April 2016 Kindle book releases

April 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 6,213 (at time of writing…eight more than last month):

April releases in the USA Kindle store (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of you choice by shopping*)

Of those, by the way, 951 (27 more 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, again, Kindle First titles dominate.

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.

Okay, books!

• Twenty Yawns by Jane Smiley and Lauren Castillo
• Chains of Command (Frontlines Book 4) by Marko Kloos (KU)
• Now That I’ve Found You (New York Sullivans #1) (The Sullivans Book 15) by Bella Andre
• Disrupt Aging: A Bold New Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age by Jo Ann Jenkins
• The Kasari Nexus (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 1) by Richard Phillips
• Aztec by Gary Jennings
• They Drew as They Pleased: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Golden Age by Didier Ghez and Pete Docter
• It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein
• The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
• The Big Fear (Hollow City Series) by Andrew Case
• Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas
• Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a Watchman by Charles J. Shields
• Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance by Leonard Peltier and Harvey Arden
• The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh (and lots of other Wambaugh books)
• Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy
• The New Space Opera by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
• The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner: Stories by Alan Sillitoe
• Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
• Geek Parenting: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family by Stephen H. Segal and Valya Dudycz Lupescu
• More Than a Season: Building a Championship Culture by Dayton Moore and Matt Fulks
• The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin
• Aimee & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer
• Mom Candy: 1,000 Quotes of Inspiration for Mothers by Jena Pincott
• Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama by Sam Leith
• Inventing The Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor
• Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
• The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
• Sister Light, Sister Dark (The Great Alta Saga) by Jane Yolen

Feel free to suggest other books being released in April in the USA Kindle store in March. 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.

To your scattered books go

To your scattered books go**

One of the big arguments made in favor of limited copyright terms is that books (and other content) become our society’s shared culture.

We all have some awareness of Shakespeare, and Dickens, and the Wizard of Oz.

However…

The ease of publication of digital media is disintegrating that cultural cohesiveness.

I’ve heard of many interesting TV shows…that I’ve never seen.

They are on services I don’t get…or, there are simply too many things for me to watch.

In the old days there were three networks (well, there were four, but how many of you remember Dumont?), and maybe a couple of local channels.

Now, there are hundreds of channels.

In 2006, there were effectively six big publishers of “trade books” (the kind you would buy in a bookstore…not textbooks and such). Yes, there were some others, but those six dominated the market.

Now, there are thousands of publishers (often just the author of a book)…and the output of the now Big 5 (following the merger of Penguin and Random House) is a sliver of what’s published each month.

At least, my guess is that we are fragmenting. 😉

I think that going forward, it may be much less likely that you’ll be able to have a conversation with somebody about a book you’ve both read.

I always like to try to test my hypotheses, though…

What I’m going to do here is see how familiar you are with bestsellers.

I’ll start with the current top ten bestsellers in the USA Kindle store, and the current New York Times bestselling hardback fiction.

Then, I’ll jump back to before the Kindle really established the e-book market…we’ll go back to this week in 2006.

After that, I’ll go back ten more years.

Now, I know that it’s not an apples to apples comparison, going back that far. It will be interesting to me if more people have read books on the bestseller list from twenty years ago than from the Kindle store list today. 🙂

Hmm…just looking at those lists was interesting! I could tell you what I’ve read, but I think I’ll wait until I see some of your responses.

I can see a lot of challenges to this methodology, naturally…maybe people are less likely to read a book when it first gets on the bestseller list. Maybe hardbacks tend to stay on the list longer.

Let’s go with another poll which will get your impressions:

Something occurred to me. I’m actually a lot more likely to read a book my Significant Other has read now…because we are on the same account. We sometimes read the book at the same time, or if it is in

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

it might not be the same time, but we might both read it.

Before the Kindle, I hadn’t read Janet Evanovich…now I do, because of book sharing. Before that, my SO would read them…and then pass them off to a sibling.

Having read them in the same family, though, isn’t the same as a society’s shared culture.

What do you think? Is the ease of digital publishing breaking up our group literary culture? If so, will that become  more true in the future? What impact might that have on society? 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!

** The post title is a play on To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld series.  

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.

In-book options: Kindle Voyage and the least expensive Fire tablet

In-book options: Kindle Voyage and the least expensive Fire tablet

One of my most popular posts has been

The reading experience: Paperwhite vs. Kindle Fire HDX

However that one was written back in July of 2014, so I thought I’d take a look at two of the current generation.

In this case, I’m using the top of the line Kindle EBR (E-Book Reader)

Kindle Voyage (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*) $199.99

and the least expensive Fire tablet

Fire, 7″ Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB – Includes Special Offers, Black (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*) $49.99

It might seem odd that I’m taking the most expensive in one category and the least expensive in the other, but in terms of the options, they’ve really homogenized the experience across a given model line.

I’m using the same edition of the same book on both: it’s a version of Alice in Wonderland which I’ve been using for demos since the first Kindle was released…it’s not available any more, though.

Okay, let’s compare!

The Aa button

On the Voyage:

• 8 font sizes
• 7 fonts
• 3 line spacing options
• 3 margin options

On the Fire:

• 12 font sizes
• 8 fonts (Helvatica Light is the additional one)
• 3 line spacing options
• 3 margin options
• 4 color options
• Brightness slider

The Fire wins on this one. The color in particular matters to me…I often read with white font on a black background, although I also like the Sepia scheme.

Sharing options

The Voyage

• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Twitter

The Fire

• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Twitter
• E-mail
• Bluetooth

This one also goes to the Fire.

Notes

The Voyage

• Tap the screen, tap the menu, tap Notes
• Yours | Popular | Public
• Note are shown. You can delete or share (Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter)

The Fire

• Tap the screen, tap the notebook (one step fewer)
• I only seen mine here initially
• Delete, favorite

There may be more to this somewhere else on the Fire, but despite it being easier to get to on the Fire, the Voyage gave me more options, so this one goes to the Voyage.

Settings

The Voyage

• Shop Kindle Store
• Vocabulary
• Settings (device settings)
• Notes
• Landscape Mode
• About This Book
• About the Author
• Sync to Furthest Page Read
• Reading Progress
• Word Wise

The Fire

• Popular Highlights
• About This Book
• Auto-Download Companion Audiobooks
• Text-to-Speech
• Whispersync for  Books
• Notifications
• Word Wise
• Magazine Page Curl

This is a bit mixed, but I like what I see on the Voyage better…I’m going to call it a wash, though, because different things are in different places on the devices.

Navigation

The Voyage

• Beginning
• Page or Location
• Cover
• Chapters
• End

The Fire

• This one has a combined menu. Go to does page or location. Also here…
• About This Book
• Search
• Sync
• Switch to Audiobook (the Voyage doesn’t have audio
• Go to Beginning
• Before You Go
• Cover
• Chapters
• I can also go directly from here to my library

Got to give this to the Voyage…more interesting options.

Long-pressing the word “perhaps”

The Voyage

• Dictionary definition
• Wikipedia
• Translation (16 languages)
• Highlight
• Note
• Share
• Search (This Book, All Text, Kindle Store)
• Report Content Error

The Fire

• Wikipedia
• Translation (16 languages)
• Dictionary
• Color
• Note
• Copy
• Share
• Search in Book
• Search the Web

Hm…I like having “Report Content Error” on the Voyage, but being able to copy and paste on the Fire is a real advantage. No winner.

Other unique options

The Voyage

• Page flip, which lets you look ahead in the book without changing your place

The Fire

• Word Runner (speed reading one word at a time)
• Syncing with an audiobook/immersion reading

These are too different to call. I personally don’t really use any of them. 🙂

The Fire can also use enhanced books to play video, and show images/charts in color.

Overall

While it may seem from this that the Fire Tablet has more options, and it does, the Voyage is still a more comfortable read for me.

That has to do with the screen technology.

The Fire tablet is backlit: the light is behind what you are reading, shining into your eyes.

The Voyage has the light in front of the screen, pointing at the screen. You read it the same way you read a paperbook, with the light reflecting off the object.

Another advantage of the Voyage is the battery life…weeks rather than hours.

For me, it’s pretty simple.

If you just want to read text, the Voyage is better.

If you are looking at images, want sound (text-to-speech or audiobooks), and want other features (apps, music, video, web), and want to save money, you go with the Fire.

I do most of my reading on my now discontinued Kindle Fire HDX tablet, but I also read every day on a Voyage and sometimes on a Paperwhite.

I hope that’s helpful. If you have other questions, or want to share your thoughts with me and my readers, feel free to comment 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.

 

Which are the most popular Amazon devices?

Which are the most popular Amazon devices?

When Amazon announced the first Kindle EBR (E-Book Reader) in 2007, there was a lot of skepticism. One big argument was that Amazon was a retailer (and primarily a content retailer), not a manufacturer. “They don’t know how to do hardware” and “Who would buy a device made by Amazon?”

Well, the answer to the latter was…a lot of people. 🙂

Much of the doubt came from techies…many of the purchases did not.

The Kindle appealed, in my opinion, in part because it was from Amazon.

The people who bought it were readers, and still thought of Amazon as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore”. Other EBRs at the time (and there were more than ten models in the USA market…they just weren’t selling much) required you to plug the device into a computer to transfer the books…pretty clunky for a non-techie. Another big appeal of the Kindle, then, was the wireless connection to the store. Buying books was easy…many people found it too easy. 😉

Even at roughly $400, the Kindle was a hit. Over time, the price came down and more capabilities (including text-to-speech with the Kindle 2, and international access) were added.

The skepticism was back in 2011, when Amazon decided to enter the tablet  market. This was moving out of their area of dominance (bookselling), and directly competing with well established hardware manufacturers.

The Kindle Fire (later just the Fire tablet) was a hit.

In April 2014, Amazon introduced the Fire TV, again, going head to head against established players.

The Fire TV was a hit.

In June 2014, Amazon introduced the Fire Phone, once again, daring to challenge the favorites.

It flopped…badly. 😉

I should say, I bought a Fire Phone when it first came out for full price (about $200), and it has been my daily use SmartPhone ever since. It has served me reasonably well, although it isn’t my favorite SmartPhone I’ve owned.

In November of that same year, Amazon announced the Echo, and slowly rolled it out. This was really establishing a new market, arguably even more so than the original Kindle did (although it wasn’t completely unprecedented).

That’s been big, and the family of Echo products is about to expand with new releases coming March 31st (I’ve ordered both the Tap and the Dot…and predicted the Dot would be a big hit, almost a necessity for many people, while the Tap will be a gadget, an optional luxury).

So, which Amazon hardware products are selling (or pre-selling) the best right now?

I took a look at the

Amazon.com Best Sellers in Electronics (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

The first thing that struck was that eight of the top ten electronics best sellers at Amazon are Amazon products. That certainly didn’t used to be true (Google’s Chromestick was #1 for a while), and the other two are…instant film? Are those really part of electronics?

Okay, let’s start looking at the ranking:

1. $50 (roughly) Fire tablet…I have one of these, but it’s really for guests. Inexpensive, not top of the line, but serviceable…that’s Amazon’s sweet spot for electronics
2. Amazon Fire TV Stick: I use one of these every day. It’s what runs our bedroom TV. It’s about $40, and has some cool features, including (with an optional voice remote, or through the app on your Smartphone) the Alexa Voice Service
3. Amazon Echo:  an important part of our household. 🙂 It’s not inexpensive at about $180. When our adult kid was visiting, we had it unplugged for several days (I think like a lot Millenials, our kid didn’t like that it was listening for the “wake word” all the time). We did miss using it, although we could control our home automation using apps on our phones
4. Echo Dot: it’s pretty amazing that this is number four in electronics in all of Amazon, given that you can only order it through an Echo right now (well, there are some convoluted workarounds). This one will go in our bedroom (the Echo is in the family room). It’s going to give people that “Star Trek computer” effect, and this is better than the original Echo for audiophiles. Why? It can either cable out or do Bluetooth to high end speakers (like a BOSE). The Echo has a good speaker: I’m impressed with it. It doesn’t have a luxury, top of the line speaker…and the Tap can connect to one, while the  original Echo can not
5. Fujifilm instant film
6. Kindle Paperwhite: I use one of these a few times a week. It’s a great device at $120. If somebody told me they just wanted to get a Kindle, this is the model I’d recommend
7. Kindle Fire Kids Edition for about $80
8. Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote: that is really what we have, but the voice remote broke. I’ve found those voice remotes to be pretty unreliable: I’ve had a few fail
9. Fujifilm instant film
10. Amazon Fire TV: we use this a lot. It’s what runs our TV in the family room

Looking at some of the other Amazon device ranks in the top 100:

24. The $80, least expensive Kindle

33. Kindle Voyage, the most expensive, top of the line Kindle. I use one of these every day

37. Fire HD 8″ tablet

57.  Fire HD 10″ tablet

It’s clear looking at this that Amazon is a diverse hardware company. Right up towards the top is a tablet, an EBR, Echo family, and a Fire TV product.

I also think it’s pretty clear that less expensive sells more units for Amazon.

I think over the next year or so, the Dot will move up even further, and will probably be #1 for at least a short period.

I’m not thinking Amazon will introduce its own SmartPhone again in the near future, but we will see Alexa on other branded phones.

What else could Amazon introduce?

My guess is something small and super portable with Alexa. That could be a SmartWatch…but it might also be positioned a fitness tracker (of course, it could do both). It would have the Alexa Voice Service, and work with headphones as well as a relatively tinny speaker, perhaps. 🙂 I’d like to see it do text-to-speech, as the Echo now does. If it was a watch, getting alerts on sales (purely optional, of course…although turning it off might be buried in the menus) might be great, especially at the holidays.

What do you think? What should Amazon do in the future with hardware? What will they do (two different questions)? 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.

“the best selling SCI-FI BOOKS of All Time”: are they in the Kindle store?

“the best selling SCI-FI BOOKS of All Time”: are they in the Kindle store?

One of the things EBOOK FRIENDLY does well is infographics.

The one in this post:

http://ebookfriendly.com/the-best-selling-sci-fi-books-of-all-time-infographic/

is no exception: it’s visually interesting and has intriguing textual information. Well, I don’t know that they really back up the claim that these are the “best selling” books in this category…and there are a lot of people who won’t agree that The Lord of the Rings is sci-fi (Forry Ackerman’s term for “science fiction”…at the time, intended to riff off “hi-fi” ((high fidelity sound)), just as “Wi-Fi” is today).

Let’s leave that aside for the moment. I think most geeks would recognize the significance of the books on this list, and I will likely add them all to The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project eventually (or perhaps collaborators will…I’m looking forward to having other people working on TMCGTT).

I was curious…how many of these are available in the USA Kindle store?

That used to be a big issue, certainly when the Kindle store opened back in late 2007 with fewer than 100,000 titles. Now, with more than four million titles, and a commitment to the market by all of the big publishers, Amazon is closer to their original vision of “every book ever published”…although still a long way away.

I’m going to take them in the same order they are in the infographic, although that doesn’t appear to be in order (ascending or descending) of most sales.

Stranger in a Strange Land (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
by Robert A. Heinlein
originally published in 1961
4.1 stars out of 5 | 1,286 customer reviews
$8.99 at time of writing

Triplanetary (The Lensman Series Book 1) (at AmazonSmile*)) NOTE: the infographic counts the whole Lensman series as one thing…the information in this listing is just for the first book, but other books are available
by E.E. “Doc” Smith
originally published in 1948
5 stars | 2 customer reviews
$0.99 at time of writing
Note: books 3,4,5, and 6 are available through Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

2001: A Space Odyssey (at AmazonSmile*)
by Arthur C. Clarke
originally published in 1968 (although an expansion of a story published in 1948)
4.6 stars | 680 reviews
$7.99 at time of writing

Fahrenheit 451 (not linked because the publisher blocks text-to-speech access)**
by Ray Bradbury
originally published in 1953
4.2 stars | 2,898 reviews
$11.99 at time of writing
Note that Bradbury was a hold-out on allowing e-book versions for some time, famously saying that e-books “…smelled like burned fuel”

Foundation (not linked because the publisher blocks text-to-speech access)** | NOTE: the infographic counts the whole Foundation series as one thing…the information in this listing is just for the first book, but other books are available. NOTE: for some reason, the infographic lists both the Foundation series and the Foundation trilogy…I’m only going to list it once
by Isaac Asimov
first story originally published in 1942, first published in book form in 1951 (as a collection, not an expansion as was the case with 2001)
4.3 stars | 1,747 reviews
$7.99 at time of writing

Those are the details on the first five listed. Here are the others, and if they are available:

• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (yes, and in KU)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (yes)
• Dune by Frank Herbert (yes)
• Neuromancer by William Gibson (yes)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (yes)
• Gateway by Frederik  Pohl (no)
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (yes)
• 1984 by George Orwell  (yes)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (yes)
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A.  Heinlein (no)
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (no)
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (yes)
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (yes)
• A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (yes)
• The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (yes)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (yes)
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under  the Sea (yes)
• Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (yes)
• Lord of the Rings  by J.R.R. Tolkien (yes)

I wanted to call out one more on the list out separately, because it happens to be one of the

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

Childhood’s End (at AmazonSmile*) by Arthur C. Clarke

for $1.99

Oh, and it’s available through Kindle Unlimited, too! 🙂

So, what stands out to me here?

Almost all of them are available in the Kindle store. Why would any of them not be? Before about 2005, e-book rights were not commonly negotiated when licensing publishing rights. That means that a publisher would have to go back to the author (or the author’s estate) to negotiate afresh. Each of the three books would likely have a market, but negotiations can be complicated. When I add books to TMCGTT, I link to the search for them in Worldcat (which searches public libraries, so people can see if they can get them there).

A few of the books are available in Kindle Unlimited, meaning that members of Amazon’s subser (subscription service) can read them at no additional cost.

I was  disappointed to see that in some cases, the publishers had blocked text-to-speech access. I find it particularly ironic with Fahrenheit 451…it does make a book less accessible, at least in a convenient manner.

I think  some people will be surprised by the prices…we’ve had discussions here before about whether an older book should be priced lower than a current book.

Overall, whether these are actually the bestselling books or not (by the way, the weird capitalization is the way that EBOOK FRIENDLY did it), I think it’s a good list with some great books on it.

What do you think? Is this a good list? Are there books you are still waiting to be Kindleized? 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.

** A Kindle 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.

 

 

Upcoming deadlines

Upcoming  deadlines

“Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes…”
–Changes by David Bowie

There are a few dates happening soon that mark changes around Kindles and e-books, so I thought I would round them up here and what (if anything) you need to do about it.

Tuesday, March 15th: B&N shuts down the NOOK bookstore

Barnes & Noble is shutting down the UK (I have readers around the world) NOOK bookstore.

After that, you won’t be able to buy NOOK books in the UK through their store, or through the Android app, or through your devices.

You’ll have until the end of May 2016  to migrate the books you’ve already bought.

For more information:

Meanwhile, at Barnes & Noble: NOOK books out of UK, financials are “in the groove” (of vinyl records)

Wednesday, March 16th: Shelfari transitions to Goodreads

If you’ve been a Shelfari user, Amazon has decided to merge it with Goodreads (Amazon owns both).

If you do have a Shelfari account, and you want to keep the data, you need to sign in and then chose to transition to Goodreads and/or download your information in a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file, which can be imported into Excel and other spreadsheets.

For more information, see

Amazon shutters Shelfari

Tuesday, March 22nd: update needed to older Kindles to access Amazon wirelessly

Amazon has announced a

Critical Software Update for Kindle E-Readers (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

This only affects some older Kindle EBRs (E-Book Readers…not the Fire tablets) which have not been updated.

If you don’t update your device, you won’t be able to get to Amazon wirelessly on that Kindle: no shopping in the store; no downloading from your Cloud/archives; I assume no blog/magazine/newspaper delivery.

One of my regular readers and commenters, Edward Boyhan, suggested that this is in preparation for the obsoleting of the SHA1 (Secure Hash Algorithm) algorithm in 2017…that’s the techie stuff, but that makes sense to me, also based on what Amazon has said.

An important note: when you do the update which my best guess is technically necessary, you’ll get all the rest of the update, too. 🙂 That includes a new homescreen, which has a lot of recommendations on it…not everybody likes that.

Fortunately, although it’s pretty buried, you can go back to the old look:

Home – Menu – Settings – Device Options – Personalize Your Kindle – Advanced Options – Home Screen View – (turn off) Home Screen View: Display recommended content from store and enable learning lists

I’m waiting for confirmation from Amazon, but I would expect that you could still buy books for the device or download from the Cloud/archives…by downloading to your computer, and then transferring using a USB cable.

For more information, including a link to which devices are affected, see

Update your Kindle or lose access on it to your Cloud, the store, and other Kindle services

Have any questions? Any other deadlines (Kindle/e-book/Amazon related…I know there are others) 😉 for my readers and me? Feel free to let us 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!  

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: Up to 80% Off Top-Rated Biographies & Memoirs

Today’s KDD: Up to 80% Off Top-Rated Biographies & Memoirs 

Today’s

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

is “up to 80% off top-rated biographies & memoirs”.

I suppose it’s not a surprise that I like biographies and memoirs because, you know…I like people. 🙂

I actually think writing a good memoir may be harder than writing a good biography. First, I don’t think most people are reliable witnesses for their own lives. 😉 How often have you been corrected about your memory by your own friends and family?

For myself, I feel like I used to have a better autobiographical memory, although oddly, I never remembered my childhood much (except for the unusual things, like trips…and pets). I’ve always been terrible with time sequencing, but generally pretty good with what happened…just not when.

Of  course, things are different now, because many people write what are essentially real-time autobiographies…through social media and blogs. People used to write diaries, but I wonder what some authors (and others) would have been like in today’s world. Imagine Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain…I have no doubt at all that Twain would be active, probably with a somewhat long-form blog. Twain was always very forward looking. Epigrammist Oscar Wilde would have been a natural Twitterer…but I suspect would have embraced something more visual as well, such as Instagram.

Hm…would they perhaps have not had time to write some of their classic works? I think that’s possible. Oh, and what if Tom Sawyer had only been on Snapchat? 😉

One nice thing is that, just like their flesh and blood counterparts, biographies and memoirs are considerably diverse. In today’s twenty-five titles, I think you are pretty likely to see something that you might want to read yourself…or might want to give to someone  as a gift. With the Kindle store, you can buy the book on sale and delay the delivery of an e-book gift for the appropriate gift-giving occasion.

Check the price before you click or tap that “Buy button”: the price may not be available in your country (I have readers around the world), it could change, and you may be seeing this after the sale.

Some of the books are also available through

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

at no additional cost to subscribers to Amazon’s subser (subscription service)…like us. 🙂 Generally, it’s $9.99 a month.

Today’s sale includes:

• American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle and Scott McEwen | 4.6 stars out of 5 | 14,812 customer reviews | $1.99
• No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War by W. Lee Warren | 4.8 stars | 144 reviews | $1.99
• A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal and Elie Wiesel | 4.7 stars | 151 reviews | $2.99
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance | 4.6 stars | 1,057 reviews | $1.99
• American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin | 4.6 stars |  260 reviews | $1.99
• American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964 by William Manchester | 4.6 stars | 251 reviews | $0.99
• Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller | 4.5 stars | 1,012 reviews | $1.99 (KU)
• Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust by Michael Hingson and Susy Flory | 4.5 stars | 940 reviews | $1.99
• Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim MorrisonOct 27, 2014 | Kindle by James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky | 4.5 stars | $0.99 | 78 reviews | KU
• Black Boy by Richard Wright | 4.4 stars | 389 reviews | $1.99
• Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) by Jim Bouton | 4.3 stars | 390 reviews | $1.99| KU
• Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy | 4.3 stars | 244 reviews | $1.99

Enjoy!

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

* 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!  

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.

Kindle Worlds check-in March 2016

Kindle Worlds check-in March 2016

For me, one of Amazon’s most interesting initiatives is

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

While I see it referred to as “fan fiction”, and I think I’ve actually seen Amazon use that term now, it’s really something different from what has traditionally been called “fanfic”.

This is licensed: Amazon makes a deal with the rightsholder. The rightsholder can put in some guidelines.

Then, anybody (following the guidelines…both the rightsholders, and Amazon’s general Kindle Worlds and content guidelines) can write in the world.

The rightsholder gets a cut, Amazon gets a cut, and the author gets a cut.

We readers get something to read. 🙂 I’m sure, as is the case with anything else, that it isn’t all great. 🙂 We have what is called Sturgeon’s Law, after Theodore Sturgeon, and it’s been quoted a number of ways…however, the thrust of it is that someone said that 90% of science fiction is trash (that might not have been the word used), and Sturgeon responded with something along the lines of “90% of everything is trash”. 🙂

Now, as regular readers know, I feel like I’ve never read a book which wasn’t worth reading. Certainly, some are better than others, and I’ve disagreed with some decisions made (as well as production issues, including proofreading). I think it’s like something I said recently when I was in a web conference that had to do with “dealing with people you don’t like.” I said that I didn’t run into people I didn’t like…just things that people did that I didn’t like. 😉

Kindle Worlds is one of the ways that Amazon has worked on gaining less dependence on the traditional publishers (“tradpubs”) for content…and that seems to be happening.

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

The Vampire Diaries (202)
Silo Saga (115)
G.I. JOE (100)
Pretty Little Liars (57)
The World of Kurt Vonnegut (52)
Jack Daniels and Associates (47)
Wayward Pines (47)
Dare To Love (42)
John Rain (41)
Veronica Mars – the TV series (38)
JET (33)
The Lei Crime Series (33)
Harbinger (28)
Hot SEALs (28)
The Perseid Collapse Series (27)
The Foreworld Saga (26)
Miss Fortune Mysteries (25)
The Remingtons (25)
Gossip Girl (23)
Southern Shifters (23)
The Arrangement (19)
The Lizzy Gardner Files (19)
Unity (17)
World of de Wolfe Pack (16)
The 100 (15)
Montana Sky (14)
Codename: Chandler (13)
Game for Love (13)
The Royals of Monterra (13)
Bloodshot (12)
Body Movers (12)
Archer & Armstrong (11)
Four Weddings and a Fiasco (11)
Shadowman (11)
The Abnorm Chronicles (10)
Doublesight (10)
The Omega Team (10)
Ravenswood (10)
Hope Falls (9)
XO Manowar (9)
The Chronos Files (8)
Shadow Ops (8)
Vampire for Hire (7)
Atlantis: The Origin Mystery (6)
The Dead Man (6)
The Callaways (5)
Sand Saga (5)
Muirwood (3)
The Kathleen Turner series (3)
Quantum & Woody (2)
Eternal Warrior (1)
St. Helena Vineyard Series (1)

In terms of the numbers, it’s interesting to me that the top ones are from diverse types of sources…there are book series, TV series, and toys. 🙂

Things have been growing…here are the numbers from when I last checked in (a little over a year ago):

» The Vampire Diaries (173)
» Silo Saga (112)
» G.I. JOE (72)
» Pretty Little Liars (50)
» The World of Kurt Vonnegut (46)
» Wayward Pines (38)
» John Rain (33)
» Harbinger (27)
» Veronica Mars – the TV series (24)
» Gossip Girl (20)
» The Lizzy Gardner Files (18)
» The Foreworld Saga (17)
» The Arrangement (16)
» Unity (16)
» Bloodshot (12)
» Archer & Armstrong (11)
» Body Movers (10)
» Four Weddings and a Fiasco (10)
» Game For Love (10)
» The Abnorm Chronicles (9)
» Dare To Love (9)
» The Perseid Collapse Series (9)
» XO Manowar (8)
» Shadowman (8)
» Ravenswood (6)
» The Dead Man (5)
» Atlantis: The Origin Mystery (4)
» The Chronos Files (4)
» The Callaways (3)
» Eternal Warrior (1)
» The Kathleen Turner Series (1)
» Miss Fortune Mysteries (1)
» Quantum & Woody (1)
» Sand Saga (1)

There are eleven more worlds, so roughly one a month. There have been 29 titles added the most popular world, The Vampire Diaries.

The most popular book is actually quite a bit higher than the one a year ago (when the top was 2,226 ranked…although I’m not convinced that the measuring system is the same)

The Omega Team: Assisting Aimee (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Delta Force Heroes Book 99 (at AmazonSmile*)

at #885 at time of writing.

There are 1,321 titles…when last time there were 785 titles. That’s a 68% increase, and more than one a day.

I would still consider writing something for Kindle Worlds, if something really caught my eye…that’s just not the case for me right now. My inclination is 1960s TV: The Addams Family, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart…that kind of thing. 🙂

One thing that authors need to realize (and which wouldn’t bother me). If you write something in Kindle Worlds, you don’t own any characters you create. That’s similar to writing a script for a TV series…if you create a great character, you can’t start writing novels about that character or use it on another show.

It look like Kindle Worlds is continuing to grow…and my guess is we’ll see that same trend when I look at it again next year. 🙂

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!  

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.

Read.gov: the Library of Congress “lends” books through a browser

Read.gov: the Library of Congress “lends” books through a browser

I think when most people hear the word “library”, they think specifically of a lending library.

Well, you can’t just walk into the Library of Congress and check out a book. 😉

That always seemed unfortunate to me, because people seeking copyright had to send them a copy. They may have the only existing copy of some books.

Now, logically, I totally understand why they can’t circulate p-books (paperbooks). Those generally decay every time they are read. Public libraries estimate the number of times a book can be loaned before it will have to be replaced (and it varies a bit, but under twenty, I think)…many of these could not be replaced.

However, I thought it would be cool if they were scanning public domain books and making them available. They have been doing that with newspapers (in a nicely searchable way), which I have used extensively (Chronicling America).

Well, I was linking a place to read the Wizard of Oz at The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip and I took a look at the Library of Congress’

Read.gov/books

I wouldn’t say it’s well-organized, and there aren’t a hundred books there…but I think once you launch the book, it’s actually pretty nice!

These are scans of the book…it gives you the experience of looking at the book as if it was paper. The text is not searchable.

You can, though,  choose to either have a one page, vertical scan view, or a two page, flip horizontal view.

You can also download the books as HTML or PDF.

I hope they continue to expand the library, although I do appreciate the care they are taking with it. I’d like to see terms searchable across books, but I do think this is a good effort.

This is the list of books…

http://www.read.gov/books/index.html#adults

It says “adults”, but this page has six of those, six for teens, and 51 for kids. Some of them you’ll know, and some you probably don’t. 🙂 I was particularly pleased to see some of the “other” W.W. Denslow books…Denslow was the original illustrator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Mother Goose and Humpty Dumpty.

One other thing: I did test this on my now discontinued Kindle Fire HDX 7″. Without downloading, it still worked pretty well. I normally prefer a horizontal read, like a book, but in this case, the scroll method looked best to me.

Oh, one other other thing 😉 : it doesn’t remember where you were, but it will show you page numbers and you can navigate by those, so if you remembered or noted where you were, it wouldn’t be that hard.

Incidentally, I do have a bit of a family thing going on for the next few days (nothing bad…in fact, it’s great!), so I might be a tad less responsive, but it shouldn’t slow me down too much. 🙂

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!  

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.

March 9th: Mickey Spillane’s birthday

March 9th: Mickey Spillane’s birthday

Hard-boiled crime author Mickey Spillane was born on March 9th.

That’s a pretty rare date. It’s one of only five square birthdays in the years.

What’s a square birthday?

It’s one where the day is the square of the month…March is the third month, and three times three is nine. So, the square birthdays are

• January 1st (1×1=1)
• February 4th (2×2=4)
• March 9th (3×3=9)
• April 16th (4×4=16)
• May 25th (5×5=25)

and there is no June 36th. 🙂

I find it a bit ironic…because I don’t think Spillane’s most famous character thought much was on the square. In the grimy world of Mike Hammer, “fair” ain’t nothing but a hair color. 😉

Mickey Spillane didn’t invent hard-boiled fiction…Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were already established when

I, the Jury (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

blasted on to the scene.

Spillane would go on to sell hundreds of millions of books, and Mike Hammer would appear in comics (Spillane had been a comic book writer), TV, and movies. Hammer has been played by Darren McGavin, Stacy Keach…and even in one movie, by Spillane.

There are 35 Kindle editions listed at

Amazon’s Mickey Spillane author page (at AmazonSmile*)

If you want to get a solid Mike Hammer library (or give one as a gift…recognizing that these are violent books with what was at the time shocking sexual themes), Amazon has an interesting way to do that.

There are three collections, each one with multiple books (the first one has I, the Jury; Vengeance Is Mine; My Gun Is Quick).

On this page:

Mike Hammer Collection (3 Book Series) (at AmazonSmile*)

you can buy all three collections with one click…not as an omnibus, but as three separate titles.

There are advantages in having separate files…it’s smaller, for one thing. 🙂 That can make searching and navigation easier. I have an “emergency book” on my device which has over 100 books in it (it’s no longer available)…I can’t easily go from chapter to chapter, or example, because it thinks a book is a chapter.

If you want to try it, get a sample…probably at the beginning, with I, the Jury. The books are not available through

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

I’d say, “Happy birthday” but that somehow doesn’t seem appropriate: “Hard-boiled birthday, Mickey Spillane!” 😉

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!  

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.