July 2016 Kindle book releases

July 2016 Kindle book releases

While I don’t generally pre-order Kindle store books myself, I know many of you do.

I understand the fun of just having the book show up, but I figure I’ll order when I want it…since I could have it within a minute, usually.…

However, it’s worth noting that pre-ordering at a low price will tend to preserve that price. Back when the Agency Model was solidly in place, Amazon couldn’t guarantee that books sold by the publishers using that structure wouldn’t go up in price after you pre-ordered them. It wasn’t likely, it was just that Amazon couldn’t control it. We have largely returned to the Agency Model, but Amazon is allowed to discount in some circumstances.

These aren’t necessarily the most popular of the pre-orders…I’m just going to list ones that catch my eye. Since we might not agree on that, here’s a link to the 5,463 (at time of writing…an even steeper drop than last month’s 733, with 863 fewer titles. This is the second month in a row with the better part of a 1,000 fewer titles):

June USA Kindle book releases (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Of those, by the way, 1,021 (25 fewer than last month) are in

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

As usual, I won’t be deliberately linking to books which block text-to-speech access blocked**.

We’ve gone back and forth recently on whether the top four were the

Kindle First (at AmazonSmile)

picks for this month.

Amazon no longer does the “New and Popular” search as a default, but does “Featured”. Presumably, a human being picks those titles in some way…and the list is clearly not the same.  This month, in a change, Kindle First books aren’t dominating the top slots..

The other thing is that some of those Kindle Unlimited titles are way up on the list. I’m concerned (and I’ve alerted Amazon about it) that people are confused: they think they are pre-ordering a KU borrow, when they are actually pre-ordering a purchase. In other words, they may be thinking they’ll get the book at no additional cost, and actually be charged for it. Amazon has confirmed for me: you can not pre-order a borrow from KU.

June is a big release month for books (not unlike movies)…summer vacation is here, and books for “grads and Dads” are also big.

Okay, books!

• The Arrangement 22 (The Ferro Family) Jul 25, 2016 by H.M. Ward
• The Black Widow Jul 12, 2016 by Daniel Silva
• Night and Day: An Eve Duncan Novel July 19, 2016 by Iris Johansen
• Getting started with Tambour Embroidery (Haute Couture Embroidery Series Book 1) Jul 10, 2016 by Saskia ter Welle
• A Shade of Vampire 30: A Game of Risk Jul 14, 2016 by Bella Forrest
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two (Special Rehearsal Edition): The Official Script Book of…Jul 31, 2016 by J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne
• Ultimate Physics Jul 11, 2016 by Scientific American Editors
• The Trial: A BookShot: A Women’s Murder Club Story (BookShots) Jul 5, 2016 by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
• The Land of Stories: An Author’s Odyssey Jul 12, 2016 by Chris Colfer
• Why Politics Sucks: With Just A Few Modest Proposals That Might Make It All Suck A Little Less (Why Everything…Jul 4, 2016 by Steven Womack
• The Last Woman Standing: A Novel Jul 1, 2016 by Thelma Adams
• Lowcountry Book Club (A Liz Talbot Mystery 5) Jul 5, 2016 by Susan M. Boyer
• Murder on the Einstein Express and Other Stories (Science and Fiction) Jul 16, 2016 by Šiljak, Harun
• Children’s Book of Experiments: 30 Incredible Experiments For Young Scientists Jul 7, 2016 by Jaroslaw Wasilewski
• We are Big Data: The Future of the Information Society Jul 23, 2016 by Sander Klous and Nart Wielaard
• 1000 Terrible Ideas for Another Star Wars Movie Jul 9, 2016 by Francisco Cutter and Jeff Rose
• I’ve Got Sand In All the Wrong Places Jul 12, 2016 by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella
• The High Ground: Imperials 1Jul 5, 2016 | Kindle eBook
  by Melinda Snodgrass

Feel free to suggest other books being released in July in the USA Kindle store. If you are the author, or are otherwise connected with the production or publishing of the book, I’d appreciate you saying so. That won’t stop me from publishing the comment, but it should be in your own words and not an ad.

Enjoy!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help! 

** A Kindle/Fire with text-to-speech can read any text downloaded to it…unless that access is blocked by the publisher inserting code into the file to prevent it. That’s why you can have the device read personal documents to you (I’ve done that). I believe that this sort of access blocking disproportionately disadvantages the disabled, although I also believe it is legal (provided that there is at least one accessible version of each e-book available, however, that one can require a certification of disability). For that reason, I don’t deliberately link to books which block TTS access here (although it may happen accidentally, particularly if the access is blocked after I’ve linked it). I do believe this is a personal decision, and there  are legitimate arguments for purchasing those books.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Start looking for your Apple e-book settlement payout

Start looking for your Apple e-book settlement payout

Some, perhaps many, of the readers of this blog are going to start seeing payouts from the Department of Justice’s action against Apple for e-book pricing tactics.

This is in addition to a payout you may have received previously. There was more than one legal action (many of the states’ Attorneys General also settled with publishers). The DoJ originally went after 5 of the then Big 6 publishers (not Random House, who initially didn’t go along with the “Agency Model”)…there are only 5 of them left after Penguin and Random House combined (not, unfortunately, using my suggested name of “Random Penguin”). 😉 The publishers settled; Apple fought it and eventually did not prevail (and that might have been affected by the absence on the US Supreme Court).

I’m not seeing anything on Amazon’s site yet, at least about this new payout (the previous payout is on a Help page).  I would expect that we will get e-mails about it.

Here’s the

press release

from Hagens Berman the “…consumer-rights class-action law firm” which worked with the DoJ and Attorneys General in this case.

If you took the payout last time, you should just automatically get it this time (if you are entitled to one).

How much you get depends on what you bought, when you bought it, and where. It could be pretty substantial, though. It’s $6.93 for a qualifying New York Times bestseller and $1.57 for other e-books.

My understanding is that how you use the credit will not be mandated…you won’t have to spend it on e-books, although many of you will. 🙂

I’ll be curious: I’d appreciate it if you comment on this post to let me and my readers know when you get an Amazon e-mail about this.

Oh, and for my readers outside the USA (I have readers all around the world), this doesn’t impact you, since it was a legal action inside the USA.

Enjoy your settlement money! So many options! The Big 5 will probably get a short term benefit from this…but it would be interesting if consumers chose to buy books from other companies, or perhaps they can use the money for

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

and read and discovered a lot of non-Big 5 authors. 😉 Not sure it will even be an option, but that might be a good way to test out KU (if you are comfortable with how authors get paid…I’m sure not all of my readers are).

Update: I’ve gotten my e-mail…I’m pleased with just over $40! Amazon chose to indicate that the e-mail was copyrighted, so I won’t reproduce it for you (if an e-mail is not indicated as private or otherwise protected, my understanding is that the recipient can reproduced it without permission…again, just my understanding of it). The key things are that it shows up as a credit in your account, and although they direct you to the Kindle store, it does appear that it would work for things that a gift card would generally do (not periodicals, but most things). You have one year to use, according to the e-mail, by order of the court. By the time I looked at it, it was gone. 🙂 A Subscribe & Save order (we love that…we “subscribe” to physical items we get regularly, like dog food and toothpaste, and get a 15% discount) and another order took it. So, it did behave like a regular gift card.

Several of my readers have reported their amounts (see the comments)…thanks, readers! They’ve ranged from $1.57 to close to $200.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

 

eReader IQ loses Amazon funding

eReader IQ loses Amazon funding

I have many times in this blog written that I think

eReaderIQ

is the most valuable resource on the web for Kindleers.

I’ve gotten great use out of it myself (and I am not associated it with it except as a customer, although we have had some correspondence), and it has saved me a lot of money.

The free services include:

• An advanced search for Kindle books (which is much more sophisticated than Amazon’s own search)
• Notification when a book becomes available in Kindle format
• Price tracking, and notification when a book drops an amount you specify
• Author tracking

How has it been able to do all of these things for free for Kindle users…and to improve the service several times in significant ways?

One reason is that the site has been an Amazon Affiliate. That means that when a customer follows a link from the site and purchases something at Amazon (not necessarily that item), eReaderIQ gets a cut…an advertising fee. That does nt raise the price for the customer, or negatively impact the customer at all.

Well, I was concerned when one of my readers, Vince, alerted me to this

announcement at the eReaderIQ site

It says, in part:

“…my Amazon.com affiliate account has been shut down. I depended on Amazon’s affiliate program to monetize this site. The affiliate revenue was enough to allow me to leave my 9 to 5 job a few years ago and devote my time to maintaining this site and to my wife and kids. <snip>…

I will spend this summer trying to find other ways to monetize this site. If my attempts over the next few months do not work, then, and only then, will I look into making eReaderIQ a subscription-based service.

If it does come to that, the site will remain free to browse, and a free tier will be offered for light-duty users with small Watch Lists.”

Clearly, this is a big blow, and the site, which is really a one-person operation as I understand it, is going to do everything it can to continue its excellent service.

Just recently, eRI alerted me to a book that was on sale…and that led me to discover a

McFarland books for $3.99 (at AmazonSmile*)

sale, which I shared with you. I bought books I might not have bought otherwise, certainly, but I probably saved something like $100.

I know many of my readers use eReaderIQ.

What can you do?

I have donated to their site through PayPal…there a link on the page I linked above for the announcement: announcement at the eReaderIQ site

Next, I’m going to wait to see what happens. I would consider a paid subscription, although I’d probably be more likely to do donations from time to time.

Totally up to you what you do…I did want to give you a heads up on it, though.

Now, some of you are undoubtedly wondering what happened.

I don’t know, and I think it’s reasonable that they don’t say exactly.

I’ve always been a little concerned that they might be linking to too many free books for Amazon’s taste. There was a point where Amazon…discouraged that, but it was some time back. A lot of us changed what were doing then so we didn’t exceed Amazon’s guidelines. I don’t know that that is the case here, but it’s a guess.

There are many people and individuals (including non-profits) which earn quite a bit of their money, sometimes their existential income, as Amazon Affiliates. That’s separate from money which comes through AmazonSmile, which makes donations from Amazon to non-profits you designate, based on what you purchase).

I wish eReaderIQ all the best, and hope they can come up with a way to monetize the site and to continue their service to the Kindle community.

Do you have comments about how eReaderIQ has helped you? I think they read this blog.  Hearing those good stories, could  help, even if you don’t donate. Feel free to let me, my readers, and possibly them know by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Should Amazon do “On Deck” for books?

Should Amazon do “On Deck” for books?

Have you found yourself unexpectedly on a trip and realize you didn’t download a book to read to your Kindle?

Nah, probably not…if you are like most people, you probably have more than 100 on there. 😉

However, you might not have one you particularly want to read.

Amazon recognizes that need for videos, and in a recent

software update for 5th generation Fire tablets (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

those devices got a feature called “On Deck”. The Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote (at AmazonSmile*) and the original Fire TV have already had something like it.

It downloads a video for you…something it thinks you might want to watch, like the next episode in a series you are watching.

I think this might work very well for books…after all, we read lots of series of books, too. 🙂

The obvious place to do it would be with

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Based on what you are reading now, Amazon could download another book to your device before you finish, so it’s ready to go. The next book in a series is obvious, but it could also do one based on the same author or the same topic.

You wouldn’t be charged for it…if I was Amazon, I’d make an “On Deck” book not count against your ten borrows at a time you can have from KU.

You’d get one book at a time…if you chose not to read it (indicated by you starting another book), it could be replaced…again, automatically.

You could “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” the choices, but that’s not really necessary…if you read it, it’s a sign they made a good choice.

It also wouldn’t need to cost Amazon much at all. With KU books, the publisher doesn’t get paid the whole royalty just because it is downloaded…it’s based on what you read.

Yep, I think this could be great for many people, including publishers!

Naturally, I would want you to have the option to opt out of it. There are some people who really load up their Kindles, and others where connecting to the network can be an issue.

For people who don’t have KU, it’s trickier.

Amazon could still do it…downloading a free book for you based on what you are reading. However, that could have royalty implications.

No, it’s probably best as an inducement to get people to do KU…at least initially.

Another option would be to let you pre-authorize purchases. You could agree to purchase the next book in a series whenever it is released, or the next book from an author. I think that’s riskier, though…especially the author one. Authors sometimes write books which don’t really match up with the other books…and they might choose to follow a super successful book with a riskier one.

Still, I hope Amazon considers the idea! It helps Amazon and the publishers with discovery and predictability. It helps readers, again with discovery and with convenience.

What do you think? Does it sound like a good idea? Am I missing some reason you wouldn’t like it? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

 

Lois Duncan has reportedly died

Lois Duncan has reportedly died

There is something very special about the books you read as a teenager.

No question that you can love and be affected by books you read at any age, but often, teenagers are reading in a way which expresses independence. They may be making their own choices of what to read…independently finding them at the school library, or buying them with their own money (especially, nowadays, at Amazon).

Lois Duncan (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

wrote popular books which fit that age perfectly. They were too edgy for most young kids, and visceral and exciting.

Perhaps the most famous one was I Know What You Did Last Summer from 1973…it was adapted for a movie almost a quarter of a century later, which starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Philippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Duncan wrote many books, though, including other suspenseful books for young adults, picture books, and an autobiography.

The author was the recipient of the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards award, for lasting contribution to young adult literature.

Lois Duncan’s official site

shows a thoughtful and engaged writer, with suggestions for readers, classroom guides, and more.

The books live on.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

*When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

 

 

Amazon has made wonderful Kindle ads…for India

Amazon has made wonderful Kindle ads…for India

I haven’t always been completely satisfied with Amazon’s advertising for the Kindle.

I’ve written in this blog before about how I felt the commercials didn’t have enough age diversity…they tended to use young, “hip” people. It was marketed like a tech gadget, not like something for readers. Later on, they did add some more diversity to their ads, but it had been really noticeable.

There was also the famous “pool ad”, where the point of the ad was to criticize the iPad as a reading device (this was before Amazon had their own backlit tablet, the “Kindle Fire”). I didn’t like it because I’d rather have them tell me positive things about their own device (and there were so many!) than tell me what was bad about somebody else’s.

Another campaign was the “Kindle couple”: these ads were witty, but they were also snarky.

There was quite a bit of discussion about an ad which featured a same sex couple: there were people who boycotted Amazon over that (or at least said they were going to do so).

None of the ads, though, captured what I loved about the Kindle.

It’s the advantages to readers:  the increasable text size; the convenience of having hundreds of books with you; the ability to buy another book on the fly; the way they are perfect for kids, for readers of classics, and so much more!

Well, I’ve now seen a series of Kindle ads that I love!

They do exactly what I want.

There are moving moments, funny moments, and they exemplify the joy of reading…#readingshouldneverstop, #WeAreTheReaders.

They are made for Amazon Kindle India.

Fortunately, you can see them on YouTube.

I rarely subscribe to YouTube channels, but I’ve subscribed to this one:

https://www.youtube.com/user/KindleIndia

I “binge watched” a bunch of them today. Sometimes, there are multiple versions of the same ad (different lengths, for example), but there were many good ones here.

I feel somewhat capable of judging ads.

My Significant Other studied advertising (although doesn’t work it), and we used to regularly go see the Clio Award winners when they would come to San Francisco. That’s sort of like the Oscars for ads…we wouldn’t be where the awards were given to the winners, we were just watching the winners…but yes, we would spend a couple of hours watching commercials. 🙂

These Kindle India ads have kids, seniors, authors…I don’t want to spoil the ads. Hm, I’ll say that there is a creative way to share a book, and a clever way to interact with the touch screen. You may not know who the authors are, but you’ll still love their stories.

I know people make serious efforts to avoid ads, but I think you might enjoy these!

Bonus deal:

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile…benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

is 14 of Cara Black’s Aimée Leduc mystery series for $1.99 each! Great deal!

Oh, and the

Amazon Tap (at AmazonSmile*)

is $109.99 right now, $20 off.

That’s the portable version of the Amazon Echo: I’ll be leaving for work shortly (with a smile on my face after watching the Amazon Kindle India ads), and I bring that with me. You could use it to read you a book at lunch…Audible or text-to-speech, or to listed to Len Edgerly’s The Kindle Chronicles podcast!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

*When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

LitHub’s Book Marks: aggregating book reviews

LitHub’s Book Marks: aggregating book reviews

With literally millions of e-books available to us, and on average more than a thousand books a day added to the USA Kindle store, the biggest challenging facing many of us as Kindleers is deciding which books to read.

There have been a lot of attempts to help people with that (I even have a category for Discovery on this blog), and Literary Hub (LitHub) has just introduced a new one called “Book Marks”.

LitHub’s Book Marks

In this

press release

they analogize it to the very popular movie/TV review site

RottenTomatoes

…so, Rotten “Tome-matoes”, perhaps? 😉

I don’t tend to use RottenTomatoes, although I think it’s a good site and I’m usually aware of scores. I’m probably more influenced by the simple summary on Fandango (I tend to use that to check movie times).

Both RottenTomatoes and Fandango give two scores: an aggregate of “professional” reviews and an aggregate of viewer scores.

When I’m picking a movie to see with my Significant Other, I’m probably more influenced by the viewer score. If critics say, “Must go!” and viewers say, “So-so”, my guess tends to be that it is perhaps more technically interesting than viscerally interesting, which may not be as successful for us.

I also like the less well-known

MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine)

I mention all that to show that I have some perspective on review aggregating sites.

I’ve looked at Book Marks.

At this point, it generally wouldn’t be helpful for me.

That may change…but there seem to be very few books, and they appear only to be the current “frontlist” (recently issue popular mainstream titles). The fantasy category, for example, appears to have four titles:

• A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
• Arcadia by Iain Pears
• The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery
• Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick Dewitt

Their grades range from B to A+.

I’d love to compare what I thought about the book to their average…but I haven’t found a book at the site yet that I’ve read.

I checked their A rated one, A Gathering of Shadows.

There were excerpts from reviews (including Entertainment Weekly…I’ve been a subscriber for years). That was nice.

You could comment on the book, which will start getting some reader impressions eventually.

There were links to the reviews, so you could read the whole thing…again, that’s a nice feature.

However, their A grade was based on a total of…four reviews.

Now, it’s understandable that there aren’t very many books when they’ve only been live for about a week.

That shouldn’t, though, affect the number of reviews. The book came out in February, I believe…those professional reviewers should have done reviews by now (if they were going to do that).

That’s not a very big data set.

Searching produced a lot of false negatives. Putting in “Mary Roach”, for example, did find me Grunt…but also 17 books not by that author.

The categories were interesting, and did indicate a “literati” mindset…no category, for “science fiction”, but one for “speculative”. That likely would mean that some more casual readers wouldn’t find it.

There were categories for New Books and Hottest Books.

I didn’t see much way to work with the results… wanted to sort them by the lowest to highest grade, and didn’t see a way to do that. I only saw a couple lower than a B- (and C was as low as I saw).

The site looked reasonably professional in terms of graphic design.

The biggest negative for me was not having older books. I think, like a lot of serious readers, I’m not always (or even primarily) reading frontlist books.

I’d suggest you go ahead and take a look at it and see what you think. You may find it more useful (perhaps especially for gifts, but maybe not). I plan to check back in on it in maybe a month to see how it’s grown.

What I would prefer, rather than a RottenTomatoes, is a site like IMDb.com (owned by Amazon). I want stats about books…I want to do know when it was released, who the editor was, who the cover artist was, and so on. Amazon also owns GoodReads, and they come close to that…but they recently shutdown Shelfari (if you try to go there, it redirects you to Good Reads), which was even more valuable to me in that it included elements of the book (like characters and places).

I do applaud LitHub for trying something new!

If you do go and want to tell me and my readers what you think, feel free to do so by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

 

Today’s KDD: 17 popular books rated 4 stars or more, $2.99 each

Today’s KDD: 17 popular books rated 4 stars or more, $2.99 each

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile…benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

has some great choices in it!

I have to say, weirdly, Amazon says “Over 15 popular books…”. Well, I guess that shows the power of 5s and 10s…I shouldn’t say it is “weird”, but I think “17” is easier to write. 😉

The books on sale today (note that the sale may not be in your country…check the price before you click or tap that “Buy button”) include:

• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah | 4.8 stars out of 5 | 24,556 customer reviews: you will rarely find a book with this high an average rating with this many reviews
• The 14th Colony by Steve Berry | 4.4 stars | 548 reviews
• Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson  | 4.5 stars | 1,122 reviews
• Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles Book 2) by Marissa Meyer | 4.7 stars | 1,597 reviews
• Mightier than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer | 4.3 stars | 2,390 reviews
• A Darker Shade of Magic  by V.E. Schwab | 4.4 stars | 328 reviews
• How the Light Gets In (Inspector Gamache) by Louise Penny | 4.7 stars | 2,023 reviews
• Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire | 4.4 stars | 117 reviews
• Ladies Night by Mary Kay Andrews | 4.3 stars | 808 reviews
• Don’t Go by Lisa Scottoline | 4.3 stars |  862 reviews
• First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson) by Darynda Jones | 4.5 stars | 1,060 reviews
• Independence Day (Dewey Andeas) by Ben Coes | 4.6 stars | 402 reviews
• Born of Night (The League) by Sherrilyn Kenyon | 4.3 stars | 337 reviews
• Sworn to Silence  by Linda Castillo (Kate Burkholder) | 4.4 stars | 652 reviews
• A Kim Jung-Il Production by Paul Fischer  | 4.6 stars | 129 reviews
• The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue | 3.9 stars | 100 reviews
• Home Is Burning by Dan Marshall | 4.5 stars | 94 reviews

There are some mainstream popular authors and titles here! Nightingale, in particular, would have been in the window of brick-and-mortar bookstores (I’m a former manager of one). New York Times bestselling authors include Jeffrey Archer, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Louise Penny, and Lisa Scottoline.

Less well-known books are also still part of the

McFarland books for $3.99 (at AmazonSmile*)

sale about which I’ve written a couple of times. I have not bought so many books for myself in years as I’ve bought because of this sale!

I got myself:

• Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties by Bill Warren (I’m 7% through it…and so far, I’ve seen and remember every one of them except for one which had very limited release in the USA…for years, people thought it hadn’t appeared here at all)
• Forry: The Life of Forrest Ackerman by Deborah Painter (I had a moving interaction with one of the originators of fandom…an extremely important figure. It’s not unreasonable to argue that you might not have had Star Wars without Forry’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. This one had been on my Wish List for some time)
• Broadway Musicals, 1943-2004 by John Stewart (I’ve done a few musicals myself, and love big reference books. My guess is that this will help inform The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip by helping me do dates for those shows…did you know there was a musical about Superman years ago? D*mn Yankees, Brigadoon…lots of musicals fit)
• Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 by Vincent Terrace (Terrace’s books are amazing, and I have some in paper! So much better to have reference books as e-books! Easier to search…and to lift 😉 )
• The 1957 San Francisco Seals by P.J. Dragseth (my Significant Other’s father was offered a pitching contract with the Seals, although he wasn’t listed in the index. 🙂 No surprise since he didn’t take the contract…he became a plumber at the same time, and it was the same money back then)
• A History of the Doc Savage Adventures in Pulps, Paperbacks, Comics, Fanzines, Radio, and Film by Robert Michael “Bobb” Cotter (I’m a real Doc Savage fan…I can say that Doc has shaped my personality and behaviors for the better)
• Universal Horrors by Tom Weaver (this had also been on my Wish List for years…I’m about 10% into it)

That’s a lot to buy for me, since we are happy members of

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

and I like to leave books for family and friends to buy me for gifts. 🙂 I don’t know how long this sale will last, though, and I didn’t want to miss them at these prices. It’s worth noting that the number of books in the sale has fluctuated…from 800-900 initially to over 1400 to now a few hundred less than that.

I did also buy some books for other people…I don’t want to name them, because at least one family member does read this blog. 😉 We don’t do big birthday parties for each at this point in our lives, but I do like to send a book sometimes. So, I have bought a couple and delayed the delivery for the appropriate occasion (which you can do). At $3.99, I also bought one for a former coworker…just a way to say, “Hi!” 🙂

I added others to my Wish List:

• Internet Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Television Series, 1998-2013 by Vincent Terrace (tempted for right now, but I think I can wait)
• Astro Boy ad Anime Come to the Americas by Fred Ladd
• The Universe of Oz by Kevin K. Durand (I do like reading essay collections, but they seem less urgent to own than reference books, which I might need at any time)
• Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future by Gary Westfahl
• Science Fiction Television Series 1990-2004 by Frank Garcia
• Sid and Marty Krofft by Hal Erickson (loved these series, including Lidsville!)
• Classic Home Video Games 1985-1988 by Bret Weiss
• The Kaiju Film by Jason Barr (giant monsters)
• The Batman Filmography by Mark S. Reinhart
• Science Fiction Television Series by Mark Phillips
• Regional Horror Films 1958-1990 by Brian Albright (in my area, that would include The Milpitas Monster)
• Television Horror Movie Hosts by Elena M. Watson (I met John Stanley, a Bay Area host, and was a fan of Bob Wilkins…who did appear in The Milpitas Monster)
• Television Specials by Vincent Terrace (sorely tempted)
• Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970 by Jon Abbott
• America Toons In by David Perlmutter (I have some good reference books on animated series already)
• Horror Films of the 1970s by John Kenneth Muir
• The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Game by Michael J. Tresca
• Encyclopedia of Television Pilots 1937-2012 by Vincent Terrace
• War over Lemuria by Richard Toronto (no longer in the sale)
• Inside Gilligan’s Island by Sherwood Schwartz (no longer in the sale)
• Hammer Films by Tom Johnson (no longer in the sale)
• Mass Hysteria in Schools by Robert E. Bartholomew and Bob Rickard

While I have mentioned above some books that have gone back up in price, I might not have noted them all…and again, the sale could end at any time.

Enjoy!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

The value of neutrality

The value of neutrality

I can be as sarcastic as the next person.

In fact, I can be devastating and clever (so I’m told). I had to realize that at one point…I was quite interested in a real group called “Sarcastics Anonymous”. I explained to our now adult kid that they (who can do what I can do) basically have a super power. We can reduce people to a blob of quivering protoplasm with a cutting comment…so you can only use the power for good. 😉

I think it comes, in part, from being empathetic. If you don’t understand people, if you can’t get a sense of how they (and the other people around you) are feeling, you won’t come up with that exact point which cuts the deepest.

I can be sarcastic…but I’m not.

Not in public.

Not to that person.

Not to other people who know that person.

I will use self-effacing humor, but I won’t take someone else’s face. 😉

The only time I tend to do it now is when my Significant Other and I are watching competition TV…and then it’s just for fun, and won’t go beyond that room.

That’s not to say that I don’t love a witty remark, even at the expense of someone else. It may combine snark and sarcasm…let’s call it “snarcasm”.

I was reading a summary of an inexpensive movie with dinosaurs a long time ago, and have always remembered their reference to the characters encountering “plasticasauruses”.

That said, I always especially love opinion-free reference works.

That doesn’t mean I always want it to be what is sometimes called a “seed catalog”: a database before databases were electronic. I like those,  too, but my perfect reference works objectively gives me context…relates what I’m reading to other things. For example, if I’m reading about an author who never had a successful book after the one being covered, that’s good context. That can be done without being judgmental. If we base it on sales, it’s objective.

This came up recently when I wrote about an amazing sale in the USA Kindle store:

McFarland books for $3.99 (at AmazonSmile*)

The sale, by the way, is not only ongoing, it has expanded…it’s now over 1400 titles, and I’m buying more. 🙂

Some of my favorite p-books (paperbooks) in my library are reference works: Walt Lee’s Reference Guide to Fantastic Films; Vincent Terrace TV reference books (some are in this sale…others are not part of the sale); and some Jeff Rovin books (for example, on superheroes and supervillains).

Certainly, the first two are really objective…more the seed catalog type.

When I’m reading some of the ones I got on this sale, they are quite critical and opinionated.

Again, I can like that. Clever writing, labeled as opinion, is fine. I don’t extend that to when you criticize the fans of the material, but I’m more than happy to hear your opinion of something.

However, I just wanted to say that I like neutral references as well.

I’ve decided with

The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip 

not to put in my own opinions there. I will link to articles I write about the books/TV shows/movies and so on that you can get to through TMCGTT, but I wanted the timeline itself to not be about my opinions of the works. I’m hoping comments can eventually be made there by other people…but I want it to have a neutral stance.

Sure, there is unavoidable bias on display in what gets chosen for it, but that seems different.

I think, though, I’m seeing fewer neutral works…maybe the ability to do the research yourself instantly on the internet is making that sort of reference work seem to have less value.

Well, that’s just my opinion about writing without opinions! What do you think? Feel free to tell me and my readers by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Are e-books good enough?

Are e-books good enough?

I found this a very interesting

TELEREAD post by Chris Meadows

In referencing a piece by Jason Illian of Bookshout! about the lack of technical innovation in e-books, Meadows says:

“There’s no consumer demand for better e-books.”

That’s an intriguing postulate, and I wanted to discuss it with you.

I love innovation: I think a lot of people do. My favorite thing in reading a book or watching a TV show or a movie is to be surprised…I like that with my tech, too.

Show me something I’ve never seen before, and I’ll smile.

However…

Most people don’t want change in something which is already working and on which they depend.

I can relate to this with my work.

I’m a trainer (I train technology to medical people…I train other things to them, too, but that’s my main job). I also do “performance improvement”…workflow analysis and optimization, that sort of thing.

People present these formulae for how to improve performance, and I’m amused by one thing which I see taught as a standard technique.

They want you to observe the top performers; see what they are doing which is efficient. Then, you get the moderate and lower performing users to do things that way.

The theory, I assume, is that the top performers have found the best way to do it.

There usually is no best way for everybody.

Since people are different and have different approaches, there are different “best ways”. I’m not a visual person: make me make choices based on icons, and I’ll be slower than making choices based on words. There are other people (probably more people) who will do better with the icons.

The other thing is that top performers with tech are top performers in part because they like change.

If you observe them again three months later, they’ll be doing it a different way. Do you go back and retrain everybody else to do it the new way?

A top performer with tech says,  “What does that button do? What if I do this instead of that?”

The average doctor, nurse, medical assistant, and so on, doesn’t want to intellectually engage with the tech while providing patient care. They want to concentrate on the patient, and have the tech just support them unobtrusively. That includes when they are “charting” (documenting what happened).

Top performers (with tech) tend to have a multi-tasking temperament. They can effectively do one thing while effectively thinking about something else.

You can’t transfer that to someone else.

Many of us feel like we “depend” on books. If we want to read a book and can’t do it, it upsets us. That is, by the way, how I, as a layperson, conceptualize addiction. It’s an addiction if it feels bad if you don’t do it. 🙂

E-books, right now, work. I can pick up my device, start reading, and I’m good to go.

After all, that’s how print books worked for centuries. You picked them up and read them and the tech worked.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t really appreciate the innovations that e-books give me over p-books. Being able to carry a bunch of books in my pocket, having the book know where I finished my last reading session, and especially the increasable text size are all great.

If text sizes had been static, though, that wouldn’t have stopped me from reading e-books. I would have had to wear reading glasses, just as I would have with print books, or bought ones with larger text.

It’s true that I don’t buy books where the publisher has blocked text-to-speech access, but that’s an ethical stand, not a personal use one.

There are things that irritate people (the way that some models justify ((align the edges)) of the text, for example), but I doubt that most people feel like the e-books are below a standard acceptable level.

The question is this: why should Amazon (or other retailers, or the publishers) innovate on e-books?

Innovation costs money. It’s not just in the development; it’s in the customer service, which can be quite expensive. You risk people not liking it (ask Microsoft about Clippy the paper clip assistant for Microsoft Office)…if you even just change where a choice is in a menu, you get pushback.

There are strong reasons not to innovate.

Why, then, have we ever gotten innovation?

Competition.

That’s not the only reason…companies also innovate because it is fun, because it supports departments (the engineers you need to deal with changing conditions, say, a new internet standard, also need something to do when those don’t occur…it’s good for their morale, too), and because it gets media attention.

The biggest reason, I believe, is competition. For Amazon, that included competition with Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo. We’ve seen that with the Kindle and the NOOK…for example, Barnes & Noble had a frontlit device before Amazon had the Paperwhite. It also, significantly, included competition with p-books…e-books have tried to match p-books competitive advantages, by adding lending, for example (we still don’t have a “used” e-book market, though).

Does any competitor with Amazon on e-books have current features which are so much better that Amazon as to worry about people switching? The only one that comes to my mind is a water resistant EBR (E-Book Reader)…but I don’t think someone with a significant Kindle library would drop it for, say, a Kobo Aura H20. They might have both…

Given the costs associated with e-book format innovation, the question is this: should Amazon devote resources to it?

I thought I’d ask you:

If you have additional comments, feel free to leave them on this post.

Special note: I’d said yesterday I wanted to get another post out last night, but I’d had dental work done yesterday, and it affected me more than I expected. 🙂 It’s not bad, but I think it’s still affecting me this morning. My Significant Other is back from helping our now adult kid move, though, so that’s good.  🙂

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard our new The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.