, when you get a new Kindle, go to Archived Items folder, which will hold titles of Kindle books you've bought AND you'll see "Add other device collections" - and it'll download your Collection choices.  But first get the books [by clicking on the titles] and then add the Collection from another device and the books will automatically go into the Collections. '

As he points out, the text-to-speech feature is, for him, "a wonderful feature I use regularly during car rides or sleepy train jaunts."  I know people who use it while cooking or exercising.  No competing dedicated e-reader has this.  In fact, no new competing e-Ink reader has a correctly-working web browser and the other e-Ink reader vendors are dropping free 3G even for bookstore downloads, not to mention never offering free 3G access to the rest of the net, albeit slow-access.  To keep things simple, web browsers have not been customized for touchscreen e-Ink eReaders from the basic, optionally embedded Android web browser and they don't work correctly, so they are hidden.

  He focuses on the two features he has found very valuable and doesn't mention that the Kindle can play mp3s (whether audio books or music) as background and that is now a unique feature too because other ebook vendors are simplifying, removing speakers and headphone access.  For more on this see the "Features Comparison" here between the new Nook e-Ink and the current Kindle 3.

  Re Collections: See more on this in the Kindleworld Guide to Making Collections.  It's also good to read Collections: Cautions.

  Re Kindle for PC update v1.6 -- as with the Kindle device version, you have to add or import a Collection from another Kindle device to see the Collections you've made.


Daily Mail (UK)
Daily Mail headlines "New rules for Apple's App store mean Amazon must hand over 30% of profits made through its Kindle app."

  As most readers of this blog know, what Apple would have wanted with 30% of the sale of an e-book was *100%* of Amazon's profits, since Amazon (thanks to the Apple Agency model set up with large publishers) gets 30% of a sale from the Big6 publishers).

  That Apple would actually stake a claim to 100% of the profit is seldom reported.  Now, we don't know if Apple quietly offered Amazon and Barnes & Noble a lower percentage.  At any rate, 30% is all that's ever reported and is the figure from their guidelines for app developers, but that is usually based on subscriptions, for which the publishers would get to keep 70% of a sale rather than the situation with bookstore vendors, who must give 70% to the Big6 publishers, leaving the rival bookstore vendors $0.00.

  There are now many news stories about anger from iPad Kindle-book app users, focused mostly on Apple at this point.  I don't understand why Apple would think this is a good thing for them, the company that began its life with a now-famous Super Bowl ad showing the non-robotic among us hurling a hammer into the screen image of an authoritarian figure-head, "smashing it to bits and releasing a strong breeze and a bright light, while the citizens gape in awe.  A voice-over announces, 'On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh.  And you'll see why 1984 won't be like "1984"'." You can see this at the uriah.com site.


Photo credit: eHow's "How to Edit Kindle Collections with Calibre"


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindle news - 6/20 Nook Touch vs K3. Software hack

KINDLE NEWS OVER THE WEEKEND

MOBILE TECH REVIEW posted an announcement and description of its usual, very thorough video comparison of e-readers, this time of the Nook Simple Touch vs the Kindle 3.  The video takes almost half-hour to view because they go through all the features for each e-reader, comparing their pro's and con's.  They explain that they look at these elements:

  . books,
  . highlighting
  . the dictionary
  . PDF support
  . buying books
  . text clarity   (not a small thing, w/ Pearl screen capabilities)
  . reading features.

Their full written review will follow next week.  This was of interest to me because I hadn't seen any other news-site "reviews" yet that paid attention to anything but the TouchScreen interface, and -- while it is the key factor for many people because it does make navigation easier -- the effectiveness of an e-reader for people who read many books and periodicals is a lot more than that.

 It seems that many who look mainly at hardware don't pay attention to the other 4/5ths of a user's guide that will deal with the many reader options and explain the functioning of features that are very useful for book clubs and for classes but also for people who like to make notes about their reading or who like to look up more info while they're reading, with the ability to get back to that page with the press of a Back button.

  That your highlighting and notes can be easily lost without backup beyond the device's dependence on what happens with an e-book (accidental or premature deletion) and the lack of a method for transfering those notes to your computer (for use with a text editor or for printing or just for backup) is getting too 'simple' for my tastes.  But Amazon's 'cloud' has provided these capabilities for 4 years.  Beyond this, they added an extra copy of your web-readable annotations in a Kindle owner's private Amazon web page, organized by book.

The video review is at YouTube but can also be seen at MobileTechReview's forum.  (Those using Kindle blog-editions to read this can't run videos of course.)

The feedback at YouTube is mainly happiness at how thorough the reviewers are and there's little of the blind-siding with either device because the review goes into so much detail.  I did see there, and at MobileRead.com, that viewers of the video report end up discussing the merits of each without just going into the side-taking that's normally seen.

CONSUMER REPORTS also posted their results of a review of the Nook Simple Touch (NST) and the Kindle 3 (K3).  The new Nook "beat" the Kindle 3G model by 1 point, though the Touch capability is a strong factor.  So one can wonder how it did in other areas.

But to an extent, it makes sense that the Touch Screen makes the difference and the other factors are less important (especially when they're not mentioned).

  Oddly enough, CR stresses that the new Nook is "emulating Amazon's focus on reading with minimal fuss and extra features and adds, "The Simple Touch drops those bells and whistles and the second screen.  As a result, it (like the Kindle) successfully "gets out of the way and disappears and lets you get on with your reading..."

That is bizarre because the Kindle 3 has a plethora of very useful features that the Nook has dropped from what it put into its original Nook Classic a year ago or that it never had at all.  Consumer Reports is normally known for looking at a myriad of features that, together, make a product what it is, but in this case they looked mainly at the type of navigational control, as if just driving a car a certain way would be the sole concern while not caring how the car functions along the way when there are several things you hope it will do well if at all. [Edited to correct a word choice.]

  In this case a car radio would be an unnecessary extra feature (the Nook dropped its mp3 player and ALL audio and has no speakers), and while its original Nook Classic had a GPS-like unit that would guide you to various web sites and allow you to download books from other stores, that is not functioning in this model, at least, and B&N shows it (the web browser) as non-existent, mainly because it fails at doing the most basic things and is therefore hidden.

  For one thing a web browser, while you're reading, can take you to a library (Wikipedia or Google) for more info on a subject.  One of the features that the Kindle allows free via normally-expensive 3G cell phone networks, in 100 countries, is access to Wikipedia FROM the page you are reading, for a search word or phrase.

  For students of any age, that free, 3G cell phone network access to Wikipedia (or Google) is no small feature, and it's been present since 2007 on the Kindle.  I've little doubt that if other e-Ink readers gave customers this feature for no add'l charge via 3G, a review would heap praise on it and not consider it not worth a mention.

  But the Nook is US only, for purchasing Nook books, so is relatively limited and that's not particularly known either.

For those interested in the actual features that were made for people who love to read, see both my Features-Comparison and, for sure, the MobileTechReview video of the features of both e-readers, as it's a very balanced report, giving credit to each where due.

  The depth of the look via that video means there is less hype over just one product feature and less reliance on weight to today's library-lending when Agreements have been announced that the Kindle will be participating in that but, unlike most ereaders, there'll be no additional software to be downloaded or required, and the borrowed books will be delivered over Wifi without the arduous Adobe 3 DRM rights-protection method that requires using a computer and an extra piece of software to do the library borrowing.  However, Amazon came from behind on that one and since it's not ready as of today, that's fair game.

Here's the interesting reaction by the Mobile Read forum crowd to the Consumer Reports evaluation.  It's of interest because it's not a group wedded to any particular e-reader but they are a tough, knowledgable crowd.


KINDLE 3.1 SOFTWARE HACK FOR OLDER KINDLES
First, I'm not recommending that anyone reading try this, since it not only violates the usual Terms of Agreement but it is also not a piece of cake for most and you could wind up with a non-working Kindle instead of an improved one.

  I just came across PC World's story about a software patch that opens up older Kindles to new features such as enhanced PDF support and better web browsing.  See the PC World story by Chris Brandrick for the details.

  More than anything, it's a strong sign that Amazon is long overdue on providing a software update for its Kindle 2 and DX models but especially for the expensive DX Graphite (which has the Pearl screen capability that the Kindle 3 has and was released only a couple of months before the Kindle 3).  The natives are restless.


"AFTER DISCOVERING THAT PEOPLE DO ACTUALLY STILL READ, APPLE DECIDES TO BE A LITTLE NICER TO PUBLISHERS"
Ad Age's Simon Dumenco writes an entertaining story about what has happened in the e-reader world since Steve Jobs originally told the NY Times's John Markoff that the Amazon Kindle was doomed because "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is," he'd said. "The fact is that people don't read anymore.  Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.  The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

  While he provided a tablet for web-browsing, video watching, and games, it also allows the unusual reading-users an area also.   And now, Dumenco adds, "the next version of the iPad operating system, iOS 5, will finally have a unified home for all your iPad newspaper and magazine subscriptions: something called Newsstand."


JOHN LOCKE IS THE FIRST SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR TO SELL OVER 1M E-BOOKS THROUGH AMAZON
The Bookseller's Lisa Campbell reports that John Locke is the first self-published author to join what Amazon has dubbed the Kindle Million Club.  Here's his Amazon page.

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For daily free ebooks, check the following links:

Temporarily-free books - Non-classics - USA: by: NEW:  Apr  May  June 2011    Publication Date   Late-listed    Bestselling   High-ratings UK: PubDate   Popular What is 3G? and "WiFi"?       Battery Care Highly-rated under $1,  Newest: $1-$2, $2-$3

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK):    Top 100 free UK-Only:    Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle (U.S. only, currently):   99c Notepad 1.1,   99c Calculator,   99c Calendar,   99c Converter

Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($164)   DX Graphite