Len Edgerly's Amazon Single - A report from Amazon's NYC Press Conference + 2 free short stories + forum alerts & topics

A Kindle Fan's Report from the Front Row at Amazon's NYC Press Conference  $0.99

This new Amazon Single is by The Kindle Chronicles podcast's Len Edgerly, who's filed "A Kindle Fan's Report from the Front Row at Amazon's NYC Press Conference," covering this event in his inimitable style, with cover photograph by John Marshall Mantel and a couple of photos by Len.  Love that tent photo.

  Len is widely appreciated for his perceptive and balanced reports and his excellent weekly interviews in connection with the e-publishing scene.

  From the Product Description:

' In this 30-page article, I invite you to join me in the front row at Amazon's press conference in New York city on September 28, 2011.

That's when Jeff Bezos introduced the next generation of Kindles, including the Kindle Fire tablet.  Just being at the event was a major thrill for a book lover whose life has been changed by the Kindle.  I thought I'd seen the future when I bought a Rocket eBook in 1998.  That didn't work out too well, but the Kindle in 2007 looked like the real thing.

  The next year, I started a weekly podcast, The Kindle Chronicles, to participate in the revolution in reading that I was sure would follow.  Since then, I've interviewed 165 people representing all parts of the Kindlesphere -- from Amazon executives to nervous writers, from technologists to school administrators, from the editor of the New York Times Book Review to my wife Darlene, who reads three times as many Kindle books as I do but is an endearing skeptic about technology.

  I traveled by train to New York City worried that Amazon executives might get so excited about their shiny new color tablet that they would forget to keep improving the monochrome e-ink Kindles.  In the event, I need not have worried.  Jeff Bezos started the press conference by telling the Kindle story in a way that touched me as highly personal and revealing.  Come join me in the front row, and I'll show you what I mean. '

I just heard about the book and bought it on the spot as one who looks forward to Len's take on the Kindle and e-publishing scene.



Kindle Daily Deal (Often U.S. only, unfortunately) (The Daily Deal link above changes at MIDNIGHT each day.
      Click it to see what the daily deal book is, at any time.)

The Dead Saint, by Mairlyn Brown Oden, 23 customer reviews, 4.3 stars
    Daily Deal until the end of Friday 10/7:
      Thursday's Price: $9.47
      Friday's Discount: $7.48
      Friday's Daily Deal Price: $1.99 (79% off)

"The casual yet taut style will keep readers turning pages to find out if Bishop Lynn [Peterson] can prevent disaster..." -- Publishers Weekly

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Ongoing popular discussions
  . To Avoid Confusion, Please Use the Official Product Names in Forum" [Very entertaining!] New
  . Warning: Personal docs now sent to a Kindle will now go to all new Kindles
    registered to your account   New
  . Discussion of geographic restrictions on digital purchases
  . Discount-alert books discussed in more detail
  . What have been your favorite public domain books that are not so well known?
  . Best "Free" books you've read (many are no longer free, however).
  . Highly recommended Indie authors
  . Unique Uses of Kindles [Use of free 3G web-browsing refers only to K3 aka Kindle Keyboard.)

Other current forum threads that might interest some
Public Library Lending questions at the forums, and Lendle's Kindle borrowing
  . How many e-books does your public library have?
  . Public librarians: what has been your Kindle/Overdrive experience?
  . Changes to lendle (This is Kindle owner-to-Kindle owner lending.)
      The changes include incentives for offering loaners.

Amazon's own ongoing listing of LIMITED-TIME OFFERS - Promos   Amazon sorts these by Bestsellers first.   I've added a by Low-to-High pricing. Editors' Picks: $1.99-$3.99   thru' October

Free contemporary books: subsets Filters out excerpts, chapters, previews US:  by Last 30+ days  Oct 2011    Publication Date   Late-listed    Bestselling   High-ratings UK:  by PubDate   Popular

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LATEST DISCOUNTED Kindle books (some temporarily) - an ongoing forum thread:
  Forum-thread starter RandomizeME includes a caution that it's not a book promotion thread for authors or for posts about indies or free books either.  "This thread is for discounts and price drops that readers [esp. Emily Bronte] find from publishers."
  10/5-10/7

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TEMPORARILY-Free Kindle 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 as they appear in Joyce's collecting of mostly temporarily-free books.  They're *not* recommendations by anyone but are a very popular, unfiltered daily set of release-alerts by Joyce.  The eBooks can become no longer free within days, sometimes, within hours.  Thanks to Joyce for gathering and organizing them for us.

So far, on Thursday morning, there were only two entries released, both of them short stories.  One so far for Friday as of early morning.

' Happy Reader "Joyce" says:

Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly Bonus Short Story
Author: Ellie James
Genre: Children's Fiction
* Pre-Order for November 23, 2011 *

DESCRIPTION: Teenage mystic Rachelle Dugas knows to expect the unexpected when she fills in for a friend leading a Haunted New Orleans tour. But when she decides to check out a haunted house on her own, nothing prepares her for the secrets lurking in the shadows-or the twist of destiny about to unfold.

***

A Very Holly Christmas: An Exclusive Short Story
Author: Sheila Roberts
Genre: Romance
* Pre-Order for November 15, 2011 *

DESCRIPTION: Shelia Roberts is back with the hilarious short follow up to On Strike For Christmas. This short story will bring you right back to the spirited town of Holly, one year after the big strike! For even more Christmas (this time with a touch of romance) don't miss The Nine Lives of Christmas, coming November 2011.

***

Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients
Author: Derek Landy
Genre: Children's Fiction

DESCRIPTION: Grade 5-8-When 12-year-old Stephanie's eccentric Uncle Gordon dies, a mysterious man bundled in an overcoat, scarf, sunglasses, and a hat shows up at both the funeral and the reading of the will. This man, as it turns out, is Skulduggery Pleasant, a walking, talking skeleton who rescues Stephanie when she is attacked while alone in the house that she has just inherited. It seems that a particularly evil person named Serpine is trying to obtain a scepter that will allow him to rule the world. Stephanie is swept into a world of magic, secrets, power, and intrigue as she and Skulduggery try to keep one step ahead of Serpine and various other nefarious folk. Deadly hand-to-hand combat, nasty villains, magical derring-do, and traitorous allies will keep readers turning the pages, but it is the dynamic duo of Stephanie and Skulduggery who provide the real magic. The girl eagerly jumps into this new, dangerous, action-packed life, but she isn't sure that she has the guts or the power to pull it off. Skulduggery Pleasant lives up to his name, performing amazing feats with such self-effacing drollness that readers will wish they had a similar skeletal friend. Give this one to fans of Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" books (Hyperion) or to anyone who likes a dash of violence and danger served up with the magic. '


[These are from Joyce's free-books alerts Thursday in the forums, 10/6/11 - afternoon, 2 books, and Friday, 10/7/11 - morning, 1 book.]

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

The Kindle Chronicles interviews KindleLending founder. Kindle Notepads.

THE KINDLE CHRONICLES Podcast for this Friday
The Kindle Chronicles host, Len Edgerly,  interviews Catherine MacDonald, founder of Kindle Lending Club this week.

Len's text intro for the interview that begins at 16:22 of the podcast:

"Catherine MacDonald, who lives on the island of Gozo in the nation of Malta in the Mediterranean, spoke to me on Tuesday, January 18, 2011, by Skype about how she and her husband came to create the Kindle Lending Club.  It’s one of several startups taking advantage of the Kindle’s new lending capability to put borrowers in touch with lenders.  Their Facebook page already has more than 8,000 'likes,' and you can also follow the action on Twitter. "

American Consumer News distributes a Press Release about the new KindleLending site's function as a free website providing a "crowdsourced virtual library for Kindle" connecting e-book borrowers and lender via its current 7,000+ membership which has seen 2,500+ book loans in the past couple of weeks.


Taking Notes on your Kindle
On that podcast also: "Hunter Davis provides a creative solution to last week’s query about how to take notes on your Kindle." and Len suggests you try the free, downloadable Kindle Notepad from Will DeLamater's EduKindle.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   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.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Video Comparison of 4 E-readers + another Nook and Kindle Face-off

Len Edgerly's whimsically titled Wolf Hall Tournament of Ereaders video is a comparison of features and functioning of four e-readers and is the newest feature at his The Reading Edge site, which has interesting reports and interviews in connection with the many e-readers available currently.  Here's the direct link to Len's blog report with embedded video.

 To get the larger version of the video, click on the top left image or the link at the left.

 Len loves e-readers and buys them to try them out, not waiting for review copies.  In this case, he also bought 4 copies of the "Wolf Hall" book because the alleged 'standard' of ePub between books with digital-rights-management added to the book files is not quite standard yet.  Nooks can read Sony books sometimes but not vice versa, Adobe holds the DRM reins, and the book vendors tend to add something a bit different to theirs.  Despite talking to customer support at a couple of e-book stores, there was no support given to Len for using other vendors' files on the e-readers.

The 4 e-readers reviewed for effectiveness of functions are the Sony Pocket Reader, the Kobo Reader, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and the Amazon Kindle 2.   The Sony PRS-600 has known glare and contrast issues due to an additional layer for a touch screen, and Len did not keep his, so it's not included.  Also, it doesn't have wireless at all, for the higher price.  The Sony Pocket Reader and the Kobo are on a more equal level as they both have no wireless to speak of and no basic study features such as inline-dictionary, searches for a character, highlighting or notes.   The Sony Pocket reader has long been popular for its "pocket"ability and easy-to-read contrast-ratio, but the Kobo has a slightly larger screen.

Seldom do online gadget reviews go into how the advertised features actually function and even tend to not mention basic ones like the dictionary, search, and annotations many like to use with an e-reader.  The few I have seen that do discuss functioning include the recent Laptop Magazine report on the Kindle DX Graphite and one on Sony readers by Willson Rothman of Gizmodo.
  A favorite for its description of how Kindle features work, in general, is by boygeniusreport.com, done for the Kindle 2, which Len uses for the video comparison.  And there's one by Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica actually describing how the new software update's features work.

  That's especially what I like about the video.  Len lists features important to him and shows HOW each is implemented on the two e-book readers that have screens unimpeded by an extra layer of glass and which happen to be the two leading e-readers in sales today -- the Nook and the Kindle 2.

  There'll be a new Nook soon (Nook 2 and the new Kindle 3 (and UK Kindle 3) in late August.  We know what the Kindle 3 will have but have no idea what the new Nook 2 features will be.  In this video, you'll see how each handles (1) dictionary look-ups, (2) searches for a character's name or mentions in a book, and (3) highlighting and note-taking as well as how to find a highlight or note you made.

  These are key differences and most reviewers have not gone into the functioning of these features vs other e-book readers at all.  So Len has done quite a service here.   It's 28.5 minutes long, so set aside some time to watch it if you're curious about the differences between these models.

  The one thing I'd like in the future is Len using a tripod behind him and showing the full model or full screen as he shows the functioning, because the close-ups can take you out of context, and often the video-camera doesn't focus fast enough when going close-up anyway.  The actual words are not as important as the actions with the screen and sometimes keyboard in full view. Closeups could be added as needed later.

  But I've seen no one else do such a clear comparison of book readers before, showing how features are implemented on each.  And Len Edgerly's presentation is devoid of the 'seller' characteristics you often see with video reports.  He likes what he likes, with reasons given, and is enthusiastic, but he's also fair-minded and open and an e-reader/gadget addict who cannot have enough of them :-).

  The surprise for many is usually the password-protected, private webpage we have at Amazon (if we approve server backup of our annotations) that shows all our highlighting and notes for each book we download from Amazon, in chronological order and copyable to a text file so we can edit the notes in a separate document, and of course is printable.
  It's really an amazingly helpful private webpage which I never saw mentioned in college pilot studies feedback.  In fact, students in those studies reported difficulty with just highlighting (which I find easy to do).  What i like is you can UNhighlight too :-), something hard to do with a physical book.  But notes typed in are slow-going with that keyboard.  However, I prefer it to a hard, flat-surfaced virtual one.

  Now that the annotations webpage has been modified by Amazon to include the Facebook and Twitter features, I should add that the most useful first page there is the one listing your books, showing which ones have or don't have annotations, etc.  Here's a sample of a page showing a selected book and annotations for it.

Len has written about the Wolf Hall video in conversations on Twitter and in comments at Youtube and feels he should have mentioned the Nook's "Lend me" feature, which is better than no lending feature but, if the publisher allows the feature, the loan of a Nook book is restricted to one loan ever, for each book, for 2 weeks max.

  Kindlers compare that with how the account-sharing plan is implemented at Amazon, in which a book can be shared among 6 devices on an account, with no mention of 'household' or 'family.'  Kindle Customer support helps with the how's of registration and deregistation of other individuals' Kindles on your account, and many spouses use the feature, so that one book can be read at the same time by both for one purchase.  One would have to put a lot of trust in anyone who uses that account as the account owner is responsible for all the charges.  There is a long-running Amazon Kindle forum thread on how Kindle-owners use the feature.

  Where the Nook and Kobo shine is the ability to borrow public library e-books - a rich feature for a city with a large collection of these (New York City) but less exciting in many other areas.  Check with your local library.  I wish Amazon had the fortitude to work out arrangements with libraries.
  That's a primary factor for some, but if it's not very important on a personal level then how an e-reader works will be key.  And Len's video will give you a very good idea.


E-reader Faceoff: Kindle or Nook? Here's a Written Comparison
Also appearing last night is a short article by Mark W. Smith for Free Press (freep.com).  An excerpt:

' The big difference here is the Nook's small color touch screen at the bottom of the device. The Kindle features a physical keyboard and a handy five-way rocker button for navigation. The Nook's color touch screen is nice, but the navigation can feel disjointed as you touch one screen to move the cursor on another. And the bright color display can be distracting while you read. '

He has good advice on choosing wireless options and lists unique advantages of each e-reader over the other.


Kindle 3   (UK: Kindle 3),   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.
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.