romance – Me and My Kindle

I can’t believe January is almost half over, and I forgot to check out Amazon’s Kindle Store for this month’s selection of discounted ebooks. Every month Amazon chooses 100 ebooks to offer at a special cheap price — just $3.99 or less. And some of this month’s ebooks look really interesting!

Remember, you can browse the whole selection at tinyurl.com/399books

Top Chef: The Cookbook by Top Chef

My girlfriend loves watching cooking competitions on cable TV, and one of her favorite shows is Top Chef. But we didn’t know that the creators of the show have released an “official companion” ebook that includes 100 recipes from the show’s first three seasons. The book’s description promises there’s also “lavish” photos giving a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the show itself, along with interviews with some of the contestants (as well as their judges!) “On one hand it’s a collection of gourmet recipes,” wrote one reviewer at Amazon, “with lush color photographs and handy preparation times.” They only had one complaint — the wished the recipes warned you about how many calories you were eating, “but the instructions are thorough and easy to follow!”

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman wrote some great science fiction and fantasy novels, including the Sandman graphic novels, and Coraline (which was adapted into a movie by Tim Burton). But in 2008, he wrote a fascinating work of “children’s literature” that drew its inspiration from traditional Norse mythology, according to the ebook’s description, taking readers “on a wild and magical trip to the land of giants and gods and back.” A brave young Norwegian boy encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle in the woods — only to discover that they’re the gods Loki, Thor, and Odin, cast out of Asgard by a particularly troublesome Frost Giant.
The ebook is just 130 pages long, but judging by its description at Amazon, it looks like a wonderful story. “It’s going to take a very special kind of twelve-year-old boy to outwit the Frost Giants, restore peace to the city of gods, and end the long winter.”

Lots of Romance novels…
Amazon’s got a whole section for discounted romance novels this month (including one by best-selling romance author Joan Collins that’s called “Poor Little Bitch Girl.”) But I just have to take special note of something else. Amazon’s also discounted 16 “romance” novels — and there are five romance novels with the word “Duke” in their title! Amazingly, each one is by a different author, including “The Way to a Duke’s Heart: The Truth about the Duke,” which apparently is volume 3 in the “Truth About the Duke” series. You can almost imagine your own story if you take these four apparently unrelated books, and then arrange their titles in the right order.

The Tattooed Duke
She Tempts the Duke
What a Duke Wants
The Duke and I

But if those are too fanciful for you, Amazon’s also offeing a discount on an intriguing modern memoir…
Paradoxia by Lydia Lunch

I remember hearing a recording of a spoken word performance by Lydia Lunch in the 1980s, and she’s transformed her frank, honest style into a career as an influential poet and writer. “Paradoxia contains frank and often shocking confessions,” warns Amazon’s description, promising that the author “relays in graphic detail a predatorâ€™s diary, revealing the true psychic repercussions of sexual misadventure. From New York to London to New Orleans, Paradoxia is an uncensored, novelized account of one womanâ€™s assault on the male of the species.”
And don’t forget that Amazon’s also continuing their “Daily Deals” as well — offering a big discount a new ebook every day (for just 24 hours!) It looks like this year, Amazon is offering several ebooks at a discount every day. (For example, on Sunday there was a science fiction deal, a discounted “teen literature” book, a romance daily deal — and 2,000 different ebooks for students that had all been discounted up to 80%.) For a shortcut, you can always find all of Amazon’s daily deals at tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal

If you can find some time in January to do some reading, Amazon’s got lots of ebooks to choose from!

Publishers Weekly reports that in July, declines were reported in the print sales for all trade paperbacks, with total sales of around $60 million for nine mass market publishers. But what’s really interesting is that e-book sales for the same period were $40.8 million — representing a big increase from their earlier figures — for the 14 publishers who report ebook sales. For the year, their ebook sales are averaging $31.3 million a month.

In fact, “Sales of printed romance books have fallen for the first time since records began,” according to one technology analyst. Citing data from Nielsen BookScan, they note that certain genres seem more popular in the realm of ebooks. In one 10-week period this summer, science fiction and fantasy books represented 10% of e-book sales, more than triple its market share in the world of printed books. And romance and “saga” books performed even better, accounting for 14% of all ebooks sold in the same period — seven times their market share in the world of printed books. But so far in 2010, sales of printed romance books are down 7.5%, and there’s also been a decline in the sales of printed science fiction and fantasy books.

The New York Daily News described a bookstore that’s “combating the Kindle – with candy.” Sort of. The Union Square bookstore replaced a 40-foot counter below their check-out registers, which had been stocked with used paperback books. But now they’re selling “nostalgic” candies like Charleston Chews and bubblegum cigars, and the store’s 82-year-old co-owner says “We’re selling five times as much candy as we did â€˜register books.'” The article also notes that Barnes and Noble now stocks chocolate bars at its cash registers, and even the Borders bookstore at Penn Station “has racks of ‘movie candy’ for shoppers headed to a nearby multiplex.”

One science writer suggests the 2010 Nobel prize for physics could ultimately have an impact on the Kindle. It’s a carbon film — exactly one atom thick — which can be transparent, and could one day replace platinum, iridium, and even the screen of your Kindle! “Atom for atom, graphene turned out to be 100 times stronger than steel…” noted MSNBC, adding that this year, researchers reported that they created a working touch-screen display using graphene.”

Meanwhile, results of a new survey suggest that 44% Kindle owners earn over $80,000 per year, compared to just 39 percent of iPad owners, and 37 percent of iPhone owners. In addition, 27% of Kindle owners have a graduate school degree — either a masters or doctorate degree.

And Starting Sunday, the Kindle will be available at the Staples chain of office supply stores. C|Net reports Best Buy and Target are also featuring the Kindle in their stores – and that the Kindle still remains the #1 best-selling item at Amazon.com

Tag: romance

Amazon Discounts 100 More eBooks to Just $3.99 or Less!

Who’s Reading on the Kindle?