@author: ask an author a question while reading a book

@author: ask an author a question while reading a book

Here’s an interesting new feature!

According to the

Kindle Daily Post

That’s an official Amazon blog.

With this new feature, you can highlight a passage, type @author followed by your question, and share the note.

Amazon will tweet it to the author. If the author answers it, you’ll get an e-mail.

The questions (and answers) will also appear on the author’s Amazon Author Central page. It will also become a public note (for people following that author).

This is only a pilot, with a limited list of authors…but it’s an interesting set of people:

• Ted Dekker: (@tedDekker) Forbidden and The Priest’s Graveyard
• Timothy Ferriss: (@tferriss) The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek
• Marie Force: (@MarieForce) Ready for Love and Fool for Love
• Barbara Freethy: (@BarbaraFreethy) Love Will Find a Way and One True Love
• Steven Johnson: (@stevenbjohnson) Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You
• Robert Kiyosaki: (@theRealKiyosaki) Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant
• J.A. Konrath: (@jakonrath) SERIAL and Endurance
• John Locke: (@DonovanCreed) The Love You Crave and Lethal People
• Elisa Lorello: (@ElisaLorello) Ordinary World
• C.J. Lyons: (@cjlyonswriter) Blind Faith and Borrowed Time
• Debbi Mack: (@debbimack) Identity Crisis and Least Wanted
• Brad Meltzer: (@bradmeltzer) The Inner Circle and The Zero Game
• Scott Nicholson: (@hauntedcomputer) Ashes and Write Good or Die
• Susan Orlean: (@susanorlean) Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief
• Deborah Reed: (@DebReedAuthor) Carry Yourself Back to Me and A Small Fortune
• James Rollins: (@jamesrollins) The Skeleton Key and The Devil Colony

I’d be happy to be part of that program, and I’m guessing it rolls out to everybody later if it is successful.

Of course, you can already ask questions of authors on their Author Central Pages. Mine is

http://www.amazon.com/Bufo-Calvin/e/B002E0NBIW/

but this lets you do it from within the book. I might find that disruptive when reading a fiction book the first time, but for non-fiction, it could be marvelous. Going back and re-reading a book (or buying one specifically to ask the questions) could also be great.

However, there are millions of Kindle owners (and this might work with Kindle apps…don’t know yet). I’m not quite sure how someone like Stephen King might answer, say, a thousand questions a day. They do say not every question will get answered, and readers will be allowed to answer the questions on the AAC page.

Still, this is the kind of social integration that many people will want…and if this is and remains exclusive to the Kindle, it’s going to be an attractant to that platform for bibliophiles (and some others…I can see business people wanting to ask a question of Warren Buffett, for example).

Whether this is connected to new devices or not, it’s fascinating.

Oh, I just checked out the link with more information:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000714331

You have to have your Kindle associated with a Twitter account to ask the question from the device, but not on the Amazon Author Central page.

Your question is limited to 100 characters.

You can only answer questions if you’ve bought items from Amazon.

Here are the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions):
@author FAQs

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

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A tale of two t-shirts

A tale of two t-shirts

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times–“

Wait a minute, that’s not right. That’s A Tale of Two Cities, not A Tale of Two T-shirts…sorry about that. 😉

Okay, this one is honestly a bit weird for me.

nluvk3 in the Amazon Kindle community started this thread:

Bufo Calvin Fan Club

It was just a bit of a goofy thing saying that there should be a fan club with me with t-shirts and everything.

I do try to help people out on that forum and keep it fun. I wasn’t going to comment in the thread at all, but somebody asked me to do it, and I eventually posted this:

===

nluvk3, thank you for starting this thread. I’m honored and flattered…and didn’t respond right away, because I’m a bit embarrassed to do that.

When I first got to the forum, there were people who were helpful, friendly, and funny. I’ve always appreciated that. Being here has made me a better person, and you are all part of that. 

I always strive to make myself better, and I hope I have here. I used to engage more with things that were just a matter of opinion. Even when I disagree with someone, that doesn’t mean I need to make an effort to change that person’s opinion…I could be wrong, and we both might be right (or wrong 🙂 ).

One of the things I love about the internet is that we need not be judged by our intrinsic qualities. We are judged by what we say and do…not by our genders, or ages, or relationships, or geography…unless we choose to do that.

For that reason, I know that what people like in this thread is not who I am, but my approach, and that’s a good thing to me. I’d rather that t-shirts could celebrate that…if you think it’s patience, or civility, or clarity, or whatever you perceive it to be. 

I hear sometimes about the negative influence that some think the media can have on those who enjoy it. I’ve wondered why we don’t hear an equal amount about the positive it could have. I’m going to leave this with Doc Savage’s oath (which I believe to be in the public domain, although the books aren’t**). I do try to follow it:

* Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it

* Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice

* Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do

* Let me do right to all, and wrong no man

===

Well, eventually, somebody did make a t-shirt…two people, actually:

Team Bufo

Bufo Calvin Fan Club

Now, I want to be clear…I had nothing to do with these shirts. 🙂 I don’t get any money from them and there is no official fan club.

I did do the “try to be famous” thing a while back…that meant too much time away from the family, honestly. I had to go odd places at odd times…I’m not looking for that cycle again. I wouldn’t mind if a news source asked me a question once in a while about the Kindle, but I like writing better. I can do that with my Significant Other in the same room, and that’s a good thing. 🙂

Speaking of my SO, who is very supportive, does find the t-shirt thing a bit strange. My SO said, when someone offered to send us a couple of the t-shirts, that is sounded stalkerish…a way to get my address. Yes…because nothing says “stalker bait” like being a blogger…and writing about books. 😉  If you disagree with that assessment, don’t mention it…seriously, don’t, it would creep out my SO more. 🙂

It was also interesting to me that they both used

http://www.cafepress.com/

That’s a site where you can design your own items…t-shirts, hats, mugs, and so on.

I use a similar site:

http://www.zazzle.com/

It’s been great for family gifts, and I’d even forgotten, I do have a t-shirt there for this blog:

http://www.zazzle.com/i_love_my_kindle_tshirt-235875175878511008

I also have a store:

http://www.zazzle.com/bufocalvin

It’s actually more for my offspring. We thought it might be a way for my kid (now an adult) to make a few extra bucks, but we’ve almost never sold anything. 🙂 There’s only one obscure trivia reference shirt where we’ve sold a couple, I think.

Hm…I see the ILMK t-shirt isn’t in that “store”…I’ll have to see if I can log into the site and change that. 🙂

I don’t think all those election 2008 shirts are ever going to sell, either. 😉

So, if you see somebody wearing one of those Cafe Press t-shirts, it isn’t me…but I don’t think you’ll see anybody. 😉

**Why would Doc Savage’s oath not be still under copyright and the books would? The oath was part of a fan club, as I understand it, and not published (or used) in the actual adventures. Copyrights had to be renewed back then, and the odds are that the copyright for the oath wasn’t renewed.

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

Amazon site redesign: getting ready for touchscreen?

Amazon site redesign: getting ready for touchscreen?

When I was on the Amazon forum this morning, I noticed a considerable redesign to the look of the site.

It’s not just the look…mousing over a menu (without clicking on it) opens it. Opening the Kindle menu includes a pictures of hand holding a Kindle:

Amazon does redesign things on the website from time to time, but it’s reasonable to think this might be in anticipation of a new device. Opening through mouse over might be easier for a touchscreen (either a Kindle or a tablet or both).

A thread was started on the Amazon Kindle forum about it, but most people aren’t seeing it. I’m guessing that’s because I’m on Chrome. One person also said they had it, logged out, logged in, and didn’t have it again. I haven’t logged out, so I’m not sure.

They didn’t restore blogs to the homepage Kindle navigation…I’ll admit, I feel like we are being a bit slighted on that, but I’m not sure blogs make Amazon much money. They may make more on it than they used to make, since some people download them on wi-fi (the consumer’s dime) rather than 3G (Amazon’s dime).

I don’t see too much hugely changed functionally.

The My Amazon (instead of Your Account) menu now has a way to sign out. I never thought it was intuitive that you had to say you weren’t who you are to sign out. I consider that an improvement.

I thought “Today’s Deals” would include the Kindle Daily Deal, but it seems to just take me to the Gold Box forum.

The Wish List menu has some more options, including searching for someone else’s Wish List.

Here’s the old look, by the way, from Internet Explorer:

Feel free to let me know if you have the new design (and in what browser), and if you like it. Do you think it’s a harbinger of things to come? Or is it just Amazon doing its “never stand still” thing?

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

Pricing the Kindle Indie bestsellers

Pricing the Kindle Indie bestsellers

I was just kind of curious about this one. 🙂

Not too long ago, Amazon started a separate storefront for books published using their Kindle Direct Publishing:

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=3059252011

Among lots of other things, it gives us bestsellers (updated hourly) for those KDP books.

That let me do a bit of analysis on the price points in the KDP store.

Out of the top 100, what’s the most popular price point?

I’m sure this is no surprise, but it’s ninety-nine cents.

Seventy of the top 100 are at that price point.

The second most popular price point (with 16 titles of the top 100) is $2.99,. That’s also not much of a surprise: that’s the lowest price point at which books are eligible for the seventy percent royalty plan. You need to sell six times as many books, roughly, at ninety-nine cents to make more royalty in the aggregate than you do at $2.99…but I’m sure many people do that.

Next in line $3.99, with nine titles. Not sure why that point, in particular…maybe it’s just that extra buck over $2.99.

After that, there were some odd price points: $3.97 with two titles, and the following each with one: eighty-nine cents, $3.79, $5.99.

Those odd prices may be intended to stand out…or they might be a result of a formula to make it the requisite 20% (for the higher royalty plan) below a print edition. Let’s see…no, that doesn’t seem to really work out.

So, no question, ninety-nine cents is the most popular price in the top one hundred…but $5.99 for an indie isn’t an absolute barrier to popularity.

The weird one is the eighty-nine center…KDP publishers can’t set their prices below ninety-nine cents, but that doesn’t mean Amazon can’t. The digital list price on this one is $6.95.

I was also interested in how the pricing affected the sales.

One way to do that is to get the average ranking at each price point. The lower the average, the better that price point is doing. If you had all top ten titles at one price point, the average for the top ten would be 5.5. If you had the bottom ten of the top hundred, the average would be 95.5. Lower is better in this case.

Price	Avg Rank	Count
0.99	45.97	70
5.99	46.00	1
3.99	58.11	9
2.99	60.00	16
3.97	64.00	2
0.89	92.00	1
3.79	83.00	1
		100

Not counting the outlier eighty-nine center, the lowest price is also the most popular of the top 100 KDP indies.

There isn’t a linear relationship between lower price and higher rank, though. The $3.99 books are more popular than the $2.99 price. That could be because of perceived value…or just because my sample is so small. 🙂

For those of you who are interested, here’s the entire list:

Rank	Price
1	0.99
2	0.99
3	0.99
4	0.99
5	0.99
6	0.99
7	0.99
8	0.99
9	2.99
10	0.99
11	0.99
12	3.99
13	2.99
14	0.99
15	0.99
16	0.99
17	0.99
18	0.99
19	0.99
20	0.99
21	0.99
22	0.99
23	0.99
24	2.99
25	0.99
26	0.99
27	2.99
28	0.99
29	3.99
30	2.99
31	3.99
32	0.99
33	0.99
34	0.99
35	0.99
36	0.99
37	0.99
38	0.99
39	0.99
40	0.99
41	0.99
42	0.99
43	0.99
44	0.99
45	2.99
46	5.99
47	0.99
48	0.99
49	0.99
50	0.99
51	0.99
52	2.99
53	0.99
54	0.99
55	0.99
56	0.99
57	0.99
58	3.97
59	0.99
60	0.99
61	0.99
62	0.99
63	0.99
64	0.99
65	3.99
66	3.99
67	2.99
68	0.99
69	2.99
70	3.97
71	0.99
72	2.99
73	0.99
74	3.99
75	3.99
76	0.99
77	3.99
78	0.99
79	0.99
80	0.99
81	0.99
82	2.99
83	3.79
84	0.99
85	0.99
86	0.99
87	2.99
88	0.99
89	0.99
90	0.99
91	0.99
92	0.89
93	2.99
94	3.99
95	2.99
96	0.99
97	2.99
98	2.99
99	0.99
100	0.99

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t give us a similar list for just traditionally publisher or Agency Model books (those aren’t exactly the same…I consider Amazon’s imprints to be traditionally published, but they aren’t Agency Model).

I checked the New York Times bestseller fiction hardback equivalents:

Price	Avg Rank
14.99	2.00
9.99	4.00
12.99	11.33

That’s not as clear-cut: the outliers, both high and low, beat the most common price.

Rank	Price
1	12.99
2	14.99
3	12.99
4	9.99
5	12.99
6	12.99
7	12.99
8	12.99
9	12.99
10	12.99
11	12.99
12	12.99
13	12.99
14	12.99
15	12.99
16	12.99
17	12.99
18	12.99
19	12.99
20	12.99

However, it does seem clear that at least popular indies cost less than popular tradpubs. I know, I know…you already knew that, but I do like to see the data. 🙂

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

Who owns your Kindle books?

Who owns your Kindle books?

We have to change the way we think about some things in the Kindle world versus the old paper world.

It requires “a bit of a mind flip”.

I’m good at those, personally, but I know not everybody is. I do tend to be able to concentrate on how I feel about something, and change my opinion 180 degrees.

This one may not be as bad as that. 🙂

As an educator, I do think that people can’t really learn the steps unless they have a unifying context for them. Well, that’s true for adults, not necessarily for kids. I always say that, if you were going to teach adeults the alphabet, it would be quite  different. You’d say, “It starts with A, B, C…” and an adult would say, “Why does B come after A?” If you couldn’t answer that, they couldn’t learn it.

It’s also important for me to point out here that the unifying context does not have to be technically true. It just has to make sense. 🙂 To quote something which is called both the Law of Pragmatism and the Engineer’s Law: “If it works, it’s true.” 😉

In the paper world, we didn’t have any trouble with who owned a copy of a book we bought: we did. We could sell it, loan it, burn it, and we were responsible for that copy.

In the Kindle world, that isn’t true.

I assume some of you are expecting me to say that the publisher still owns the book, and that you are sort of leasing it.

I’m not.

The publisher owns the rights to the book (what the author wrote…and re-wrote, after the editor gave feedback), and only the specific rights they bought: format and market.

In the case of the paperbook, that situation is the same. What you own is a copy of the book, not the contents of the book. You can’t photocopy them and sell them to people, and you can’t make a movie out of them without getting permission (assuming it’s still under copyright protection).

In the case of the e-book from the Kindle store, what is purchased is a license for the book. That license is owned, just like the copy of the paperbook is owned.

But by whom? By you?

Nope…not in this unifying concept. It’s owned by the account.

That’s the important mental shift.

It explains a lot of things.

For example, what happens if you deregister your Kindle from an account?

You lose access to the archives for that account.

That’s because the account owns the books, not you or your Kindle.

People ask about what happens to your Kindle books when you die, and I’ve written about that. The account doesn’t die when you do…if you have someone else on your account, they continue to have access to the books.

Amazon has made it clear that it is okay to have more than one person on the account. They wouldn’t make it that if there was a husband and wife and one of them died, the other one didn’t have access to the books they’d bought together.

So, who holds the licenses for your books? The account does.

If you violated the Terms of Service, what could Amazon do? Shut down the account…they don’t do anything to you.

What happens to your access to your Kindle store books if you lose a Kindle?

The Kindle doesn’t own the licenses…the account does. You still have them, you just need a way to display them (another Kindle or a reader app).

That helps me conceptually in thinking about the Kindle and my…er, my account’s…e-books. 😉

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

A question for you on the Freebie Flashes

A question for you on the Freebie Flashes

One of my readers, Rick, reasonably pointed out that it would be helpful in the Freebie Flashes (where I link people to free promotional titles from the Kindle store) if I provided a short description of each one.

I agree. 🙂

I know that would make it easier for people, particularly in the case of people reading this blog on a Kindle (thank you, subscribers!).

As long time subscribers know, I used to describe each one, link to the author’s web page (where possible), link to the publisher, briefly describe the publisher, and so on.

What changed?

The main thing is that there are so many more freebies now. Take a look at how the numbers have changed:

Free books (without public domain)  

August 1, 2011: 1,046
July 1, 2011: 883
June 1, 2011: 707
May 1, 2011: 20,984
April 1, 2011: 17,832
March 1, 2011: 241
February 1, 2011: 240
January 1, 2011: 230
December 1, 2010: 183
November 1, 2010: 171
October 1, 2010: 161
September 1, 2010: 143
August 1, 2010: 621 (125 without Amazon Breakthrough nominees)
July 1, 2010: 599 (102 without Amazon Breakthrough nominees)
June 1, 2010: 559 (63 without Amazon Breakthrough nominees)
May 1, 2010: 556 (57 without Amazon Breakthrough nominees)
April 1, 2010: 560 (59 without Amazon Breakthrough nominees)
March 1, 2010: 67
February 1, 2010: 52
January 1, 2010: 53
December 1, 2009: 84
November 1, 2009: 64
October 1, 2009: 67

That makes it tough just to keep up!

Also, many of the freebies now are independently published stories, often shorts. That matters because I don’t know the book, much less the author…I often did know that with the tradpub (traditional publishers), which made it easier to write a summary.

Third, when Amazon dropped me (and everybody else in California) as an Associate, that took away a tool I was using to make the links. Without it, I think it has increased how much time it takes me to do each link. It isn’t really a factor that when you click on the freebie, I don’t get anything from Amazon for it any more. It used to help me get to another tier of referral fee (that was based on total items, and it included freebies), but that was never a huge driving factor for me….the money I do get this is from subscriptions, and I feel better about that.

So, those are three reasons that putting in more description is much harder and time consuming than it used to be for me.

I have had people tell me the like the Freebie Flashes, and honestly, there are a couple of reasons that I like doing them myself. One thing is that I order the books for our account at that time..I’d be going through them all anyway. The other one is, well, they require less intellectual effort. Not less time, necessarily, but it can be done without as much thought. I had a situation recently where I had some dental pain (I’ve been to the dentist…seems to be okay), and couldn’t concentrate all that well. The Freebie Flash let me get a fresh post out to you, even when I was somewhat distracted. 🙂

I see three main ways to proceed:

1. Continue the way I’m going…basically, just link to the books, including the author and the publisher (or telling you it is independent)
2. List fewer books, but with more information
3. Stop doing the Freebie Flashes

The last one might seem drastic, but if it’s not valuable enough the way it is, I want to know that. I know there are alternative ways to get the information. I know that some people copy the descriptions from the Amazon product page (personally, I don’t think that’s appropriate without getting permission…although my guess is the publishers wouldn’t mind).

I always like to know you think, so I’m going to ask you:

Oh, and full disclosure, but I think you all know this. I don’t list every single free promotional title from the Kindle store…the big thing is that I don’t list them if they block text-to-speech. That’s become much rarer, though…that’s for another post. 🙂

Feel free to tell me what you think…it will help me decide what to do, and I appreciate that.

Today’s Kindle Daily Deal: Food, Inc. by Karl Weber for $1.49.

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

Free game: Jigsaw Words

Free game: Jigsaw Words

Jigsaw Words (free at time of writing)
by Amazon

Okay I admit it…I play games sometimes on my Kindle…I have since the Kindle 1 (and yes, it came with a game). I know that seems inappropriate to some people. I mostly do it when I only have a couple of minutes, like waiting in line. As I’ve said before, I’d rather interrupt Solitaire than Mark Twain when I’m called up to the counter.

The fact that this is a word game may make it a bit more acceptable to some. 🙂

Jigsaw Words is a nice variant.

It’s easy to learn to play, but the puzzles can be challenging (which is a good thing).

I suppose the biggest negative is that it appears to be a finite game…you’ll eventually finish it. However, since it was free, that’s not a big deal to me.

The basic idea is that you see a series of clues, that look somewhat like crossword puzzle clues. At the top of the screen are “tiles” (they’d be tiles if this was physical game) with some letters on each one. You combine the tiles to form words which answer the questions.

For example, and I’m just making this up, it might say a clue like, “E-Book Reader”, and there might be a tile with KIN and another tile with DLE. Put those two together, click Submit, and the answer is filled in for the clue. Those two tiles disappear.

That sounds simple, but it can be harder than you think. First, the tiles aren’t in any particular order, so the letters you need might be back to front. Second, some of the questions are hard, and may look like they have more than one answer. Quick: what was the 42nd state admitted to the union? If it said, “City in California”, there are a lot of possible answers.

As always on your Kindle, when in doubt, hit Menu. If you do that in a puzzle, for example, you’ll get a choice to shuffle the tiles or even get a hint.

It does remember where you are in the sequence…if you are partway through a category, you don’t have to start over when you leave the Kindle and come back to it.

All in all, I’d say it’s more than worth the money. 😉 It’s no Scrabble or Boggle, but it’s not bad.

As with other Active Content titles, it doesn’t work on the K1, but does work on K2s, K3s, and the KDX.  It doesn’t work in reader apps, and I assume it can’t be purchased outside the US.

You can buy it once and share it with all compatible devices on the account.

If you try it, feel free to let me know what you think.

For information on more games, see this category.

Today’s Kindle Daily Deal: Food, Inc. by Karl Weber for $1.49.

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

Freebie flash! Harlequin, OReilly, HarperCollins, and more

Freebie flash! Harlequin, OReilly, HarperCollins, and more

As usual, I don’t vouch for these books, and none of them block text-to-speech access. As promotional titles, they may not be free for long. Note: these books are free in the USA: prices in other countries may vary.

Summer Heat
by Sable Jordan, Perri Forrest, Thee KWEEN, Ms. Downlow
published by Fresh WHET Ink (independent?)

Psychic Knights – The Beginning
by P.B. Thompson
published by Ferret (independent?)

Adam’s Bar-B-Que Ribs
by Sugar Lee Ryder
published by Gryphon’s Lair (independent?)

JavaScript Bibliography
by Editors of Safari Books Online
published by OReilly Media

Foolish Pride
by Donna Marie Rodgers
independent

Shadow Games
by Doug Welch
independent

Once a Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance)
by Linda Warren
published by Harlequin

True Stories of Crime from the D.A.’s Office
by Arthur Train
independent

From the Ice Incarnate
by Joe Vasicek
independent

Dane (The Mackenzie Brothers Quartet)
by Liliana Hart
by Bodysways Publishing (independent)

Bright Young Things with Bonus Material
by Anna Godsbersen
published by HarperCollins

pre-order for September 6, 2011

Occam’s Razor: A Short Story
by John Brinling
independent

Diary of a Dead Muse
by Benjamin Goshko
independent

If I Had a Car
by Ted Summerfield
independent

A Twisted Bard’s Tale (An Erotic Lesbian Short)
by Selena Kitt
by Excessica Publishing (independent?)

Napoleon Hill’s Hidden Secret In Think And Grow Rich: Why This Law Of Success Principle Proves The Master Keys To Success
by Gary Vurnum
independent

Gifts in Sand and Water
by Andy Bellet
published by Doomed Muse Press (independent?)

The Price of Life
by T.M. Nienaber
independent

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

Best wishes, Steve Jobs, and thank you

Best wishes, Steve Jobs, and thank you

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Apple.

This is presumably due to his health issues.

I wish him the best in facing those challenges.

While Steve Jobs and I haven’t always agreed, he has changed the world in a good way. I think the best analogy is Henry Ford. Getting the mainstream to accept a technology is a real accomplishment.

Steve Jobs (and Apple) weren’t always the first to invent something (although Jobs has a large number of patents)…but Apple made regular people love it.

That goes for the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.

Something left off in much of the news coverage was Jobs and Pixar. I see a real parallel between Pixar and the iDevices. People perceive both as being of superior quality, and love them.

It’s also important to note that this isn’t a good-bye…Jobs is going to continue to work with Apple, just not in the same kind of intense role of overseeing everything.

I sincerely wish him the best going forward…our world wouldn’t have been the same without him.

What does this mean for e-books?

Not that much, initially. While tech companies can’t rigidly plan too far into the future, Apple probably has a few years in the pipeline. Apple will have attracted top tier people (even though it may be a challenging place to work).

I want the iPad to continue to innovate…I like there to be competition for my device of choice…it drives them to do more.

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

New! Kindle Daily Deal…tick, tick, tick…

New! Kindle Daily Deal…tick, tick, tick…

I was considering another round-up, but I thought I’d get this out right away to increase the chances that you can take advantage of today’s deal, if you want.

Amazon has added

The Kindle Daily Deal

Each day, they’ll put a book on sale for 24 hours (starting at about midnight Pacific time, where Amazon is located). I guess they’ve learned that from owning Woot.com.

I’m not sure how big a thing this will be for most people. Unless the publisher participates, it’s not going to be Agency Model books…and those are the six largest US trade publishers.

It does look like you can save some real money, though. In the case of the current title, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, you would save over $4.

You can visit the above site every day, get it on Twitter or get it on Facebook.

The Kindle Daily Post also has a website:

http://www.kindlepost.com/

Interestingly, I don’t think you can subscribe to it in the Kindle store…you can do the Amazon Daily, but that’s not the same thing.

Update: I meant to thank “Emily Bronte” in the Amazon Kindle community for the heads up on this. Emily has been presenting the sales figures: the stratagem seems to be working in terms of sales (although not necessarily in terms of profit).

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