Self Publishing - Amazon Kindle Lulu - Mobipocket - eBooks

It looks like Amazon.com is prepping us for this Friday’s Oprah Show where she will talk about her favorite gadget, the Amzon Kindle. In the little preview she says that she can’t live without it.

I don’t have any other info yet, except for this screen shot of the Amazon.com homepage. But I am guessing there will be some promotion between Amazon and the Oprah book club releasing books on the Amazon Kindle with special pricing.

This is going to seriously drive sales this holiday season. Good luck getting a Kindle for Christmas. Order early.

You might want an Amazon Kindle for Christmas if….

(1) Your spouse threatens to leave you if you buy another book case.

(2) You don’t have room for another bookcase.

(3) You don’t have the money for another book case.

(3.5) You hate to see more trees cut down to make another book case for you, not to mention all the trees to make the books and newspapers you consume.

(4) You have a back condition from travelling with too many books.

(5) Your back hurts on Sunday morning from bringing home all the Sunday edition papers.

(6) You have to transfer your book purchases from the green Barnes & Noble bag to a Whole Foods bag so she/he won’t know you bought another book.

(7) Your eyes hurt from trying to read a novel on your cell phone (or computer).

(8) You are tired of buying gas to go get the latest book.

(9) You’ve run out of stuff to read.

(10) You just want to get yourself a nice Christmas present to stay at home, spend less on gas, save on space, save your back, and enjoy the little nice rituals of life–you just simply enjoy reading.

Plastic Logic announces an 8.5″ by 11″ e-newspaper reader. With a screen size 3 times that of the Amazon Kindle, the Plastic Logic e-Newspaper is being targeted at business users with the ability to open Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Power Point presentations to be displayed on a display the size of a normal piece of copy paper.

The e-Newspaper by Plastic Logic will measure i8.5 x 11 inches, and is capable of browsing documents in PDF format as well as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. As well as packing a battery that lasts “days not hours,” the device has wireless connectivity, though Plastic Logic is quiet about exactly what type.

Photos of the electronic document lineup:

(1) Plastic Logic’s e-News Paper, (2) Sony Reader, and (3) Amazon Kindle.

e-Ink (eInk) is both a company and a technology which uses charged particles to produce an image (picture or text) on an electronic display. Once the display is ‘charged’ with the image, no current is needed to keep the image. So eInk technology uses very little battery power. e-Ink displays are not and do not need to be backlit. Backlighting on a computer or cell phone screen can be very hard on the eyes to read over a period of time, but eInk displays are as easy on the eyes as reading paper. In fact, because of the crispness of the display, some people claim the displays seem easier on their eyes.

The Amazon Kindle electronic book reader is one device that uses eInk technology. The Sony Reader uses the same technology in their electronic book reader.

e-Ink Corporation even sells a protype kit for developers to develop their own technologies with their eInk technology. The kit can be ordered off their website for $3,000.

Another exciting development with eInk is their partnership with Esquire to put their flexible eInk technology on the cover of their magazine. It will hit shelfs this fall.

http://www.msipublishing.com/blog/esquires-e-ink-cover-hits-shelves/

Stephen Windwalker, author of Selling Used Books Online: The Complete Guide to Bookselling at Amazon’s Marketplace and Other Online Sites, which talked me out of trying to make a living selling used books online, has positioned himself as an authority on Amazon.com and Amazon’s Kindle.

His has complied information, which is freely available on the Internet into a detail oriented guidebook for the Kindle, available exclusively on the Kindle!

My two criticisms would focus on the face that he does not have a ‘real’ cover design and that you have to own a Kindle to buy the book, so you can’t use this Guide in your decision to purchase a Kindle.

From Amazon’s Editorial (Enthusiastic) Reviews:

Product Description
Stephen Windwalker’s latest book is the premier guide for Kindle owners — written for serious readers rather than gadget heads, 51,000 words in length and newly packed with great tips. 192 “print” pages, including a detailed, link-enabled FAQ section. (Originally published in beta editions as How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips.)

If you’ve already purchased and downloaded it, you can get the latest iteration onto your Kindle at no additional charge with just a couple of clicks on your computer. Just go to “Your Media Library” under your personal Amazon account, pull down your “Kindle Books” list under the Downloads tab, find this book (clicking on the title will confirm your purchase and purchase date), and click on the right where there’s a “Send wirelessly to your Kindle” button. Also included, for Kindle owners who are considering giving another Kindle as a gift to a colleague, friend, or loved one: information on how to send this book **free** as the first book on the new gift Kindle, and a link to get the new Kindle for just $259! Here is the link to get that special right now. Amazon Kindle just $259 with free shipping.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. How to Use this Book
II. What is a Kindle?
-What’s Inside the Kindle?
-Why Did Amazon Launch the Kindle, and Which is More Important, the Chicken or the Egg?
III. Kindle Basics
-Handling Your Kindle
-Choosing Among Six Font Sizes
-Kindle Keyboard and Menu Shortcuts
-The Care and Feeding of Your Kindle’s Battery
-The Reset Button is Your First Tech Support Option
-Access Wikipedia Quickly and Smoothly
-Using “Locations” to Figure Out How Close You Are to the End of a Kindle Edition
-Buying and Sampling Content for Your Kindle From the Amazon Kindle Store
-Updating the Latest Version of Your Kindle’s Operating Software
-Adding an SD Card to Your Kindle
-Getting Help with Your Kindle
-Managing Your Kindle Content
IV. The Amazon Kindle Basic Web Wireless Service: Why It Is a Revolutionary Feature, and Why Amazon Should Keep It Free or Cheap
V. How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email
VI. Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Amazon Kindle
VII. Traveling with Your Kindle
-Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases
-Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas or in a Sprint Wireless Dead Zone
-Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide
-The Kindle and GPS - Intriguing but Frustrating
-Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle
-Downloading Kindle Editions Via USB Cable
VIII. The Kindle as a Writing, Editing, and Publishing Device
-Taking Notes on the Kindle - It’s All in the Thumbs
-Annotation within a Kindle Document
-Google Notebook
-Annotating Your Working Documents
-Writing and Annotation to Email
-Saving, Printing, Editing and Working With Your Kindle Clippings, Annotations, and Highlighted Text
-20 Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document: How to Use Kindle, Amazon and the Web to Market Your Book and Connect with Readers
-Other Links for Publishing Content for the Kindle
IX. Projecting a Kindle Future
-How Many Kindles? Estimating the Current and Future “Installed Base,” and Why It Is Important
-The Golden Age of Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
-Kindle Reading Subscriptions
-Kindle Buffet
-Kindle Groups
-Kindle Owners as Kindle Sellers
-Kindle Content Affiliate Program
-Shop the Amazon Store Through a Kindle Gateway
A Big Tent for Kindle Content Availability On Other Devices
Shop and Play Amazon Music and Audio
Kindle Tribes
“Living Books” on the Kindle
Other Fixes for Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
Folders and/or Labels
Size, Location and Configuration of Bars, Buttons, and Switches
The Kindle Display Screen
Writeable Screen
Adjustable Fonts
Go Global
Open the Kindle Store to Accessories
Green Tax Credit
Screen and Keyboard Freezes
Gifts
Make the Kindle More Kid-Friendly
Real USB Port or Bluetooth for Hardware Connectivity with Memory Devices, Keyboards &c
X. 20 More Kindle Tips and Tricks
Link-Enabled Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Gimodo Blog’s Brian Lam has a nice review on vacationing with the Amazon Kindle. He has really warmed to the Kindle. One of the biggest advantages of the Kindle is bringing more reading with less weight. He also found that he could read and stay engaged with up to 300 pages at a time vs. 50 at a time in a ‘regular’ book.

With the Kindle you do not have to worry about minor drips of water from your bathing suit, but “Kindle reading in the pool on a float is freaking scary.”

more at: http://gizmodo.com/5042774/review-addendum-using-amazon-kindle-on-vacation

[Photo from NYDiscovery]

We are currently working to release our current set of successful Amazon Kindle eBooks for the Mobipocket Reader.

You can download the reader here at: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/

I am working on publishing The Jefferson Bible to media other than the current Amazon Kindle. I will post when it is online. Check out the page for updates:

The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson