Comments on: More Details on the Amazon Kindle

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:50:42 +0000

I thought I read somewhere that anyone can post a book and have it sold on Amazon Kindle for as low as $.25 or as much as $200, do you see this as a possible way to attract new authors by sampling some of their work ahead of time?

Just curious.

By: Timothy Fish

Timothy Fish — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:14:10 +0000

I’m a computer science guy, so when someone hands me a computing device, the first thing I think about is how I can program it to do what I want. The first thing I did when I got my cell phone was to try to figure out how to program it. I wanted to put a scientific calculator on it, but I haven’t had time. So, when someone points me to a $400 computer and tells me that I can’t write my own software for the thing, it turns me off right away, but I will say that after having looked at it I will probably be making my own books available on the device. Searching For Mom is text only, so it should be straight forward to put on there, but Church Website Design has many pictures, tables and code samples. It should be interesting to see what their conversion algorithms do with it. Several pages were printed sideways so that the code examples could be printed without line breaks. One chapter includes an example of how to get text to follow the curve on a webpage, and the text of the book is used as part of the example. My understanding is that Kindle does not support PDF, so Amazon converts PDF files to another format before sending it to the Kindle. Since, they allow the user to set the size of the text on the screen; it is very likely that the images will end up in the wrong place. A reference to something that is “on this page” may suddenly refer to something two pages back or two pages forward. I’m not sure that it is worth converting the whole book to HTML and even then I expect that it will ruin some things or make them hard to read. It is worth 35% of the retail price, though I don’t know enough yet to have a good idea what would be a good retail price for the Kindle version of the book.

By: Dino

Dino — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:50:01 +0000

I just dont think it’s worth the price when I can do all of that and more on the iPhone! at the same price point.

By: JC

JC — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:32:23 +0000

I skimmed the user manual and saw that it does, in fact, come with an “experimental” web browser. So that’s more functionality, but it’s still not generic broadband connectivity. It isn’t worth as much as Sprint’s EVDO service. Since you’re not paying anything for it at all, it may still be a good deal. However, it seems unfair to value it at the same price as Sprint’s EVDO service be that $20/month or $60/month. Also, will Amazon turn the web browsing into a non-free service once it stops being “experimental”?

I don’t know if it will be the iPod of books though. For one thing, it’s always been really easy to put free, legally unencumbered content on the iPod. (I have 80+Gb of totally legal, DRM free audio on my iPod classic.) Right now, it doesn’t look like putting free, legally unencumbered content will be so easy for the Kindle. It has a USB port, which helps. But it doesn’t support very many file formats, which doesn’t.

(Also, has anyone read the Kindle Terms of Service?)

By: PAC

PAC — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:06:02 +0000

I ordered one last night and the shipping date to me is not until December 4. While I initially understood it would be shipped on November 29, I only hope it arrives before Christmas. I look forward to using this device and think it’s a giant step for ease of having books at a person’s fingertips without carrying around numerous items.

By: Max Elliot Anderson

Max Elliot Anderson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:44:06 +0000

I wonder if you might devote a future post to the potential, negative impact on bookstore distribution & relationships with Thomas Nelson? Also, do you perceive, down the road, a correlation to what happened to music distribution, and what is likely to happen similarly with books? As it is today, people can pass along a used copy of a book, but what about the potential to share a file, much like software and music files are passed around today?

Max Elliot Anderson
Author

By: Matt Bronleewe

Matt Bronleewe — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:01:27 +0000

I’m certainly interested in the cool types of content that could be created for the Kindle. I’ve already been dreaming up a special edition of Illuminated with embedded hyperlinks! And I dig the idea of “subscribing to an author”. The iPod of books? Time will tell… Can’t wait until you get one in your hands!

By: Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:37:20 +0000

Actually, Sprint charges $60 per month for EVDO connectivity. And, the Kindle has an “experimental” browser. You can indeed navigate to any Web page. However, from what I have read at engadget.com and other places, it doesn’t do Javascript. As a result, you can’t use the Google Reader to view RSS feeds. However, you can use Bloglines. I will post on this when I get my actual device, hopefully, later today.

By: JC

JC — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:31:25 +0000

But it’s not generic broadband connectivity. You can’t use the EVDO for whatever you like. If I read Amazon’s web page correctly, you can only use it, for free, to go to the Kindle store and to Wikipedia. (i.e., it costs money to email your Kindle. I didn’t read anything that makes me think you can go to any websites besides those two.) When you pay $20/month, you get to use it for whatever you like. So, I don’t think you can value Kindle’s Whispernet at $20/month.

This underlines one of my criticisms about the Kindle. The only officially sanctioned way of putting anything on a Kindle requires you to pay Amazon money. My other major criticism is there isn’t any officially sanctioned way of getting text off the Kindle usefully. I understand that publishers want to lock ebooks to a specific device, even though it makes it less convenient and less useful for the reader. However, what about the annotations that I have written with the Kindle. Why should they be stuck on there too?

By: Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:01:33 +0000

Keep in mind that the price includes broadband connectivity. There is no monthly subscription fee. You can do the math, but at $20 per month, that would be $240 per year.