A New War Between Libraries and Publishers?

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A typical public library

I remember when you couldn’t check out library books on your Kindle. But now many libraries have Kindle e-books that their patrons can check out — and it’s creating some brand new controversies. Last month, a special edition of a Bay Area newsweekly examined how tablets like the Kindle are changing our world. And they included a special article about libraries that provided something most articles don’t: actual statistics!

In Alameda County — which includes major cities like Berkeley and Oakland — more than 2,364 e-books were checked out in just one day. (And 50% more e-books were also waiting to be checked out, having been placed on hold.) But then the article analyzes an emerging battle between publishers and libraries over how much to charge for the library’s copy of an e-book — and why the publishers are pushing for new rules. “Unlike e-books, publishers think getting a print book from a library is already enough of a hassle and so it won’t hurt sales at bookstores online,” the reporter notes.

“After all, checking out a library book requires a trip to the library, and usually some scavenger hunting.”

But the reporter makes an interesting observation: e-book sales are still going strong, even though libraries are already offering more library editions of e-books that their patrons can check out for free. Nonetheless, some publishers are pulling their e-books from libraries altogether, or charging the libraries more for a lend-able copy. For a librarian’s perspective, the reporter interviewed Sarah Houghton, the celebrity “Librarian in Black” who’s been blogging about this and other issues in the digital age. (And yes, she does own a Kindle!) “I think public outrage may engender a change in corporate policy — if it’s strong enough,” Houghton argues. “It may take a lawsuit, or legislation, but change will occur.”

Sadly, many libraries have reduced their hours — and digital lending seems to offer an attractive solution. (“Now people can use the library whenever they need to,” one local librarian tells the newsweekly.) And the librarian also believes that small publishers may also benefit from library e-book lending, because it gives new customers an easy way to find their books. That’s especially true if the larger publishers refuse to participate in the libraries’ e-book lending programs.

But the article also raised the possibility that some library patrons may feel left behind. A library in Rockford, Illinois is spending 25% of its book budget on e-books, while one California librarian expects to spend 30% of their budget on e-books in the years to come. Ultimately the article suggests a question which never occurred to me.

Does that mean fewer books will be available for those patrons who can’t afford a digital reader?

Get a Kindle Fire for Only $169!

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Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

It’s true! Amazon’s selling Kindle Fire tablets today in the U.S. for just $169. Just point your browser to tinyurl.com/169KindleFire. (Click on the link in the “Save $30” section…)

They’re refurbished Kindle Fire tablets – meaning they were previously owned, but they’ve all since been tested by Amazon, so they’ll still come with a full one-year warranty, just like a new Kindle Fire tablet! And remember, the Kindle Fire was only released on November 15th, so none of them are more than four and a half months old!

Normally the Kindle Fire tablets cost $199, so it’s a nice way to save some money. And if that’s still too much money, Amazon’s giving away 10 more Kindle Fire tablets in a special contest. I normally don’t enter sweepstakes, but this one was actually a lot of fun. Amazon’s helping to pick the best magazine covers of 2011, so they’re displaying photos of the very best magazine covers, and asking us to vote on which ones we like best. There’s nearly 50 great covers each in 10 different categories, including “Technology & Business” and “Entertainment and Celebrities.” There’s even a “Most Delicious” category!

To check out the covers — and to enter yourself for a chance at a free Kindle Fire tablet — go to tinyurl.com/KindleFireSweepstakes. For every category that you vote in, Amazon will credit you with another entry in their sweepstakes. It’s all courtesy of Amazon’s magazine team, and apparently there’s even more fun ahead. On April 22nd, the best covers in each category will finally be revealed — after which there’s a final round where the very best cover “overall” will be chosen from those 10 finalists! Amazon’s promising that if you also vote in that final round, it will count as another entry in the contest.

It’s all a subtle reminder that you can read magazines on a Kindle Fire tablet — in full color, flicking the pages just like a real magazine by using your finger on their touchscreen. Of course, you can also watch movies and TV shows — or listen to music. Maybe Amazon’s that these magazines will be the last incentive customers need to rush out and buy a Kindle Fire!

A Kindle Success Story

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Bob Mayer book cover art - Body of Lies

There was an inspiring story in Amazon’s newsletter for self-published authors. (You may remember that for a birthday present, I published a short ebook for my girlfriend with pictures of her dog!) But
in a section of the newsletter called “Your Voice,” Amazon lets one of their self-published authors share a big success story. And this month, that author is Bob Mayer, who sold nearly half a million ebooks in 2011!

He was born in the Bronx, according to his biography on Wikipedia, and he’s published over 33 novels (under his own name, and four different pen names!) Mixed in with the action adventures are some thrillers and sci-fi stories that build on his Special Forces experiences, including a popular series called Area 51 I found his story inspiring — and very compelling!

Bob Mayer shares his experiences with Kindle Direct Publishing….

I am a former Green Beret having served with 3-11-2012 10-43-17 PM 2 recon and Special Forces teams. I then went on to serve as a writer and instructor at the JFK Special Warfare Center & School at Fort Bragg. Needless to say I didn’t have the typical writer background, but my military background inspired the content of my future writing. 

I started writing all the way back in 1989 and I bounced around between the big six as a mid-list author, selling well enough to not be dropped but yet not relevant enough to be important to them even when I hit the NY Times Bestseller List. I’ve come a long way since then, and started a small publishing company in 2010, but was still with a Big 6 publisher. I made a decision that I was going to go 100% Indie in January 2011 and it really took off once I jumped in.  From 347 eBooks sold that month, I ended the year with over 400,000 sold!

I have published over 50 titles under my name and my Robert Doherty pen name and have sold over 6 million books (most since going to eBook).  However, self-publishing is not as easy as it seems: It requires your devotion and attention. In my opinion it’s a full time job. Besides the writing, it takes a tremendous amount of time to do the promotion, marketing and technical aspects. I’ve got a few other authors that I’m working with to get out there because they have to focus on the writing and we take care of the business aspects. I have Jen Talty to help me with all the formatting — in fact we even published a book about how we are doing this:  The ShelfLess Book: The Complete Digital Author.

I interact with the author community through Kindle Boards and with the readers through Twitter, my blog, appearances and go to other people’s blogs making comments. Joe Konrath and I post on each other’s blogs; we try to build a community of readers. I think the most effective way of marketing my books has been linkage. To give you an example, I had a series (Atlantis) that was similar to the show ‘Lost’ so I linked to the ‘Lost’ page and blogs in a relevant manner and that helped my page’s relevance tremendously from an organic search perspective. I try to link my books to something in media or something in history as I write Factual Fiction’stories based in history and facts with a fictional element thrown in.

I have nothing but good things to say about KDP and Amazon. They have dramatically changed the world of publishing.  No longer is distribution controlled by a select few.  Readers Rule!  I’ve seen Amazon sell motorcycles!  I wouldn’t be surprised if they started selling other things no one would have expected, soon. And that’s the key:  they’ll figure out how to do it, because Amazon is active rather than reactive.  Amazon was founded in 1994 and went online in 1995.  Only 17 years online.  I ask myself how much had I changed my business model in 17 years.  Truly not much until January 2011 when I went 100% indie and committed to the eBook.

Amazon’s “Kindle Girl” plays a new joke!

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Amy Rutberg, the girl in Amazon's Kindle vs printed book TV commercial

Remember this blonde actress from Amazon’s TV commercial? (She the one who insists that she prefers folding down pages in a real book to reading on a Kindle…) In real life, she’s actress Amy Rutberg, and I’ve been reading the funny messages that she sometimes posts on Twitter. But Sunday she shared a link to a very unusual news story about the Kindle!

There’d already been some strange news reports last month about a Broadway theatre offering “Tweet seats” for a performance of the musical Godspell. Eighteen theatre-goers were selected to send Twitter updates about the performance, and a woman named Caryn Savitz was one of the people who “live-tweeted the Biblical action,” according to an article in Macleans. And apparently there’s also other theatres around the country which are arranging for some audience members to send live “status updates” about the shows to Twitter from their seats.

But will live theatrical performances eventually start offering “Kindle seats”?

That’s what Broadway World reported on Sunday, noting that the success of “Tweet seats” had inspired the producer of Godspell to announce Broadway’s first Kindle Night. “Our Tweet Seat night proved that we can expand the Broadway audience to include those who lack the attention span to watch a full act of a musical…” he’s quoted as saying. “So we’re using this knowledge to see if we can attract the kind of people who would rather read a book than attend a Broadway musical.

“Our research shows there is a significant potential audience that would be more willing to buy tickets to Broadway shows if they knew that they could just take out their Kindles and catch up on their reading if they got bored. We’ve also noticed a great interest in the idea among Broadway fans looking for a date night option when their partners have no interest in seeing the show. We’re even making up special Godspell reading lights and ear plugs for them!”

There was a stunned look on my face as I read the article — until I remembered what day it was. And then it dawned on me: the actress from Amazon’s Kindle TV ad had actually played an April Fool’s Day prank on anyone reading her posts on Twitter! She’d posted an enthusiastic response to the article, writing “I like it!”, and after the headline and the URL, adding ” #kindle girl approves!” And in another message on Twitter, she took the joke even further, asking, “Any book tips for the show?”

The truth is, Amy Rutberg is a dedicated stage actress. (Before appearing in the Kindle commercial, she’d starred in a New York theatre comedy called The Divine Sister, and even did a special video for the theatre magazine Backstage.) So I’m sure she appreciated the very real message of support that came through in the fake article about “Kindle Night”. “[W]hat is extremely important,” the producer says at one point, “is that we can do it without disturbing the enjoyment of those who wish to give their undivided attention to the artists who work so hard at creating the magic of live theatre at every performance.”

But I was just happy to see the Kindle being used as part of the joke!

Will Suzanne Collins Battle Stephenie Meyer?

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Suzanne Collins vs Stephenie Meyer - Hunger Games-Twilight battle

Suzanne Collins is the all-time best-selling author on the Kindle. But can she defeat Stephenie Meyer – the author of the Twilight series – in a mixed martial arts cage match?

That question may be settled soon, if the World Wrestling Entertainment has its way. They’ve issued a formal invitation to both authors in an ambitious campaign to improve the image of their events, hoping to shake the stigma that’s traditionally surrounded professional wrestling by reserving a special spot for the two heavy-weight authors in WrestleMania XXVIII. WWE chairman Vince McMahon has presided over some crazy publicity stunts, but this one seems tied to the release of the Hunger Games movie (which opened last weekend).

“Suzanne Collins is #1 in the hearts of fans — and in the sales of her books through Amazon’s Kindle store,” Mr. McMahon said in a statement today from Florida. “So we’re issuing a formal challenge to her on behalf of her rival author, Stephenie Meyer. And to Miss Meyer we say, come and listen to the cheers from a real crowd. Leave your desk behind, taste the springtime air here in Miami Gardens, and come to defend your title out here in the real world.”

“And you can bring along as many of your vampire friends as you want.”

In a promotional video segment, “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson” was photographed holding printed copies of all the Twilight-series books, and also copies of each of Collins’ Hunger Games books, which he smashed together to hopefully pump up the anticipation. “We professional wrestlers all know how to read,” Johnson said in a pre-taped segment. “But do you have what it takes to wrestle? There’s a ring with your name on it at Sun Life Stadium, Stephenie Meyer.”

It may not be a fight to the death — like the staged tournaments in Collins’ Hunger Games books — but McMahon alluded to that excitement while urging both authors to accept the challenge by using a quote from the newly-released movie. “They just want a good show, that’s all they want,” McMahon said, standing near a mock-up of a promotional poster for the event in the back of his broadcasting booth in Florida. But then he looked directly at the camera, and added ominously, “But only one comes out.”

It’s not clear whether the massive popularity of the Kindle can translate into bigger ticket sales for a staged wrestling event between the authors of two popular ebooks. But it’s not the first time that the WWE has tried to attract celebrities into carefully-prepared professional wrestling matches. (Famously in 2004, Vince McMahon successfully lured Lucy Lawless — the original Xena the Warrior Princess — into a staged wrestling match against Sarah Michelle Gellar, who’d played Buffy the Vampire Slayer). McMahon gamely joked that if there’s enough interest in this year’s “War of the Writers,” they might even duplicate the event in 2013.

“Maybe we’ll get J. K. Rowling to wrestle Anne Rice!”

               *                              *                              *

UPDATE: Okay, while it turns out that WrestleMania 28 is a real event that’s being staged on April 1, apparently it is not going to feature an appearance this year by Suzanne Collins in a mixed-martial-arts, cage-match fight to the death with rival author Stephenie Meyer. I’ve confirmed this with a source who has direct knowledge about the event — me — because…well, I made this whole thing up, because I just really wanted to celebrate April Fool’s Day this year! :)

I promise that I’ve never, ever made up a blog post before, and that I’ll never, ever do it again.

Er, except maybe for April Fool’s Day of 2013. :D

Harry Potter Comes to the Kindle!

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Harry Potter as a Kindle ebook

It’s finally happened! All seven of the original Harry Potter books are now available for the Kindle. (You can find them at tinyurl.com/HarryPotterKindle ) “We’re excited that Harry Potter fans worldwide are now able to read J.K. Rowling’s fantastic books on their Kindles and free Kindle reading apps,” announced Amazon’s vice president of Kindle Content. “For years our customers have loved reading Harry Potter books…” he added, noting that it’s the all-time best-selling series on Amazon.com.

They’re available in every country, and they’re priced at just $7.99 — or $9.99 for the last three books in the series — so the discounts should make these ebooks even more popular. In the weeks to come, there’ll even be versions of the ebooks in foreign languages. (Maybe they’ll release an edition in Parseltongue?) But J.K. Rowlings has already sold over 400 million print editions of her Harry Potter novels, and in fact, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — the last book in the series — was the all-time best-selling item on Amazon when it was released in 2007.

Of course, Amazon was selling its print edition for $7.99 — a 50% discount — to attract new customers, and they once claimed they weren’t earning any profits from those sales. Today Amazon is still selling the print edition at a 42% discount — but as of Tuesday morning, there are now also ebook editions available for every book in the series with nearly the same discount! “Muggles rejoice!” Amazon gushed Tuesday in a post on the Kindle’s page on Facebook — and within two hours, more than 2,300 people clicked its “Like” icon. 589 more people re-posted the news on their own Facebook pages, and another 156 left enthusiastic comments.

“Let me just say, I feel $57 for the entire set ($8.14 per book) is very reasonable,” posted one fan. One mother had some trouble online with the new “Pottermore” ebook site where the books are being sold, but was still excited about the big news because “I’ve been waiting to read them to my son from my Kindle.” Another post was directed to the author of the series — “Thank you J.K.Rowling for listening to us fans and providing the Harry Potter series on the Kindle.” And one Kindle fan claimed he’d avoided the series when it was in print, but “I may read them now…”

J.K. Rowling may also publish new material on her Pottermore site – and there’s another reason why this news is significant. According to the American Library Association, the Harry Potter books are one of the more frequent targets for censorship campaigns. But magically, now that they’re available in digital editions, it’ll be much harder to stop them from reaching young readers.

And there’s one more reason why this is a perfect match. Last year Amazon announced that there was one new product which had finally become even more popular than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Kindle!

Will Tablet Computers Doom the Bookstore?

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Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

An alternative newsweekly near Silicon Valley just devoted a special edition to “The Trouble with Tablets.” They noted it’s been just two years since the iPad first appeared in the world, and yet nearly a fifth of all Americans now report that they own a tablet. Amazon’s making tablets even more popular with their new color “Kindle Fire” tablets — and the newsweekly also wondered if this meant still more competition for local bookstores. Their reporter even interviewed the owner of Berkeley’s Pegasus bookstores, who said “What a quaint threat chain stores turned out to be!”

I thought the article offered a fresh look at the “gloom and doom” predictions for the future of printed books — and the people who sell them. For example, the article applauded a new program from Google which allows tablet owners to buy an e-book through the web site of their local bookstore. Unfortunately, there’s not a version of that program for Kindle owners, but even then, judging from the article, most local bookstore owners find that they’re not able to sell many e-books to their customers anyways. “As soon as you figure out a way to let customers know we sell e-books, you let me know,” says the owner of Pegasus.

But there was an interesting idea in the article: maybe bookstores could sell a print book that also included a copy of its e-book edition, as a “bundle”. Bookstore customers “might be drawn to the idea of being able to have a hardcover to read in the bathtub or pass onto their children along with having a discounted, lightweight e-book…” Plus, it would finally give bookstores a sure-fire way to sell e-books.

But I thought this was the most telling story of all: one Berkeley book-seller found an innovative way to survive…by selling their printed books on Amazon. The owner of Moe’s Books has discovered she can sell rare and expensive or “collectible” books through Amazons web site, reaching more customers than she ever could through an exclusively local bookstore.

In fact, 20% of the store’s sales are now happening online!

A Free Ebook by Susie Bright

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Susie Bright
You can’t pass through Northern California without hearing about Susie Bright. She’s an unapologetic “sex educator” and author, and a cutting-edge liberal who survived the big cultural revolution in the 1970s, then made a career out of analyzing what happened next. Now she’s finally published a tell-all memoir about her life – and at least until midnight on Sunday, it’s available as a free Kindle ebook!

“I have a very scary feeling Susie Bright is not making any of this up,” joked cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The book’s title is “Big Sex, Little Death,” and it’s described on Amazon as a “stunning and courageous coming-of-age story…Susie Bright opens her heart and her life.” Though she started life as a Girl Scout, the book describes the experiences that changed her life, “including her early involvement with notorious high school radicals The Red Tide… Big Sex Little Death is an explosive yet intimate memoir that’s pure Susie: bold, free-spirited, unpredictable—larger than life, yet utterly true to life.”

I actually met Susie Bright once through a friend of a friend. (I remember that I’d told her about my teenaged crush on Annette Funicello, while she told me about the history of San Francisco’s strip clubs!) So I have to admit I was touched when I read this plea on her personal blog. “It’s my birthday this weekend, and nothing would please me more than if you’d cut a piece of cake and downloaded my book!” And according to her blog post, one of her fans is a literary superstar — Tom Perotta, who wrote the best-selling novels Little Children and The Leftovers (as well as “Election”, which was turned into a Matthew Broderick movie in 1999.) He describes her as “a one-woman counterculture, a teenaged socialist revolutionary turned Reagan-era sexual freedom fighter.”

But I think my all-time favorite story is about the time she turned up in some political coverage in Rolling Stone magazine. At one point, their reporter quipped off-handedly that Susie Bright “could not be accused of shutting up.”

Susie Bright liked the quote so much, she later made that the tagline for her personal blog!

War of the Kindle Audiobooks

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Audible Tournment of Audiobooks trophy

Amazon Books shared a surprising announcement this week. On Facebook, they’re publicizing the “5th Annual Tournament of Audiobooks!” It’s a head-to-head competition to determine which audiobook is the most popular — as determined by an online vote. The tournament will be conducted by Audible.com — the audiobook service that Amazon purchased in 2008 — and they’ve structured the competition like the “March madness” playoffs…complete with brackets!

You can check out all the action at audible.com/tournament — but Audible also shared a very interesting announcement about the 32 audiobooks. You can download their first chapters for free!

You can listen to the audiobooks or their sample chapters on any Kindle (except the newest $79 Kindle) — and it’s quite a selection. Audible’s selected the “contending” audiobooks from four different categories — including “customer favorites”, best-sellers, the “critically acclaimed” audiobooks, and their editors’ picks. You can also listen to the audiobooks (or their sample chapters) on Audible apps, which are available for the Android devices, the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Blackberry devices. Here’s a complete list of the 32 audibooks that are competing this year to become “the Champion of Audiobooks.”

Best-Sellers
Bossypants by Tina Fey (narrated by Tina Fey)
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (narrated by Dylan Baker)
11-22-63 by Stephen King (Narrated by Craig Wasson)
The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly (narrated by Peter Giles)
The Litigators by John Grisham (narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris)
Against All Enemies by Tom Clancy (narrated by Steven Weber)
A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five by George R. R. Martin (narrated by Roy Dotrice)

Dead Reckoning: Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery #11 by Charlaine Harris (narrated by Johanna Parker)

Customer Favorites
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (narrated by Wil Wheaton)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (narrated by Jim Dale)
The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (narrated by Davina Porter)
Relic: Pendergast, Book 1 by Douglas Preston (narrated by David Colacci)
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper (narrated by Amanda Ronconi)

Helter Skelter: the True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry (narrated by Scott Brick)

The Wise man’s Fear: Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 2 by Patrick Rothfuss (narrated by Nick Podehl)

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (narrated by Jennifer Ikeda)

Editor’s Picks
Just Kids by Patti Smith (narrated by Patti Smith)
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (narrated by Hope Davis)
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (narrated by Rebecca Lowman)
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (narrated by Ralph Cosham)
Delirium by Lauren Oliver (narrated by Sarah Drew)

Solaris: the Definitive Edition by Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnson (narrated by Alessandro Juliani)

The Psychopath Test: a Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson (narrated by Jon Ronson)

The Informationist: A Thriller by Taylor Stevens (narrated by Hillary Huber)

Critically Acclaimed
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (narrated by David Pittu)
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (narrated by Richard Morant)
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (narrated by Holter Graham)

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (narrated by Jeff Woodman, Bruce DeSilva)

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (narrated by Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett)

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (narrated by Stephen Greenblatt)

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (narrated by Jenna Larmia, Cassandar Campbell, Kirby Heyborne)

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht (narrated by Susan Duerden, Robin Sachs)


And the first round of voting has already begun! Audible created a special web page for the tournament (at audible.com/tournament ) for casting votes, warning participants that the first-round votes must be received by next Monday, March 26th. And to pump up the excitement, they’ve even filmed some funny videos about the online competition. (Watch the videos online at tinyurl.com/AudiobookBrackets

I have to admit, it looks like everyone’s having a lot of fun. Like a real sportscast, it’s got its own flashy intro music with synthesized drums, seguing into the roar of a cheering crowd and two faux sportscasters covering all the action. “This is the Stanley Cup of digital audiobooks,” barks announcer Jake Jacobson. “Every week for the next five weeks, the top audiobooks will face off in single-elimination match-ups, right here at audible.com/tournament…

“And with eight seeds in each region, you can expect non-stop, run-and-gun action.”

More Book Deals from Amazon

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Monopoly man gets bank error in his favor cash

I knew Amazon featured 100 new ebooks for $3.99 or less at the beginning of each month. But it turns out they’re also running a second concurrent sale on ebooks — called “The Big Deal!” Amazon’s slashed the price on 200 more Kindle ebooks, to just $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, or $3.99. But if you’re interested, you better hurry — because this sale only runs through Sunday (March 25th)

Check out all the ebook discounts at
tinyurl.com/EbookBigDeal

So what ebooks have been discounted? There’s fiction, mysteries, children’s books, science fiction, history, nonfiction, some health/mind/body books, and even some choices from Amazon’s “religion & spirituality” category. 28 of the bargain-priced books are in the fiction section, including some classics that you might not expect. Four of Kurt Vonnegut’s books are on sale for only $2.99 — Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Welcome to the Monkey House. Also available is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley — as well as Brave New World Revisited, a set of essays written 26 years after his original novel, “in which he meditates on how his fantasy seemed to be becoming a reality and far more quickly than he ever imagined.” And there’s even a collection of Ziggy cartoons — a 35th-anniversary special featuring over 200 cartoons — for just 99 cents!

But in another section, Amazon’s also offering 18 more mystery and thriller ebooks at a discount. There’s Hello Kitty Must Die, a tale of intrigue with a fascinating cultural subtext — and Heaven Preserve Us: A Home Crafting Mystery. (“Sophie Mae Reynolds makes preserves by day and answers a crisis center help referral line by night… But on her very first night, she gets a call from a man who is threatening suicide . . . and her!”) In another section, there’s nine discounted children’s ebooks — including The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook (“From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory–More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards”). And the science fiction section has 11 more books at a discount, including the original I am Legend.

Of course, there’s also non-fiction titles available at a discount — 12 of them — plus another 9 discounted ebooks in a separate history section. (And there’s another 10 books in the Health/Body/Mind section.) But surprisingly, the biggest selection of discounted books appears to be in Amazon’s “Religion & Spirituality” section, where there’s over 53 titles available at a discount. “Shop for yourself, or give Kindle books — delivered when you want — to anyone with an email address,” Amazon suggests at the top of the page. “No Kindle required. Books can be read on Kindle or one of our free reading apps.”

There may be “territorial restrictions” — so I can’t guarantee these deals are available outside the U.S. But it’s still an interesting selection of titles! And if that’s not enough, there’s also another way to find cheap ebooks that I’ve just discovered. Every day Amazon offers a “Daily Deal” on one ebook — dropping its price for just 24 hours to as low as 25 cents! My problem was I kept missing the good deals, because I’d forget to check Amazon’s page. But they’ve introduced a new service where you can sign for e-mail reminders about the ebooks — so you’ll never miss a sale! For an easy-to-remember shortcut, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/DailyEmailDeal

And remember, you can check out all the ebook discounts at
tinyurl.com/EbookBigDeal

There’s so many ways to find cheap ebooks on Amazon, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of them all!

A Kindle on the Simpsons

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The Simpsons has been on TV for 23 years — and they’ve finally made a joke about the Kindle. Marge Simpson’s birthday is March 19th (according to this episode). So it’s a perfect time to take a look at where exactly the Kindle fits in to their imaginary hometown of Springfield.

It’s the episode where young Bart Simpson becomes a famous grafitti artist — but only to get revenge on his father Homer. In a complicated tit-for-tat, Homer punishes Bart by making him sleep in a tiny metal rabbit cage. (“You can’t strangle a boy on his mother’s birthday,” Homer reasons. “Juries hate that.”) When Bart’s finally released, he goes on a massive grafitti spree around the town, accompanied by his nerdy friend Milhouse. (Because “Every vandalism spree needs an obnoxious laugher.”) They’re drawing disparaging caricatures of Homer — and it’s exactly 10 minutes into the show that the Kindle joke occurs.

It’s in a scene where the two boys are vandalizing a billboard downtown. “Hey you punks! What are you doing?” shouts a former boxing champion named Tatum Roderick. He lives in a nearby building, where he’s keeping a pigeon coop on the roof. “If you wake my pigeons up, they’re going to do their business again.”

“And these days, there’s no newspapers — so I have to put down Amazon Kindles. I’m like — it’s bankrupting me!”

The episode was first broadcast just two weeks ago. (And according to Wikipedia, more than 5.17 million people watched it!) Of course, it’s as much a joke about the decline in newspaper sales — but implies that the Kindle is the obvious replacement. You can find the whole episode for free on Hulu, and you can also watch just the 15-second scene on YouTube (where someone has uploaded it with the title “The Simpsons s23e15 – Pidgens Using Amazon Kindle for Newspaper Scene.”)

Ironically, there are aren’t any ebooks about the Simpsons in Amazon’s Kindle store — or any ebooks by Matt Groening. But at least you can watch episodes of the Simpsons TV show on your Kindle Fire tablet. (For the episode with the Kindle joke, click here! )

And here’s an interesting piece of trivia. It’s not the first time one of Fox’s Sunday night cartoons has made a joke about Amazon’s Kindle. One fan described an episode of The Cleveland Show which had young Rollo being sworn in as the kid who takes care of his class’s pet turtle. But the swearing-in ceremony for this important grade school position didn’t involve placing your hand on a Bible. Instead, the teacher announces, “Rollo Tubbs, please place your hand on this Amazon Kindle with the Bible loaded on it!”

At the time, I took it as sign for the future, and it turns out I was right. The first Kindle jokes on TV were just the ominous funny harbingers for more Kindle jokes yet to come. “If the Kindle really is creeping into our everyday lives,” I’d asked, “then shouldn’t we be seeing it in our TV shows?” But I ultimately answered my own question with a yes and a yes.

“On our televisions — and in online discussions — we’re starting to hear about something new: all the TV characters who have Kindles!”

The Kindle on the Cleveland Show

Who is the Best-Selling Kindle Author of All Time?

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Suzanne Collins

Friday Amazon made a special announcement, to reveal the best-selling Kindle author of all time. It’s Suzanne Collins, the author of the Hunger Games trilogy (and the Underland Chronicles, a fantasy series for children). But she’s achieved some even more amazing milestones in Amazon’s Kindle Store, as Amazon shared more statistics about the author’s massive audience. And it’s all happened extremely fast, since Collins first published The Hunger Games just three and a half years ago!

Her books have been consistently popular ever since. The first two books in the Hunger Games series sold 1.5 million print copies in their first 14 months in print, and The Hunger Games even stayed on the best-seller list of the New York Times for more than 60 weeks in a row! All three books have spent more than a year and a half on Amazon’s list of the top 100 best-selling Kindle ebooks, and Collins also had the #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks this Christmas — The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. And in November, when Amazon first announced their “Kindle Owners Lending Library”, Collins achieved another milestone. Members of Amazon’s Prime shipping program could borrow one ebook each month for free — and three of the top four ebooks came from the Hunger Games trilogy!

In fact, by June of last year, Collins had become one of just seven authors to sell over one million copies of her ebooks on the Kindle — joining other popular authors like Lee Child and Michael Connelly. “What a lovely and unexpected honor to be in such wonderful company,” Collins said in a statement, “and see my books reaching readers in this exciting new format.”

Three authors sell one million Kindle e-books - Michael Connelly, Lee Child and Suzanne Collins

Four authors had beaten her to the one-million-ebooks milestone — Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, and Charlaine Harris. But within 9 months, she’d overtaken them all, and become the best-selling Kindle ebook author of all time!

But there were even more triumphs waiting for Collins. Last July, I’d discovered Amazon’s list of the 100 most-highlighted passages of all time from Kindle ebooks. At the time, the #1 most-highlighted passage was from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice — but the second and third most-highlighted passages were by Suzanne Collins (who also had a third quote in the top ten).


“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

     – from Mockingjay
            Highlighted by 4,390 Kindle users in July
            Highlighted by 8,482 Kindle users Today


“Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.”

     – from Catching Fire
            Highlighted by 4,001 Kindle users in July
            Highlighted by 13,983 Kindle users Today



“We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

     – from Mockingjay
            Highlighted by 3,206 Kindle users in July
            Highlighted by 6,408 Kindle users today


But just eight month’s later, Jane Austen’s quote from Pride and Prejudice has dropped into the #3 position behind the two Collins quotes. And amazingly, now four more quotes from the Hunger Games trilogy have crashed into the top 10 on Amazon’s list of the most-highlighted passages.


“‘I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,’ he says.”

     – from Catching Fire
        (Highlighted by 6,418 Kindle users)

“‘I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,’ Peeta replies.”

     – from Catching Fire
            Highlighted by 6,410 Kindle users

“‘Having an eye for beauty isn’t the same thing as a weakness,’ Peeta points out. ‘Except possibly when it comes to you.'”

     – from Catching Fire
        (Highlighted by 6,097 Kindle users)

“Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.”

     – from Catching Fire
            Highlighted by 6,000 Kindle users

In fact, 29 of the top 100 most-highlighted passages in Kindle ebooks now all come from Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. (Back in July, Collins’s books had just 13 of the top 100 most-highlighted passages on Amazon’s list.) And there’s an even more stunning statistic if you visit Amazon’s list of the most-recently highlighted passages. On that list, Suzanne Collins has written every single one of the 10 most-highlighted passages — and 17 of the 20 most-highlighted!

The three non-Collins books include The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and the text of Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. (“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers…”)

Ironically, the #18 most-highlighted passage came from Amazon’s Kindle User’s Guide — its instructions on how to highlight a passage! (“Press and hold, then drag your finger across text to select it…”)

This represents another triumph for Collins, since last year The Hunger Games was also one of the 10 most-frequently challenged books, according to the American Library Association. I always say that the ready availability of those titles in a digital format suggests that the Kindle might someday play a role in fighting the censorship of books.

For even more information, Amazon also calculated the 20 cities in America which purchased the most copies of Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. I plotted the cities on a map of the United States, to look for a recognizable pattern.

Where Suzanne Collins books are most popular

Sunnyvale, California
Salt Lake City, Utah
Tallahassee, Florida
Seattle, Washington
Orlando, Florida
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
St. Louis, Missouri
Provo, Utah
San Francisco, California
Naperville, Illinois
Washington, D.C.
Richmond, Virginia
Scottsdale, Arizona
Wilmington, North Carolina
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Vancouver, Washington
Portland, Oregon
Tampa, Florida
Overland Park, Kansas
Norman, Oklahome

The first thing you notice is that Amazon’s list includes three different cities in Florida. I’ve heard there’s a lot of retirees in Florida — so maybe they’re reading a lot. (Maybe Amazon was even reaching out to specifically them with those ads about reading on a Kindle at the beach!) And there’s two different cities that are very near Silicon Valley — including the #1 city, Sunnyvale, California. Maybe those towns are full of affluent geeks and other early adopters of technology — or at least, lots of fans of good science fiction books!

“There’s no denying that The Hunger Games has become a worldwide phenomenon,” announced Amazon’s editor for young adult book. She added, “we love that it all started with a great book…and you can see from our Top 20 list they’re captivating readers across the whole country.”

One of the most interesting facts about Suzanne Collins is she used to be a writer for Nickelodeon, the cable TV channel for children. (According to Wikipedia, she worked on “Clarissa Explains it All,” and was the head writer for “Clifford’s Puppy Days.”) Now she’s penned a best-selling trilogy that’s also about child performers — except in this trilogy, they fight to the death!

Maybe after writing all those sweet stories for Nickelodeon, she was ready for something darker!

Beatrix Potter vs. the Kindle

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She’s the author of Peter Rabbit, and a delightful collection of other classic children’s book about animals. Beatrix Potter illustrated nearly all of the books herself, and I was delighted to discover they’re available for the Kindle, including all of her wonderful pictures. (Just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/BeatrixPotterKindle .) You can even find free editions of her stories in Amazon’s Kindle Store – though many of them don’t seem to include the illustrations. (I’d remembered staring in fascination at the tiny print editions when I was young — with their soft grey covers and those fancy, colorful illustrations.) But it turns out that Beatrix Potter that during her lifetime, Beatrix Potter was really a publishing pioneer!

Since March is “Women’s History Month,” I thought I’d re-visit one of my favorite stories about the famous children’s book author. In 1906 she’d actually tried a new format for delivering her famous fairy tales – and according to Wikipedia, it didn’t even involve a book!

Intended for babies and tots, the story was originally published on a strip of paper that was folded into a wallet, closed with a flap, and tied with a ribbon.

The format was unpopular with booksellers and within a few years of the book’s release it was reprinted in the standard small book format of the Peter Rabbit library.

Click here to see a picture of the book’s original format!

Only two of Potter’s shorter stories were published in the “panorama” format – The Story of Miss Moppet and The Story of a Fierce, Bad Rabbit. (Yes, that really was its title.) It just seems especially appropriate that they’ve escaped the book format once again, and 100 years later – you can buy them on your Kindle.

When I originally published my discovery online, over 20,000 people eventually read my article. “But I think my problems started in 1902,” I’d joked at the time. That was when Beatrix Potter first published The Tale of Peter Rabbit, but I’d added as an afterthought that I thought Beatrix Potter would’ve liked the Kindle. (In 1906, she was already experimenting with that new non-book format for her books, though with the absence of digital technology, her best idea was still just a long, folded piece of paper that could be carried in a wallet.) The big geek web site, Slashdot had linked to my article – where not everyone agreed with my premise! But it ultimately led to a very interesting discussion.

There were nearly 100 lively comments on their site about everything from color screens, copyrights, and the iPad to the reading habits of infants. But in the middle of all the debate, someone argued that ebooks themselves were just a trendy fad. They’d panned the “buzz” around the Kindle vs. “a content delivery system which has been proven over the course of centuries.”

Their harshest line? “I may be a luddite but at least my books will still function after the collapse of civilization.”

And then someone posted this response, titled: “Sorry you are a luddite.”

The new digital world is pervasive and more permanent than you could ever imagine. In a world of 6 plus billion people, the only way for everyone to have access to books, literature, everything written down by the humans for the past 10,000 years is through digital form. This is the future. A single paperback book costs on average, $20 today. A near future netbook/ereader will cost around $100 and will have access to millions of works via a cheap connection to the internet. You can’t compete with that with your lump of soggy paper.

And sorry to say, the first thing the mobs do when civilization ends is burn the libraries to the ground, along with all the book hoarders. For any printed book, there may be thousands, or even tens of thousands of copies, but for a digital book, there can be an infinite number of perfect copies.

Beatrix Potter was a populist who wanted to make her books accessible to all segments of society. She would surely see the advent of digitalization as a GOOD THING.

And then, just to leave things on a lighter note, he ended his post with a joke.

“You may now go back to admiring and dusting your book collection.”

The Sweetest Kindle Commercial Ever

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Girl in Amazon's Kindle ad

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….”

Girl in Amazon Kindle vs printed book ad

Apparently…now she can afford a Kindle!

Buy “Fight Club” for 25 cents – and more!

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Ty Cobb

Amazon’s offered some great “Daily Deals” in the past — but I’m really excited about today’s. Usually they’ll lower the price of an ebook to just 99 cents, but for Thursday they’ve slashed the price even further for the modern radical novel, “Fight Club” — to just 25 cents!

You can always find the “daily deal” at tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal. But Amazon’s also slashed the price on over 100 more ebooks to just $3.99 or less for the month of March. (Browse the selection at tinyurl.com/399books, or — if you’re in England — at tinyurl.com/399booksEngland ) There’s always a new selection on the first day of the month, and I’m really excited about some of these discounted books, too. It looks like Amazon’s really put some thought into what’s happening that’s special this month.


Under the March Sun – the Story of Spring Training – $1.99
Baseball season starts at the end of March — but this is a fascinating story about that crazy other tradition that pumps money into forgotten cities where the superstars hide for their pre-season spring training. One newspaper called it “that rare baseball book that also serves as a cultural history,” even as it’s capturing the happy atmosphere of today’s super fans travelling to out-of-the-way stadiums to catch their favorite players in relaxed moments. The author, Charles Fountain, is a journalism professor, and presumably a baseball fan, and the president of the L.A. Dodgers even commended his book in a blurb, saying it “brings to life this most enjoyable time of year for every baseball fan.”


Ty Cobb – $1.99
Baseball seems to cherish its memories of past “greats,” which adds even more intrigue to this biography of Ty Cobb. (One reviewer called him simply “the most interesting baseball player of all time.”) Cobb maintained a ridiculously high batting average of .366 for over 22 years, playing mostly for the Detroit Tigers (and the Athletics, back when they were still in Philadelphia). and though he retired in 1928, that record has never been broken. But this book puts Cobb’s life into the context of the time in which he lived — and his own complicated personality, driven by an intense rivalry with Babe Ruth as well as external pressures, like the hazing he took from the Yankees over his southern upbringing. “Three weeks after his mother killed his father, Cobb debuted in center field for the Detroit Tigers,” Wikipedia notes — so his biography should be pretty interesting!


This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity – $2.99
Susan Moon, the aging editor of a Buddhist magazine, offers an “intimate and funny collection of essays on the sometimes confusing, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious condition of being a woman over sixty,” according to the book’s description on Amazon, adding that the author “keeps her sense of humor and…keeps her reader fully engaged.” It’s a serious topic handled lightly but skillfully, and “Her best writing occurs when memory, emotion, and spirit coalesce,” according to Publisher’s Weekly, “as she recovers parts of herself left behind in childhood or comes to terms with solitude.” Or, as the New York Review of Books put it, “Moon is like a Buddhist Anne Lamott–confronting her life bravely and unapologetically.”


Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance – $2.99
Of all 100 ebooks that are on sale in March, this one has my favorite title. It’s about “a zombie’s big break in showbiz,” according to Publisher’s Weekly., and it’s written by an animator for Nickeloden named Keith Graves. It’s a children’s book with an adult twist, since as Frank starts to dance, his zombie-fied body parts absolutely horrify the audience. I bet its color pictures look absolutely amazing on the Kindle Fire tablet, and it looks like good, silly fun. “Frank was a monster who wanted to dance. So he put on his hat, and his shoes made in France… and opened a jar and put ants in his pants…”


Hey Buddy: In Pursuit of Buddy Holly, My New Buddy John, and My Lost Decade of Music – $1.99
Don McLean sang of “The Day the Music Died” — the infamous 1959 plane crash that killed the rock and roll pioneer (along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper) at the age of 22. But author Gary W. Moore says that Buddy Holly reached out to him from a stage, according to he book’s description on Amazon, seizing his heart and his soul “through a song. Not a song written or performed by Buddy, but a song about Buddy performed by musician extraordinaire John Mueller. Even Buddy’s closest friends say John is Buddy reincarnated, and his resemblance and music will take your breath away.”

In this book, the author tries to understand Buddy Holly’s world, interviewing people who’d known the singer, and “Their unique and intimate stories will make you laugh, smile, cry, and think, all the while wondering ‘what if.’ What if Buddy had lived instead of perished in that terrible plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, on that winter night in 1959? What if Buddy had continued to write music into the 1960s and 70s? What if…”


Find all these books at tinyurl.com/399books

And don’t forget, for today only, you can also get Fight Club for just 25 cents at tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal

A Kindle Blogger Gets Honored by Reader’s Digest

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A trophy

A funny thing happened when I found Reader’s Digest‘s list of the “Best Reads of 2011.” A post from my blog was #4 on the list!

Woody Allen wrote the #3 article on the list, and Roseanne Barr wrote the #13 article. (And I also recognized the names Christopher Hitchens and David Brooks). The editors of Reader’s Digest had selected “the most unforgettable articles” for the entire year from newspapers, magazines, and from the internet, but it still took me a while to fully accept what had happened. The “best reads” of the year came from The New York Times, Vanity Fair magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and — from this blog!

I write this blog under a pseudonym — and I’d also used another pseudonym when I published a “short picture scrapbook” about my girlfriend’s dog. It’s kind of funny that the Reader’s Digest list apparently just used the dog book’s pseudonym for their list, which meant that the honor of authoring the #4 ‘best read’ of the year went to ‘Moe Zilla’, the non-existent persona I’d created for writing funny children’s picture books like “The Turkey Mystery Rhyme”. I was too shy to ask Reader’s Digest to correct the name — so I’m just changing this blog’s byline to “Moe Zilla” from now on. :)

The post they’d selected was about the cartoonist who drew the Family Circus comic strip. I’d started out lamenting how he’d published nearly 100 paperback collections of his newspaper comic strip — and yet none of them were available on the Kindle. But soon I was reminiscing about “my favorite memory” of cartoonist Bil Keane — and the day when a piece of kindness somehow magically escaped from his comic strip and found its way into the real world. (The editor of Reader’s Digest’s “Select Editions” called it “the touching story of a real and honorable gentleman.”)

But the truth is, I was sharing an actual memory of my own about the early days of the internet. Back in 1999, I was still caught up in all the excitement about the very first years of the web. And I’d laughed hysterically — till tears rolled down my cheeks — at some of the crazy new web sites that were springing up in my web browser. And yes, that included that very rowdy web site where anonymous strangers submitted “alternate” captions for Bil Keane’s Family Circus cartoons. But in a strange way, there was a real innocence to it. Pesky concepts like copyright infringement simply hadn’t occurred to a lot of people back in 1999.

An invisible community slowly started to grow around the act of re-captioning someone else’s cartoons. At one point, I’d heard that a handful of people even flew in to Chicago from all across the country — just to share that connection in real-life. (Before it was over, someone played a VHS tape of an animated Family Circus holiday TV special, and they’d all joked about it together.) I’m not sure any of them understood it as having a larger significance — beyond “It was really fun.” But I wonder sometimes if it was something special — a once-in-a-lifetime happening, the near-spontaneous formation of a massive grass roots comedy collective, united only by their strange, shared belief that this needed to happen.

After four years, there was almost a sense of tradition about it. (And to this day, there’s a rumor that all 50,000 of their captions are still being secretly passed around, preserved like a sacred text from the ancient 1990s.) That’s the forgotten piece of history that I think ultimately was left out of my story. That there was a very strong sense of community on that day when a lawyer showed up in their virtual village — and demanded that they all stop.

It was a “wild west” moment — but I mean that in the best possible way. In this strange new frontier, the villagers then gathered together to try to work out what was fair and what was right. There was some fretting and some chest-thumping, but there were also some very earnest and absolutely sincere discussions about the right to freedom of speech, and for their legally-protected right to create a satire. But it was a frontier moment in another way, because beyond all that high talk about powerful institutions — about a “body of intellectual property”, and the law firms defending it — were people.

“This showdown finally ended in the most unexpected way imaginable,” I wrote in my blog post. “One day the webmaster picked up his phone, and discovered he was receiving a call from cartoonist Bil Keane himself.”


The webmaster never revealed what they talked about, but “…as we got further into the conversation, I just realized I couldn’t really go on doing what I’m doing,” he wrote later on his web page. Bil Keane had simply surprised him. “He’s actually a nice guy….”

Their 90-minute phone conversation may have disappeared into the mists of internet history. But maybe Reader’s Digest is right. Maybe it’s worth taking a moment to remember that day when a moment of Bil Keane’s genuine warmth somehow magically escaped from his comic strip – and found its way out into the real world.

Amazon’s Secret Kindle Commercial?

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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…)

What People Are Saying NOW About the Kindle

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A crowd of happy people

I love my Kindle — and so do a lot of other people. So one of my favorite things is reading what other Kindle owners have shared about their own experiences. “We greatly value the feedback we receive from our customers,” Amazon writes on the Kindle’s page on Facebook, “and thought we’d share a few of the messages that made us smile!”

You can read the messages at facebook.com/Kindle — but I was delighted to read the story of a unser named Janet K, who said the Kindle even made it easier to eat food! “No more problems trying to read and have dinner at the same time. No more smudged pages due to French Fries.” (Of course, she also recognized other ways in which Kindle-reading was less messy than a pile of printed books. “No more ink-stained fingers. No more trying to jam bulky books into my purse. I love my Kindle…”)

And one of my favorite comments came from a woman named Kathy E. “if I knew how to compose a song about how much I love my Kindle I would!!!”

But Amazon also got an e-mail from “Jason M,” and he identified what I thought was one of the greatest benefits of a Kindle: many of the greatest books of all time are now free! “I’m an avid reader and a big fan of classic literature,” he writes, “much of which Amazon offers for free on the Kindle. The Kindle and the Amazon store combination is like having your own public library in your pocket… This is a bookworm’s dream.”

If you’re looking for more comments about the Kindle, read the reviews left at Amazon.com. The Kindle Fire tablet has received nearly 15,000 different customer-written reviews, and the “Kindle Keyboard” — Amazon’s previous-generation device — has racked up a whopping 35,871 reviews. (“A hesistant buyer rejoices on his choice,” wrote one man in Colorado. “Boy am I glad I made this purchase…. It is much better in person…”) It’s fun to see that “ordinary” users are just as enthusiastic about the Kindle as the professional technology bloggers. For example, Amazon quotes the Gizmodo blog at the top of page for the Kindle Fire tablet. (“The Fire gives me the features I want at a price point that’s less than half of the iPad 2.”) But meanwhile, back in Abilene, Texas, a mother shares an even more enthusiastic review of the device from her children. “The kids are always asking to play on the “Big Phone”. :-) It has really great color and screen resolution and the battery life is really good as well.” (And she notes that even her husband enjoys their new Kindle Fire tablet — for playing Angry Birds !)

One review began brainstorming about some new creative users for the Kindle Fire — for example, as an “exercise companion” to keep you entertained while you’re working out on a treadmill machine. And they also suggested a new potential market: doctors and dentists. “What if your customers in the waiting room were each given Kindle Fires instead of magazines?”

One of the few one-star reviews complained that the Kindle Fire tablet was too attractive — at least, when the delivery man left it on their doorstep without requiring a signature. “The Fire is shipped in a box that advertised on the outside of the box exactly what it is. ‘Hello, you, thief, please come steal me!'”

Remember, if you have your own Kindle story, Amazon would like to hear it, too! “Please send us your own comments at any time,” they remind Kindle owners on the Facebook page, “via Kindle-feedback@Amazon.com .”

Amazon Offers $30 Discount on Kindle Fire!

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Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

Amazon “just took the gloves off,” begins an article at C|Net. Only days after Barnes and Noble discounted their color touchscreen tablets — to just $199 — Amazon announced an even cheaper price for their own Kindle Fire tablets. “Save $30 with a Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire,” Amazon now advertises on the device’s web page. “Each Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire is tested, certified, and repackaged like new…

For a shortcut to the special offer, just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/169KindleFire (“Comes with the same one-year limited warranty as a brand-new Kindle Fire…” Amazon is reminding potential buyers.) “[T]his deal first went live on Saturday,” C|Net‘s reporter notes, “and I’ve been checking all weekend to make sure they’re still in stock.

“As of this morning, they are.”

C}Net’s reporter doesn’t even own a Kindle Fire tablet, but writes that “for $169 I’m extremely tempted — especially considering that Amazon backs it with a full one-year warranty, same as new Fires…For all intents and purposes, this refurbished Fire should be the same as a new one — just $30 less. Who’s in?”

I’ve been intrigued by the extra capabilities in Amazon’s color, touchscreen tablets, and yes, they’re more appealing now that the price is cheaper. But is the discount just a hint at an even more interesting possibility? Just hours after C|Net‘s article, a reporter at PC magazine asked an even more intriguing question. Was the Kindle Fire tablet just a beta release?

“Last summer, I was one of the first to write in detail about Amazon’s Kindle Fire, expected in the fall of 2011,” writes Tim Bajarin. “My sources on this were impeccable and early on I got a good idea of what Amazon had up its sleeves. However, during my discussion with my sources on this, one interesting tidbit came up that I have not written about until now…” He reports that even while Amazon was building their 7-inch Kindle tablet, they were already thinking about a much larger tablet, and writes that he now believes “that the larger tablet will be its marquee product and the hopeful cornerstone of its tablet strategy.”

He estimates a larger tablet would cost Amazon around $300 to build, which suggests its ultimate price could come in around $299. Besides the obvious popularity of the iPad, he considers other clues that Amazon’s first tablet device was basically just a trial run. (For example, there’s the odd placement for the on-off switch, and the way that the volume controls are currently available only on the screen of the device.) “In no way was Amazon being dishonest with its customers — rather, the opposite,” writes the reporter. “For a low price, Amazon delivered a solid tablet experience… To be truly fair, many people may never want a screen larger than seven inches because of the associated weight and bulk.”

But his article still left me very excited about the possibility of a larger Kindle Fire tablet. “[U]sers must realize that the Kindle Fire is an important stepping stone for Amazon. It has allowed the company to garner key consumer feedback so it can create an even better product that can compete with the iPad and, in the end, deliver an even better user experience for its customers.

“After all, as industry insiders joke, all first-generation products, whether hardware or software, are really ‘beta’ programs disguised as initial launches.”

And remember: you can still buy my newly-released word game for the Kindle, “Throw in the Vowel,” for just $1.99!

Amazon’s Funny New Kindle Ad

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New Kindle vs iPad sunglasses ad

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,” replies actress Anna Zielinski 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!

A New, Free Kindle Game from Amazon – About Hamsters!

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HAMSTER Habitat screenshot - a free Amazon Kindle game

It’s a real surprise. You launch the game on your Kindle — and see two funny hamsters looking back at you! (They look great on the large screen of my Kindle DX.) And then on the game’s main menu screen, the “selection indicators” are two little hamster icons! The game was released in January, and within a week became one of the top 3 best-selling items in the entire Kindle Store.

In “Hamster Habitat,” there’s a few small squares that represent hamster cages, and every time you nudge your Kindle’s five-way controller, a new tube appears on the screen. You’re trying to connect the hamster cages — and to reach all the hamster treats that are scattered across the screen — but it’s trickier than it looks! Soon you’ll run out of straight tubes (or curvy tubes), so your path has to swerve in another direction!

The puzzles all have funny names, like “Big Nose” or “Treats up Top”. And the hamsters actually move! While you’re staring at the screen, the little hamster icon (in its cage) will occasionally decide to sit up, or to lie back down. It reminds me of a famous web site called “the hamster dance.” In 1998, a Canadian woman inserted 392 tiny images of dancing hamsters onto her web page, accompanied by a speeded-up sound clip of the twangy voice of singer Roger Miller. (“Dee dee dee, doo doo, doo doo, doo…”) I once interviewed the woman who created it, who told me at one point her hamsters were receiving nearly a thousand fan letters each day!

Millions of hamsters later, that meme has now somehow resurfaced in a game for Amazon’s Kindle. It’s similar to “Blossom,” a Kindle game from Braintonik where you’re connecting lots of flowers to a central watering can. The hamsters give this new game a funny twist. Even when you select which level to play. each level is represented by a plate with some cheese on it!

This makes the 16th free game that Amazon has released, and there’s 66 different levels to choose from. At first I had trouble recognizing which of the thin lines represented the “opening” of the hamsters’ cages — it’s even thinner than the other lines — but it was easier when I moved the hamsters onto the giant screen of my Kindle DX. Despite the simple hamsters, it’s a real challenge to solve the puzzles, and at one point I realized I was just guessing. (I’d just nudge the five-way contorller to see what happened, since every time I pressed it, a new tube appeared on the screen, lengthening that hamster’s tunnel and moving it closer to the treats!)

I think games must free some extra creativity in the people who build them. What happens in the Land of Play? It’s only limit is your imagination. A friend of mine once created a game that was called “Roshambo Run” with the strangest instructions I’ve ever seen. (“You’re a minature angry nun who loves coffee. Shut up. You just are. Due to your alarmingly small size, you must go around any muffins in your way…”) If you successfully completed a level, you were even rewarded with a quote from the lead singer of Twisted Sister. (You can still see it at Archive.org. Just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/RoshamboRun )

Maybe games don’t just free up creativity in the game designers, but also in the people who play the games. After all, once you’ve navigated a game board as a minature angry nun, it’s just one small step to connecting hamster cages on your Kindle!

Celebrate President’s Day with Your Kindle

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President Abraham Lincoln reading a book
I remember the day when I almost met President Clinton. He was helping a school in my town install the cables for internet access in 1996 — along with Al Gore — and I was covering the event for a local alternative newsweekly. Some of the volunteers that day wore t-shirts that said “I connected our kids to the future.” And in the teacher’s lounge, I’d found the left-behind remains of sandwich from a local deli, with the word “president” written on a plastic cover. (It was left behind under a sign which read “Your mother doesn’t work here, so clean up after yourself!”)

It was a weird moment, when I realized that when there’s a new technology, we’re all “pioneering” our way towards it together. And 14 years later, when that future finally arrived, I feel like we’d ended up doing it again, moving together as an invisible group, this time towards a new reading technology. Shortly after the inauguration of President Obama, CNN reported that former President Bush had returned to Texas, where he was “meeting the neighbors, making trips to the hardware store, and catching up on some reading via a Kindle.” The same article notes that his wife Laura had a Kindle too. And that same month, former vice president Dick Cheney revealed he also had a Kindle.

But it’s not just that the Kindle was being used by a handful of White House occupants. After receiving a $7 million advance, former president Bush soon released his new autobiography. By the end of its first day — counting pre-orders — he’d sold 220,000 copies and delivered nearly $4 million in book sales. But the former president also discovered that nearly 23% of his readers were buying it as an ebook!

A new world may be emerging — an accidental community of early adopters — since the publisher’s spokesman said the figures demonstrated the “rapid growth” of the ebook market. (I calculated that thatwas over half a million dollars worth of ebooks sold in a single day!) The publisher also revealed that at the time, it was their highest one-day sales in six years — since they’d published the autobiography of former president Bill Clinton. But there’s also something significant about the fact that even Clinton’s biography is now available as a Kindle ebook, along with several by Ronald Reagan, and even more by Jimmy Carter…

And in 2011, even president Obama released a new book — and also decided to make it available on the Kindle. It was a children’s book called Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters, and it’s got its own perspective on the way America has changed. It looks back to past presidents like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but also ordinary citizens who made a difference, likeMartin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, Georgia O’Keefe, and Jackie Robinson. It’s fun to think that this will be the first generation of children who may be reading these classic stories of American history on a Kindle!

The world keeps on changing, both in big ways and in small. (One political blog reported that President Bush now seems more interested in his iPad than his Kindle, and according to his wife Laura, he’s “constantly” playing the Scrabble app.) But 10 years ago, The Washington Post once reported, there was an even bigger challenge confronting ebook author Barack Obama: obscurity! “In the summer of 2000 when he flew from Chicago to Los Angeles for the Democratic convention and no one knew him, his credit card bounced, and he left after a forlorn day hanging out as an unimportant face lost in the power-lusting crowd.”

It all goes to show that a lot can change in 10 years — both for politicians, as well as the rest of us!

I Wrote a New Word Game for the Kindle!

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Throw in the Vowel - a Kindle word game

I wrote a game for the Kindle! We’ve actually fussed over this game’s big concept, on and off, for over six years, so this really feels like a dream that’s finally come true. After more than a year (of preparing it for the Kindle), we’ve finally released “Throw in the Vowel,” our original new word game, in Amazon’s Kindle Store!

Download it at https://www.tinyurl.com/Throwinthevowel

I almost wept the day our graphic designer showed us the beautiful background illustration they’d created for the game, showing shining tall columns, draped with vines, surrounding a detailed tiled floor. We’ve created a beautiful, magical place, where mist glows around virtual columns, and letters hover — hiding in “clue boxes”, highlighted by you, as you nudge your Kindle’s controller. It’s a gentle game of hide-and-seek with words — or as my girlfriend put it, “a love letter to the English language.”

Throw in the Vowel Kindle game screenshot

I created this game with an old friend who’s actually had this dream even longer than I have! I first met Jeffrey Prince in 1991, working together at a start-up in Northern California — and even back then, I remember him telling me that he’d always wanted to create a new challenging game to share with the world. Now Jeffrey’s in his sixties, but in 2005 he’d suggested that we finally make this dream come true. I’d mocked up a prototype of the game he’d described, but then we’d kept on fiddling with it. And we spent the next five years cheerfully trying to stump each other with new variations on our puzzles, until eventually we’d created several hundred of them.

But in 2010, Jeffrey resurrected his original 2005 idea, and we realized that this concept was really special. We’ve searched for exotic patterns of vowels — like four O’s in a row, or three U’s — and provided the consonants which will turn them all into words. (But where that match won’t immediately be obvious!) There’s always 10 choices, but can you find the right match among the nine other clue boxes? (Can you “Throw in the Vowel?”) It offers the thrill of creating meaning itself — turning arbitrary patterns into words. In one puzzle, the “clue box” even has five S’s!

For the last year I’ve been telling Jeffrey that he may have invented the world’s next, great word game. “The excitement increases” (as we explain on the game’s page on Amazon) as “a tower of words grows higher.” Each puzzle gets easier as you go along, and there’s an extra-special puzzle at the very end. When we added it, I smiled to myself, wondering if anyone else will love these words just as much as I do…

For each list of 10 words in “Throw in the Vowel”, Jeffrey or I spent nearly an hour considering hundreds of possibilities. And each set required nearly 30 million automated checks against a dictionary, to make sure it was perfectly unique — that there was always only one correct match for every set of letters in each one of our puzzles. It was an intense “labor of love,” and now I feel like I’ve somehow touched the inside of the Kindle Store. And maybe even the Kindle itself, traveling across invisible connections to the screens of hundreds of different Kindles…

Levels are played, scores are kept, highlights move up and down, and players get cheered on with 54 different encouraging comments from Jeffrey and me. (“You rock!” “You’re on fire!” “You found it!” “Keep going…”) I’m excited, and a little proud — and hopeful. (And happy…) But I’m also just amazed, that somehow we’ve crashed through the gate into game-land. We’ve found the secret place where all the words are hiding.

And we’ve joined that family of invisible game-makers who are always out there, somewhere, trying to bring some fun into the world.

Come and play!

https://www.tinyurl.com/Throwinthevowel

Throw in the Vowel - a Kindle word game

A Very Big Announcement

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shh - finger to lips - secret rumor

I’m making a big, secret announcement here — on Friday! Watch for that special blog post at noon (west-coast time, or 3:00 east-coast time). I’ve been preparing for that big day all week…

So in honor of “my big announcement day”, I’ve tracked down the very first e-mail that I’d ever sent to anybody about Amazon’s Kindle. It was before I’d even bought one, towards the end of 2009, but I’d sent an e-mail to some friends on a mailing list that we’d set up for discussion random things. Barnes and Noble had just announced a brand new e-reader that they were about to release, called…the Nook. “It comes out at the end of November,” I wrote, “and looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle, except it’s got a virtual ‘touch’ keyboard instead of an actual keyboard — along with a touch screen.”


Most of the differences are minor — you’ll be able to read entire ebooks (or “browse” them) if you bring it into a Barnes & Noble, and you’ll be able to “loan” ebooks to your friends for two weeks. I’ve been skeptical about the whole concept of a techno-gizmo-logical “reading device,” even though several blogs that I read were raving about them. But they’ve got some capabilities I didn’t know about…

* Free, always-on internet access. It’s kind of minimal, I’ve heard, partly because the screens are black and white, but the price is right. The idea is that if you can go online whenever you want, you can also browse their book-buying catalogs whenever the whim strikes you. (One user told a story about hearing NPR describe a new book — and deciding to purchase it then and there on their Kindle. Within seconds, it had been beamed down to his device, and he was off reading its first chapter…) But beyond purchasing copies: it’s also a cheap back-up internet device.

* You can subscribe to newspapers — even out-of-state newspapers — and for less than their print editions cost.

Plus, I had two experiences that made me start thinking seriously about it. I discovered Project Gutenberg’s free online library had an entire collection of short fiction (by Bret Harte) that’s set in California’s gold country. I’d been to four bookstores, none of which actually had any of his books, so score one for digital books. (And Project Gutenberg has other cool obscure texts. For example, in 1914, some guy in California took a walking tour “Through Bret Harte Country,” and described what every city was like.)

More importantly, I’ve been reading the stories on my computer screen — and thinking that maybe a low-glare reader might make it more feasible to read longer digital works. (For that matter, you can also read blogs on these things — so maybe I could also just cut down on my monitor-based web browsing.) But the most compelling argument I saw for digital readers were from people who said that after they bought them, they read more. You’d never lug 20 books to the dentist’s office or while you’re riding on a bus — but your Kindle (or Nook) can carry them all, so you can pick out something that fits your mood. And maybe because it’s a new experience, it also makes reading feel exciting and new and geeky.

But also, people said that they were now reading more literature — because it was free. Or they’re reading obscure pulp fiction and mystery novels from the 1920s whose copyright had expired. And digital publishers also give away the first chapter for free (to try to entice you to buy the whole thing) — so I’ve heard people say they try more different kinds of books now, and it widens what they’re eventually reading.

Maybe — dare I say it? — it’s actually an improvement on reading a book, since maybe it’s lighter and easier to hold. And if you want to look up a word, you don’t have to fumble around for your dictionary. There’s even a built-in text-to-speech feature.

Granted, it may be that the only people you hear talking about the Kindle are the people who are deeply in love with it. But I wonder if this is going to catch on and really change our world in a major way? (One tech site even claimed the Kindle already had a faster adoption rate than the iPhone.)

Anyone have any thoughts on these new-fangled digital reading devices?

You know the rest. A few friends said they’d also been skeptical of the Kindle, until they bought one, and then they loved them. So I eventually bought a Kindle for myself, then started a blog about the Kindle…and the rest is history. And now there’s a new milestone coming up — Friday, at noon (PST).

Check this blog tomorrow to hear the big news!

A Big Valentine’s Day Sale for Kindle Owners

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Kindle Fire cover

Promising “a sweet deal” for Valentine’s Day, Amazon’s reduced the price on many Kindle accessories by 30%. The deal ends Tuesday (February 14th), but there’s still time to place an “overnight” order if you need a quick gift. And Amazon’s offering bigger discounts elsewhere on their site for some other traditional gift items. On some pieces of jewelry, Amazon’s even announced up to 70% discounts — and free one-day shipping!

But I was more intrigued by the bargain-priced Kindle accessories. For example, you can dress your Kindle Fire tablet in a genuine leather case for just $48.99. (Normally the Versa Marrakesh cover sells for $69.) And for the new Kindle (and other models), there’s also a wide selection of sleeves and cases. Even the Kindle power adapter is reduced in price, to just $14.99 (though you can also buy used adapters for as little as $2.00.)

Amazon promises these accessories make a great gift “for yourself or your favorite Kindle owner this Valentine’s day.” But they’re also offering big savings on “classic” Valentine’s Day gifts like chocolate, fragrances, watches, and clothing. There’s even gifts for men in categories like sports and recreation, fitness, and gear for sports fans. (Amazon promises that “Whether your leading man is a gadget guy, outdoor enthusiast, avid golfer, or devoted sports fan, we’ve got the perfect gifts to express your love.”) You can browse through all the discounted gifts in a special page Amazon’s created as a “Valentine’s Day store”.

To reach the page, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/AmazonValentines

Amazon’s even got a gift for Kindle lovers that you can purchase on February 14th. They’re offering “instant delivery” on an Amazon gift card via e-mail. (And I’m guessing the graphics are very attractive.) The selection includes “Kindle-branded” gift cards, so you can send a store credit that’s announced by the silhouette of a reader sitting happily under a tree. And you can really surprise your valentine on Tuesday by delivering your gift card as a Facebook “wall post”. (Amazon reminds you that besides ebooks, they’re also redeemable for “millions of other items at Amazon.”)

But best of all, you can even order a bouquet of flowers from Amazon, from companies like 1-800-Flowers and Proflowers!