Drake Mendocino

Drake Mendocino

“Now, Miss Amethyst Heartfire.  You will tell me the location of the Miner’s Sorrow, or my associates will be forced to do something both unpleasant and primitive, and ruin that pretty frock you are wearing.”

“Drop those gats, you mugs!  Now, grab a piece of sky!  Get a good grip…you might want to take a piece with you.  Where you’re going, you aren’t going to see anything above your ugly noggins but the concrete floor of the cell upstairs.”

“Cheese it, boys!  It’s Drake Mendocino!  The jig is up!”

“Scattered back to their mouseholes, huh!  Not you, Rat King!  The cops are outside, they’ll make short work of your stooges.  But I want you to take care of my girl first.  Hold on, Amy!  I’ll be down there faster than a hack can start his taximeter.  But first, your highness, I want you to take her gag off…nice and easy.  I don’t want you messing up that kisser of hers, you got me?”

“Drake, look out!  It’s a trap!”

“What th–“

Wait a minute, that’s not right.  I’m writing this to let you know about our trip to Mendocino.  But gee, Drake Mendocino would make  a great hard-boiled detective name, wouldn’t it?  😉

 

My Kindle 3, Drake, on the Mendocino coast

We wanted to take a few quiet days, so we went to the Andiron Seaside Inn in Little River on the Mendocino coast.  Just my Significant Other and me…and Drake, my Kindle 3.  🙂

Yes, that’s right…I didn’t even take a laptop.  We really needed some quiet time.  I love the time that I spend writing the blog, and my SO is supportive.  Sometimes, though, it’s important to just focus on each other.

The room was perfect for that.  They call it the “Read” room.  It’s all based on reading…there is a photo mural of a library, old books…even some of the furniture is from Stacey’s Books, a late, lamented, local favorite in San Francisco.

We both had our Kindles.  We’d also downloaded the new Autobiography of Mark Twain.  That’s one of the great things about the Kindle service: we can both read the same new release at the same time for one purchase price.   Not that we’re competitive, or anything…but I am ahead.  😉

Mendocino was wonderful for us!  Wonderful vegetarian restaurants, funky little stores…and just going to that craggy coast, as you can see above. 

I was honestly expecting more books in the room…with their attention to detail, I think there were exactly 100.  I jokingly said, “100 books?  Dude, that’s my bathroom!”  😉 

The Kindle 3 came in handy, though.  The inn had wi-fi..no problem connecting.  I honestly didn’t use it much…we did use it to find a restaurant or two.  On the way back, we decided to see Harry Potter…so we checked showtimes.  It wasn’t complicated, though, since it was playing every half hour at our local theatre.  😉

So, that’s where we were.  Oh, and burglars, that doesn’t mean the house was empty…it wasn’t.  🙂

Now…tomorow, we’ll see what’s been happening in the e-book world for the past few days…  😉

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Why Amazon won’t do a Black Friday special on Kindles

Why Amazon won’t do a Black Friday special on Kindles

Oh-oh.  I know making a definitive statement like that is a risk.  However, in this case, it would be great if I was wrong and Amazon did sell the wifi Kindle 3 for $99, right?  😉

I don’t think that’s going to happen, though.

I’m a former retailer.  Regular readers know I managed a bookstore, but I also managed a game store and worked in others.  That informs this post a bit although, of course, an online retailer might be different.

There a few main reasons stores do a Black Friday discount:

• To get people into the store (or to the website).  Those items may even be “loss leaders”.  The hope is that people buy other, more profitable items (like those impulse items at the front of the store).  It also establishes a relationship with the store.  There was a famous case where an IT company took a company’s website down on Black Friday…figuring it wasn’t going to be a busy day.  🙂  Not only did the store lose sales that day, they missed future sales…if one website is down, you just go to another one…meaning you don’t get used to shopping at that site
• They could be clearing out something that hasn’t been selling well.  That may not be as common as you think…but you might see some kind of markdown bin
• Some items may have been created specifically for Black Friday and the holidays.  They may be of cheaper quality than usual…and cost the store less
• If a store puts everything on sale, it may be a doorbuster (the sale may only last for a few hours), or they may be planning to make it up on volume.  It costs money for the rent an item takes up…that might be “on the floor” (where you can buy it) or in storage.  That storage thing can affect websites as well.  Every day you don’t sell something, it costs you money.  Let’s say you normally make a ten dollar profit on something.  Let’s also say it costs you ten cents a day not to sell it.  Every ten days, you’ve lost a dollar of profit.  Now, let’s say you normally sell one a day.  How many would you keep in the store?  Not more than one hundred…or you’d burn up all your profit.  However, let’s suppose that on Black Friday, you’ll sell ten times as many as you normally do?  You can afford to lower the price so you only make a dollar apiece and come out even.  Of course, if you make two dollars apiece, even better.  😉  You could order a lot more than normal, and stores do…but you don’t want to be stuck with them after the sales volume goes back to normal

Does the Kindle fit any of those categories?

Well, it’s important to realize…Amazon can’t keep up with demand now.  They are already sold out of the model of the six inch they ship to Europe…7 to 9 week wait.  I wrote about that in this earlier post.  Purchasers of the 6″ wifi only or 6″ wifi and 3G are being limited to three to a customer.  They don’t want to increase demand and not be able to meet it.  This is a bad time of year for scarcity, when it’s an item that connects you to a store.  If somebody can’t get a Kindle, they may switch to a NOOK.  That has bad long-term implications.  Amazon would prefer not to run out of the Kindle.

Now, I suppose it’s possible they could put the Kindle DX on sale.  They may be ready to release a new one…one with wifi only or wifi and 3G for example.  In that case, they could clean out the old version, under point 2 above.  Even if it’s ready, they may wait for after the holidays for that.  It would be a great announcement for the new year.

Another possibility is that Amazon will release an Android tablet before the end of the year.  If they do, though, I think it may not be branded a Kindle…but would run the Kindle app. 

So, does that mean no bargains for Kindle buyers on Black Friday?

Not at all! 

Even without the DX going on sale, there will be a lot of accessories on sale, and they might be bundled.  In other words, let’s say that the Kindle costs you $139.  A particular cover might cost $50, and a light might be $20.  A store might choose to sell all three for $189.  They can promote that as a twenty dollar savings…and maybe move some covers that haven’t been doing as well.  You may also see individual covers or lights marked down.

It’s also possible that a Kindle (especially the Kindle DX) might be the item of the day at http://www.woot.com .  Amazon bought Woot earlier this year.  They put a Kindle on sale once before.  That could get them some publicity…and Woot has limited quantities…that’s a “make it up on volume” situation.

So, my advice?  Don’t wait if you want a Kindle six inch for the holidays.  Buy it now…they could still run out, and I don’t think the price will get lower before then.  The Kindle DX is a different story, though.  You may want to wait a bit on accessories, though, until at least Cyber Monday (November 29), so you ca see what deals there may be.

If you want to know more about Black Friday, see this post in my other blog, The Measured Circle. 

If you do want to get a Kindle, these are the links:

Kindle six inch wifi only (currently $139 in the US, limited to three per customer)

 Kindle six inch with 3G and wifi (currently $189 in the US, limited to three per customer)

 Kindle DX 9.7 inch (currently $379 in the US, no limit)

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Review: The Innocence and Wisdom of Father Brown

Review: The Innocence and Wisdom of Father Brown

“In answer to a curt but civil summons, the door opened inwards and there shambled into the room a shapeless little figure, which seemed to find its own hat and umbrella as unmanageable as a mass of luggage.”

–G.K. Chesteron

Some of you may think of “quirky detectives” as part of television…Monk, Longstreet, Columbo, for example.

But G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown is definitely the same sort of character.  He solves crimes (often quickly and easily), but he’s not a physical person.  Nor is he a deductive reasoner like Sherlock Holmes…at least, not exactly.  He often makes his (correct) deductions based on how a person would behave.

He has a marvelous mind:

“The mind of the little priest was always a rabbit-warren of wild thoughts that jumped too quickly for him to catch them.”

but almost no one pays any attention to him.  That’s not just because of his bland appearance…the name “Brown” is descriptively nondescript.  It’s partially because he has very few social skills.  He doesn’t quite know what is appropriate to say or what people expect him to do, and he’ll ramble on without making much sense until someone figures out he has cracked the case.  It has almost the feel of an autism spectrum disorder.

The reader, by the way, often doesn’t know what Father Brown is thinking until later.  It’s not exactly a mystery…you can try to solve it before he does, but he’s more likely to get you thinking about what appears to be a situation without a solution.

“Father Brown was made of two men. There was a man of action, who was as modest as a primrose and as punctual as a clock; who went his small round of duties and never dreamed of altering it. There was also a man of reflection, who was much simpler but much stronger, who could not easily be stopped; whose thought was always (in the only intelligent sense of the words) free thought. He could not help, even unconsciously, asking himself all the questions that there were to be asked, and answering as many of them as he could; all that went on like his breathing or circulation.”

I really do understand that part of it.  My mind constantly runs through the possibilities when I’m seeing a movie or reading a book…it can be a bit annoying, actually.  I’m not going to claim to have Father Brown’s powers, though…or his lack of communicative skills.  🙂

The writing is elegantly crafted:

“For we human beings are used to inappropriate things; we are accustomed to the clatter of the incongruous; it is a tune to which we can go to sleep. If one appropriate thing happens, it wakes us up like the pang of a perfect chord.”

The two books I read were collections of short stories: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) and The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914).  These books are both in the public domain, and you can find them for free online.  I read them as part of The Classic Mystery Collection, which is quite a bargain at $2.99 for more than 100 works.

I do have to warn people that there are stereotypes, and the use of the “n word”.  The latter is really only in The God of the Gongs…and The Perishing of the Pendragons has a dehumanizing description of servants as “bipeds”.  This is a problem which you can run into in works of the period, but some will certainly find it offputting.  You may want to skip those two stories in particular if you think you would find that offensive.

Overall, I did enjoy the stories.  They are little character-driven stories, definitely British, often thoughtful, perhaps more often philosophical.  There is murder (including a beheading), but no excessive gore, in my opinion.  What happens is often funny and charming…I’d say whimsical might be the best description.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Have a nice few days

Have a nice few days

I’m going to have reduced computer access for a few days.  Just wanted to alert you, because I think I tend to respond pretty quickly to communications, and I didn’t want you to worry.  🙂

No cause for concern.  I’m trying to get a few posts written ahead of time, so you’ll still get your three cents a day’s worth.  😉

To keep up with the breaking Kindle news, I’d recommend checking

http://kindlehomepage.blogspot.com/ 

That’s Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation Daily.

To keep up on the free Kindle releases (and they are sometimes only free for days), you can go to

http://www.ereaderiq.com/free/

The most recent ones are on top, or you can ask to get notification e-mails. 

I still might post or tweet something…but it’s going to be less likely.

So, happy reading!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Flash! EA Sudoku available for the Kindle

 Flash! EA Sudoku available for the Kindle

Well, I recently asked you if you wanted to know about new games, even if they weren’t free, and the poll was overwhelmingly in favor, so here you go.  🙂

EA Sudoku ($3.99 at time of writing)

Sudoku is the very popular number squares game.  EA (Electronic Arts) has made other games for the Kindle.  This one has particularly good reviews so far…except one person who didn’t think they were hard enough.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Thanks, Allison!

Thanks, Allison!

I just got my first gifted Kindle book!

That was out of the blue, very unexpected, and very much appreciated.  🙂

I assume Allison is a reader of the blog, although I realized that you could get to my gift list through my Amazon Author Central page.  There is an Allison who posts on the forum, and it could be from that person.  It seems less appropriate to bring it up in the forum, so I hope Allison sees this.  🙂  It’s probably also worth noting that nothing told me who it was.  The e-mail came from Amazon…all I had was the name that Allison had put on it. 

I really don’t think of that list as being public!  I think of it for my family and friends…wow, it does say “geek” all over it.  😉  I also may need to update it…

Allison suggested I might write about the process of receiving it.  I had sent myself a book to test it, but let me just say, this was a snap!

I got it in my e-mail, just clicked the link, accepted the gift, and that was it.

If I had wanted a gift certificate instead, Amazon says to check with Kindle Customer Service (I presume before accepting the gift, but I would think you could call them afterwards).

Super simple, non-intrusive…worked very well.

Thanks again, Allison…and thanks for the kind words in your message!  The one thing I’ll say is that the message was truncated (cut off).  That’s kind of funny!  I just checked it, and the words inserted by Amazon

(note 300 char limit)

count against the 300 character (including spaces) limit.  🙂  You actually get 279 characters because of that…in case you count characters as you type.  🙂

For more information on gifting Kindle books, see this

earlier post 

Well, now I’ve really got to get to work on my new book on the Kindle 3!  I won’t get it done by Black Friday, but I do want to finish it soon.  I think it is going to make a good gift both for people who have had the device and for whom it is new. 

I have to reassess all of my titles in the Kindle store.  Finishing the new one comes first, but I’ll go ahead and share my thoughts on the others:

Frequently Asked Kindle Questions ($1.00)

This one concerns me a bit because it is out of date for the K3.  All of these questions may not be so frequently asked, and the answers may have changed somewhat.  I’m loathe to pull it entirely from the store.  I’m either going to have to update it considerably, or make it clear in the description that it may be updated.  I’m going to cover pretty much all of this material in the new book, so I may just go with the out-of-date warning.

Free Books for Your Kindle  ($2.85)

Well, obviously, I should raise that fourteen cents.  🙂  I originally set it to that price because, at a 30% royalty, I would get a dollar a copy.  However, with the new 70% royalty at $2.99 (the minimum for that deal), I’d get about $2.09.  The information in there is still useful, but could be updated a bit.  In particular, I need to update it to point out that the K3s can get personal documents wirelessly for free when using wifi.  I’ll probably review this one for updating early next year.

ILMK! (I Love My Kindle!): Being an Appreciation of Amazon’s E-Book Reader, with Tips, Explanations, and Humor (Revised Edition) ($1.00)

Hmm…this one is a little tricky.  It has the fiction (including The Happy Little Bookworm), and I want to keep all that out there.  It could be updated as well.  The tips and explanations have to be examined, though, to see if they are obsolete.  For a buck right now, I’ll leave it.

The Collected I Love My Kindle Blog Volume 1 ($3.95)

I think I’ll probably leave this one as is.  It’s the first 101 posts from this blog.  In fact, I’ll do a volume 2 in the next several months, I’d say.

The Disabled Deserve to Read: The Controversy Over the Amazon Kindle’s Voice (revised) ($1.00)

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t need to be updated too much.  I will add something to it at some point about the audible menus in the K3s, and maybe about the legal action with the DX in colleges.  There is a possibility that this may change quite a bit in the not too distant future, and then I will update this.

I have a couple of other works I may do as well (not exactly Kindle related).  The blog is my main writing focus right now, honestly.  I write the equivalent of a more than a 100 page book every month, for this blog alone.  That slows down the other writing…but this is fun.  🙂  I’m especially grateful to those who subscribe through the Kindle store…that justifies the time and energy I spend on this.  You can’t currently gift blogs, by the way, but maybe that wil happen.  I’m also hoping that they include blogs when they enable magazines and newspapers on iDevices later this year…and expand them to other reader apps, later.

Thanks again, Allison…that was really thoughtful!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

Flash! Kindle book giving is here!

Flash! Kindle book giving is here!

Woo hoo!  I’m going to look at this more and update this page, but I wanted to get it out right away!

Kindle gift giving announcement

On each Kindle book page, you should now see a button to Give as a Gift.  The announcement says you can give it to anyone with an e-mail address.  I’ll check the details…my guess is it is similar to what I’ve suggested, for example, in this earlier post.

This is what they show you as the sample e-mail.  I’m still waiting for it to deliver to my test address:

 

Huh.  I thought I was sending it to a different address…it came to my normal Amazon address.  Maybe I did something wrong, or maybe this is just a copy for me. 

This is how I can accept it after I click on the button in the e-mail:

After I accept it, I see this:

I wasn’t given a choice to take a gift certificate instead, but I assume I could return it for a refund, just as usual…but would it go to the recipient or the purchaser?  That may be because it wasn’t a duplicate for me.

Now, I just need to check why it sent it to my regular address and not my intended recipient. 

Okay, now we have the

Amazon press release

This is weird: my receipts for the gift purchases (I’ve done two) show I’m not being charged for them.  It shows a discount/promotion equal to the amount of the book.  Maybe I’m not charged until its redeemed?  Maybe it’s a glitch?  Odd.

Updated: Free books appear not to be giftable.  The gift button does not appear for blogs, newspapers, or magazines.

If your recipient deletes the e-mail by mistake, you can resend it.  You go to Your Account at Amazon, digital orders, click on it, and there will be a link there to resend it.

UPDATE: Amazon has now posted the:

Help Page 

By the way, I’m a bit surprised by the number of people complaining about this in the Amazon community…talk about looking a gift book in the mouth.  😉

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Flash! Kindle sold out for some countries

Flash! Kindle sold out for some countries

This one is a little tricky.

You can buy Kindles directly from Amazon either from Amazon.com, or from Amazon.co.uk.

If we look at the

Kindle 3 wifi+3G

product page at Amazon.com, it says:

In stock

and as I write this, you could get it by November 20th (two days from now).

Sounds fine, right?

Well, if you want to get it sent to a country besides the US, the situation is a bit different.

On that page, on your right, you can choose different countries to see the information for them. You are not changing the country in your Kindle account, by the way. When you select some countries, it tells you that you have to go to another page to buy it.

For example, when I choose France it says,

” To ship a Kindle to France you must purchase a Kindle from this separate page”

with a link to the other page.

On that page, it says:

“Expected to ship in 7 to 9 weeks.”

Yep, that would put it into 2011.

Why do you have to go to a different page?

On that page, it says:

“To ensure your Kindle has the best global wireless coverage, select your primary country of use.”

That suggest that there may be something like a SIM (Subscriber Information Module) that identifies the Kindles to different countries’ contracted networks for the device.

In fact, Amazon actually says that on the:

Kindle update page

*We automatically ship your Kindle with the best built-in wireless card based on the shipping country you select during checkout. If your country is not listed above, please use the serial number instructions to determine which download to use. “

Yep…European customers for the 3G and wifi model have a different serial number sequence B00A, as opposed to the US and Canada’s B006. That’s the model that appears to be sold out.

Hmm…I checked Mexico, though, and it also says it is to ship in 7-9 weeks.

So, for the helpful folks who are coming up with ways for Amazon to sell more Kindles this holiday season (like reducing the price), um, I don’t think that’s the number one goal. Even for US customers, they are limiting purchases to three per customer.

Selling out is a bad thing at this time of year. People want to buy something: if they can’t buy your product as a gift, they’ll buy somebody else’s. I don’t think this is an artificial shortage at all. I think they can only be produced so quickly.

 So, for my readers outside the US (and I do hear from some…hi!), it looks like you aren’t going to be able to get a Kindle 3 shipped directly to your country before the holidays.

Could somebody buy a Kindle from the US and ship it to you? Sure, that should work…but I’m thinking you may not have as good a connection.

US customers, I’d say…don’t wait. Amazon is trying not to sell out, but it could happen. Yes, you can get them other places (like Staples and Target), but they could run out, too.

Just a reminder, these are the links:

 Kindle six inch wifi only (currently $139 in the US, limited to three per customer)

 Kindle six inch with 3G and wifi (currently $189 in the US, limited to three per customer)

 Kindle DX 9.7 inch (currently $189 in the US, no limit)

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Freebie flash! Holiday, Wish, Paradise, and more

 Freebie flash! Holiday, Wish, Paradise, and more

As usual, I don’t vouch for these books, and they come from companies that are not (to my knowledge) blocking text-to-speech. As promotional titles, they may not be free for long. Note: these books are free in the USA: prices in other countries may vary.

Improve Your Business Communication
by FT Press Delivers
published by FT Press (a business publisher)

Snowy White Seduction
by Arianna Hart
published by Samhain  (a fiction publisher with an emphasis on romance and genre works)

The Paradise War
by Stephen R. Lawhead
published by Thomas Nelson (a faith-based publisher)

Sophie’s World
by Nancy Rue
published by Zondervan (a faith-based publisher)

Fixing Toyota
by Richard J. Schonberger
published by FT Press (a business publisher)

On the Run
by Bill Myers
published by Zondervan (a faith-based publisher)

Love on a Dime
by Cara Lynn James
published by Thomas Nelson (a faith-based publisher)

My Christmas Wish 
by Ember Case
published by Samhain (a fiction publisher with an emphasis on romance and genre works)

Deeper Water 
Tides of Truth #1
Robert Whitlow
published by Thomas Nelson (a faith-based publisher)

The Dickens with Love 
by Josh Lanyon
published by Samhain (a fiction publisher with an emphasis on romance and genre works)

Holiday Bound
by Beth Kery
published by Samhain (a fiction publisher with an emphasis on romance and genre works)

Lonestar Sanctuary
Lonestar #1
by Colleen Coble
published by Thomas Nelson (a faith-based publisher)

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Flash! B&N adds “NOOKbooks en español”

Flash! B&N adds “NOOKbooks en español”

This is a fascinating (and smart) move.

Barnes & Noble has set up a special part of the NOOK store for books in Spanish:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/category.asp?PID=28507

They have 738 NOOKbooks in Spanish in the fiction and literature category right now.  Not all that many…but I think having a separately branded store with navigation in Spanish is going to appeal to people.

By contrast, Amazon has more Kindle fiction books in Spanish (1,957), but you’d be hard-pressed to find them easily.

I used http://www.ereaderiq.com …that lets me select a language and a category. 

These are the results at Amazon:

Spanish language fiction Kindle books  (Los libros de ficción en español en la tienda Kindle)

I’ve suggested before that Amazon could do language-specific Kindles.  In the case of Spanish, there would be three primary changes.  One would be the keyboard (you need a couple more letters) and the other would be to install one or two of the Spanish text-to-speech voices available with Vocalizer (the text-to-speech software used by the Kindle 3).  The current TTS can read Spanish…but it reads it with an American accent.  They actually have several Spanish voices…including separate voices for Mexican Spanish. 

You can hear demos of the voices here (not on your Kindle, though):

http://www.nuance.com/vocalizer5/flash/index.html 

The other thing would be to change the menus to Spanish.

That all wouldn’t be too difficult, and I think it would sell well.  However, the lack of books currently would make that less appealing.  Amazon certainly enables posting books in Spanish, but it’s up to the rightsholders.

There is no question that B&N sometimes beats Amazon to things…this an example where I give them the credit. 

Here’s the

Barnes & Noble Press Release

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.