Author: meandmykindle

Kindle eBooks Set New Records

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The Kindle Fire tablet is still Amazon’s #1 bestselling product. In fact, it’s been their #1 bestseller ever since Amazon launched it in November. But there’s something even more interesting. The top ten best-selling items at Amazon were all ebooks, Kindles, and other digital products. There’s now not a single printed book among Amazon’s top 10 best-selling items!

As July was ending, I studied the latest news in Amazon’s quarterly report to their investors. It’s a good way to get some insights into exactly how the Kindle is changing the world of books. And sure enough, there was another startling statistic buried deep in Amazon’s sales figures. Between April and June, 20% of Amazon’s best-selling Kindle ebooks were created using Amazon’s own self-publishing platform (“Kindle Direct Publishing.”)

So Amazon’s not just an ebook seller . They’re also now becoming a major ebook publisher. And there’s hints that Amazon may now be earning a lot more money because of the Kindle. I couldn’t find a breakdown between Kindle and non-Kindle sales — but Amazon’s overall sales are now showing a very dramatic increases.

For example, in just April, May, and June, Amazon sold $12.83 billion worth of books, ebooks, and other products. That’s 29% more than it was last year during the same three months. And sales in North America grew even more, by 36%. I see that as one reason to at least suspect that Amazon’s increasing sales can be attributed to the Kindle Store…

If my math is correct, about 43% of Amazon’s sales are actually coming from outside of North America. Sales are growing there too, but at a slower rate — about 22%. So Amazon’s sales seem to be growing
much faster in the United States. And that’s also the country where the Kindle has had the most time to find an audience, since it’s been available in the U.S. for a full five years.

Sometimes I wonder if the Kindle actually increases “customer loyalty” to Amazon — so that Kindle owners are more likely to use Amazon’s web site when they’re shopping for other products. Whatever the case, Amazon’s expecting their higher sales will continue over the nextthree months of 2012, predicting they’ll see an increase of at least 19% over last year’s sales, and maybe even an increase as high as 31%!

And Amazon’s been lining up even more ways to attract you to Amazon products. You can watch over 18,000 movies and TV shows for free now on your Kindle Fire — or online — if you’re subscribed to Amazon’s Prime shipping program. (The Amazon Prime program offers free two-day deliveries for one yearly fee, or overnight delivery for $3.99.) Amazon announced during their quarterly report that there’s now 15 million different items available for Amazon’s Prime shipping program. And those 18,000 movies and TV shows are all also now available on the Xbox 360 console and the PlayStation 3, and even on compatible Blu-Ray players and “smart TVs”.

The most interesting statistic of all is the fact that Amazon’s net income actually dropped during those three months — by 96%! One year ago, they’d racked up $191 million for the same period, but this year they only had $7 million after expenses. About a third of that different went to cover Amazon’s acquisition of a company that uses robots to create automated warehouse systems for filling orders — but what’s Amazon doing with the rest of their profits?

Maybe they’re just spending that money on building the next generation of Kindles…!

Surprise Amazon Sale on Kindles and Accessories!

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Today Amazon announced a $110 discount on a Kindle DX tablet.It’s on their “Deal of the Day” page — so it’s one of their special one-day-only sales. (“Or until they’re all gone,” Amazon warns on the web page.) But it’s not the only Kindle-related discount that Amazon’s offering today. The page also includes a different “Lightning Deal” every hour — and every single one features a Kindle or a Kindle accessory!

You can find all Amazon’s deals at this URL:
tinyurl.com/Kindle1DaySale

Remember, each “lightning deal” lasts for only an hour — or until Amazon’s sold out of the discounted product! Below is a complete list of the deals for today, and a schedule for when they’ll be available.
(All times our PDT….)

10 a.m. Discounts on a leather Kindle Fire case.
11 a.m. A Kindle/Kindle Touch sleeve by BUILT
12 p.m. A Kindle Fire sleeve by BUILT
1 p.m. Kindle Fire speakers that are portable and re-chargeable
2 p.m. Power Adapters (for all Kindles)
3 p.m. “Dress up your Kindle Touch”
4 p.m. A lighted cover for your old Kindle Keyboard
5 p.m. Anti-glare screen protectors for Kindle Fire. (Three-pack)
6 p.m. A Kindle Fire desk stand by Kensington
7 p.m. A Kindle/Kindle Touch sleeve by BUILT
8 p.m. Kindle covers by Belkin (not for Kindle Touch)
9 p.m. More discounts on a leather Kindle Fire case.

Amazon’s blow-out sale is causing some extra excitement, because it might be a sign that they’re about to release new Kindles. “It’s the kind of deal you offer when you want to clear out inventory, fast,” posted reporter Brian Barrett at the technology blog Gizmodo. And he seems to have discovered another tantalizing clue. This morning Amazon was listing the current version of their Kindle Touch reader as out of stock!

I’ve since checked that web page, and Amazon’s now saying that the Kindle Touch will be available “in 4 to 7 days.” Brian sees this as a sign that all of Amazon’s newest Kindles are going to be released by next week. From a sales perspective, it’s just common sense, he concludes, writing that with an experienced seller like Amazon, there’s “no way it stays out of stock of some of its most popular products for more than a few days. And he remembers that the Kindle 2 “showed up as sold out the morning of July 28, 2010. That same afternoon, Amazon introduced Kindle 3 to the world.” Plus, the back-to-school shopping season is coming up soon, so Brian feels like the time is right for Amazon to make their big announcement. His conclusion?

“We’re going to see new Kindles of every stripe next week.”

Amazon Announces an eBook Milestone

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Kindle - white vs graphic (vs a stack of books)

As the Olympics thrilled London, another small piece of history also happened online. Amazon announced that their U.K. web site was now selling more ebooks for the Kindle than they were selling printed books!

It marked just the two-year anniversary of the day Amazon released the Kindle in England – and there’s some even more impressive figures. Amazon added that Kindle owners in the U.K. purchase four times as many ebooks as they did printed books. For every 100 printed books Amazon sold there, they were now selling 114 ebooks. And the figures don’t even include the sales of Amazon-published ebooks in Apple’s iBookStore or through other online booksellers. “Customers in the UK are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books,” announced Amazon’s Vice President of Kindle for Europe, “even as our print business continues to grow. As a result of the success of Kindle, we’re selling more books than ever before…”

The news has generated some headlines – but it’s really just another milestone in a bigger ongoing story. Amazon had already revealed that ebooks were outselling printed books in America more than one year ago. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, announced the news in a conference call with shareholders on June 7, 2011. And he’d shared the same surprising twist: an announcement that at the same time, Amazon was also selling more printed books than ever before.

I’m reminded of the schoolteacher who taught her 5th grade class with Kindles. One of the students said it had made reading cool. Instead of outdated old copies of old-fashioned books, the students could read digital texts, search them electronically, and even share their favorite highlights right on their Facebook pages. Maybe Amazon’s actually increased the world’s interest in reading itself. That could explain why Amazon’s also selling more printed books.

Jeff Bezos has a goal to create a “universal library, ” so they can always connect customers to the book they want — any book, any where. Amazon’s working that towards goal with “a team of missionaries,” Bezos told the investors, and maybe their enthusiasm is coming through the Kindles that they make. I love reading on my Kindle, and I like to think that Amazon understands that passion, and is just trying to keep sharing it with the rest of the world. I guess what I’m saying is that behind all the sales figures is a simple idea: that people will read more if you make it easy enough for them.

And that’s probably why Amazon is selling so many ebooks…

Amazon Offers a New 40% Discount on Kindles and Accessories

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Dog licking a Kindle from Amazon TV ad

C|Net‘s reporting on a big 40% discount that Amazon’s now offering on their $79 Kindles, and also on most Kindle accessories. It lowers the price of a new Kindle to just $47, and the 40% discount also applies to covers, cases, and even chargers. The catch is you have to use an Amazon “Rewards” Visa card to make the purchase – but you can apply for one online. For a shortcut to the offer, just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/Kindle47. C|Net speculates that this big sale is a sign that Amazon is clearing out their inventory, because they expect to start shipping new Kindles soon!

The offer is only available through August 15, “or while supplies last,” but the discount applies to nearly every kind of Kindle accessory that’s available. “You can read what you want into this special sale,” write C|Net reporter David Carnoy, “but discounting certain e-ink Kindles to as low as $47 would seem to indicate that Amazon is starting to clear stock to make room for new models.” But whatever Amazon is thinking, it’s a great way for shoppers to save some money, especially on some “high-end” Kindle accessories which would normally be too expensive. “If you had your eye on one of those pricey Kindle Lighted Leather covers (for any Kindle model), this might be the time to put it in the cart, because you can pick one up for $36 instead of $59.99.”

But even without an Amazon Visa card, there may be another way to save money. C|Net reports that “it’s quite possible” that Amazon will also slash prices soon on refurbished Kindles, “as it has in the past.” It’s widely believed that Amazon will be launching a newer version of these Kindles very soon, which will then make it harder for them to sell these “previous-generation” models. I’m always delighted by how many ways there seem to be to save money on the purchase of a new Kindle.

And apparently I’m not the only one, at least judging by the comments on C|Net‘s story. “Thank goodness I got an Amazon.com credit card yesterday,” posted one user.

“Hellooooo Christmas presents!”

Amazon Announces “Most Intriguing” New Releases

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JK Rowlings, Stephen Colbert, and Tom Wolfe will release new books in 2012

The editors at Amazon see a lot of Kindle ebooks, and they’re really excited about some new upcoming releases. They’ve created a special web page for their “big fall books preview” for 2012, which includes books from seven different categories, plus their big final list of The 10 Most Intriguing Books of Fall! And best of all, the most of the books are being pre-sold at discounts of up to 46%

To see the list, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/AmazonFallBooks

“There’s plenty of great reading to go around,” announced Amazon’s Editorial Director of Books and Kindle, noting that the approach of autumn “tends to bring readers some of the best, most-sure-to-be-talked-about books…”

“This year’s lineup looks especially impressive.”

So what’s on the list? At the very top is a new novel by Michael Chabon (the author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay). He’s releasing a new novel called Telegraph Avenue which, according to Amazon’s editors, offers a “knowing” look at life “in politically correct northern California. And their #2 most-intriguing fall book is by Stephen Colbert, a parody of political books which he’s titled America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t But they also note that this fall will see the release of a new novel by Harry Potter author J. K. Rowlings — her first book for adults — a “blackly comic tale of a town in trouble,” titled The Casual Vacancy.

And Salman Rushdie is releasing a remarkable memoir about his life in hiding for nearly 10 years after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death. He was “forced underground,”
according to the book’s description at Amazon, “moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team.” And when the police asked him to choose an alias, “he thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names,” eventually thinking of Conrad and Chekhov. He became Joseph Anton, and nearly 25 years later he’s finally telling the story of his experience, which he’s wryly titled Joseph Anton: A Memoir.

Other books on Amazon’s “Most Intriguing” list

The Twelve by Justin Cronin
“In a world ravaged by vampire apocalypse that began in The Passage, survivors band together to eradicate the origins of the virus.

Winter of the World by Ken Follett
“Follet’s Fall of Giants follow-up is doorstop of a tale of WWII and the nuclear age.”

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
“The effects of global warming have never been so fascinating–or beautiful–as in this novel by the beloved.”

NW by Zadie Smith
“A characteristically brilliant comic novel about four young people making their way in complicated London.”

The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin
“A surprising look at how two branches of government do–and don’t–get along.”

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe
“Think The Bonfire of the Vanities goes to Miami. Class, race, politics–it’s all there, in Wolfe’s typically audacious style.”


In addition to these books, six different Amazon’s book editors have each announced their own personal most-anticipated books for this fall. They include Neil Young’s memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, plus a sequel to the children’s classic The Wind in the Willows by Jacqueline Kelly (complete with lavish new illustrations). And Amazon’s also previewing even more fall releases, with lists of intriguing books in seven different categories, including fiction, biographies, mysteries, cookbooks, children’s books, young adult books, and general nonfiction.

Remember, you can check out all of the exciting new books coming up this fall at tinyurl.com/AmazonFallBooks

100 eBooks for July for $3.99 (or Less!)

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Amazon Kindle 399 ebook sale

Hurry! There’s only two more days to snatch up some great ebooks in Amazon’s special sale for July. They’re offering 100 Kindle ebooks for just $3.99 or less. And because it’s the last week of the month, this really means you’ll get 200 bargain ebooks to choose from — because there’s the 100 discounted “July” ebooks, and then 100 more different ebooks, starting on Wednesday!

Both sales will appear at this URL — tinyurl.com/399books.

Amazon’s discounting books from eight different genres, so there’s a nice variety to choose from. There’s romance, literature, mysteries, and even fiction for kids and teens — plus history, cookbooks, travel books, and more! I’ve taken a good look, and decided to highlight some of the more interesting titles (below). And there’s a few cases where some great ebooks aren’t in the category that you’d expect!


P.S. I Hate It Here: Kids’ Letters from Camp
Amazon stuck this book in their “general non-fiction” category, though it’s description notes that it’s “hilarious and heart-warming.” They’re real letters, written by children between the ages of 8 and 16, and they were all carefully collected together by a real mother who, yes, sent her children away to summer camp. “These letters reveal that kids are wittier and more sophisticated than we might assume,” according to the book’s page at Amazon, “and that the experience of being away from home for the first time creates hilarious and lasting memories.”


In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero
Amazon’s tucked this ebook into their mystery section, though it’s really a loving appreciation of a favorite mystery author. Robert B. Parker wrote 40 detective novels starring Spenser the detective — starting in 1973, and continuing for the next 38 years! But for this book, the best-selling mystery authors of today explain how he influenced the way mysteries are written. Publisher’s Weekly notes that Parker is “widely credited with reviving the hardboiled private investigator genre,” according to the book’s page on Amazon. And Amazon’s also cites another reviewer who calls it “a fun read that brings back wonderful memories of the man who created Spenser and so many other characters.”


Garbage Pail Kids
Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize for his graphic novel, Maus, but he started his career drawing parodies for bubble gum cards! In 1985, Topps launched a new series of cards parodying the Cabbage Patch dolls (which were that year’s hottest Christmas gift). But instead of cute children, these cards featured funny freaks! Spiegelman was one of the editors for the series, and this ebook collects all the dark fun together for the first time – including four previously unreleased cards. There’s a good introduction by Spiegelman himself – and the 206 color images will definitely bring some rowdy retro fun to your Kindle Fire!


Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century
A British journalist formed real connections with the people he met playing games in an online world. But exploring the topic much more deeply, he discovered that games really can tap into our deepest human needs – and concludes that they’ll become a bigger part of our lives in the years to come. Newsweek argued recently that the internet may literally drive some people crazy – though there’s also a positive side, too. A reviewer at the Irish Times called this book “A lively, thought-provoking and thoughtful read on an entertainment juggernaut many of us have failed to properly recognize…”


We Are All Weird by Seth Godin
You may remember a fascinating 2011 best-seller called Poke the Box, urging initiative and risk-taking as the keys to success. But its author also wrote this fascinating follow-up which, according to its description on Amazon, argues that “new era of weirdness is upon us.” In an era of mass production and conformity, Godin applauds the new breed of consumers who are “stepping forward and insisting that the world work in a different way.” Godin has an MBA, and once worked as a brand manager – yet he’s against the idea of a one-size-fits-all corporate solution, suggesting it’s more important to offer choices, to “allow people to survive and thrive.”


Remember, there’ll be ANOTHER 100 ebooks on sale starting on Wednesday. And both sales will appear at this URL…

tinyurl.com/399books.

A Secret Summer Kindle Commercial?

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Amazon summer beach resort Kindle ad

I love Amazon’s Kindle commercials. It’s really fun to see how a professional advertising agency captures the fun of owning a Kindle with flashy video clips and exotic music choices. Today I discovered there’s one great Kindle commercial that most people haven’t seen. It’s airing only in England, but you can also watch it online on Amazon’s official channel for Kindle videos!

For a shortcut to the video, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/UKKindleAd

This cheerful ad shows lots of happy people enjoying their Kindle while they’re “on holiday” at the beach. (“Pack your Kindle,” urge the words appearing on-screen at the beginning of the commercial.) Those words appear over the image of a carefully-packed suitcase, but all the other video clips show a fancy summer resort. There’s a woman relaxing by the pool, a tall glass of lemonade, and a room with a view of the beach. But of course, each clip includes a Kindle as part of the fun!

Kindle on beach mattress

“Holds all your holiday books…” read the words next to the glass of lemonade. “Lighter than a paperback…” appears as a man flops onto a bed with his Kindle, with the lovely beach view in the background. Amazon manages to include all the Kindle’s key selling points, while creating a real sense of fun. “Now introducing Kindle Touch…” they add towards the end of the commercial. “Kindle £89 Kindle Touch £109…”

The video appears on Amazon’s official channel for Kindle videos at YouTube.com/Kindle. (On the same page, Amazon’s also webcasting some inspiring interviews with some self-published authors.) Altogether, Amazon’s online Kindle videos have been viewed more than 7,249,265 times. And yet so far, this fun summer ad has racked up less than 11,000 views.

I liked the bouncy song in the background, which adds to the breezy tone of the commercial. The song seems to have just two lyrics — “I love you, baby,” and “Oooh, oooh oooh…” But with some research, I discovered that the complete song is actually a lot darker. “When they fight, they fight. And when they come home at night they say, ‘I love you, baby’…” (It’s by a band called “The Generationals” — and it looks like Amazon’s using yet another new hip band from Louisiana for its Kindle ads….)

It’s not just the perfect song for a Kindle ad. The exact same song was used in a commercial for Bloomingdales, according to the band’s page on Wikipedia. The song’s swinging trumpet and bouncing bassline gives it a groovy ’60s sound — towards the beginning, there’s even a playful “wolf whistle.” But the effect seems to be ironic, since the song is actually chronicling the end of relationship

“He got the message she left on his car, in the rain…. And when it all comes crashing down, what can you do, to find what you’re looking for? And then the words will come to you, driving through the rain. But there’ll be no one there to say them to anyway….”


But at least some couples are still enjoying a lovely holiday together at the beach this summer — at least, judging by Amazon’s Kindle ad.

Kindle in bathing suit back pocket beach ad

Amazon Gives Away FREE Music Downloads!

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Amazon Twitter $2.00 Discount .mp3 Music Sale

I’ve really enjoyed Amazon’s music give-aways – and I’m always amazed at how many there are. I think I’ve gotten more than a dozen music files for free, which I’ve loaded onto my Kindle for reading “background music,” but this week Amazon’s announced another sale. They’re giving away a $2.00 credit for free music downloads — any .mp3s — if you’re willing to let them post one appropriate message on your Twitter account.

“I just got a $2 credit for music from @amazonmp3 and @imdb. Get your credit here…”

Here’s my shortcut to the URL for Amazon’s free music offer – just go to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeAmazonMp3s

The offer is good through Saturday, July 28th, and it applies to any digital music downloads (but not CDs) purchased at mp3.Amazon.com. To accept the offer, you temporarily connect your Amazon and Twitter accounts — but you can revoke the connection just as soon as you’ve used your $2.00 credit. (Just click the “Edit Your Profile” button at the upper-right of your profile page, and then click the “Apps” links which appears at the right of your screen…)

I was surprised that Amazon’s offering more free mp3s so soon after their last free music give-away. But apparently they’ve partnered up with the movie web site, IMDB.com, who are listed as the “sponsors” of this latest round of free music. Now I’ve started keeping a “wish list” of songs I’d like for background music, so I’ll be ready the next time Amazon announces a free music give-away. You can keep up on all of Amazon’s music give-aways by “Liking” their page on Facebook (at facebook.com/amazonmp3 ).

For this week’s free music offer from Amazon, just go to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeAmazonMp3s

Kindle Fire Prices Drop on the Second-Hand Market

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Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

I’ve been shopping for a Kindle Fire tablet, and I made a startling discovery. You can save a lot of money if you buy a second-hand tablet, either in an auction on eBay, for example, or through an ad on Craigslist. Over the last four days, I’ve checked 35 different auctions on eBay. And the average winning bid for those 35 auctions was just $140!

In fact, 13 different bidders ultimately won a Kindle Fire for less than $140. Two people even won one of Amazon’s color touchscreen tablets for just $113.88, and two more paid just $121. I’ve really been amazed at some of the low prices that bidders are getting on a used Kindle Fire. People have won the eBay auctions with bids of just $126.48 or $127.00, and I saw seven different people win a Kindle Fire tablet with bids between $130 and $139!

It’s a great way to save money, since most bidders end up getting a 30% to 45% discount. In addition, at least some of the auctions include an expensive case (which would normally be sold separately). It’s one of the advantages of buying from a individual, who may just want to get rid of their Kindles and accessories at the same time. Obviously there’s also some people who are selling damaged devices, but each of the 35 auctions that I checked included a Kindle Fire tablet that was fully-functioning, and without any obvious defects (like a scratch on the screen). And they should all be under warranty anyways, since Amazon released these devices less than a year ago.

The prices seem to be even cheaper on Craigslist (though that depends on what city you’re in). And of course, there’s no “selling history” available when you’re shopping on Craigslist. But my girlfriend pointed out the biggest disadvantage of buying a second-hand Kindle now. Soon, Amazon’s expected to release a newer version of the Kindle Fire tablets. So if you buy one now, you’ll be missing out on all the new improvements which are just around the corner!

I think that might explain why the prices are so low on eBay – but I don’t want to wait. And there’s always an easy solution if you purchase a Kindle Fire now, and then decide later that you want to upgrade to the newer model. Let’s say Amazon does release an exciting new model of their color touchscreen tablets sometime in October.

Then you can always go back to eBay, and try to sell off your own Kindle Fire!

Is the Kindle Becoming Less Popular?

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Is the Kindle becoming unpopular

There’s been some discouraging headlines. For example, Amazon’s facing new competition for its color Kindle Fire tablets from Google’s new Nexus 7, and there’s even a rumor that Apple will release an “iPad Mini”. “[A]nalysts are beginning to wonder how Amazon will continue to fare in the hyper-competitive market,” warns the executive editor at C|Net, citing an investment analyst who’s just downgraded Amazon’s stock. But that’s only the beginning of the bad news for Amazon…

Target stores have stopped carrying all Kindles, C|Net notes, which obviously gives Amazon fewer places to find new customers. And Amazon’s Kindle Fire may also be stealing attention away from Amazon’s black-and-white e-ink Kindles, according to a new theory from Kevin Kopelman, an analyst at the Cowen Group. According to C|Net’s article, he’s now predicting that Amazon’s Kindle sales will
grow by just 3% in 2012, where before he’d been estimating a massive 30% increase. He’s now calling that “unrealistic,” citing Amazon’s delay in releasing any new Kindles — though he still expects
16.3 million Kindles to be sold in 2012.

It’s not just Google and Apple that are threatening Amazon’s market share. There’s also some interesting statistics about the Kindle’s biggest competitor, the Nook. According to this article, it now accounts for about 25% to 30% of the ebook market. Over the last year, they’ve sold more than twice as many ebooks as the year before, reporting an increase of 119%. Sales of the Nook itself increased by 45%, and Nook-and-ebook sales together increased by even more, up 47.7%, to a total of $1.3 billion!

It’s not just one analyst who’s souring on Amazon’s growth prospects. Another analyst at Pacific Crest has studied Amazon’s supply chain, and is now estimating that Amazon will sell 3 million fewer Kindles than he’d originally expected earlier in the year. He’s still predicting that Amazon could sell up to 15 million Kindle Fires, according to this article at Forbes. And their technology reporter puts all this speculation into perspective. “[W]e will never know if his unit forecasts are right or not..

“Amazon does not report unit sales figures.”

Twenty MORE Songs for Just .25 Cents Each!

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Vintage phonography gramophone record player

Amazon’s doing it again! Last week they’d picked 20 “essential summer jams,” and then dropped the price for downloading each song to just 25 cents. But they also promised they’d discount more songs,
and sure enough, they’ve finally announced their second selection of twenty more songs. You can download them all to your Kindle, your mp3 player, or your computer for just 25 cents each!

See the whole selection at
tinyurl.com/20moreSongs

Amazon’s calling this batch of 20 songs their “Customer Picks Playlist.” (“Recently we polled our Facebook and Twitter followers to find out what songs they wanted to see for $0.25 each…”) There’s more cheery summer classics, like “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina & the Waves and “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley. But there’s also a surprising selection of recent artists, like Flo Rida and Linkin Park, plus some hard-rocking tunes from Metallica, Green Day, and even Led Zeppelin. Plus, as I told my friends on Facebook, Amazon’s even discounted that “We Are Young” song by Fun that the radio keeps playing over and over again…

And remember, even if you don’t buy anything, you can still have some fun with this sale. The web page plays a free 30-second sample of each song, so even if you’re really cheap, you can still listen to a 10-minute “montage” of music — the best “summer jams” as selected by other Amazon customers! Below is a complete list of all the new songs that Amazon’s discounted to just 25 cents.

Plus, Amazon’s also keeping the prices low on last week’s selection of “essential summer jams,” which means there’s now a total of forty songs that you can download for Kindle background music…

1. Oh Love by Green Day
2. Runaways by The Killers
3. It’s Time by Imagine Dragons
4. We Are Young (featuring Janelle Monáe) by Fun.
5. Ho Hey by the Lumineers
6. Pontoon by Little Big Town
7. Wanted by Hunter Hayes
8. The Boys Of Summer by Don Henley
9. Enter Sandman by Metallica
10. No Quarter by Led Zeppelin
11. Burn It Down by Linkin Park
12. Too Close by Alex Clare
13. Whistle by Flo Rida
14. Go Get It [Explicit] by T.I.
15. OMG by Usher (featuring will.i.am)
16. Over And Over by Hot Chip
17. Tongue Tied by Grouplove Never Trust A Happy Song
18. Good Time (featuring Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen) by Owl City
19. Smooth by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas)
20. Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves

Download any of the songs listed above at
tinyurl.com/20moreSongs

1. Wild Ones (Feat. Sia) by Flo Rida
2. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
3. California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg) [Explicit] by Katy Perry
4. Nothin’ On You [Feat. Bruno Mars] (Album Version) by B.o.B
5. Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
6. I’m Yours (Album Version) by Jason Mraz
7. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
8. Hot In Herre by Nelly
9. In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry
10. Good Vibrations (2001 – Remastered) by The Beach Boys
11. Sunshine by Matisyahu
12. Lights by Ellie Goulding
13. Everybody Loves The Sunshine by Roy Ayers
14. Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
15. Love Shack (Album Version) by The B-52′s
16. Some Nights by Fun.
17. Blister In The Sun by Violent Femmes
18. California Girls by David Lee Roth
19. Hot Fun In The Summertime (Single Version) by Sly And The Family Stone
20. Red Solo Cup by Toby Keith

Download any of these 20 songs at
tinyurl.com/20SummerSongs

Is Your eBook Reading YOU?

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Book with eyes

So it turns out that Amazon knows more than just what ebook you’re reading, and exactly what page you’re on. They can also guess what ebook you’re going to read next – and maybe even how you’d like it to end! I recently wrote about how The Wall Street Journal reported that ebooks “are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them.” But their article also examined the implications of startling new technological capabilities: that the way we read has become something that can actually be measured…

In fact, we’ve already taken the next step. “Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books,” the Journal reports. In the past, publishers only had two ways to measure their readers’ reactions: sales figures and reviews. But now they’re embracing all the giant new pools of data that are coming in from ebook-reading devices like the Kindle.

Honestly, the article seems a little short on specifics, but at least one publisher even began releasing it digital titles first, so they could solicit feedback from readers before releasing the print edition. And Scholastic books monitors their online message boards for feedback, which they’ve used to shape their popular book series, “39 Clues.” A company called Colloquy took it one step further, offering an ebook in the “choose-your-own adventure” format – and then tracking the choices that readers make, so they could improve future entries in the series! The author of the Kindle Game “Getting Dumped” was planning to eliminate the boyfriend of its main character – until she learned that 29.7% of its readers chose the game path where she’s still pursuing him

“Your ebook is reading you”, warned the article’s headline, though it stresses that the data is analyzed as a giant pool of “aggregate” data rather than studying any individuals. It does make you think about what kind of future may be waiting forus. Author Scott Turow was excited about the possibility that he could someday learn who was actually reading his books, and whether they’d like the books to be longer or shorter. But at least one publisher argued that the reader shouldn’t be the ones who determine the length of a book. “We’re not going to shorten War and Peace because someone didn’t finish it.”

And one privacy advocate at the Electronic Frontier Foundation had an even blunter perspective. When the Journal asked them for a comment, they argued that in our society there’s an ideal, that “what you read is nobody else’s business. Right now, there’s no way for you to tell Amazon, I want to buy your books, but I don’t want you to track what I’m reading.” And security expert Bruce Schneier also agreed, pointing out that readers could even avoid ebooks about sensitive topics, because they don’t want their purchases tracked.

“There are a gazillion things that we read that we want to read in private,” he tells the newspaper…

Twenty Summer Songs for Just 25 Cents Each!

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Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding, The Beach Boys, and David Lee Roth

Amazon’s announcing another fun sale on music for your Kindle. To celebrate summer, they’ve slashed the prices on 20 “essential summer jams”, discounting the price of each song to just twenty-five cents! There’s everything from a classic Beach Boys single to “Wild Ones” by Flo Rida. I’m really impressed by the great variety in Amazon’s “essential playlist”.

To see the selection, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/20SummerSongs

So what counts as a summer song? Well for starters, there’s two different versions of California Girls — one by David Lee Roth, and “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (with Snoop Dogg). Brian Wilson, the lead singer for the Beach Boys, actually performed the background vocals on David Lee Roth’s version, and for another quarter, you can also download the Beach Boys’ own hard-to-find summer classic, “Good Vibrations”. To see a complete list of all 20 songs, just go to the bottom of this blog post!

“Amazon MP3” posted the news Wednesday on their Facebook page, also promising they’ll update the list with more songs next week based, on the comments they received. But even if you don’t buy anything, you can still have some fun with this sale. Amazon’s web page for this summer special plays a 30-second sample of each song. So even if you’re really cheap, you can still listen to a 10-minute “montage” of music — 30 seconds from each of Amazon’s 20 “essential summer jams!”

I think it’s a fun way to add some “seasonal” fun to your Kindle. Amazon brags about the ability to read your Kindle on the beach – and now there’s a sale on some appropriately beach-y music! When you’re doing some light summer reading, sometimes it’s nice to have some happy, sunny sounds in the background. Here’s a list of the 20 “essential summer jams” that Amazon’s selling for 25 cents each!

1. Wild Ones (Feat. Sia) by Flo Rida
2. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
3. California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg) [Explicit] by Katy Perry
4. Nothin’ On You [Feat. Bruno Mars] (Album Version) by B.o.B
5. Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
6. I’m Yours (Album Version) by Jason Mraz
7. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
8. Hot In Herre by Nelly
9. In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry
10. Good Vibrations (2001 – Remastered) by The Beach Boys
11. Sunshine by Matisyahu
12. Lights by Ellie Goulding
13. Everybody Loves The Sunshine by Roy Ayers
14. Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
15. Love Shack (Album Version) by The B-52’s
16. Some Nights by Fun.
17. Blister In The Sun by Violent Femmes
18. California Girls by David Lee Roth
19. Hot Fun In The Summertime (Single Version) by Sly And The Family Stone
20. Red Solo Cup by Toby Keith

Amazon’s Missing American Classics

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Amazon flag

Last week I wrote about a list from the Library of Congress identifying “88 Books that Shaped America.” Yet nearly a third of the books aren’t even available in Amazon’s Kindle Store! Out of all the books ever written, these were the ones which had been selected as the most influential on the lives of Americans. So I created a list of the 29 “missing American classics,” and thought about what the list implies for the future of reading, and the way that we’ll relate to our past.

Some of the missing titles were just influential children’s picture books, like The Cat in the Hat, Goodnight Moon, The Snowy Day, and Where the Wild Things Are. (Though you could listen to these stories on your Kindle, as audiobooks!) But for some reason, the Kindle Store doesn’t seem to have a version of the longer children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web – either as an ebook or as an audiobook. And there’s even more influential “books for grown-ups” that seem to be missing from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

The two missing books that surprised me most were To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. (Though some all-American entrepreneurs have apparently written ebooks about these books, just so that interested readers have something else to purchase.) When I went to high school, these books were both considered modern classics, yet you still can’t read them on your Kindle. I’ve heard theories that the aging authors of these two books are insisting that they’ll be made available only in printed form.

For some reason, Amazon’s Kindle Store only has a French-language version available for Benjamin Franklin’s influential 1751 study “Experiments and Observations on Electricity.” (And Streetcar Named Desire is available only as an audiobook, though you could also rent Marlon Brando’s famous movie version for your Kindle Fire tablet. ) But I also couldn’t find a complete copy of The Weary Blues, an influential collection of poetry by Langston Hughes. On the other hand, I’ve never heard of a few of the books on the list from the Library of Congress – like Peter Parley’s Universal History from 1836.

Some books may have had an influence in past centuries, while being almost completely forgotten by the 21st century. But does that mean that the books that we’re writing today will suffer the same obscurity. And is it possible that going forward, America will be shaped more by ebooks from amateur authors?

Maybe in the future, the Library of Congress will recognize 50 Shades of Gray as an influential ebook. Or The Mill River Recluse. Or at least John Locke’s How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months…


29 “Books that Shaped America” That Aren’t in the Kindle Store

The American Woman’s Home by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (1957)

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)

Experiments and Observations on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin (1751)

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)

A Grammatical Institute of the English Language by Noah Webster (1783)

Howl by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures by the Federal Writers’ Project (1937)

Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer (1931)

Mark, the Match Boy by Horatio Alger Jr. (1869)

McGuffey’s Newly Revised Eclectic Primer by William Holmes McGuffey (1836)

New Hampshire by Robert Frost (1923)

Our Town: A Play by Thornton Wilder (1938)

Peter Parley’s Universal History by Samuel Goodrich (1837)

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey (1948)

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)

Spring and All by William Carlos Williams (1923)

A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947)

A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America by Christopher Colles (1789)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

A Treasury of American Folklore by Benjamin A. Botkin (1944)

Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader (1965)

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes (1925)

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)

The Words of Cesar Chavez by Cesar Chavez (2002)

A New Rival for Kindle Fire Tablets

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Nexus 7 tablet from Google

Google just announced a new tablet-sized device to compete with the Kindle Fire tablet. Google will release it in about a week, but it’s already getting some great reviews. Amazon had enjoyed one big advantage when competing with Apple’s iPad: their Kindle Fire tablet only cost $199. But Thursday, a New York Times reporter wrote that there’s also a $200 price tag on Google’s new Nexus 7 tablets, which “pretty much blows the Kindle Fire’s value proposition into a cloud of ash.”

Both devices have the same screen size, “but this time, you don’t get any sense that its creators skimped to keep the price down,” writes the Times’ David Pogue. He’s seen the Kindle Fire, which Amazon released last winter, but seems to prefer the designs of Google’s device even better. “It’s sleek and beautiful, with rounded edges, unlike the sawed-off rectangular back of the Fire, and a ‘pleather’ back panel that feels great. And it weighs 2.6 ounces less than the Fire, which makes a world of difference. It’s slightly thinner, too…”

I’m such a Kindle loyalist, that originally I’d laughed off Google’s Nexus tablet. But Kindle owners may be the ones who benefit most, in the long run. For a while we’ve heard rumors that Amazon’s releasing a newer version of their Kindle Fire tablets very soon. But Amazon will have to make their tablets even better if they have to start competing now with a slick, low-priced new tablet from Google.

And in a way, Amazon has already done a big favor for the shoppers who buy tablet devices. The New York Times asked Google’s Nexus team “if it was playing a game of razors-and-blades here, losing money on every tablet with the intention of making money by selling books, movies, music and TV shows.” That’s Amazon’s business model — selling the devices almost at cost – and now it looks like it’s become an industry standard. The Times reports that Google isn’t earning a profit when they sell the tablet, either through their web site or in an offline store…

But what else is there to like, besides the low price, in Google’s new tablet? For starters, there’s a built-in GPS system, which makes it perfect for navigation. (You can even save a city’s worth of Google maps to its drive, so you can navigate without using an internet connection.) The Times’ reporter also liked the way Nexus had a built-in bluetooth and WiFi capabilities, plus a camera in the front of the tablet for making video phone calls.

But there’s still some things he preferred about Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets. With the Nexus 7, you can only download a song that you’ve purchased twice. In Amazon’s store (and in the Apple Store), you can re-download a song whenever you feel like it. And watch out if you want to watch TV shows. Google’s store doesn’t have anything from either CBS or Fox — or from the biggest cable networks, like WB, HBO, and MTV/Nickelodeon. I like the way the reporter ended his article, concluding that the Nexus tablet was “sweet,” with a smoothness to both its hardware and software that rivals Apple’s iPad.

“[I]ts luxury humiliates the Kindle Fire,” he writes, while noting that Google now has to hope that its cool device can attract some cool content into their store. “[I]t’s possible that this tablet may finally help solve Google’s chicken-and-egg problem.

“Maybe once it becomes popular, people will finally start writing decent apps for it, and more movie and music companies will come to the Google Play store.”

The Secrets of eBook Readers

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shh - finger to lips - secret rumor

Ever wonder how other people read? It’s finally possible to know, using new data collected from ebooks. Last week Barnes and Noble leaked the patterns they were seeing among Nook readers to The Wall Street Journal, towards the end of a fascinating article called “Is Your eBook Reading You?” Citing the Nook data, the Journal reported…

  • “Nonfiction books tend to be read in fits and starts…”

  • “Novels are generally read straight through…”

  • “Nonfiction books, particularly long ones, tend to get dropped earlier.”

  • “Science-fiction, romance and crime-fiction fans often read more books more quickly than readers of literary fiction do, and finish most of the books they start.”

  • “Readers of literary fiction quit books more often and tend skip around between books. “

Some of the things they’ve determined are actually pretty obvious. For example, the first thing most people do after reading The Hunger Games is to download the next book in the series. But others have determined patterns which are even much more specific. For example, “It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy on the Kobo e-reader – about 57 pages an hour,” the Journal reports. And “Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: ‘Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.'”

The data finally confirms something that I’ve always suspected. When people read the first book in a series, they usually go on to read the entire series, “almost as if they were reading a single novel. ” And the article got an even more specific example from the makers of the Kobe. “Most readers who started George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novel A Dance With Dragons finished the book, and spent an average of 20 hours reading it, a relatively fast read for a 1,040-page novel.”

But where is this all leading? At Barnes and Noble, there’s now a Vice President for eBooks who’s already begun sharing their data with book publishers, hoping they’ll eventually create books that are even more engaging. It’s still early, they tell the Journal, but Barnes and Noble has already begun to begun to act on the data. When they realized people weren’t finishing the longer nonfiction ebooks, they launched “Nook Snaps” to offer shorter dollops of information on hot topics like Occupy Wall Street or how to lose weight. And that might be only the beginning. “The bigger trend we’re trying to unearth is where are those drop-offs in certain kinds of books, and what can we do with publishers to prevent that?”

Amazon also offered a nice perspective on their ability to identify “popular highlights” and share them on their web page. “We think of it as the collective intelligence of all the people reading on Kindle.” And the Journal also notes that Amazon is both a seller and a publisher of ebooks. I was baffled when Amazon started selling “Kindle Singles” last year, since they basically seemed to me just like shorter ebooks.

But maybe Amazon has learned the exact same lesson — that readers tend to drift away from their nonfiction ebooks!

Free 4th of July eBooks

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Thomas Jefferson

I have a tradition for the 4th of July – and it involves my Kindle. Every year, I point my web browser to Wikipedia’s web page with the fascinating history of the Declaration of Independence. Now Amazon’s Kindle Store has a free copy of the declaration available for downloading (as well as a free copy of the U. S. Constitution).

Just seven months before the famous document was signed, author Thomas Jefferson had written “there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America…”

Wikipedia’s page walks you through all the events that led up to July 4, 1776 — and also provides the complete text of the famous document, along with some good historical context. As the country celebrates the day it declared its independence, I like taking a moment to read some good history – and my Kindle really makes it easy. I think it’s funny that Amazon customers are now leaving reviews of the Declaration of Independence, which currently has a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5. (“As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I heartily recommend this timeless classic to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history…”) In comparison, the free version of the Constitution received only four and a half stars. (“Accurate reproduction and free, but does not include any amendments…”)

And because of the Kindle, you don’t have to content yourself with a Wikipedia for your American history fix. When he was 65 years old, another American patriot — Benjamin Franklin — began writing a fascinating autobiography of his own life, and it’s available in the Kindle Store as a free ebook!

In fact, more than 200 years later, it’s now become one of Amazon’s best-selling e-books. Franklin had continued working on his biography over the last 20 years of his life, until his death at age 84 in 1790 — noting wryly that “the Affairs of the Revolution occasion’d the Interruption…” It’s especially poignant that Benjamin Franklin began writing it in 1770 as a loving letter to his son. But soon Franklin’s son had sided with the British druing the American Revolution, and Wikipedia notes that they were hopelessly estranged by the time Franklin sat down to write part two in 1784. Now he was 78, and laying down his thoughts in the year 1784 about his the ideas for…a public library. And in part three — written in 1788 at the age of 82 — Franklin also remembered inventing his famous Franklin stove…and then declining to patent the invention because he’d created it for “the good of the people.”

It’s a great way to answer the question: What kind of men launched the American Revolution? And it just goes to show you that with a little research, the Kindle can give you an almost magical glimpse into the realities of our past… But there’s also a fascinating story about how the Declaration of Independence first came to be online. 40 years ago, a student at the University of Illinois launched a mission to make the great works of literature available for free to the general public. Remembering the man who’d revolutionized the world of reading by inventing the first mechanical printing press, he named his collection “Project Gutenberg”. By 2009, they’d created over 30,000 free e-texts, according to Wikipedia. And it’s a cause that’s near and dear to the hearts of a lot of geeks online.

But here’s my favorite part of the story. He’d launched this lifelong campaign back in 1971, anticipating all the great literature that he’d be sharing with the entire world, and even making available for new generations to come. So on that first day, 40 years ago, which great work of literature did he choose as the very first one?

The Declaration of Independence.

88 Books that Shaped America

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88 Books that Shaped America - Library of Congress

Last month, a fascinating exhibit opened at the Library of Congress. It identified and celebrated 88 different books which had “shaped America”, even changing the lives of many Americans. The list is available online, along with a thoughtful explanation for each of the selections. And best of all, 61 of the books are available in Amazon’s Kindle Store — and most of them are free!

I really enjoyed reading their descriptions of each book and the ways they’d impacted America. ” Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, for example, is described as “The first science fiction novel to become a bestseller,” and they note that it’s now considered a science fiction classic. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is included as “The defining novel of the 1950s Beat Generation (which Kerouac named)…,” a book which “influenced artists such as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Hunter S. Thompson…” There’s even three books on their list which are older than America itself — two influential books by Benjamin Franklin from the mid-1700s, and Thomas Paine’s revolutionary tract, Common Sense

If your favorite book isn’t on the list, it might be later. The Library of Congress is asking the public to nominate other books to be included on the list, and to share their stories about how they’ve been changed by the influential books that they’ve read. “This list is a starting point…” announced James H. Billington, the official Librarian of the U.S. Congress. “[T]he list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.”

He added a hope that Americans would read these books and have conversations about them. Sure enough, soon blogs around the web were weighing in with their thoughts. One CNN blogger called it “admirably inclusive… The Library of Congress list also includes lowbrow literature alongside the serious novels you might find in the ‘Harvard Classics’ anthology, most notably children’s books from The Cat in the Hat and Goodnight Moon to Little Women and Where the Wild Things Are. And someone calling themself “The Delaware Libertarian” complained that they’d left out what are also some of my favorite books, including Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and the wonderful USA Trilogy by John Dos Passos.

But maybe that’s the ultimate way to celebrate America: By recognizing that everyone has their own story — their own personal memories of books that had changed their life. I remember being inspired to drive across America after reading On the Road – but I also know that there’s many more books which have probably touched their readers in equally powerful ways. Benjamin Franklin himself formed the first public library in America, specifically because he believed that simply having books available could improve the lives of the people around him. He’d be honored that three of his books made it onto this list, but he’d probably be even more proud to know that more than 250 years later, Americans are still reading books — and celebrating them.


Below is the complete list from the Library of Congress of
88 Books that Shaped America

Library of Congress

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

Alcoholics Anonymous by anonymous (1939)

American Cookery by Amelia Simmons (1796)

The American Woman’s Home by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts (1987)

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (1970)

The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (1957)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock (1946)

Cosmos by Carl Sagan (1980)

A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible by anonymous (1788)

The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)

The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams (1907)

Experiments and Observations on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin (1751)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)

Family Limitation by Margaret Sanger (1914)

The Federalist by anonymous (1787)

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (1963)

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)

A Grammatical Institute of the English Language by Noah Webster (1783)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Harriet, the Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford (1901)

The History of Standard Oil by Ida Tarbell (1904)

History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis (1814)

How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis (1890)

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)

Howl by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill (1946)

Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures by Federal Writers’ Project (1937)

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer (1931)

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1906)

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (1820)

Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy by Louisa May Alcott (1868)

Mark, the Match Boy by Horatio Alger Jr. (1869)

McGuffey’s Newly Revised Eclectic Primer by William Holmes McGuffey (1836)

Moby-Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville (1851)

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (1845)

Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)

New England Primer by anonymous (1803)

New Hampshire by Robert Frost (1923)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (1971)

Our Town: A Play by Thornton Wilder (1938)

Peter Parley’s Universal History by Samuel Goodrich (1837)

Poems by Emily Dickinson (1890)

Poor Richard Improved and The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin (1758)

Pragmatism by William James (1907)

The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. by Benjamin Franklin (1793)

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (1929)

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (1912)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey (1948)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)

Spring and All by William Carlos Williams (1923)

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert E. Heinlein (1961)

A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947)

A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America by Christopher Colles (1789)

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1914)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

A Treasury of American Folklore by Benjamin A. Botkin (1944)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader (1965)

Walden; or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (1854)

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes (1925)

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900)

The Words of Cesar Chavez by Cesar Chavez (2002)

San Francisco Celebrates “Kindle Commuters”

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Owen Smith - BART Call of the Wild book poster

Something very special happened this morning on a commuter train in to San Francisco. I was reading my Kindle, but I looked up to see a surprising poster on the walls of the train station. It was a painting of someone who was reading on a commuter train in to San Francisco. And the characters from the book were riding along on the train with them!

It’s a great series of art posters that was commissioned by the administrators for San Francisco’s BART trains, and it apparently celebrates the joy of reading during your commute. A spokesperson says they’d asked the artist to consider what was special about the experience of riding the trains — “and then bring to it their own interests.” And in a small island town in the San Francisco bay, artist Owen Smith had a very personal idea. That “You can spend your time reading…whether it’s a book or on your Kindle or iPad.”

I love the way his paintings imply that we’re all somehow magically together. While a woman reads The Joy Luck Club, she’s sitting right in front of the older Chinese mother from the book, who’s watching over the daughter who appears in the foreground. The 1989 novel was set in San Francisco (and author Amy was from the Bay Area), so if its characters were here today, they’d probably be riding along with us on the train. Plus, the novel also told it’s story through the perspective of several different generations. It’s almost like the artist’s choice is suggesting that somehow, we can even transcend time itself — while commuting in to work!

Owen Smith - BART Joy Luck Club book painting

A Kindle can definitely brighten up your commute — and it’s something I noticed on my last visit to San Francisco. I’d worked there in the last 1990s, and as I’d looked around during my morning commutes back then, I’d seen lots of people reading newspapers. Today you notice a big difference: now almost no one is rustling around through a newspaper, trying desperately to find the right section. But there’s lots and lots of handheld devices — lots of Kindles, a few tablets, an occasional Nook, and even people reading on their cellphones!

But there’s something more to it than that, since we’re all still sitting there together, in a spontaneous moment of community. I feel like the artist understood that feeling, and just took it in another direction. Because while we’re silently sharing a space, we’re also sharing it with those unseen people who wrote the books that we love the most. Somehow on the train, your personal space fills up with all the characters from their stories…

For example, in another poster the artist celebrates Dashiell Hammett, who wrote the gritty detective novel The Maltese Falcon. Hammett lived in the city himself, and in the novel his detective conducts an investigation throughout the city stress of San Francisco. But on the poster, that detective is riding on the commuter train, looking alertly over his shoulder at a suspicious femme fatale who’s sitting by the train’s doors. Through the window, you can even see a neon sign for John’s Grill — a real San Francisco restaurant which also appears in the novel.

BART Maltese Falcon book poster by Owen Smith

In a way, there’s one more person who’s sharing our space on the train – the artist who created these posters. Artist Owen Smith didn’t try to add any more overt message, saying “If it’s a little mysterious, that’s OK…” But he’s reminding us of the precious things we can experience while riding a train. Even when we’re reading quietly to ourselves, we’re still connected to lots of people – both real and imaginary!

The Legend of the Worst Kindle eBook Ever

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Alot Was Been Hard by Janetlw Bauie from YouTube Comments

It’s not often I get excited about an ebook that was this bad. But it was so bad, it was good. In fact, this particular Kindle ebook was so surreally awful, that it became a work of art. It was the one ebook so horrible that Amazon had to hunt it down and kill it.

The book’s title was “Alot Was Been Hard”. Its author’s name was Janetlw Bauie. But there was no author — just an unseen presence lurking silently on the web. It was inhuman and utterly unpredictable — but in another sense, the book’s author was us.

“Where does authorship start and end?” wondered two artists in Berlin. So as a digital project, they created a software program which automatically performed every step in the publishing process for an ebook in Amazon’s Kindle Store. And then two weeks ago, in a special press release, they revealed their project’s dark twist. “Our bots are compiling and uploading hundreds of ebooks on Amazon.com with text stolen from the comments on YouTube videos.”

The books had titles like Wierd song you cute by Timsest Pitigam. The fake names were also generated by the computer, so you’d end up with ebooks like Sparta my have by Loafrz Ipalizi. A writer at MIT’s “Technology Review” blog identified those as two of his favorite titles, calling the whole project “a masterpiece of machine-generated unintentional comedy.” But behind it all, the artists insisted, they were trying to make a point.

No one ever gets paid for writing comments on YouTube videos, they observed in their press release. “The creators of user-generated content work for free,” they pointed out, while YouTube distributes their comments — and then earns a profit on it. Apparently their project does the same thing on a much grander scale — but they also saw another message in their project. Professional artists are paid for the works they created, but the 21st century has seen the rise of something different, where paid labor is displaced by “what the artists call the ‘nonsense economy.'” Ultimately they see the comments area on YouTube as a kind of “communication-junk factory.”

But they asked a more fundamental question: how is an ebook different than a traditional book? I’ve often thought that someday, there’ll be someone who invents an entirely new artform which could only happen in a digital book. One of the artists already experimented with this idea, creating a pop-up book whose pages magically incorporate real-time footage of whatever the author happens to be doing right now. The book actually receives live updates over the web, if I understand their description, and “The reader is invited to navigate freely in the between of material and virtual worlds.” (The book appears to be written entirely in German…)

Of course, they also raised some other unintended questions with their book of YouTube comments. “My first thought was about how long it would be until they were sued for copyright infringement,” wrote a blogger at TechDirt. But eventually, someone else got to the artists first. Amazon has apparently deleted all their ebooks — presumably because every book in the Kindle Store should, at the very least, have an actual human author.

It’s a sad end to a wild burst of what can only be called pure craziness. But is it really the end? In a secret fortress on the web, the artists are apparently still brewing up new schemes. Tuesday on their Twitter feed, they pointed to a web page announcing that “Our bots are up and running. Be ready for new releases …” And by this morning they were cranking out new ebooks for Amazon’s Kindle Store, still based entirely on comments stolen from YouTube. Their titles?

     This is of woke and half show
     Saw click sure but
     Usually love what soo

How Amazon Rescued a Struggling Writer

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Jessica Park - author of Flat-Out Love

It felt like something happened last week. A writer dared to speak the truth — spilling the beans about how hard life is for a professional book author. Jessica Park finally revealed how much real writers can hate their publishers, and how much happier she is now that she’s publishing her ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle Store. “The funny thing is that I feel more like a real author now that I self-publish than when I had the (supposed) support of a publisher behind me.”

The article was just published on the 15th at a web site called IndieReader.com (and it was later republished on The Huffington Post). But by that Tuesday, Amazon — in what’s almost an act of war — featured her article on the front page of Amazon.com! It seems like now everyone is noticing it. Three of my friends each decided to share that same article last week on Facebook.

The top Kindle blogs are also buzzing about it, and it’s almost starting to feel like a revolution. “One of the major reasons that I write is to connect with readers, not publishers,” Jessica explains. “The truth is that I couldn’t care less whether New York editors and publishers like me. I don’t want to write for them. I want to write for you.” Publishers had rejected her newest novel, Flat-Out Love, because its main character was a few years older than they’d wanted the character to be. “It clicked for me that I was not the idiot here.

It’s hard to ignore Jessica when she reveals just how much more money she’d earned after leaving behind the traditional publishers. (In one especially good month, she sold close to 50,000 ebooks.) And despite her role as an author, Jessica writes that “I have to credit Amazon with giving me such a strong platform with such overwhelming visibility. I can be a writer. I am a writer….”

“It’s heartwarming,” Amazon’s founder wrote on the front page of Amazon.com, saying that Jessica’s article “tells a powerful story about what Kindle Direct Publishing makes possible. Kindle Direct Publishing empowers serious authors to reach readers, build a following, make a living, and to do it on their own terms.” And he points out that it’s not just the authors who are benefiting. “Readers get lower prices, authors get higher royalties, and we all get a more diverse book culture (no expert gatekeepers saying ‘sorry but that will never work’).”

Is it a trend? Maybe. Amazon’s founder also notes that of the top 100 best-selling ebooks in the Kindle Store for all of 2012, there are 22 that came from Amazon’s “Kindle Direct Publishing” program. (“[A]nd more great stories are being published every day…”) But I think there’s an even more compelling piece of evidence — the real passion that seems to glow in every single word of Jessica’s article. “We get to bring you our stories in the way we want to tell them, without the dilution and sculpting from publishing houses. And the fans? Oh, the fans are simply unbelievable…Their support and enthusiasm breathes life into days when I feel particularly challenged.

“I’m in a circle of authors who have been dubbed The Cancer Warriors because our books have become saving graces for people going through cancer treatment. Readers are escaping hell on earth through our books. …books that never would have reached these readers without the ability to self-publish. We get to do our small part to help them fight. Getting to be part of something like this is at the top of my list for why I write.

It makes me want to face New York publishers head on and scream, “You see that? Do you see what we’re doing without you?”

Big News for Kindle Touch owners!

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Throw in the Vowel - a Kindle word game

If you own a Kindle Touch, here’s two very important announcements.

First, Amazon’s Kindle Store finally got a Kindle Touch version of a new word game this week. It’s called “Throw in the Vowel” — I’m the game’s co-author — and it was released in February for all the other Kindle models. But this Kindle Touch version is even easier to play, since you just tap your finger to make choices on the screen. And unlike some games, you don’t even have to type in the letters in the words to submit your guesses!

You can find a copy at tinyURL.com/ThrowInTheVowel , and the game represents a real milestone. For the last four months, we’ve been fine-tuning this touchscreen version, so it was a real thrill to finally see all the letters jumping happily around the screen in response to my fingertip! And while we were preparing this game, we also learned a lot about the Kindle Touch. For example, we’ve already adapted our game for the next generation of Amazon’s Kindle Touch software!

That software is already “available” for Kindle Touch owners, but right now you have to install it yourself. Eight weeks ago, Amazon’s created a special web page where you can download the new software, along with some easy instructions for how to perform that upgrade. (Just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/KindleTouchUpgrade ). I imagine that Amazon will eventually send this software out automatically over the wireless connection, and they’ll start including it with the Kindle Touches that they’re selling in stores. But after working with it for a few weeks, I learned that this new software includes some really cool features!

For example, it allows you to translate any word in any book into another language, just by pressing your fingertip onto the word (and then selecting “Translation” from the menu that pops up.) You can even customize the Kindle itself, so all of its menus appear in one of six foreign languages. (Besides English, there’s German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese.) And you can also read ebooks in “landscape mode” as well as portrait (a feature which wasn’t available on earlier versions of the device.) Best of all, whenever you’re searching for something, the new software tries to guess what you’re typing! That way, you can just select from one of its on-screen choices rather than having to finish typing out all of the words yourself!

Anyways, these two announcements have a common theme: there’s now new ways to enjoy your Kindle Touch! And I hope you’ll try out “Throw in the Vowel.” We spent over a year identifying 750 challenging words for our game, and polishing up the game’s “look and feel” just for the Kindle.

Now that it’s finally available for the Kindle Touch, it’s your chance to join in the fun!

Throw in the Vowel - a Kindle word game

OMG Still MORE Free Music for Your Kindle!

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Vintage phonography gramophone record player

Remember when I said that Amazon was giving away $2.00 worth of free downloads from their music store? I’d said hurry, because the offer originally ended at midnight on Monday – but now Amazon’s extended the offer until this Saturday (June 23rd) at midnight! To claim your two free songs, just point your browser to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeSongs

You can upload the files to your Kindle, and then listen to them in the background while you’re reading (or playing a game)! And here’s what I’d written when I first heard about Amazon’s offer. Basically, I was surprised how many people don’t have music on their Kindles. Almost two years ago, I’d asked people in a Kindle Forum to share the songs they were listening to on their Kindles. Some people responded with some unexpected answers.


“wow, you can listen to music on your kindle!!!???? okay, so I read that I had that capability somewhere in my manual, but just glossed over it since, I prefer to read in silence.”


Even then people who were listening to music seemed to want to do it on another device.


“Nothing. I got an ipod where I can choose which song to listen to.”

“In the end I stopped loading music on the K2. I just listen to music on my iPhone where I have my entire music library.”

“I have an iPod Classic with over 13,000 songs on it as well as an iPod Touch with music and the Kindle app.”

“I would probably use my iPhone for that anyway, but I don’t listen to music while I read.”


But there was at least one user that shared my enthusiasm for listening to music straight from your Kindle. Especially when I’m reading on the patio and about to doze off, I’m sometimes too lazy to go get another device and it’s nice to already have some music choices on the reader.”

“I actually prefer quiet while reading though, so when I do play music, it’s usually to minimize someone else’s noise, such as from the jerk neighbor who thinks he can play the drums!”

Will Amazon Lower Prices for Kindle Fire Tablets?

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Amazon Kindle Fire tablet plays apps

What would you say if Amazon lowered the price on their Kindle Fire tablets, to just $149? I’d say “Wow! That’s a 25% discount! And it’ll probably help the tablets attract a huge, new audience…” Well, Amazon actually is considering a new $149 price-tag for the Kindle Fire. At least, according to a rumor that’s being reported on several technology blogs…

Digitimes cites sources “from the upstream supply chain” who expect Amazon to release a new Kindle Fire tablet in July with a higher screen resolution (1280 x 800). And since the new tablets will cost $199, Amazon will offer a discount on the earlier models (which have a slightly lower screen resolution of 1024 x 600). According to Digitimes, Amazon sold less than 800,000 Kindle Fire tablets in the first three months of 2012, after racking up sales of close to 5 million when it was first launched at the end of 2011. So Amazon’s hoping to grow the user base for the Kindle Fire by offering a big drop in the price!

That might help Amazon’s tablet fight off some new competitors, according to a technology blog at ZDNet. They noted that Google may even be planning to release a tablet of their own soon to compete with the Kindle Fire, and in May they cited another threat after Apple reduced the price of an iPad 2 to just $399. To remain competitive, Amazon may soon lower the price of the Kindle Fire to just $149. “The strategy is straight out of Apple’s playbook: dropping the price of the previous generation’s hardware in order to expand its market share. It worked with the iPod and iPhone…”

Of course, Amazon hasn’t forgotten their other Kindles, and the “upstream sources” also shared their thoughts about the next generation of devices. Later this year, they expect Amazon to release some brand new versions of the black-and-white Kindle e-readers too, possibly in different sizes. And towards the end of this year, they even expect Amazon to release a larger Kindle Fire, with a 10.1-inch screen.

So if you’re shopping for a new Kindle this year, it looks like Amazon will have some exciting announcements for you soon!

Amazon Discounts Their Kindles!

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Father's Day Kindle discounts

I just noticed that Amazon’s offering some great new prices on many of their Kindles. For example, there’s now a $20 discount that’s available for the Kindle Touch. Normally it costs $99, but now Amazon’s selling refurbished (previously-owned) models for just $79! And doing some more checking, I found lower prices on some of Amazon’s other Kindle models too…

You can find all the discounted Kindles at tinyurl.com/FathersDayKindles. And it turns out that Amazon’s also offering the same discount for a Kindle Touch that has built-in 3G connectivity. Though it normally costs $149, the refurbished model is just $129. But remember, the 3G connection only works for the Kindle Store and Wikipedia. For surfing the web, you’d still need to provide your own WiFi connection.

And I was really surprised by the lower prices on some of Amazon’s other Kindle models. The Kindle Keyboard page doesn’t show any refurbished models for sale — but they’re advertising used Kindle Keyboards starting as low as $109. (Normally, they’ll cost you $139.) And there’s some even better deals on a large-screen, Kindle DX. Normally they cost $379, but there’s several used Kindle DXs available starting as low as $250!

If you’re interested in a Kindle DX, Amazon’s also offering a terrific price as part of a special Father’s Day promotion. Through this Sunday, June 17, Amazon will let you purchase a Kindle DX and a black cover to go with it for just $262! This is a brand new Kindle DX, and to get one with the cover would normally cost $419. But through this Sunday, Amazon’s selling them together for just $299!

I’m guess that at least a few lucky shoppers will place their order on Friday, pay Amazon for overnight shipping, and end up with a great Father’s Day gift — at a great discount!