Me and My Kindle

Amazon’s released at least four different ads where actress Amy Rutberg plays a woman who resists her friend’s gentle suggestions about the advantages of a Kindle. But in real life, she’s a big fan of the Kindle — and gave away over half a dozen of them as a gift this Christmas! She’s been posting some funny updates on Twitter about how her life has changed since she became “the Kindle girl”. And she’s also receiving a few funny messages herself – from other enthusiastic Kindle owners!

“got my 1st Kindle (Touch) last week, and I’m already addicted,” someone messaged her on Twitter in December, adding “It’s ALL your fault ;)” And just last month, an accountant sent her another message with the obvious question. “Do you really use a Kindle? My grand daughter got one for Christmas but it’s already broken!”

“I’m sorry to hear about your granddaughter’s #kindle,” Amy responded sweetly (adding “Yes, I really use my kindle. I’m obsessed!”) But there’s apparently an extra sense of responsibility that comes from being the star of a national ad campaign. Amy pre-ordered an ebook in September, according to one Twitter post, but was startled when it was finally released three months later, and it was time to actually make the payment. “Got a suprise notice that I owed #amazonkindle for an ebook I ordered in Sept,” she wrote. “would b pretty embarrassed if I had a delinquent account!”

I felt a little bit like the Kindle ad paparazzi reading her Twitter posts – but she’s looking for more followers, so I figured she’d appreciate the publicity. And it was refreshing to learn that in real life, the actress from Amazon’s commercials is already an enthusiastic Kindle user herself – and that she’s got a lively sense of humor. (A few months ago she re-posted a silly Twitter update posted by Family Guy writer Alec Sulkin. “Just bought a Ken doll. I don’t know what everyone’s talking about, you can’t read books on this thing!”)

It must be a lot of fun being the woman from the Kindle ad — and then being able to show up with Kindles for all your friends. That’s what Amy did when Christmas rolled around this year, posting in early December, “Just bought 7 $79 kindles as gifts, and it felt gooood….

“and no, I don’t get a discount.”

She even bought her dad a Kindle for Christmas — then posted a picture of it up on Twitter. She joked that the sexy ad it was displaying for a T-Mobile 4G “hotspot” was “So wrong on so many levels :)”

This is the sweetest Kindle commercial I’ve ever seen. A little girl peeking through a flower-colored curtains watches a mail truck arrive at her house. And her eyebrows go up as she spots a postman trotting up her steps, delivering a package from Amazon — as a voice-over begins.

“For years, we’ve been placing the things you love at your doorstep. Now, we’re placing them at your fingertips…”

You watch this ad — and all Amazon’s Kindle ads — at youtube.com/Kindle . The little girl rushes down the stairs — and hops over the family dog — while her dad, reading the newspaper, hears the excited footsteps and signs for the package. The little girl opens the package at the bottom of the staircase, and lifts out a Kindle Fire, while her father joins her and starts flipping through the tablet’s family-friendly choices, like a “Dora the Explorer” book or the movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

“Introducing Kindle Fire, a Kindle for movies, music, web browsing, apps, games, and of course, reading….”

In the last shot, the little girl seems fascinated by the Kindle Fire. (Though I’d wanted to believe that it was her new tablet device, it looks like her dad’s going to keep hogging it for himself!) Maybe the commercial’s real message is, “If the mailman delivers something cool to your house, your parents will just take it away from you…” Of course, it addresses an even bigger concern from the last Amazon ad about the Kindle Fire. The mailman in that ad simply left Amazon’s package behind on a woman’s front doorstep! (“People in America must really trust their neighbors,” joked one commenter on YouTube.)

That ad was released in November, when most people were still waiting for their tablets to arrive, so Amazon apparently wanted to remind them how happy they’d be when it arrived. (You can watch that ad at tinyurl.com/DoorstepAd .) What’s really interesting is that both ads use the exact same voice-over.

“For years, we’ve been placing the things you love at your doorstep. Now, we’re placing them at your fingertips…”

Amazon’s calling this new commercial “Dad and Daughter”, and it’s another fun look at the way Amazon is “positioning” their Kindles for the consumer market. But there’s also a small “continuity” error, if you watch closely. It looks like the mailman who finally delivers the Kindle is a different actor than the one that the little girl saw through her window. (The man trotting up her stairs had darker hair, plus a white t-shirt on under his uniform that went up to his neck!)

By the way, I also learned something new about Amazons other Kindle commercial. I’d watch a “friends” commercial online, where the blonde woman complains in surprise that the new Kindle costs less than her jeans or her haircut. I’d never seen it on TV, and wondered if I was just watching an “outtake” that Amazon had ultimately decided not to broadcast. Some of my wonderful readers contacted me to say that they’d seen it on TV — more than once! — and a third reader had the same reaction that I did. “I remember thinking it was weird, since it did seem to air after the one where she bought a Kindle for herself and her dad.” But then there was that same blonde woman again, now telling her friend “You know I can’t afford a Kindle….”

Apparently…now she can afford a Kindle!

I was studying Amazon’s recently-released ads — and I found one that I hadn’t even seen! In fact, I’m guessing that almost no one has, since according to YouTube, it’s been viewed less than 8,000 times. (By comparison, Amazon’s racked up more than half a million views for its latest Kindle ad — the one which argues that an iPad is still more expensive than two Kindle Fire tablets and a new Kindle!)

Last summer, Amazon launched a series of ads about two friends – a blonde woman who didn’t own a Kindle, and a young man who did. But in December, Amazon uploaded the strangest one of all to YouTube. (You can view all of Amazon’s Kindle ads online at YouTube.com/Kindle .) I’ve never seen this one on TV — and it’s got me wondering if it’s an “outtake” that Amazon ultimately decided not to broadcast! Maybe the advertising agency created it, but Amazon rejected it because it made that blonde woman look a little too silly. But it does offer a deeper glimpse into the lives of the two friends.

“Hey! Check out this new Kindle,” the young man says.

“I wish,” the blonde woman replies. “You know I can’t afford a Kindle.”

“Yes you can. It’s only $79 dollar.”

“What? That can’t be right. That’s less than I paid for these jeans.”

“I know.”

“That’s less than my cable bill.”

“I know!”

“That’s less than I spent on this haircut.”

“I know.”

“That’s less than I spent on your birthday present.”

“I know…”

“How do you know how much I spend on everything?”

(Pause) “I read a lot.”

That’s one thing I love about Amazon’s TV ads. Each one has something exciting to say about the Kindle — but each one is also completely different! But here’s why I think this ad is an outtake. Amazon had already released an ad where the blonde woman triumphantly tells her friend that she’s finally purchased a Kindle for herself. (You can watch it online at tinyurl.com/SheBuysAKindle ). I first saw it in late September, and by now it’s been viewed just on YouTube more than 168,000 times.

“What’s up, happy pants?”

“I just bought my dad the new Kindle. $79.”

“You?! A Kindle? Really?”

“No. Me, two Kindles. Really…”

“You’re going to give your dad two Kindles?”

“No, of course not.”

“Who could you have possibly have bought the second Kindle for.”

“Okay, it’s for me. It’s only $79.”

“And?”

“And it reads just like a paper book.”

“And…?”

“It’s better to receive than to give.”

“I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

“Close enough.” (She jiggles her two Kindles…)

Amazon’s released a funny new ad for the Kindle. But it’s part of a larger real-world story that makes it even more interesting. In July of 2010, Amazon’s CEO was being interviewed by the New York Times. He was making a point about the Kindle’s low price — at a time when the cheapest Kindle cost $139. “At $139, if you’re going to read by the pool, some people might spend more than that on a swimsuit and sunglasses,” he told the newspaper. And two months later, Amazon released an ad which made the exact same point.

“Excuse me,” says a befuddled young man at a beach resort. He’s trying to read his iPad, and he has a question for the woman next to him, in a bikini. “How are you reading that, in this light?”

“It’s a Kindle,” she replies casually, adding almost as an afterthought: “$139.” She smiles an enormous smile, and then says: “I actually paid more for these sunglasses.”

“Amazon’s New Kindle Ad Attacks the iPad!” I wrote on my blog in September of 2010. And at the time, that was the Kindle’s biggest advantage over an iPad: you could still read your Kindle in the bright sunlight. But now it’s 17 months later, and Amazon’s launched their own color-screen tablet device. (And it costs less than half of what an iPad costs). So two weeks ago, Amazon released a clever sequel to their first ad which updates the poolside conversation, and makes the same point.

“Hey, excuse me — that’s the new Kindle, isn’t it! $79 dollars?”

“Best way to read. Even in sunlight.”

“Yeah, but I mean, if you want to watch movies, or surf the web…”

“I’ve got a Kindle Fire for that.” (The woman nods to where her two children are playing with two Kindle Fire tablets)

“Three Kindles. That’s gotta be expensive.”

“Not really. Together, they’re still less than that.” (The woman in the bikini looks disdainfully at the man’s iPad).

And there’s one more line, just to make sure viewers don’t miss the fact that the iPad-owning man was completely shot down. “Someone sitting here?” he asks the woman in the bikini.

“My husband,” she replies….

You can watch the whole ad on the Kindle’s official page at YouTube (YouTube.com/Kindle ) In fact, soon you may only be able to watch it there, since I’m guessing Amazon may never broadcast that ad again. In fact, years from now it may be remembered only as an artifact in the great war of the tablets. Because Tuesday, Barnes and Noble announced a discounted color, touchscreen Nook which costs $199 — the exact same price as the Kindle Fire tablets. (And they’ve also reduced the price of their older Nook Color devices to just $169.)

Amazon may not want to broadcast an ad about how cheap their tablets are — when their competitor’s just released a new tablet that’s even cheaper!

Within two weeks, the first Kindle Fire tablets will start shipping from Amazon’s headquarters. But Amazon’s already filmed a new commercial showing the package arriving on someone’s doorstep! “For years we’ve been placing the things you love at your doorstep,” announces a female narrator. “Now we’re placing them at your fingertips.”

“Introducing Kindle Fire. A Kindle for movies, music, apps, games, web browsing, and of course, reading…”

To watch a video of the ad, point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/DoorstepAd . Sunday Amazon slipped the URL onto their Faceboook page for the Kindle, calling it a “sneak peek” of their newest commercial (‘to help make the wait a little easier.”) Within 12 hours, it had already drawn nearly 1,000 “Like” votes — and more than 320 comments. It was like the commercial finally provided something new to talk about — while everyone waited for their own Kindle Fire tablets to be delivered!

At least four different people posted “Can’t wait!”

It was exciting to see the new Kindle in action, with a shot of the woman swiping her finger across the tablet’s touchscreen. (“Sequences simulated,” Amazon explains in small, faint-grey letters at the bottom of the last shot.) You can also see the logo for Angry Birds — and for Facebook — in that last shot, reminding viewers of all the new iPad-like things that the Kindle Fire can do. (One of the movies available on its homescreen is “Green Lantern” — making the point that you can even watch recent releases on this Kindle’s color screen.)

The ad’s official title is “Placing the Things You Love at Your Fingertips”, and it was fun to read all the enthusiastic reactions on Facebook — though the ad also drew comments from a few “armchair critics”. The biggest complaint was simply that it’s not possible to buy the Kindle Fire in Canada or the United Kingdom. (One comment summarized a typical reaction: “I…wish I could buy one.”) And another commenter was surprised that the deliveryman left the package outside. “People in America must really trust their neighbors,” joked one commenter on YouTube.

I’d noticed that the woman in the ad was reaching for her house keys — suggesting it was her own doorstep where the Kindle had been left. But not everyone had the same interpretation. “Is it just me, or is this not her house and not her kindle,” suggested one viewer on YouTube. “Anyone else would have immediately gone inside and added it to the network, registered the device on their Amazon account and started adding apps. I think she just swiped someone else’s and then had the audacity to sit on their stoop playing with their Kindle.”

Some other commenters had a similar criticism of Amazon’s ad. “I find this ad a bit misleading,” noted one comment. In the ad, the woman sits on her doorstep and starts browsing the web with her new Kindle Fire tablet. “Amazon should make it clear that the Fire, at least this first version, works on Wifi only and is NOT 3G or whispernet capable,” the poster complained. And another commenter wondered why before surfing the web, she didn’t first have to plug in her new tablet. (“That Kindle already had a charge on it???”)

But I have another theory about what’s behind the negative comments.

I think everyone’s just jealous because the woman in the ad already has a Kindle Fire tablet — and they don’t!

I’ve always loved Amazon’s slick ads for the Kindle — and they’ve created another one to promote their new color/touchscreen “Kindle Fire” tablet. It opens with a quill pen lifting a drop of ink out of a copper pot. “The instruction we find in books is like fire,” the announcer intones — reciting a quote from Voltaire.

“We fetch it from our neighbors, Kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes property of all.”

The parchment is on a desk where a drawer is opened, revealing the metal letter blocks for a printing press — history’s next technology for transmitting words. “From Kindle, Fire is born,” the announcer continues, as the words reappear on the screen of a Kindle being read casually at the beach. Then the camera pulls back even further, revealing that someone is watching a video of that ad in their living room on the new touchscreen Kindle tablet. “A Kindle for movies, music, web, games, and reading,” the announcer concludes. “Kindle Fire.”

Within two days, the ad had been watched nearly 700,000 times on YouTube – and it’s been fun to see the reactions. “I’m watching this on my iPad,” joked one viewer in the comments — while another comment offered a different perspective: “thank god they didnt over price like Apple!” And another viewer had one very specific gripe. “…like all good things, this is US only. You selfish bastards!”

What makes this ad so effective is its music, and I finally tracked down the original song. It’s called, appropriately, “Words,” by a young new band called the Givers. (They’re a Louisiana-based group which just released their first album, Light, in June.) You can hear the whole song in a video at tinyurl.com/KindleFireSong . It’s a stunning musical jolt with intense vocals and a pounding beat – and it’s got some strong lyrics to match.

It almost reads like an ode to all the new self-published authors who are finding an audience on the Kindle.

---

The words we say today, we’ll say.
And we’ll see them again. Yes, we’ll see them again.

So I choose my words so carefully,
like the sun, make it glow, or they glare at me.
Well, I choose light.
I like that warm,
keep me up at night.

And I pry that door of honesty
And as the warmth shines in, it dawns on me
That I choose light
To guide me through my actions at night.

The words we say today, we’ll say
And we’ll see them again. We’ll see them again.
The words go out so far, and come back so hard.
And we’ll see them again. Yes, we’ll see them again

So just hold up. Don’t fold up,.
Before you know, before you know, before you know, you’ll know
You’ll see it again. Yes you’ll see it again

And if your notion is in motion
Before you know, before you know, before you know, you’ll know
You’ll see there’s no end. Yes you’ll see there’s no end, end, end, end, end, end, end, end…

The waves high, slow tide, see them, go I
You’ll see them again, you’ll see them again.
And if the waves ride high, then so will I.
Before you know, before you know, before you know, you’ll know.
And you’ll see them again. You’ll see them again.

The words we say, today, we’ll say.
And we’ll see them again. We’ll see them again
The words go out so far, and come back so hard.
Yes we’ll see them again. We’ll see them again.

The words we say. The words we say
The words we say. The words we say
So I’ll choose my words so carefully
I’ll choose my words so carefully

She finally bought a Kindle! For five months, Amazon’s been running a series of ads where a patient young man talks to a blonde woman about his Kindle. But Wednesday Amazon released a new ad — the fourth in the series — where she finally admits she bought a Kindle for herself!

Within two days, it had already been viewed nearly 100,000 times on YouTube, as Amazon’s announcement about four new Kindles finally intersected the series of ads. “I’m very happy to be a part of them,” the actress posted Wednesday to her Twitter feed (adding “Can’t wait to hear what else they announce.”) And she also posted a funny story about her honeymoon last month in Greece. “Excited 2 find 1 Greek who owns a #kindle & will let me use his charger.

“Tried 2 tell him I kindle girl he said ‘I kindle boy!’ hmm.”

I’ve created a shorter URL where you can watch the ad online, at tinyurl.com/SheBuysAKindle . So what happens in the newest ad? Here’s a transcript. It opens when the young man sees the blonde woman smiling, with a red ribbon wrapped around a new, gray Kindle.

“What’s up, happy pants?”

“I just bought my dad the new Kindle. $79.”

“You?! A Kindle? Really?”

“No. Me, two Kindles. Really…”

“You’re going to give your dad two Kindles?”

“No, of course not.”

“Who could you have possibly have bought the second Kindle for.”

“Okay, it’s for me. It’s only $79.”

“And?”

“And it reads just like a paper book.”

“And…?”

“It’s better to receive than to give.”

“I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

“Close enough.” (She jiggles the two Kindles…)

“All-new Kindle only $79,” reads the final shot of the ad. And here’s an interesting piece of trivia. Though she seems a little ditzy, the book that the woman is reading on her Kindle’s screen is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. And in real-life, the actress started college at the age of 13, and at 15 became one of the youngest students ever admitted to UCLA. (Plus — judging from her Twitter feed — she already owns a Kindle.)

Part of me wonders if “What’s up, happy pants” will become a new catchphrase. (“I think that’s a seriously strong double entendre,” says my girlfriend.) But I really enjoyed the ad — and it looks like it’s already getting people excited about the new low cost of a Kindle. “That’s cheap enough for me to consider buying one,” reads a comment posted on YouTube.

“Thanks, Amazon!”

I’ve become a fan of Amy Rutberg — the blonde actress who appears in Amazon’s newest Kindle ads. But I was curious to see what she’s done besides those 30-second Kindle commercials. And then I discovered a surprisingly candid video she’d filmed of herself backstage during a performance in a New York theatre! (Point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com/AmyRutberg ). Watching it, I felt a little like the Kindle ad paparazzi. But I guess it’s all part of the job…

When she was chosen for Amazon’s Kindle ad, Amy Rutberg was a stage actress. (Though according to the Los Angeles Times, years ago she’d considered going to law school after college…) And even before the Kindle ad, she’d already had an interesting career. She appeared in an L.A. theatre production of “Man of La Mancha” which started Robert Goulet, as well as a Los Angeles production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and she once did a scene with Jeff Goldblum on an episode of Law and Order. And once she even played Helen Keller in a parody of bad Broadway musicals!

But this fall, Amy appeared in a New York stage play billed as a “holy outrageous new comedy” called “The Divine Sister.” One site described it as an “outrageous comic homage to nearly every Hollywood film involving nuns: The Song of Bernadette, The Bells of St. Mary’s, The Singing Nun and Agnes of God.” A convent’s Mother Superior was played in drag by Charles Busch — who also wrote the play’s script. His other plays include “Psycho Beach Party” and “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” — and Amy Rutberg played a character named “postulant Agnes”.

The play had caught the attention of Playbill — an influential monthly magazine that’s passed out at most major theatre productions (with a special inset providing the cast of each play). And last November, they gave Amy a flip camera just so that she could film a backstage tour of the production for their web site! “Hi Playbill!” she says, sounding exactly like her character in the Kindle commercial. Talking fast and enthusiastically, Amy holds the camera just a little too close to her face, and announces “Welcome to The Divine Sister! I’m Amy Rutberg, and I play Agnes. So come on in! I’m going to show you what it’s like to have a typical Thursday…”

Four months later, in March, the play closed after 253 performances and an eight-month run in a 199-seat theatre. But The New York Times had called Amy’s performance in the play “delightful”, and Backstage magazine said she gave her character “an appropriately off-kilter spin.” In an apparent parody of Meg Tilly’s role in “Agnes of God,” Amy played a postulant “possessed by visions and voices,” and Curtain Up magazine hinted that her character ultimately “develops something of a Jeckyll and Hyde persona…” And in this video, Amy’s preserved that magical moment in time when the play was in the middle of its run — and at least part of the video was shot backstage during an actual performance! (To watch part 2 of the video, point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com/AmyRutberg2 ).

It all feels very authentic, especially before the production when Amy carries the camera to show the view that the actors are seeing from the stage. “I mean, we can’t really see people in the audience because it is, um, pretty dark, but we can see these lucky audience members who are in our pews,” she says — though as part of the production, the first row of comfortable theatre seats were actually replaced with authentic wooden pews. “I don’t know if you can tell, but they’re only a foot and a half in front of us. So the good news is, you know, they get to see it all up close and personal,” Amy jokes. “But the bad news is, I bet they get spit on quite a bit!”

I don’t know if Amazon discovered Amy through this play — or even because of this video. But it’s fun to watch the actress just months before she appeared in a major TV ad campaign. The cast greets Tyler Furgeon (from the TV show “Modern Family”) who’d been out in the audience that night. And at the end of the video, Amy tells the camera at the end that it was “A special night because it was my birthday. We’re just having a great time.”

And then she’s seen blowing out candles and making a wish…

I just got a message from the woman in Amazon’s Kindle commercial! I’d told her that I finally saw her third Kindle commercial for the first time on Friday night – and it almost made me want to buy a second Kindle! She wrote back, “happy to hear that, and next time buy that second kindle.

“You can keep it in your other pocket!”

It all started with a simple question. “Who’s that woman in Amazon’s newest Kindle commercial?” I’ve been asked this a few times, so I finally searched the web for an answer. The name of “that blonde woman” is Amy Rutberg, and it turns out there’s some surprising and funny stories online about her life before the Kindle ad.

Plus as far as I can tell, in real life she’s already using a Kindle!

On March 18th — before Amazon’s first ad even aired — Amy mentioned her Kindle in a status update on Twitter. (“It’s so nice outside, taking my kindle and playing hooky! Will return from my staycation by 7:30. #nicetobeanactress #springfever”) More than a month later, on April 25th, she tweeted nervously while waiting for the broadcast of that first Kindle commercial. “1st person to let me know what channel they see it on wins a prize…not a knidle sadly…”

Amy is 29 years old, a professional actress who recently moved back to Los Angeles from New York. (And two weeks from this Wednesday, she’s leaving on her honeymoon in Rome!) She may seem a bit ditzy on that Kindle ad, but in real life, she’s surprisingly intelligent. Amy actually started college at the age of 13, according to one online profile, and by the age of 15 she’d transferred to UCLA as a junior, making her one of the youngest students ever accepted to the college!

“When not performing on stage I can be found playing poker, not finishing a screenplay, shopping for the perfect pair of boots or reading my Kindle ;-)” she jokes on her Twitter feed. But when that famous Kindle ad finally aired, her mother stumbled across a blog post where her daughter was described as “hot but 2 skinny”. According to another funny Twitter update, Amy remembers that her mother said “they must have u mistaken 4 tmobile girl”. Amy then added a very special Twitter tag at the end of her post — #thanksmom.

Amy was a little ditzy when she was a little girl back in the early 1980s — at least according to a funny profile in the Los Angeles Times. They remember that “At 3, she said, she had to be carried away screaming after a production of ‘Peter Pan’ because she was certain Peter would be back to fly her to Neverland.” At the age of 16, she was cast as Eliza Doolittle in a production of “My Fair Lady” at L.A.’s prestigious Pacific Coast Civic Light Opera. But at the age of 6, “she directed her classmates in playground vignettes and broke an ankle while ‘flying,’ Pan-like, from a second-story landing…”

If you’d like to see more of “that Kindle girl’s” work, you can check out her professional blog at amyrutberg.com, which features a “reel” of short clips from her appearances on different TV shows. Last year Amy appeared on an episode of “Law and Order,” and she did another episode just two years earlier (plus an episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”.) In 2006 she played a nurse on an episode of “As The World Turns”, and she even starred in an episode of the TLC reality show about shopping for a wedding gown — “Say Yes to the Dress”.

But she’s been doing lots of live theatre, so Amazon’s TV ad was a big moment. Amy’s Twitter feed captures a fun moment in the life of a rising actress — seeing you’re own work while you’re casually watching TV. “Kindle commercial on @snl… Love it!” she tweeted on April 30th). And by May 13th, she’d sent a shout-out to some friends on Twitter who’d spotted her in the ad. “Thanks for all the kindle love peeps!

“Proud 2 b peddling it!”

How much has Amazon spent on TV ads for the Kindle? Just last year, they spent over $82 million, according to an article in Ad Week magazine. That’s more than four times what they’d spent the year before — just $19 million, according to the magazine. And Amazon’s apparently spending plenty of money in 2011, too, since I just saw the third ad in that series where two friends discover the advantages of owning a Kindle — a young woman and a young man.

“That is a giant purse.”

“This can hold two books, two newspapers, three magazines. Pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah. My Kindle holds up to 3,500 books. (Stacks of book begin appearing.) Magazines, newspapers — and it only weighs eight and a half ounces.”

“Yeah, but… Then I wouldn’t get to carry my giant purse. (He looks at her dubiously.) Can I see that?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah…”

You can watch the new ad, plus all of Amazon’s other Kindle ads, at the Kindle’s page on YouTube (at youtube.com/Kindle ). It’s a funny ad — but it’s even funnier if you read the comments that people have left below the video!

“I guess the Kindle gave up on competing with the IPad, and decided to take on purses.”

Another viewer was skeptical of the ad — but for an entirely different reason. (“I’m asking myself if that’s actually 3.500 books that they put up there…”) And several commenters had apparently located Amazon’s Kindle video just to ask questions about its production. “YO KINDLE,” posted one user, “Every single one of your ‘Friends’ ads has the same song as well as the ‘Pool’ ad. And on every single video, you’ve got tons of people dying to know the name of the song. Just tell us already!!!”

I’m assuming it’s original song — played on a xylophone — that was written just for Amazon’s Kindle ad. But at least three other commenters had an even more burning question.

“PLEASE tell me who that josh duhamel look alike is.”

“I don’t like eReaders, but what I’m more focused on is that dude.”

“I have such a crush on that guy ;)”

At least one comment was directed towards the other actor. (“i want a kindle because she’s hot…”) But overall, it’s a fun collection of different reactions to Amazon’s ad. Of course, not every one of them was positive. (“So last-year. And Apple-ish. But good. Shame….”) And another viewer also detected the resemblance to the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads — posting “Nice homage to the old Apple ads.”

But his bigger issue was just more of a general suggestion for the publishing industry. When you buy a printed book, he argued, the publisher should bundle the ebook with it — for example, with a “download code” that you could enter to activate the complimentary digital version on your Kindle!

And yet there was at least one commenter who made it clear that they absolutely loved their Kindle. After watching Amazon’s ad, they’d asked one simple question. “How many times does he have to tell her how AWESOME a Kindle is before she finally gets one for herself !!?!!”

“I have the Kindle app for my phone and it is 10x better than the Nook app. I’ll read books on my break at work and just buy a new one when I’m finished with the last one, instaed of having to wait until I get home to pick out a new book.

“LOVE IT !!!!”

It’s one of the fun things about being a Kindle owner: recognizing yourself in Amazon’s Kindle commercials! Last week Amazon released a funny sequel to their commercial about the young woman who doesn’t have a Kindle (while her male friend does). In this commercial, she’s seen rushing off to a bookstore…

“Hey, where you going?”

“I want to get a book that came out today.”

“Me too!”

“Come to the bookstore with me.”

“I’m good. Got it! It takes less than 60 seconds to download a new book on my Kindle…”

“60 sconds? Wow. That’s the book I was going to get!”
           [She stares with delight]

“Weren’t you going to the bookstore?”

“Shh….”

And this commercial struck a familiar cord with a couple in Scotland – at least according to the comment that the husband left on Facebook. “We used to have a Kindle,” he posted in the comments below the video. “Then my wife started using it. Now SHE has a Kindle!” I had to smile, because I experienced the same thing with my own girlfriend. I finally had to buy her a Kindle of her own.

The couple in the video also drew a positive reaction on YouTube, at YouTube.com/Kindle, where one user posted that “These two have great chemistry.” Their verdict on Amazon’s new Kindle commercial? “Even cuter than the last one.”

I first found out about the video from the Kindle’s page on Facebook (at Facebook.com/Kindle). And the page also offered a handy tip if you want the notes in your Kindle e-books to include notes from your friends on Facebook! “When you link your Facebook account to kindle.amazon.com you can see the Public Notes of your Facebook friends in your Kindle books,” Amazon explains, adding that you can also “automatically share your reading activity on your [Facebook] Wall.”

Of course, you’ll never see those notes until you get your Kindle back from that woman who borrows it on her way to the bookstore!

I always get excited when Amazon releases a new commercial for the Kindle. And this time it’s just one of several interesting new videos that Amazon is making available online!

Their new Kindle ad probably belongs in a time capsule, because it seems to capture the exact moment when the way we read starts to change. In a breezy conversation, a young blonde woman complains that “I only read real books” to a young man holding a Kindle, which starts a conversation about how the printed book doesn’t have any advantages over a Kindle.

“Oh, I’m reading a real book.”

“I can read my book in the sun, where there’s a lot of glare.”

“Well, so can I. See? The screen looks just like a paper book, so it’s great for reading in bright sunlight.”

“But you can’t fold down the page when you want to save your place.”

“My Kindle does that for me.”

“But you don’t get the rewarding feeling of actually folding down the page. [She dramatically reaches her arm forward to bend down the page's corner, and smiles a forced smile] Ahh…

Then there’s an awkward pause where the two exchange significant glances, and then woman asks to borrow the man’s Kindle.

“Wow. The screen looks amazing.”

“Yeah…”

It’s the first ad where Amazon has touted the new lower prices of the ad-supported devices at the end of the commercial. (“The all new Kindle,” reads the ad’s closing shot.”From $114.”) The commercial will be broadcast for the first time on TV tonight, but this morning Amazon slipped a “sneak preview” link onto the Kindle’s official page on Facebook (at Facebook.com/Kindle). Within a few hours, over 1,600 people had clicked the Facebook icon indicated they liked the new ad. (Although one woman in England seemed to be grateful that it was different than an earlier Kindle ad, posting “As long as it hasn’t got a dog licking a kindle…”)

You can watch the new ad at YouTube.com/Kindle – but it turns out it’s not the only new video that Amazon is making available. In a press release this morning, Amazon announced they’d created a new web page called The Backstory. (“Find author interviews,” its tagline promises, “and essays, guest reviews, recipes and much, much more.”) And to give the new page a big launch, Amazon is featuring five video interviews with authors, including celebrity chef Tom Douglas and Gossip Girl producer John Stephens (as well as authors Joshua Foer, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.) They’re calling the series Author Interviews @ Amazon, and there’s many more authors to come. “New author interviews will be announced via the Amazon.com Books Facebook page,” the company explained in a press release this morning, “and on Omnivoracious.com, the Amazon.com Books blog.”

Remember, you can subscribe to the Omnivoracious blog on your Kindle for free! And to make it easier, I’ve created a special URL — just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/Omnivoracious.

Amazon will even let you post questions for the authors on the Facebook page, or e-mail your questions to authorinterviews@amazon.com. (The final interviews will also be available on the book’s “detail” page at Amazon.com.) “We’re extremely lucky to have fascinating and talented authors gracing our hallways here at Amazon and taking time to chat with us,” Amazon’s Managing Editor of books said this morning.

“We love these conversations so much that we wanted to share them with our customers.”

New Kindle ad -             youtube.com/Kindle
Omnivoracious Blog -  tinyurl.com/Omnivoracious
Author Interviews -     amazon.com/thebackstory

I’m fascinated by all the surprises packed away in Amazon’s Kindle ads. Remember the instrumental guitar song in the background of Amazon’s previous Kindle ad. (The “zest” ad, where the Kindle appears in a bicycle basket, and even gets licked by a dog?) For the ad, Amazon selected the part of the song where the vocalist is just singing “la la la” over a steady rhythm from clapping hands and maracas. But it turns out the longer version of the song actually has lyrics to it!

You can hear the lyrics when you download the full version of the song from Amazon.com. (It’s free! And I even made an easy-to-remember URL for your web browser — tinyurl.com/kindlead ) The song is by Bibio, a British music producer who (according to Wikipedia) has had his songs appear in commercials for Toyota, L. L. Bean, and even Adult Swim.

And this time, they’re a perfect fit — almost like a poem about the Kindle itself. It reminds me of faces of the famous authors that appear as the Kindle’s screensavers.

Lovers’ names, carved in walls,
overlap, start to merge.

Some of them underneath.
(Maybe) they appear, in graveyards.
(Maybe they) fade away, weathered and
overgrown. Time has told.

Meaningful hidden words,
(Sudden)ly appear, from the murk.
(Maybe they’re) telling us, that the end
never was, Never will.

Words have gone. Meaning will
(never) disappear, from the wall.

Those are some pretty heavy lyrics for a Kindle ad. If you’re looking for something lighter, remember that the earlier Kindle ads also had some lyrics, and in a romantic twist, the second ad’s lyrics were written by the song’s two singers — Annie Little and her real-life fiance, Marcus Ashley!

“Once upon
a time, I saw you walk along
a moonbeam. What a lovely girl.
I followed you around the world. (Uh-uh oh…)

I love you. Don’t you see?
You stole my heart in one, two, three.
I love you. Yes it’s true.
You stole my heart, and I’m gonna steal yours too.

But Annie wrote all the lyrics herself for the Kindle’s first ad.

Silver moons and paper dreams
Faded maps and shiny things
You’re my favorite one-man show
A million different ways to go…

Both these songs also include more lyrics than what Amazon aired in their commercials, so click here for the complete lyrics for Fly Me Away, Stole My Heart, and the other two songs that appeared on their first EP album! (Or click here to read the lyrics from “Sweet Talk,” the song from Amazon’s new ad, “The Book Lives On.”)

I’ve really enjoyed Amazon’s Kindle ad campaigns. And remember, you can watch all of Amazon’s Kindle ads by pointing your web browser to YouTube.com/Kindle!

I love Amazon’s Kindle ads. (I’ll be watching TV — muting every single commercial with my remote — when I’ll suddenly shout out “Kindle!”) It’s exciting to see digital readers making the “big time” of network television. But I’ve always been really curious about what kind of message they’re sending…

I always wonder if there’s a clue hidden in the ebooks that Amazon’s displaying on the Kindle’s screen. Or if it’s just Amazon’s way of recommending some good books…


“The Book Lives On”

In this ad, good-looking young people read their Kindles in the sunlight — in a park, a restaurant — and enjoy lepaing in the sun and walking on fences. But just two seconds in — as one thoughtful youngster strokes his chin — there’s a shot of the Kindle he’s holding over the restaurant’s red tablecloth. And what ebook is it displaying?

“Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand (subtitled “a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption.”) It’s only her second book — her first book was Seabiscuit, written 10 years ago, which became the basis for the 2003 film starring Tobey MacQuire. But Unbroken has already received 713 five-star reviews on Amazon.com for its inspiring story of Louis Zamperini, an American Olympic distance runner who joined the Air Force only to become a prisoner of war. The book opens with a description of the day when, as a young boy, he saw an enormous German Zeppelin flying down the California coast.

…typhoon that whisked it over the Pacific at breathtaking speed, toward America. Passengers gazing from the windows saw only the ship’s shadow, following it along the clouds “like a huge shark swimming alongside.” When the clouds parted, the passengers glimpsed giant creatures, turning in the sea, that looked like monsters.

On August 25, the Zeppelin reached San Francisco. After being cheered down the California coast, it slid through sunset, into darkness and silence, and across midnight. As slow as the drifting wind, it passed over Torrance, where its only audience was a scattering of drowsy souls, among them the boy in his pajamas behind the house on Gramercy Avenue.

Standing under the airship, his feet bare in the grass, he was transfixed. It was, he would say, “fearfully beautiful.” He could feel the rumble of the craft’s engines tilling the air but couldn’t make out the silver skin, the sweeping ribs, the finned tail. He could see only the blackness of the space it inhabited. It was not a great presence but a great absence, a geometric ocean of darkness that…

The darkness “seemed to swallow heaven itself,” the next page continues. And that’s the kind of story that’s waiting for you, Amazon seems to be saying, if you buy yourself a Kindle!


Kindle Zest Ad

This Kindle is everywhere — on a bus, in a jewelry drawer, in your back pocket, getting licked by a dog. But as Cheerios splash across the screen of a Kindle, they’re covering the page of another ebook — this time,
Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. It’s the sixth book in a series of funny books about life as a shopaholic — this one was just released in September — and in this one she ponders the next generation of shoppers,
starting with her two-year-old daughter Minnie.

The Kindle in the ad has turned to a poignant page where, as her daughter leaves a card for Santa in a wishing well, the narrator remembers leaving her own greedy Christmas letters.

…long and involved, with illustrations and pictures cut out of catalogs, just in case he got confused.

A pair of pink-faced girls of about ten, all giggly and whispery, are posting their wishes, and just the sight of them gives me a rush of nostalgia. It seems wrong not to join in. I might jinx it or something.

Dear Father Christmas, I find myself writing on a card. It’s Becky here again. I pause and think for a bit, and then quickly scribble down a few things.

I mean, only about three. I’m not greedy or anything.

Minnie is drawing earnestly all over her card and has got felt-tip on her hands and her nose.

“I’m sure Father Christmas will udnerstand what you mean,” I say gently, taking it from her….

By the way, you can download the music from this ad for free from Amazon.com as part of a limited-time promotional offer. It’s the song “Lovers’ Cravings” by Bibio.


“What If You Switch?”

Interestingly, a different part of the same book appears in another Kindle ad. It’s the one where a British narrator tells a story about reading ebooks with different phone apps. (“Once upon a time, a woman was reading a Kindle book on her Android phone… One day she decided to switch to an iPhone. Luckily, she’d been buying Kindle books, so she didn’t need to buy her library all over again. She lived happily ever after.”) On her Android phone, she’s reading page 237.

…and I could have told her exactly where she went wrong with that last boyfriend of hers. (Because I totally disagree with that columnist in Heat magazine — the split was not inevitable.) And then we could have gone shopping and been snapped by paparazzi and started a whole new trend with scarves or something…

But ironically, when she switches to her iPhone, she’s actually reading an entirely different book. It’s one of the all-time best-selling ebooks on the Kindle — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

…don’t know anything about this particular matter, but I do know beyond and doubt that in other situations Wennerstrom has acted dishonestly. The Wennerstrom case has seriously affected Mikael Bloomkvist’s life, and I have an interest in discerning whether there’s anything in your speculation.”

The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, and Armansky was instantly on the alert. What Frode was asking was for Milton Security to poke around in a case that had…”

Kindle Park Ad

There’s a close-up of the Kindle’s screen, held in front of the stones and grass by a shimmery green stream. The camera rotates to show it’s being held by a woman (with her blonde hair pulled back) sitting next to a curvy stone bridge, and as the camera rises to the sky, she seems calmly engrossed in her Kindle. But the book that’s she’s reading includes harrowing scenes of racism in American in the 1950s. It’s Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

The page she’s reading in the park is about the eviction of an elderly black couple.

…false hair, a curling iron, a card with silvery letters against a background of dark red velvet, reading “God Bless Our Home”; and scattered across the top of a chiffonier were nuggets of High John the Conqueror, the lucky stone; and as I watched the white men put down a basket in which I saw a whiskey bottle filled with rock candy and camphor a small Ethiopian flag, a faded tintype of Abraham Lincoln, and the smiling image of a Hollywood star torn from a magazine. And on a pillow several badly cracked pieces of delicate china, a commemorative plate celebrating the St. Louis World’s Fair … I stood in a kind of daze looking at an old folded lace fan studded with jet and mother-of-pearl.

The crowd surged as the white men came back, knocking over a drawer that spilled its contents in the snow at my feet. I stooped and started replacing the articles: a bent Masonic emblem, a set of tarnished cuff links, three brass rings, a dime pierced with a nail hole so as to be worn about the ankle on a string for luck, an ornate greeting card with the message “Grandma, I love…

That Kindle at the Beach

This was the first Kindle ad, where the camera gradually pulls back to reveal that the Kindle at the beach is being read by a short-haired woman in a red-and-orange skirt, sitting silently next to a young man who’s also reading his Kindle. (“Man, that couple must hate each other,” someone once joked.)

I actually tracked down the author of the ebook she’s reading — Amy Bloom, who’s both a novelist and a professor at Yale University. She was once nominated for the National Book Award, and the story that appears on the Kindle was actually written in 1993. It was part of a new collection of her stories that was released in 2010, called Where the God of Love Hangs Out. And it’s probably the saddest pages to ever appear in a Kindle ad.

It’s the story of a 19-year-old boy who has a sexual encounter with his stepmother the day after his father’s funeral, told from the perspective of the grief-stricken widow. She struggles to find a way to make things right again – but first she must confront the fact that her son wants to continue the relationship.

“No, honey…”

I reached across the table but he shrugged me off, grabbing my keys and heading out the door. I sat for a long time, sipping, watching the sunlight move around the kitchen. When it was almost five, I took the keys from [her husband] Lionel’s side of the dresser and drove his van to soccer camp. [Her other, younger son] Buster felt like being quiet, so we just held hands and listened to the radio. I offered to take him to Burger King, hoping the automated monkeys and video games would be a good substitute for a fully present and competent mother. He was happy and we killed an hour and a half there. Three hours to bedtime.

We watched some TV, sitting on the couch, his feet in my lap. Every few minutes, I’d look at the clock on the mantel and then promise myself I wouldn’t look until the next commercial. Every time I started to move, I’d get tears in my eyes, so I concentrated on sitting very still, waiting for time to pass. Finally, I got Buster through his…

Bloom has practiced psychotherapy, and she’s also published her psychologically-insightful short stories in The New Yorker. (When I asked her if she thought that couple in the Kindle ad really hated each other, she replied “Well, or it’s comfortable silences. Other people’s marriages are hard to judge…”) But she said that she hadn’t even known about her story appearing in the Kindle ad until shortly before our interview. After she’d watched the ad on YouTube, she just went on with the rest of her day.

“I had a deadline. I was working on something, and I went back to work…”

But I’ll still always remember how excited I was to talk to her, since for me she was the ultimate celebrity by proxy — the author of the page in the ebook on that Kindle in that Kindle ad!

This is pretty exciting. Amazon just released a new ad for the Kindle — and this one’s in a radically new style! According to YouTube, the ad’s video has been viewed less than 2,000 times, so this is your chance to be one of the first people to see it. To view the ad, point your PC’s web browser to YouTube.com/Kindle.

The ad’s official title is “The Book Lives On,” and it’s clearly aimed at younger audiences. The ad shows young people enjoying their Kindles — in a coffee shop, on the grass, while lying outdoors in the city, or jogging past a lake. It only shows the new graphite-colored Kindle — not the older white ones — and it features a much edgier song by a band called “The New Pornographers”. (They’re a hip, indie band from Canada, and the song — “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” — is from their newest album, which was just released last May.)

I had to laugh. A technology blog had cheered Amazon’s previous television ad by saying that Amazon “is done with the silly flame war. The latest Kindle ads make no mention of the iPad or any competitor really. Instead, they simply show off the Kindle’s two main selling points – portability and content.” That truce is apparently over, since even in this 30-second montage, Amazon includes several scenes showing that the iPad owner isn’t able to read in bright sunlight — while the Kindle owners can. (“No glare,” Amazon flashes on the screen. “Easy to read in bright sunlight…”) The other selling points are that the Kindle holds
800,000 books, is lighter than a paperback, and has a battery life of up to a month. “The book lives on…” the ad concludes.

By saying “the book lives on,” Amazon seems to be trying to give a positive spin to the worry that digital readers will kill the book. The song’s enthusiastic rock pulse, with its steady electric guitars in the background, suggests excitement and optimism. You could read the ad as a manifesto, announcing that the next generation will continue reading — but they’ll do it using Kindles. But take a closer look, and it looks more like Amazon is really trying to advertise a revolution that hasn’t happened yet.

In November a survey found that the Kindle was least popular among young people. Between the ages of 25 to 34, just 5.8% of the people surveyed had said the owned a Kindle — and just 6.5% of the people between the ages of 18 and 34. (For the 35-44 range, Kindle ownership was at 8.5%, and at 8.3% for the next age range of 45-54 years old.) Surprisingly, the highest percentage of Kindle ownership was people over the age of 65 — at 9.6% — as well as people under the age of 18, at 11.1%. Maybe young people have less disposable cash for an ebook-reader — or they’re more interested in color/touch screens. But whatever the reason, Amazon is clearly trying to address that “enthusiasm” gap with this ad.

But it’s always fascinating to study Amazon’s ad campaigns, and watch them trying to capture the mystique of the Kindle. Once I got to YouTube, I even began watching other Kindle ads that I hadn’t seen yet. There’s one where a little boy tells his grandma what book he wants for a Christmas gift. (“Mayan temples. Or race cars. Or spelunking… Or martians. Or any kind of alien, really…”) And there was another ad for Christmas in the same style as Amazon’s first ads — including a new soft piano-and-vocal song by Little & Ashley, this time with sleighbells. (“Snowflake in my pocket, let’s take a sleigh ride on the ice…”) It’s the same young blonde woman in this ad, but this time the stop-motion animation shows her wearing parkas with her boyfriend, fishing by an igloo, and then dressed us as a ballerina (while her boyfriend is the soldier from the Nutcracker ballet).

Of course, it’s possible to read too much into the commercials. I’ve been a fan for 11 years of the band that did the song in Amazon’s current ad, “The New Pornographers.” But I’ve never been sure what their lyrics are about — and this latest song is no exception. The lyrics from the song snippet that Amazon selected also apply nicely to the Kindle. (“Silhouette, tell me a tall tale, go. Shout it out… Sweet talk, sweet talk…”)

But the rest of the song — well, not so much!

A mistake on the part of nature,
You’re so fair and so fey that you’ll sit anywhere.
I’ve pencil sketched the scene.
It’s feeling Byzantine.

Mistakes on the part of nature,
The living proof of what they’re calling love,
On certain sideway streets
Where things that don’t match meet.

A mistake on the part of nature,
You are a tall glass, a blast from the past.
Yeah, things were simpler then.
You ask exactly when.

A mistake on the part of nature.
It’s forgiven. Move on.
Won’t wear my Sunday suit to walk that street.
That would feel Byzantine.

Silhouette, tell me a tall tale, go,
Shout it out.
Silhouette, shout it from the top,
Sweet talk, sweet talk.
Your sweet talk, sweet talk.

Amnesia becomes ambition.
Ambition becomes a new sort of
Charming simplicity,
Like always, Byzantine.

A mistake on the part of nature.
It’s forgiven. Move on.
Won’t wear my Sunday suit to walk that street.
That would feel Byzantine.

Silhouette, tell me a tall tale, go
Shout it out.
Silhouette, shout it from the top.
Sweet talk, sweet talk.
Your sweet talk, sweet talk…

Silhouette, tell me a tall tale, go
Shout it out.
Silhouette, shout it from the top.
Sweet talk, sweet talk
Your sweet talk, sweet talk.

It’s one of the most controversial comments ever made. Nearly three years ago, Steve Jobs was asked about the Kindle at the annual Mac World conference, and he made a startling declaration.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read any more. Forty percent of the people in the United States read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

But not everyone agreed with his cynicism about the business of ebooks, including the technology blog at The New York Times.

“That may well be true, but it doesn’t take into account that a large percentage of the books are bought by a small number of readers…a relatively small number of people…represent a disproportionately large share of profits.”

And of course, Apple’s statistic also proves that 60 percent of Americans do read more than one book each year.

I think Jobs’ comment was motivated by a feeling of fierce competition. But nearly three years later, it still remembered in Amazon’s Kindle discussion forum. When Apple finally unveiled the iPad in January, Steve Jobs reportedly demonstrated its reading capability, and then conceded that Amazon “has done a great job of pioneering this… we’re going to stand on their shoulders for this.” I think that today, it’s become a different question: not whether there’s a market for ebooks, but whether that’s a selling point in the war between tablet-sized devices.

“No matter how cheap or technologically cool the iPad or Kindle are, ebooks will never come close to actual books…” complained one of my readers last week. But almost as soon as the iPad was released, reporters began comparing its screen to the Kindle’s. The rivalry between the devices heated up last week with Amazon’s newest TV ad. It uses two people talking at a swimming pool to demonstrate that sunlight glares off your iPad’s screen if you read it outdoors.

It’s one very specific difference between the devices, but business analysts are already analyzing the message. Yesterday The Motley Fool tracked down Len Edgerly, who is both a former business reporter and very popular Kindle podcaster, and specifically asked him about Amazon’s new ad. It was fun to hear that Edgerly actually does read his Kindle at the beach, and he describes the experience as delightful. “You also have the feeling that you are not taking a computer to the beach…”

Apparently it’s not just that there’s no glare from the sun; it’s that the Kindle is as light as a pair of sandals. At one and a half pounds, the iPad is nearly three times as heavy as the Kindle, with new versions weighing in at just 8.5 ounces. Judging by Edgerly’s experience, this could be a deciding factor for some users in the war between the iPad and the Kindle.

“[A]fter about a half an hour of reading a book, the iPad just seemed to get heavier and heavier and less and less pleasing to hold…”

I had to know. What exactly is the story that the woman’s reading in Amazon’s Kindle ad? It appears briefly on the screen before the camera pulls back to reveal the beach. But now I’m almost sorry that I asked…

Last week I interviewed the author who wrote the book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. And in preparation, I’d read the story itself. It’s “Sleepwalking,” the first in a four-story cycle by Amy Bloom, and the story is actually about a 19-year-old boy who has a sexual encounter with his stepmother. It’s the day after his father’s funeral, and it’s told from the perspective of the grief-stricken widow, Julia. She cries while singing to her younger son, and then staggers through the hours in a daze.

After the funeral was over and the cold turkey and the glazed ham were demolished and some very good jazz was played and some very good musicians went home drunk on bourbon poured in my husband’s honor, it was just me, my mother-in-law, Ruth, and our two boys, Lionel junior from Lionel’s second marriage, and our little boy, Buster.

It’s an incredibly sad story, but it’s also extremely well-written. (Bloom has written stories for The New Yorker, and was nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.) According to Wikipedia, Bloom also worked as a psychotherapist and created a series on The Lifetime Network about psychiatrists called “State of Mind”. Like a clinical psychologist, Bloom writes a story which provides an honest answer to the question of how this could happen, and her story doesn’t flinch from its painful aftermath. “I was already sorrier than I’d ever been in my whole life, sorry enough for this life and the next…”

It’s the stepmother’s story, as she struggles to find a way to make things right — but first she must confront the fact that her son wants to continue the relationship.

“No, honey.”

I reached across the table but he shrugged me off, grabbing my keys and heading out the door…

And that’s the sentence which appears at the top of the Kindle’s screen in Amazon’s ad. That’s what she’s reading at the beach…

I sat for a long time, sipping, watching the sunlight move around the kitchen. When it was almost five, I took the keys from [her husband] Lionel’s side of the dresser and drove his van to soccer camp. [Her other, younger son] Buster felt like being quiet, so we just held hands and listened to the radio. I offered to take him to Burger King, hoping the automated monkeys and video games would be a good substitute for a fully present and competent mother. He was happy and we killed an hour and a half there. Three hours to bedtime.

We watched some TV, sitting on the couch, his feet in my lap. Every few minutes, I’d look at the clock on the mantel and then promise myself I wouldn’t look until the next commercial. Every time I started to move, I’d get tears in my eyes, so I concentrated on sitting very still, waiting for time to pass. Finally, I got Buster through his…

Amy Bloom actually wrote that short story in 1993, when she was 40 years old. Over the years she wrote two more stories about the family — with the son returning for the family Thanksgiving dinner with a girlfriend 10 years later. It’s told first from the son’s perspective, and then from the mother’s — but last year, Bloom produced a final story which reveals how things finally ended up. She’d published the two Thanksgiving stories in a 2000 collection, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. But it’s in her newest collection, published in January, where readers get the final word about Lionel and Julia.

I asked Amy Bloom if she would ever write another story about the characters — if there would ever be more stories about the family. “There might be,” she replied. “I’m not sure. Not at this point. I’m done with these characters now. I’m on to this novel, and I’m sure that it’s — if the next generation makes themselves known to me, I’ll probably go back and write a few more stories.” I also asked what she thought of Amazon’s choice of the story for their Kindle ad. “I wasn’t embarrassed,” she replied circumspectly (repeating “I didn’t think this was embarrassing,” when it came up again later).

And then I remembered the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer, who was once asked if he’d had a favorite of his stories. He’d said it was like being asked if he had a favorite among his children. I decided maybe it wasn’t the right question to ask the story’s author. But 17 years after the original story was written, a page from it still flickers across millions of TV screens. And each day dozens of people then feel compelled to go into Google and type in this mysterious sentence.

“I reached across the table but he shrugged me off, grabbing my keys and heading out the door…”

*                       *                       *

Click here to buy Where the God of Love Hangs Out.

Amazon’s just released a new TV ad that makes fun of Apple’s iPad. At a glamorous pool (surrounded by palm trees), a befuddled young man is shown trying to read his iPad, as the sun’s glare is reflected off his screen. “Excuse me,” he says to the woman next to him, in a bikini. “How are you reading that, in this light?”

“It’s a Kindle,” she replies casually, adding almost as an afterthought: “$139.” She smiles an enormous smile, and then says: “I actually paid more for these sunglasses.”

There’s a secret history to the ad. In July, the New York Times interviewed Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, and he’d demonstrated the Kindle’s low price by telling an almost identical story. (“At $139, if you’re going to read by the pool, some people might spend more than that on a swimsuit and sunglasses.”) I wonder if he phoned the ad agency the same day, demanding that they start working on this commercial!

The ad’s already provoking some interesting reactions on the web. “This is a good ad,” posted one reader at Electronista. “If you just want to read, the Kindle is a far better device. If you want a multipurpose device, the iPad beats it, just not in bright sunlight.” And another viewer spotted another advantage, which they’d posted in the comments at a site called The Next Web.

“Also note that she is using the Kindle one-handed, while the iPad guy has to rest it on his beer gut…”

When the ad ends, Amazon proudly displays its final message on the screen. “The all new Kindle. Only $139.” And the ad drew an enthusiastic response in the Kindle discussion forum at Amazon.com. “I have not seen an iPad yet,” posted one user, “and when it showed it I thought, OMG what is that ugly thing? I actually rewound the DVR to see if I could see what it was… Might as well carry around a hippopotamus!”

Over at Electronista, one user didn’t question the attack on the iPad, but did pan the quality of the ad itself. “The acting is forced and the tail music is jarring. Did Amazon really pay for this?”

But in Amazon’s Kindle forum, one viewer applauded the ad for both its valuable message — and for its messenger. “You can not read Apple products outside in the sunlight. I have an iPhone and it is useless in the sunlight.

“Plus the chick is hot!”

I just got off the phone with Amy Bloom. She’s the author whose book actually appears on the Kindle’s screen during the beginning of that ad at the beach. Amy has published short stories in The New Yorker, and was nominated for the National Book Award — and even that woman in the Kindle ad is now reading her most recent book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. I was very excited, because I was finally going to get to ask her: how does it feel to find your book featured in an ad for the Kindle?

I tracked down her contact information, and she graciously agreed to answer a few questions. We spoke for 15 minutes on Wednesday — after I’d spent the previous week reading all of her books!

Q: When was the first time you realized it was a page from your book that was featured in the Kindle ad?

AMY BLOOM: A day or two ago. The day that you emailed me. I had a nice note from an agent…

Q: And have you watched the ad?

AMY: Somebody sent me a link.

Q: So what was your reaction?

AMY: I thought, “Oh. How nice.”

I have to say, I can’t imagine that most people looking at the ad — the thing that stays with them is just that fleeting moment of print. But you never know. I suppose somebody… I’m afraid this is my nature. What I felt was, “Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you, Kindle people.”

Q: And then you went on about your day?

AMY: I did. I had a deadline. I was working on something, and I went back to work.

Q: Did you get any other reactions from people you know?

AMY: Another friend of mine said, “Hey, guess what…”

You know? “I fleetingly saw your page in a Kindle ad!” And that was nice. You know, I’m the dullest person in the world. I say, “Oh, that’s so nice.” And they go, “Yep.”

Q: I guess I was expecting you’d have a bigger reaction to the ads.

AMY: I am notorious for this in my family. I’m pleased by them. I’m flattered by them, but I don’t — they’re not — they’re great. I’m really appreciative and I think its very kind of the Kindle people. I feel very grateful for whoever it was who said, “Hey, how about a page from an Amy Bloom story.” I feel very grateful for whoever that person is.

Q: Will this increase sales of your book?

AMY: You never know. It probably won’t do me any harm.

On the other hand, the other way to look at it is, who cares? I’ve done my job as a writer. I’ve written the best work I know how. And I’m appreciative of the people who read it and care about the work — and that’s pretty much the end of that. Anything else that happens is sometimes nice, and sometimes not so nice, but not really directly relevant.

Q: Still, for more than two months they’ve been broadcasting a page from your book into millions of homes, and over and over again.

AMY: It’s very nice. But on the other hand, I’m sure there are far more people who are like Snooki and The Situation, than have gone, “Ooh, look. An Amy Bloom short story.” Again, I think it’s — I am really appreciative, and it’s also sort of in the category of ephemera.

Q: But is there a larger significance?

AMY: If there is a larger significance, it’s going to be someone else who figures out what it is, not me.

Q: Are you one of those authors of print books who has a secret distrust of ebooks and digital readers?

AMY: I don’t have anything against them sort of, qua objects. I think, from people who find them more comfortable or more useful — you know, it doesn’t matter to me whether people read wax tablets or printed books or handmade books or ebooks. I’m happy that they read.

And I have to say, I don’t really have a sense as to how the presence of Kindles and ebooks is going to change two of the things I like most in the world — which are bookstores and libraries. It’s already clear that the tiny independent bookstores are not going to be proliferating. On the other hand, somebody told me that three had opened in New York City. So there you go. And so I think it’ll be like my dad used to say. “May you live in interesting times.” We’ll see what happens next.

Q: Do you use a Kindle, or another digital reader?

AMY: I don’t. But I’m sure when I’m a little old lady, I’m going to be very grateful to have a — some lightweight thing that contains a lot of books and has big fonts.

Q: Do you have any friends who are using a Kindle or one of the other digital readers?

AMY: I do know a couple of people who use them. They seem to like them quite a bit…

Q: I guess I’m comparing you to the woman in the Kindle ad. Do you at least read books at the beach?

AMY: I do read at the beach, although not — you know, usually not the “technologically advanced” versions.

Q: And you’re not reading Where the God of Love Hangs Out.

AMY: Well no, because I was familiar with the book.

Q: A few people who’ve watched the ad have said, “Man, that couple must hate each other.”

AMY: Well, or it’s comfortable silences. Other people’s marriages are hard to judge.

Q: And for that matter, the other comment is that the two of them are at that gorgeous beach — with their noses stuck in a book.

AMY: Well, there is that…

Q: I’ve been trying to figure out how your book was chosen for the ad. Maybe the ad was filmed when the hardcover version was first released?

AMY: I think it had nothing to do with updates. It had to do with whoever designed this particular ad — and God bless them.

Q: Do you anticipate pages from your book starring in other ads?

AMY: I don’t see my work — or my person — starring in any commercials any time soon.

Q: So where will we see you next?

AMY: I’m working on a novel. I’m working on a couple of TV projects, and mostly that’s what I do.

Mostly I keep my head down!

Click here to buy your own Kindle ebook version of
Where the God of Love Hangs Out.