News

Tech Tip – More on highlighting across pages on the Kindle Touch, and Dave Sparks’s tip on how to turn off auto-renew for those three-month free trial subscriptions you might have signed up for when the Fire came out in November. Also, a pretty good external battery for the Fire by PowerGen that costs $39.99 and weighs just 4 3/8 ounces. And Clearly from Evernote, a great way to read articles online.

Interview (Starts at 15:20) – On January 19th I reached Eric Loss by Skype in Concon, Chile, where he had detoured to fix a problem with the mast of his boat after 70 days at sea. He is now set to resume his solo circumnavigation of the globe. The eclectic reading library on his Kindle and a backup Kindle includes scifi from Baen Books, Les Miserables, Moby Dick, The Essential P.G. Wodehouse, Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander series, and Alone by Admiral Richard E. Byrd.

UPDATE: Eric’s mother, Katie Loss, e-mailed me this report early Friday morning:

Eric got off this Thurs. morning at about 11:30 a.m. with a tighter, snugger ship having successfully cleared the Chilean Navy’s walk-through and approval process.  They have asked him for daily position updates as long as he is in Chilean waters.

Content – How to sign up for e-mailed alerting you to the Kindle Daily Deal, where I got great prices on The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, and Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen Ambrose.  For the Fire, I’m getting ready for our stay on St. John, USVI, by watching Miss Marple solve a murder in Caribbean Mystery, a two-part rental from the BBC.

Mentioned in Comments – Video demo of an impressive page-flipping scheme for tablets developed by KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence.

Next Week’s Show will be an all-comments edition that I pre-loaded this week in preparation for an unplugged 10-day stay on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I hope to interview some Kindle-toting guests on the beach for a special TKC episode to be uploaded on Friday, February 10.  My interview for TKC 185 on February 17th will be with Peter Meyers, author of Kindle Fire: The Missing Manual. You can pre-order the Kindle version of Peter’s book now for delivery on February 15.

The Next TKC Google Plus Video Hangout is tentatively set for Wednesday, February 15th at 2 pm EASTERN time. Look for details in the show notes for TKC 184.

News

Tech Tips – From Jim Cheshire’s excellent new book, My Kindle Fire, we’ll learn a handy way to save steps when punctuating with the virtual keyboard of the Fire. (Click here for my interview with Jim in September, 2008, for TKC 10.)

Interview (Starts at 18:00) – Catherine MacDonald, founder of BookLending.com, spoke with me from Nova Scotia on January 16th about the impressive growth her site has experienced in its first year of operation. Click here for my interview with her a year ago, from the island nation of Malta.

Content – In Topazon’s latest list of the top-ranked products on all of Amazon, there is only one book, The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant.  Via Pastor Mark Pierce of Church Requel, I learned of an impressive Kindle Fire App by YouVersion that offers lots of ways to encounter The Bible. Click here for a sample of Pastor Mark’s sermon notes, using YouVersion, and here for his podcast.

The Next G+ Video TKC Hangout: Wednesday, January 25, at 1 p.m. Mountain Time.

Next Week’s Guest: Eric Loss, making a stop for repairs in Chile during his solo circumnavigation of the world.

News

Tech Tips – If it still bugs you that the Kindle Fire does not have a physical volume controller, you might want to download a clever free app named Volume Control 1.1 that will add a discreet controller to your screen, always available to adjust your Fire’s volume.  James Schorr recommends SquareTrade for Kindle extended warranties.

Interview (Starts at 16:38) – John Tayman, author of The Colony and founder and CEO of Byliner.com, spoke with me by Skype and phone from San Francisco on January 11. He explained how he chose the length of Byliner Originals, great nonfiction and fiction stories published for Kindle and other ebook platforms. Among the topics discussed: And the War Came by Jamie Malanowski, Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer, Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan, and Apple Quick Reads.

Content – Nancy Pearl, the author of Book Lust: Recommended Books for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason,  partners with Amazon to create a new series, Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries. The first of six planned books in the series is A Gay and Melancholy Sound by Merle Miller, available for preorder. Northwest Book Lovers are unamused. On my Kindle Fire, I’m enjoying Monopoly and Downton Abbey, but my music listening has migrated back to my computer’s better speakers.

Next Week’s Guest: Catherine MacDonald, founder of BookLending.com .

Next Week’s Google Plus Video TKC Hangout: Wednesday, January 18, at 3 p.m. Mountain Time.

News

Tech Tip – How would you describe the right way to touch the screen of a Kindle Touch to a new user, over the phone? Using my BookGem Kindle holder, I made a discovery. Also, a tip for adjusting the Default Zoom setting on your Kindle Fire’s browser, for better viewing of web sites. And, why I might just need a solar-powered Kindle case for $79.99 that I saw profiled in Forbes. 

Interview (starts at 12:50) – I spoke with Dr. Eric McLuhan on Wednesday, January 4th, reaching him at his home office near Kingston, Ontario. The author of The Human Equation: The Constant in Human Development from Pre-Literacy to Post-Literacy and other books, some co-authored with his father, the late Marshall McLuhan, Eric spoke of his own explorations of media and what his father might have made of the Kindle.

Content – After an enjoyable period of Kindle Fire frenzy, I have rediscovered the slow delights of reading a novel by Henry James on my Kindle Touch. It’s The Awkward Age, available for free at the Kindle Store with an intriguing and lengthy forward by the author. As for the Fire, I’ve discovered that it sits nicely on the cross trainer across the street during my 45-minute aerobic workouts, the better to admire the fierce beauty of Baltimore’s mean streets as rendered in Season One of The Wire. In music, check out Jon Cog’s fun appreciation of an Amazon mp3 sampler. In apps, when I use the Fire in bed, the screen is too bright even at the lowest brightness setting. Solution: Screen Filter, a third-party app not available in the Amazon Android Appstore – click here for discussion of it in the Amazon forums, as well as tips for installation.

Next Google Plus Video TKC Hangout: Wednesday, January 11 at 3 p.m. Mountain Time. Please e-mail me your G+ profile page URL, if you’d like to be added to the TKC Circle for invites. For help on how to do this, you can e-mail me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com.

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Tech Tip – Stephen S recommends SanDisk Memory Zone, a free app available at Amazon’s Appstore for Android, as a way to see which files are taking up the most space on your Kindle Fire. Other handy free apps Stephen mentions are Quick System Info Pro, Gemini App Manager, File Expert, ES File Explorer, and AndroXPlorer. Tom Semple offers a smart tip for preventing unintentional navigation or user-interface activity if your Kindle Touch’s power button gets turned on by mistake in a pocket or a purse. Hint: It’s about a password.

Interview (starts at 11:50) – My wife Darlene gives her first impressions of the Kindle Touch and explains why she hates the Fire.

Content – Books: Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes; Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas Speeches, 1952-2010 (click here for Forbes story); a free preview of Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience by Peter Meyers; and Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander and the rest of his Aubrey-Maturin series (via Katie Loss who hopes to zoom Kindle copies of the books to her son, Eric Loss, during his circumnavigation of the globe). Video: Arrested Development and The Wire. Music: Amazon’s 100-song playlist sampling  “Outstanding 2011 Albums You Might Have Missed” led me to purchase Delicate Steve’s Wondervision album for $5. Apps: Solitaire and Bejeweled 2.

Next Week’s Guest: Dr. Eric McLuhan, son of the late renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan and an internationally known lecturer and author on communications and media in his own right.

Next Google Plus TKC Hangout: Wednesday, January 4 at 3 p.m. Mountain Time. If you are not yet in my TKC hangout circle, please email me at PodChronicles at Gmail Dot Com with the URL of your G+ profile page.

Mark Isero, left, and Antonio Beasley

News – 1) Amazon updates the Kindle Fire software to version 6.2.1 . Consumer Reports and David Pogue are impressed. As is Stephen Windwalker.  2) Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch receive an update.

Tech Tip – Why I had to reset my Fire to factory default, how to download a Project Gutenberg book in Kindle format to the Fire, and why the E Ink Kindles are more convenient for Project Gutenberg downloads.

Interview (Starts at 16:08) – Mark Isero, an AP English teacher at Leadership High School in San Francisco, is using five Kindles in his classrooms. He and Anthony Beasley, a senior at the school, talked to me by Skype on Monday, December 19th, about how the Kindle experiment is going.

Content- BOOKS: A Kindlesphere blockbuster arrived this week and is available for 99 cents through Christmas. It’s The Complete 2012 User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle: Covers All Current Kindles Including the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard, and Kindle by Bruce Grubbs and Stephen Windwalker, creator of Kindle Nation Daily.   Also, Our Dog, Lucca by Moe Zilla (free).  VIDEO: NSFW and probably offensive to most listeners, comedian Louis C.K. is breaking new ground with his $5 direct sale of the video for a show he produced. In 12 days he’s earned $1 million from the project, and he’s putting the money to innovative use. If you liked the late George Carlin, you may enjoy Louis C.K., who gave this tribute to Carlin. MUSIC: How to use Amazon’s MP3 Uploader to copy your iTunes music to the Amazon Cloud and Kindle Fire. APPS: Wattpad is an innovative and successful content site offering unlimited stories. ES File Explorer and AndroXplorer are free apps for managing your Kindle Fire files. This just in (and received too late for the audio): 7 Dragons has launched a solid 99-cent app available for the Fire. It’s named Alarm Clock, Calendar, ToDo List – Productivity Helper. Another app worth noting: a free app connecting you with Kindle Nation Daily. PODCASTS: The Unofficial Kindle Fire Podcast is worth checking out!

The Next Google Plus TKC Hangout will be Wednesday December 28th at 3 p.m. Mountain Time, since we’ll be back in Denver.

News

Tech Tip – Sorry about my mixup last week on WiFi security. The one you want is WPA, not WEP. I had them reversed, but George from Tulsa set me straight. Also, be mindful of where you tap your Kindle Touch screen, or you may go skittering off to some web site you had no intention of visiting.

Interview (Starts at 13:22) – Sven Birkerts, editor of the literary journal AGNI and author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, sees the Kindle as a step back from the cultural commonality of the book. I spoke with Sven by phone and Skype on December 12. His latest book of essays is titled The Other Walk, and his 2009 Atlantic essay is titled “Resisting the Kindle.”  As director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, he sees little evidence of Kindles among students earning their MFAs in creative writing in the program. Also mentioned: “The Machine Stops,” a prescient 1909 short story by E.M. Forster.

Content – Music: Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Movies: Return of the Pink Panther and Fahrenheit 451. Apps: Bufo Calvin’s overview includes ColorNote and WiFi Explorer. I also like Any.do, a To Do list maker. Books, etc.: Sven’s books and Eric Loss’s latest blog post.  Plus my essay titled “Visual Intensity of Words” in the Winter 2001 2011 issue of Nieman Reports.

Other links mentioned: Mark Roberts on “Will E-Books Destroy the Democratizing Effects of Reading?”

Next Google Plus video hangout: Wednesday, December 21 at 3 p.m. Eastern. Please e-mail your Google Plus profile URL to PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com if you’d like an invitation to participate.

News

Tech Tips – Fire: WiFi Analyzer helps you see if you’re camping on your neighbor’s WiFi channels. Click here for the steps to add Screen Filter (not in the Amazon Adroid App Store) to your Fire as a way to lower the screen brightness when you’re reading in bed. Kindle Touch: Andrys Basten’s rundown of tips includes navigation tips for the Touch. Correction: I confused WEP and WPA in the podcast. George from Tulsa caught the error and states  ”The SAFE WiFi Security Standard is WPA. WEP has long been hacked.” My apologies for the mixup!

Interview (Starts at 13:04) – Robert Darnton, University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library, gives a thorough update on progress toward the planned April, 2012 2013, launch of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). I visited him at his office in Harvard Yard on Wednesday, November 30. He is the author of The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History and The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future, as well as a New York Review of Books essay in October titled “Jefferson’s Taper: A National Digital Library.”

Content – Music: 25 Days of Free Holiday Music at Amazon’s mp3 Store. Free Prime Movies: “The Gay Divorcee” starring Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers and “You’ve Got Mail” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. App: Stitcher for listening to podcasts on your Fire. Kindle Single: Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back by Evan Thomas and Mike Allen.

Next Google Plus TKC Hangout: Wednesday, December 14 at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Next Week’s Guest: Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.

News

Tech Tip – Fire: Reports surface of WiFi connection problems with the Kindle Fire. Bruce Beris posts an overview and troubleshooting suggestions. Also, how to get some hot orange color into the name of your Fire. E-Ink: How to make screenshots with your basic Kindle (hold down the menu and keyboard buttons at the same time, then release) and Kindle Touch. Also, how to tell your Kindle with Special Offers which city you want to see offers in.

Interview (Starts at 16:03) – Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle Content, gives details of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for Amazon Prime members and describes the similar mentality of the Kindle Fire and the e-ink Kindles. He doesn’t sound worried about the Nook Tablet or Big Six publishers’ lack of enthusiasm for the Lending Library. I spoke with Russ by phone and Skype on November 28.

Content – Jean Remple shares content possibilities for the Fire, including two blockbuster comic books by Alan Moore and Co., Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Also, Jean’s favorite music station and his wife Laila’s recommendation of handsome art books by the Ankele husband and wife team showcasing the art of  Rembrandt, Jean-François Millet, and Honoré Daumier. Garrett Riley recommends a great web tool for seeing the order of books in a series. The Wall Street Journal is now available as an app on the Fire.

Other links mentioned – “After the Wedding” on Amazon Prime instant video.

News

Tech Tip – Gib Wallis of Brief Episode helped me load the Nook app onto my Kindle Fire without rooting or jailbreaking the Fire. Here are the steps he e-mailed me: 1) Allow the Kindle Fire to install apps from other app stores, emails, and web links: Tap the settings from the Home screen or any screen with it visible; Tap More; Tap Device; At Allow Installation of Applications, tap ON. 2) Get the GetJar app, for a free app store for Android: Go to the mobile version of GetJar at: m.GetJar.com; When prompted, download the GetJar app; Let the app download. 3) Move the GetJar app to your app folder; Download a file manager that’s free from the Amazon app store, like File Expert; Move the GetJar app from the Kindle Fire’s Downloads folder to the Apps folder; Go to your apps and start GetJar; In the GetJar store, look for the Nook app – it’s often on the front page, but there’s also an option to search; Download the Nook app; install the Nook app just as you would an Amazon app store app.

Also, George from Tulsa sent me this link which offers easy steps for adding Dropbox to your Fire. And finally, tips on how to highlight on the Kindle Touch and the Mystery of the Missing My Clippings File.

Interview (Starts at 24:17) – Laura Hazard Owen, a Staff Writer at PaidContent, describes how Penguin Group USA this week directed Overdrive to pull Kindle versions of Penguin books at public libraries, then rescinded part of the decision. I spoke with her by phone and Skype on November 25th.

Content – Bufo Calvin’s Love Your Kindle Fire: The ILMK Guide to Amazon’s Entertablet and Moe Zilla, aka Jon Cog’s The Turkey Mystery Rhyme: A Short Thanksgiving Day Mystery for Kids. Also, I found a mindmapping app for the Fire, called Mindmaps by Endare. It costs $3.99 at the Amazon App Store for Android, and it’s pretty good.

Next Week’s Interview Guest: Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president for Kindle content.

Next Google Plus Video Hangout: Wednesday, November 30, at 3 p.m. Eastern.

News

Tech Tip – What a great idea: take advantage of Amazon’s brilliant openness regarding third-party apps and sideload, say, the Barnes & Noble Nook reader app onto my Fire. Well, I didn’t get very far. If you want to try this for yourself, you might consider clicking here, here, and here.

Interview (Starts at 20:47) – Stephen Windwalker, creator of Kindle Nation Daily, reflects on this week’s arrival of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch and announces the birth of his own new contribution to Kindle content. I spoke with Steve today, November 17th, by Skype and phone all the way from Cambridge to Arlington, Mass. For information on the weekly KND Fire Sweepstakes, in which you could win a free Kindle Fire, click here.  Steve’s historical perspective includes the prescient question he asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a radio conversation in June of 2008. (Fast forward to about 23:26 to 27:00.)

Content – Since making my 10-minute video review of the Kindle Fire, I’ve changed my mind about which magazine design I prefer on the Fire. I now see that publications like Rolling Stone offer the reader more choices in font size and readability than the, by comparison, locked-down design of the Conde Nast publications, including The New Yorker.

EBook Ninjas Podcast – Joshua, Chris and Toby at eBook Architects in Austin know e-book formatting inside and out, so their podcast is a feast of useful information and opinion on all things e-book. I had a great time joining them for this week’s show via Skype, to talk about the new Kindles.

Our Next TKC Google Plus Video Hangout is scheduled for Wednesday, November 23 at 3 p.m. 5:30 p.m. Eastern.  If you’d like to join us, please email your Google Plus profile page’s URL to me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT COM.

News -

Tech Tip – How to extend a highlight on your Kindle to the next page or several pages. Did you know you can’t do this on a Nook?

Interview (Starts at 15:16) – Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of Mashable, attended the Barnes & Noble press conference on November 7, and we visited by Skype about it the next day. You can follow Ulanoff on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

Content – Via Andrys Basten’s blog, click here for a convenient way to browse the 5,000+ Kindle Owners Lending Library books available for free if you are an Amazon Prime member. It’s easier than looking for your monthly free book using your Kindle.

In  honor of Veterans Day, why not donate your old Kindle or a tax-deductible cash gift to E-Books for Troops? Ken Clark and I will make sure it is shipped to a U.S. military unit in Afghanistan or Iraq, with gratitude to Soldiers serving in harm’s way to defend our nation.

Eric Loss on departure day, November 7.

Next Google Plus TKC Hangout- I plan to start the next hangout on Thursday, November 17, at 2 p.m. Eastern

Time. If you’re in my TKC Circle, you’ll see notification that the hangout is live. If you’d like to participate, please e-mail your Google Plus profile page URL to me at PodChronicles at gmail dot com, so I can add you to the TKC Circle.

Eric Loss Update: Our intrepid 25-year-old voyager, interviewed in the previous episode of the podcast, set sail on November 7th from Los Angeles on his solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the globe. He has posted twice on his progress at his blog, which makes for very compelling reading already.

News

Tech Tip – How to send personal documents to your Kindle, again. I keep needing to remind myself exactly how to do this effortlessly. Also, you can still use your @free.kindle.com email address to make sure the transfer doesn’t cost you any 3G/Whispernet charges.

Interview (Starts at 15:37) – I spoke with Eric Loss, 25, on October 31st, as he was, among other tasks, figuring out what books to put on his Kindles for a very long trip. He will soon set sail from Los Angeles aboard his 36-foot yacht named Odyssey on a solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the globe that he estimates will take seven or eight months. Click here for the blog that he plans to update during the adventure using a satellite phone. In our conversation, Eric mentioned a book that inspired him. It’s The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier, unfortunately only available in paper. Click here for a beautiful video set to music of Moitessier on his boat.

Content – Here are some of the titles that caught my eye in the trove of books now available for free lending on your Kindle if you are a Prime member:  Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile, Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, U.S. Army Hand-to-Hand Combat by Department of the Army,  Indignation by Philip Roth, A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews, Let’s Roll by Lisa Beamer, Man on Wire by Philippe Petit, and My Remarkable Journey by Larry King.

Next Week’s Guest – Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of Mashable.

Next Google Plus TKC Hangout – Wednesday, November 9 at 2 p.m. Mountain Time.

News

Tech Tip – How would you organize your Kindle if you were setting off on an eight-month solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 36-foot boat? Eric Loss asked for help with collections, so this tip shows you how to set them up on a computer and zap them to your Kindle.

Interview – David Blum, editor of Kindle Singles, talks about the dramatic growth of this brand-new category of publishing which offers compelling ideas expressed at their natural length, as Amazon likes to say. I spoke with David on Friday, October 28, by Skype and cellphone. He’s looking for content that will surprise and delight readers, and he reports that he and his staff read every single submission they receive and reply to authors within two weeks.

Content – Jan at The Kindle Reader blog has a great list of 10 mysteries set in the Middle Ages. Worth a look! Also, there’s still time to check out my 99-cent article in the Kindle Store titled A Kindle Fan’s Report from the Front Row at Amazon’s NYC Press Conference.

Links Mentioned – Brian Matt’s blog post about how the Kindle Fire will impact other businesses.

Next Google Plus Video Hangout – Wednesday, November 2 at 2 p.m. Mountain Time. Please e-mail me at PodChronicles AT Gmail Dot come if you’d like to participate and need to know how.

News

Tech Tip – I take the new Personal Documents capabilities of the Kindle for a test drive.

Interview (Starts at 16:32) – Jon Cog, editor of the highly original and informative Me and My Kindle Blog, joined me by Skype for a conversation on Tuesday, October 18. We discussed Amazon’s plans for the cloud, Personal Documents, scary Kindle games and more. Link discussed: GigaOM on privacy concerns.

Content – This month’s list of 100 Kindle books for $3.99 or lower includes a tempting title from Winston Churchill’s six-volume history of World War II, but reviews suggest it was not the Kindle Store’s finest hour in terms of formatting. A better bet might be Tough as Nails: One Woman’s Journey Through West Point by Gail O’Sullivan Dwyer.

Other Links Mentioned: Molly Wood of CNET on the Fire’s hottest feature. Amazon for a limited time is offering the first episode of “Prohibition,” the new Ken Burns documentary, as a free Prime Instant Video. Highly recommended.

No TKC Hangout Next Week: Darlene and I will be on the road most of the week, driving from Boston to Denver. So the next Google Plus hangout will probably be Wednesday, November 2nd. Stay tuned to next week’s episode for details.

Next Week’s Guest: David Blum, editor of Amazon’s Kindle Singles.

News

Tech Tip -  MobileRead forum participants have helped gather useful tips for navigating the new $79 Kindle in a free booklet compiled by Jack Swinden. It’s titled Kindle Tips for 4th Generation: Non-Touch Model. Highly recommended!

Interview (Starts at 13:34) – OverDrive keeps improving and expanding its distribution system for e-books, audiobooks and other digital content, providing its network of 15,000 public libraries, schools and colleges worldwide with access to more than 650,000 titles. I spoke with OverDrive’s director of marketing, David Burleigh on Tuesday, October 11, about how the addition of Kindle titles three weeks ago has been received. He also described record growth in e-book borrowing, as well as OverDrive’s latest innovation, which the company calls its WIN (for “Want It Now”) Catalog of titles which library patrons can discover and purchase through the library web sites.

Content – Bufo Calvin opines on Amazon’s latest imprint, 47North. Click here for Amazon’s press release.  Also, thanks to those of you have left reviews of my 99-cent Kindle article titled A Kindle Fan’s Report from the Front Row at Amazon’s NYC Press Conference.  At last count, I’ve sold 173 copies. There is still time to help spread the word!

Link Mentioned in Your Comments: Bufo Calvin on Personal Documents.

Our Next Google Plus Hangout is scheduled for Wednesday, October 19th, at 3:30 pm EDT. If you’d like to participate, please e-mail me (at PodChronicles AT Gmail dot com) the web address of your G+ profile page, so I can include you in my TKC Hangouts circle. Once you’re in the circle, you will receive notification when the hangout goes live, so you can join in the video discussion.

News

Tech Tip – Listener Guven Witteveen shares his method for handling the backup of content on his Kindle, including non-Amazon content. He asks for other ways to approach this task, so if you have any to suggest, please e-mail them to me at PodChronicles AT Gmail Dot Com.

Interview (Starts at 14:34) – Sri Peruvemba, Chief Marketing Officer for E Ink Holdings, the supplier of the ePaper technology used in the Kindle and other leading e-readers, spoke with me from San Francisco on Monday, October 3, 2011. He provided an update of the story of E Ink, which began here in Cambridge as a spinoff from the Media Lab at M.I.T in 1997, and in the past five years has seen nearly a tripling of units shipped for e-ink readers in each of the past five years.  A lot has happened in the world of E Ink since I last talked with Sri for TKC 18 in November, 2008!

Content – “A Kindle’ Fan’s Report from the Front Row at Amazon’s NYC Press Conference” is now available for purchase at Amazon for 99 cents. It’s my 9,000-word account of the event, an amplified version of the live-blog posts that I did for readers of Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation Daily . Thanks to everyone who helped shape it with feedback and comments! If you would like to leave a review, I’d appreciate it! You can read about it a A Kindle World and Abhi’s blog. If you have an idea for a Kindle article, you should buy Kate Harper’s How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle: 12 Tips for Short Documents.  I found it very helpful.  And if you like the cover and want to hire my son-in-law, Tom DiSilvio, who did it, you can find his coordinates here and samples of his work here.

Next Week’s Guest – David Burleigh of OverDrive, Amazon’s partner in bringing public-libary books to the Kindle.

Next Week’s Google Plus TKC Hangout – I’ll start the hangout Wednesday, October 12, at 3 p.m. EDT. If you haven’t already asked me to include you in my TKC Hangout Circle, please email me your G+ profile URL at PodChronicles AT Gmail dot com.

Photo by John Marshall Mantel

News – All the news this week comes from Amazon’s press conference Wednesday, September 28, 2011, in New York City.  From a seat in the front row, I had a chance to closely observe Jeff Bezos’s remarkably intense overview of the Kindle story to date. Afterward, we circulated among demo stands where the new Kindle products were put through their paces – the Kindle ($79), Kindle Touch WiFi ($99), Kindle Touch 3G ($149), and the Kindle Fire ($199).  I live blogged the event in partnership with Stephen Windwalker of Kindle Nation Daily.  Click here to see the complete posts.  Other links related to the press conference: Video of 51-minute formal presentation by Bezos. Press release on the four new Kindles.  Press release on new Kindle Fire’s cloud-accelerated Silk Browser. The gorgeous and intentional Kindle Fire TV commercial.

Tech Tip – My navigation suggestions on the $79 Kindle, which has neither physical keyboard nor touch screen. But it’s not as tough as you’d think to enter text with it. Mine arrived today in time to try it out and tell you about it.

Interviews – Kindle Director Jay Marine (starts at 12:55) asserts that E Ink is at Day One, with plenty of innovation and commitment ahead for Amazon’s dedicated e-readers, even as the Fire makes its blistering debut. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Andy Ihnatko (starts at 27:24) is impressed with the new lineup and looks ahead to the drop of another shoe for the Fire: 3G service.  Also, a demo man puts a real-live Kindle Fire through its paces (starts at 22:10).

Content – I’ve started writing a short e-book about what I saw and thought at the press conference. The working title is Front Row at the Kindle Fire: Why I’m Glad Amazon Still Loves the Smell of E Ink. If you’d like to see a working draft and offer me your feedback, please send me an e-mail at PodChronicles at gmail dot com. I hope to have the book available for purchase for 99 cents by next week at the Kindle Store.

Other Links Mentioned – Brian Matt’s article about the product launch. Garret Riley’s $79 Kindle unboxing video. Karen Horvath’s suggestions for generating good Kindle title recommendations: goodreads, bookreporter, BookPage, and the Books on the Nightstand podcast.

News

Tech Tip – Laura asks for help loading recipes on her Kindle. Email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail dot com if you have any ideas.  Also, I recommend you check out the Daily Review tool for remembering what you’ve read on your Kindle. You’ll find it at kindle.amazon.com .

Interview (Starts at 12:43) – James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, was the first person I heard predict an Amazon tablet to rival the iPad. That was back in February, 2010, on TKC 81.  A frequent guest on the show, James joined me this week on Monday, September 19, for his latest take on the highly anticipated new product. He predicts a price of $299 and the beginning of an entirely new connection between Amazon and its customers via the tablet he codenamed The Kindle Flame a year and a half ago.

Content – How to get the Kindle Daily Deal delivered to your e-mail box every day.

Google Plus Hangout – If you’d like to receive notification of the next video hangout on Google Plus, please drop me an e-mail at PodChronicles AT Gmail Dot Com. I’d like to do one next Tuesday after I arrive in New York the day before the big press conference.

Podcamp Boston 6 – I’ll be speaking at Podcamp Boston on Sunday, September 25, at 3:15 p.m. My topic will be “Podcast Your Passion: The Kindle Chronicles Story.” There’s still time to register, and it’s a great gathering of the digital tribe here in Cambridge, Mass.  If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll consider dropping by!

UPDATE:

Link Mentioned – Guven Witteveen’s blog chronicling his learning curve during the first few months of owning his Kindle.

News

Tech Tip – Are you rereading a Kindle book and want to reset the Furthest Page Read? Click here for instructions that work! Thanks to Lauren for sending this in.

Interview (Starts at 12:25)- Eolake Stobblehouse blogs about e-books and other creative endeavors from his perch in Lancashire, U.K. I spoke with him by Skype on September 12, 2011, and we cooked up some great ideas for Amazon on how they might design the new tablet in a way that includes a special procedure for entering that focused, nondistracted realm of Kindle reading, even on the bright-screen of the tablet.  Remember, you heard them first here!

Content – In an unscientific comparison of reading the Sunday New York Times on paper v. reading it on Kindle, I found I read far fewer articles on paper than is my habit on Kindle. How about you? If you’ve tried a similar comparison, what did you find?

Links mentioned – Good ways to track new Kindle versions of books: eReaderIQ and Mysteria.

Please join me for the next Kindle Chronicles Google Plus Video Hangout!

I had a great time this week visiting with Pastor Mark Pierce and Kipp Poe during the first hangout. The second will be Tuesday, September 20, 2011, at 1 p.m. EDT.  You can email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail for a G+ invite and/or instructions on how to join the hangout.  I’ll start it just before 1 pm, so if you have me in a Circle you should see notice in your stream that the hangout is ready to join. We’ll be talking about how the Kindle has changed the way we read.

News

Tech Tip – To find some very technical info about your Kindle, go to Menu -> Settings and try typing Alt – EQQ, Alt – RQQ and Alt – UQQ.

Interview – I spoke with bestselling author Steven Pressfield on Wednesday, September 7th, about the three books he published this year, Do the Work, The Warrior Ethos, and The Profession.  He also shared his own battle with resistance and gave an update on his current writing project.

Content – 1) Amazon offers 18 novels by Kurt Vonnegut for $3.99 each. Jon Cog offers his appreciation of the novelist.  Click here for a video of Vonnegut roasting John Hickenlooper, now Colorado’s virtuoso-goofball governor.  2) 7 Dragons releases a cool new app comprising 133 Kindle tips, for 99 cents.

Join the first Kindle Chronicles Hangout!

I’ll set up a Google Plus hangout for Kindle conversation on Tuesday, September 13th at 4 p.m. Eastern time. I hope you’ll stop by!  You can e-mail me at PodChronicles AT Gmail for a Google Plus invite if you need one.

News

Tech Tip – Do you have scores of pages in your Kindle Archive? You can navigate the list on your Kindle by typing a single letter with the cursor anywhere on the screen. The letter will show up in the search area  along with “click to go to the [letter] titles” or authors, depending on how you are sorting the archived items. It’s a handy way to get to a particular book in your archive from the Kindle.

Interview (starts at 2:19) – Jane Brox is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light. Her July 10, 2011, article, “Illuminating Texts,” in The Boston Globe was an insightful look back at how reading fundamentally changed when printed books replaced manuscripts.  I reached her by Skype and phone on August 31, 2011, in Brunswick, Maine, in hopes of learning from the history of reading some ideas that might apply to the current changes in the transition to digital reading. Click here for a column Jane wrote about reading in The Huffington Post. Jane has the distinction of being my first interview guest who has never even picked up a Kindle to try one out.  No matter, we had a great conversation, and when I learn that she’s bought a Kindle I’ll know the revolution is accomplished!

Content – Don’t miss the new Kindle Daily Deals and Stephen King’s new Kindle Single, Mile 81.

Links Mentioned in Comments – Eolake Stobblehouse’s suite of blogs and a comment on screen brightness by a Ph.D in Physics.  A questionable bit of research noted by Bob Anderson.  Karen Wheless notes Amazon’s romance imprint.  Lorraine Little on Barry Eisler

I discussed the following three writers who are making money with E-books: Karen McQuestion, J.A. Konrath, and Kate Harper.  Click here to purchase Kate’s 99-cent article titled “How to Publish and Sell Your Article: 12 Tips for Short Documents.”

Since the conference I’ve heard from two POMA members who followed my suggestions and have published their work at the Kindle Store.  One is Tom Claycomb III, of Idaho.  His Kindle article costs 99 cents and is titled “Knife Sharpening.” Tom is a clear, accomplished writer so I hope you’ll consider buying his book to help him get started in the world of e-pubishing.

The other notable e-book which has been published as a result of the POMA workshop is titled Reloading from Another Point of View II by Bob Shell, priced at $9.99.

We’re waiting for Irene to arrive here in Ocean Park, Maine, ready to move to higher ground if necessary.  I’ll resume the normal weekly schedule for The Kindle Chronicles next week.

News

Tech Tip – I ran into trouble updating my Kindle for Mac application, perhaps because I’m running the 10.7.1 version of Lion, but it works fine on Darlene’s computer running Snow Leopard.  Have you had any trouble updating Kindle for PC?  The updates add the ability to create collections or import them from your Kindle.

Interview (Starts at 15:39) – I had a great Skype connection from Maine to Australia this week with Steven Lewis, whose Taleist blog and associated resources help writers become authors through self-publishing on the Kindle platform. Click here to see the e-books he’s published himself, including some great walking guides of his home town, Sydney. A journalist and writer for nearly 20 years, Steven has written for The Financial Times, Esquire, GQ, and the International Herald Tribune, among others.

Content – In advance of my planned interview with author Steven Pressfield next month, you might want to check out two books he’s published this year, The Warrior Ethos and The Profession: A Thriller.  Both highly recommended.

Next Week – I will upload the second of my workshop presentations at the Professional Outdoor Media Association in Ogden, Utah, on August 13, 2011.  It’s titled “Making Money with E-Books.”

I’m so glad I accepted the invitation to address the conference, because I’ve met terrific writers who cover hunting and fishing and other outdoor sports who were hungry to learn about the possibilities of publishing for e-readers.  I really hope I hear from some of them about new work they’ve uploaded to the Kindle Store.

I fly back to Boston tomorrow and will take the train to Ocean Park Monday, to resume our lengthy stay by the sea.  The first bi-weekly episode of the Kindle Chronicles will be coming your way Friday, August 19.

News

Tech Tip – How to store your Kindle highlights and notes in Evernote, courtesy of a blog post by Michael Hyatt.

Interview (starts at 17:38) –  On Monday, August 2nd, I spoke by Skype and phone with Dave Limp, Kindle Vice President, who last month announced Amazon’s new announced Kindle Textbook Lending program. In our conversation, Dave made it clear that Amazon intends to expand the program to more and more textbooks and to constantly improve its usability.

Content – Amazon announces a free subscription to a digest of content from Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. HarperCollins offers 20 books for a buck each in August.  Andrys Basten has the list here, as does Steven Windwalker here.

Schedule Note: The Kindle Chronicles staff with this episode will shift to a bi-weekly schedule till Labor Day, the better to enjoy the summer rhythms of Ocean Park, Maine.  On the weeks without TKC, you might consider dropping by my other weekly podcast, The Edge of the Road, about the gadget on wheels formerly known as your car. EOR will also go bi-weekly, on the alternate weeks.

News

Tech Tip – The updated Kindle for iPad application adds the ability to download back issues of some newspapers and magazines that you subscribe to on Kindle.  I tried it out with the help of a Kindle support tech, with mixed results.

Interview (Starts at 17:46) – I spoke with Stephen Marche by Skype on July 26, 2011. He is the author of a prescient column about the Kindle published in October, 2009, titled “The Book that Contains All Books.” He’s also the author of How Shakespeare Changed Everything.

Content – Kipp Poe blogs about the new submission process for Kindle Singles. Maybe you should submit something!

News –

Tech Tip – My wife Darlene appreciates how the Shelfari “Book Extra” information helps her organize books in a mystery series, but she wishes Amazon would offer more organizing tools for her archive.

Interview (begins at 17:13)- I spoke on July 18, 2011 (Eastern time) by Skype with Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan. He is the editor of Tsunami: Japan’s Post-Fukushima Future, a timely e-book published by Foreign Policy Magazine. Nearly all of the $4.99 purchase price is being donated to the Japan Society, which will send proceeds directly to tsunami relief efforts on Japan’s northern coast.

Jeff also alerted me to Direct Relief  –  a great organization because 100 percent goes to charities. It has an endowment to cover its overhead and costs and works with some excellent Japanese nonprofit organizations that need funding because there is still so much work to do in the Tohoku region. Click here to contribute to tsunami relief through Direct Relief.

Content – Amazon’s Big Deal sale of more than 900 Kindle books for 99 cents, $1.99 and $2.99 ends July 27th. PaidContent has the story here.

News

Tech Tip – If your Kindle doesn’t know what time it is, Michael Gallagher will help you get it straight with a Q & A at his Free Kindle Books and Tips blog. Click here to subscribe to Michael’s blog on your Kindle.

Interview (Begins at 13:26)- Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, caught my eye with his lively review of Douglas Coupland’s Marshall McLuhan biography.  So I was glad to have a chance to visit his office for a chat about McLuhan on July 11, 2011.  More McLuhan links: the Playboy interview, a clip from Tom Wolfe’s interview with McLuhan in 1970, the iconic “Annie Hall” cameo appearance, and audio of a full lecture at Johns Hopkins.  As we approach the centenary of McLuhan’s birth on July 21, 1911, I have undertaken my own personal exploration of McLuhan’s life and work, with an eye to understanding e-books in a deeper way.  I’m calling it Understanding McLuhan and have added it to a long-dormant Tumblr blog which you can check out here.

Content-  Foreign Policy has published another worthwhile e-book, Tsunami: Japan’s Post-Fukushima Future, available for $4.99 on Kindle. Buy it now and support the Japan Society, which will send proceeds directly to tsunami relief efforts on Japan’s northern coast.

News

Tech Tip – A handy overview of the formats you can read on your Kindle.

Interview – Stephen Windwalker, creator of the Kindle Nation Daily blog and empire, stopped by for coffee here at our place in Cambridge, Mass., on July 6, 2011, for a wide-ranging conversation.  We discussed a snarky defense of traditional publishers as gatekeepers by Eric Felton, Book Rooster, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harry Potter, tablet rumors, and more. Click here to subscribe to KND on your Kindle.

Content – Jon Cog alerts me to a hot 99-cent deal for July on popular Kindle games.  Sale ends July 11. Go directly to Me and My Kindle for details - do not pass Go!

Other Links – Peter Meyers’s O’Reilly webinar, “Digital Bookmaking Tools Roundup,” is now available here.  And finally, a shoutout to Marshall McLuhan on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Tech Tip – Feedback on last week’s suggestion that you avoid manually putting your Kindle to sleep.

Interview – Kate Harper, greeting-card designer and author of How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle: 12 Tips for Short Documents, spoke with me on June 28, 2011, about the advantages of short articles on Kindle for readers and authors.

Content – Don’t forget that enhanced Kindle books will take up a lot of space on your Kindle.

Click here for the video recording of my webinar for the Professional Outdoor Media Association on June 27.  Pete Meyers also did an excellent webinar this week for O’Reilly Media, titled “Digital Bookmaking Tools Roundup,” but the recording of it does not seem to be available yet.

NOT a photo of David Burleigh... Had to go with a stock photo from Overdrive site.

News – 1) J. K. Rowling announces that she is going to sell her Harry Potter e-books herself, at Pottermore, beginning in October.  Will they be DRM-free? The Inquirer and The Unofficial Apple Weblog say so, without citing sources. The guys at eBook Architects (who host the essential eBook Ninjas podcast) help me understand the technical possibilities, which lead me to think there may well be DRM, courtesy of Overdrive. 2) Via listener Nick Todd in Southampton and the BBC I learn of a Kindle for PC accessibility plug-in which enables blind and vision impaired readers to use text-to-speech even for books where the capability has been disabled by the publishers. 3) My trouble connecting my new Nook Simple Touch Reader illustrates, IMO, the wisdom of Amazon’s building its own in-house DRM capability instead of relying on a third-party, namely Adobe, for its Adobe Digital Editions software.

Tech Tip – I learn the hard way that you should let your Kindle go to sleep on its own instead of forcing it to sleep each time you finish reading.

Interview (Starts at 9:09)- David Burleigh, Director of Marketing at Overdrive, describes e-book lending enhancements the company is announcing at the American Library Association’s annual meeting. We spoke by Skype and phone on Wednesday, June 22, 2011, between Cleveland and Cambridge, Mass.

Content – The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood by Jane Leavy is enhanced with some excellent video you can see on the Kindle app for iPad etc. And the price is right: free as of when I uploaded the show today.  Also, Abhi has updated his excellent 99-cent Kindle app, Notepad.

Upcoming – I will be presenting a webinar titled “Formatting Content for E-Readers” on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 2 p.m. EDT, sponsored by the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA).  It will last a half hour including questions.  It’s free, but space is limited.  Click here to register. I hope you’ll stop by!

Tech Tip – Via Jim Jones in Omaha, another shortcut for Text to Speech: Press the Back button to stop TTS in the middle of a book, saving the steps of pressing the Aa key and choosing “turn off” Text to Speech.

Interview (Starts at 11:45) – On June 16, 2011, I recorded what amounts to Part 2 of a conversation begun two weeks ago with Kindle blogger Jon Cog whose Me and My Kindle blog is available for subscription at the Kindle Store. Among this week’s topics: the Amazon.com shareholders’ meeting, Kindle games, the All-New Nook, and public annotations.  Games mentioned include Monopoly, Pirate Stash, Strimko, Futoshiki, Wordoku, Symdoku, Thread Words, Dots and Boxes, Word Search, Triple Town, and Snakes and Ladders.

Content – An update from Delivereads.

Upcoming – I will be presenting a webinar titled “Formatting Content for E-Readers” on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 2 p.m. EDT, sponsored by the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA).  It will last a half hour including questions.  It’s free, but space is limited.  Click here to register. I hope you’ll stop by!

News

Tech Tip – Text-to-speech controls only a Mother could love? Not really, but in a special appearance by my mother, 82, on the podcast, she gives me a chance to clear up what may be some common problems.

Interview – Susan Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker offers a glimpse into the exciting and often daunting opportunities available to an author who has succeeded in traditional publishing but is actively exploring new media, including Twitter and Facebook.  Susan’s hit Kindle Single, Animalish, is a stylish and original essay about her relationships with animals, from a mouse to a lion and everything in between. Her new book about the life and legend of Rin Tin Tin is available for preorder on Kindle, as is a Kindle title previously available in hardcover and paperback,  The Orchid Thief.  We spoke by Skype on Tuesday, June 7, 2011. Click here for a feature on Susan’s Kindle Single in The New York Times.

Content – If you want to read about the adventures of James Bond on e-book, you only have one choice: the Kindle Store.

Comments – Mark notes the success of independent authors on the Kindle platform and the arrival of a brand-new online science fiction magazine, Lightspeed.

Upcoming – I will be presenting a webinar titled “Formatting Content for E-Readers” on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 2 p.m. EDT, sponsored by the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA).  It will last a half hour including questions.  It’s free, but spaces are limited.  Click here to register. I hope you’ll stop by!

Tech Tip – How to sign up for free articles each week delivered to your Kindle by Delivereads.

Interview (starts at 18:55) – Some friends of Dave Pell gave him a Kindle six months ago to help him with his Internet addiction.  It worked, sort of, except now he’s back on the Internet looking for great articles to e-mail directly to the Kindles of a fast-growing number of subscribers to his new creation, Delivereads. Dave blogs here and twitters here.  I reached him by Skype in San Francisco on June 1.

Content – Be sure to check out Amazon’s Sunshine Deals for the Kindle – more than 600 books for 99 cents, $1.99 and $2.99.  Offers end June 15, 2011.

Next Week’s Scheduled Guest: Susan Orlean, author of a bestselling Kindle Single, Animalish.

News

Tech Tip – Some good tech tricks from the blog of Jon Cog here and here.

Interview – Jon Cog, writer of the Me and My Kindle blog, combines enthusiasm for the Kindle with a long history of tech writing. I spoke with him by Skype on May 22, 2011. Click here to subscribe to his blog on your Kindle for just 99 cents a month.

Content – At first I thought it would be a no-brainer: The New Yorker on iPad has got to be a better way to subscribe than on the Kindle, right? Not necessarily…

Upcoming – I will be presenting a webinar titled “Formatting Content for E-Readers” on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 2 p.m. EDT, sponsored by the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA).  It will last a half hour including questions.  It’s free, but spaces are limited.  Click here to register. I hope you’ll stop by!

Personal Update – I mention in this episode that I recorded it Monday night because my father, 84,  was in the hospital with heart issues. We just brought him home today (Thursday) to Cambridge from Mass General Hospital, and all’s well as long as he sticks to a low-sodium diet and responds well to a new heart medication, Pradaxa.  He spent a lot of quality time reading his Kindle while waiting for tests.

Contest – I see we’re only 10 “likes” away from having a winner in the Facebook contest. If you notice that you are the 1,000th person to “like” my Facebook page for the podcast, please send me an email at PodChronicles AT gmail, so I can alert our Paris-based Facebook Contest Department, comprising Jean Remple. He has kindly offered to donate an extra large “I Love Paris” t-shirt to the winner.

News

Tech Tip – Jon Cog at Beyond Black Friday pointed out that you can find out which of your Facebook friends is a fellow Kindle buff, and then add them to your network at kindle.amazon.com.  Click here for my Kindle profile. Jon will be my interview guest next week for TKC 149.

Interview – Julia Adams, an editor at Hachette children’s who works on their Wayland imprint for educational publishing, spoke with me from London via Skype on May 17, 2011. She is upbeat about e-books, even as she has experienced the combination of panic and opportunity that digital publishing represents to the world of traditional publishing.  We talked about how kids read these days and what will become of the well-established bookstores in Germany, now that Amazon has opened a new Kindle store there.

Content – Two smart Kindle Singles have taken up residence on my Kindle. They are The Enemy by Christopher Hitchens and Animalish by Susan Orlean. They are each available for $1.99.  Also, via Andrys Basten, I’ve downloaded a terrific free-for-awhile-book, Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100.

Other Links Mentioned – Tom Semple takes note of rumors of ePub in the Kindle’s future but says this comment illustrates why they are almost certainly untrue.  Andrys Basten has more here.

News

Tech Tip – Why I failed to connect my 2012 Ford Focus with MyFord Touch to an Audible book and Text-to-Speech titles on my Kindle. (For more tech adventures related to our new Focus, please check out my new podcast, The Edge of the Road, all about the gadget on wheels formerly known as your car.)

Interview (Starts at 12:55)- Author and digital publisher Peter Meyers, who blogs at A New Kind of Book, has suggested “character notes” as a handy way to keep track of characters in a e-novel. It’s an example of how he brings his deep background as a writer to bear on all things digital.  His Best iPad Apps book, available in Kindle format, is a thorough and witty selection of iPad applications.  He is now working on a new book, titled Breaking the Page, Saving the Reader: A Buyer & Builder’s Guide to Digital Books, due from O’Reilly Media this fall. I spoke with Peter by Skype on May 10, 2011.  Books Peter is reading: Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr.

Content – John Cog at the Beyond Black Friday blog reminds me of the excellent trove of free audiobooks available at LibriVox.  Click here to listen to the first chapter of Moby Dick.

News

Tech Tip – Are there limits to what you can highlight in a Kindle book? Well, that depends on what you mean by highlight.  Andrys Basten has some answers, and I try my own experiment.

Interview – In a conversation on May 2, 2011, I asked Kindle Director Jay Marine about how Amazon’s Kindle Library Lending capability will work, when it goes live by the end of the year. Also, he offered updates on the launch of the Kindle with Special Offers and the German Kindle Store. Jay last appeared on the podcast a year ago, on TKC 95.

Content – Amazon creates its fourth publishing imprint, Montlake Romance, which will publish love stories in Kindle, paper, and audio formats.

Other links mentioned – Episode 3 of my Edge of the Road podcast offers two tips for novice users of the MyFord Touch system.

News – My Kindle with Special Offers arrives, and Darlene gives it a thumbs up. The guys at the MarketFoolery podcast take note of Amazon’s quarterly earnings report and wonder what the company’s next big thing will be.  The NookColor can now play Angry Birds. Amazon introduces a subtle and effective new video ad.  And don’t forget Mother’s Day!

Tech Tip – Tom Semple gets me thinking about the My Clippings file.

Content – Do the Work by Steven Pressfield is still free at the Kindle Store.  Highly recommended!

Next Week’s Guest: Jay Marine, director of Amazon Kindle.

Interview

News – Amazon hits a triple this week, announcing the arrival by the end of this year of Kindle Library Lending, an update for Kindle for Android, and the opening of the German Kindle Store and related Kindle Direct Publishing capability for the store. Click here for Overdrive’s blog post to libraries about the Kindle Library program and here for Peter Rojas’s prediction of who will make the much-rumored Amazon tablet.

Tech Tip – Listener Tom Semple points out that the web-to-Kindle tools I mentioned last week, Kindlebility and Kindle This Page, don’t offer previews of the clipped content before you send it to your Kindle.  The Chrome extensions Send to Kindle and Later on Kindle do provide previews, which is why Tom prefers them, and I think he’s right.  You’ll also find good Kindle extensions on other major browsers.

Content – Jon Krakauer’s new Kindle Single, Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way , is a good example of the power of this new publishing category created by Amazon for e-books.  In fact, it may be the first e-book-only title to receive an extended consideration in the NYT Book Review podcast, in the latest episode’s Bestseller discussion.  Click here for the 60 Minutes segment in which Krakauer appears several times, making points which are covered at greater length in the e-book.

Next Week’s Guest: T.J. Waters, the creator of Autography, a digital way for authors to sign Kindle books.

News – 1) Amazon announces a WiFi-only Kindle with Special Offers that will cost $25 less than the current WiFi model. It’s a bold test of an advertising-supported e-reader, but the deals and sponsorships show up only on the Kindle SO’s screensaver and home page – never (yet?) in the e-books themselves. Andrys Basten has a good roundup of reaction and quotes here.  2) Someone finally answers the problem of how you can get an author’s autograph on the Kindle copy of his or her book that you bought.  My solution for getting Clay Shirky‘s digital autograph, shown here at South by Southwest two years ago, was crude compared with a service being launched by Autography, as described in this article in The New York Times. Click here for the Bay News 9 TV story. 3) Via the Me and My Kindle blog, I just caught the news of another explosion in e-book sales, this time for February as reported by the Association of American Publishers.  Publishers Weekly‘s report is here.

Tech Tip – I tried two new ways to transfer content from the web to my Kindle, Kindle This Page and Kindlebility, but ran into problems with each.  My favorite method is still Instapaper, which just keeps improving.

Content – After our interview, Steven Pressfield e-mailed me a list of books which would be great to have on the Kindles that Ken Clark and I are shipping to U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq through E-Books for Troops.  The ones in the public domain are as follows: Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander; Bhagavad-Gita, numerous translations; Curtius, History of Alexander; Demosthenes, Philippics; Frontinus, Stratagemata; Herodotus, The Histories; Homer, Iliad; Plutarch, Moralia (including Sayings of the Spartans and Sayings of
the Spartan Women); Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus; Plutarch, Life of Alexander; Plutarch, Life of Epaminondas; Polyaenus, Stratagemata; Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War; Vegetius, De Re Militari; Xenophon, Constitution of the Spartans; Xenophon, The Education of Cyrus; Xenophon, Anabasis [“The March Upcountry”]. And here are his suggestions for contemporary titles: E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed; S.L.A. Marshall, The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of the Nation; Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier; Field Marshal Erich von Manstein,  Lost Victories; and Robert Crisp, Brazen Chariots.

Next Week’s Guest: Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and host of the peerless Book Review podcast.

Interview (Starts at 3:08)

News – J.K. Rowling’s spokesman tells The Scotsman that there really is going to be an e-book version of the Harry Potter series.

Tech Tip – Lauren from Ft. Meyers, Florida, asked how you can change the “Furthest Page Read” location in a book across Kindle devices.  Andrys Basten of A Kindle World blog wrote about the answer to this in October of last year, and it works!

Content Interview (Starts at 25:00)- Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is director of content and digital product development at Media Source Inc., publisher of Library Journal. In a recent blog post he described his Do It Yourself publishing experiment that led to a new e-book now available on Kindle, Nook, and at goodreads. The title is Handmade Memories: Poetry & Essays, 1997 – 2011.  In a Skype interview on April 5, 2011, Guy talked about what he learned, and he also read the title poem of the collection.

Upcoming Interviews – Next week, Steven Pressfield, author of Do the Work, a soon-to-be released new title from Seth Godin’s Domino Project.  TKC 144: Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and host of the peerless Book Review podcast.

News

Also in news: E-book sales boomed in January, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Tech Tip – Pastor Mark Pierce has more tips on the new capabilities of the latest-generation Kindle for playing Audible audiobooks.

Interview (starts at 13:04)- Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard Libraries, talks about the stunning rejection of the amended Google Books Settlement, and what might prove to be an even better way to provide digital access to the nation’s treasure trove of library books. Click here for his New York Times op-ed piece on the subject and here for my interview with him last fall.

Content – Amazon and The New York Times announce that Kindle subscribers to the Times will have free access to NYTimes.com on any device, even after the newspaper’s paywall is in place. PC World asks some questions.

Links Mentioned in Podcast:

In the latest episode of my Edge of the Road podcast, you’ll hear from the runner-up team in Ford’s recent Focus Rally America.

Newport Beach, California, officials mull the closing of the main library and replacing it with a community center. (Link e-mailed by Linda Hopkins.)

News

Tech Tip – How to make the terrific Kindle app Notepad even easier to use with your computer. Try this Kindle-friendly language translator: Kindlefish.  Thanks to The Kindle Reader for the tweet on this!

Interview (begins at 17:28) – Susan Glasser, editor in chief of Foreign Policy Magazine, tells how FP managed to create an impressive e-book in about a week, starting on the very day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned. The book is titled Revolution in the Arab World: Tunisia, Egypt, and the Unmaking of an Era. Click here for the Kindle edition, available for $4.99 with a free update expected next month. I see they just added a Nook version, too. I spoke with Susan by Skype and phone in Washington, D.C. on March 21, 2011. Click here to subscribe to FP’s Zinio subscription on the iPad.  Sorry, no Kindle subscription yet, but coming sometime in the future.

Content – Audible audio books can now be downloaded to your Kindle directly over a WiFi network.  I sampled The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain, which sounds wonderful.

Other Links mentioned:

Click here to purchase my niece Fran Betlyon‘s new demo CD featuring “Antoinette Savage,” the song I used for this week’s outro.  Follow her on Twitter.

E-Books for Troops , which has distributed 65 new and used Kindles to troops so far this year, will be glad to accept your donated Kindle 2 and send it to a U.S. Soldier on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Click here for the Facebook page.

The Edge of the Road podcast, all about the gadget on wheels formerly known as your car, has a new episode up, and you can now subscribe to it at the iTunes Store.

Late-Breaking Contest Announcement: Whoever becomes the 1,000th person to like this podcast’s Facebook page is going to win an “I Love Paris” T-shirt, compliments of loyal listener Jean Remple.

News

Tech Tip – In which we lay to rest the topic of using nail polish to fix Kindle cases with prongs but no built-in lights.  And, Pastor Mark Pierce makes a discovery about which magazines and newspapers can be shared among several devices. BTW, click here for the web sites Mark follows in order to find good books to add to the Pierce Family Book Club.

Interview – Patrick Mish, founder and CEO of M-Edge Accessories, describes his company’s growth since the last time he was on the show.  As it happens, I spoke with him this week on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, the day M-Edge went live with a great new feature that enables you to design your own e-reader cover.

Content – Open Road publishes a Kindle collection of writing by Albert Einstein.  I’m lukewarm about Kindle active content on yoga and abs but can enthusiastically recommend a 99-cent Kindle app called Notepad (A Note Taking Tool for Kindle).  If you’d like to offer a Kindle title recommendation, please record it in 30 seconds or less and email it to me at PodChronicles AT Gmail Do. Our first one comes from Laila Lorentzen of Norway, who recommends In the Place of Justice by Wilbert Rideau.

Other links -

WorldReader.org

Click here for photos of a U.S. flag flown for a month over a Marine base in Afghanistan and the certificate of appreciation we received for E-Books for Troops.

News

Tech Tip – Listener Mark Patrick points out a great way to see all the books I’ve bought for my Kindle, as well as all the rest of my Amazon media.

Interview (Starts at 19:40) – Pastor Mark Pierce of Church Requel in Mansfield, Ohio, shares his experience with the Pierce Family Book Club.  Maybe your family could get closer by sharing Kindle books on one Amazon account! Click here to subscribe at the iTunes Store to his video podcast and here for the audio version.

Content – I didn’t actually discuss these in the audio, but you might want to check out two Kindle Active Content titles by Nickel Buddy, Anywhere Abs, and his latest, My Yoga Studio. They are each available for $1.99.

Other links mentioned:

I hope you had a happy Read an E-Book Week!

Project Gutenberg is 40 years old this year.

Tech Tip – The Nail Polish Cover Fix reconsidered, and an easy way to open files converted to Kindle .azw format on your iPad.

Interview (begins at 14:21) – Seth Godin in an interview recorded on February 25, 2011, talks about his recently released book, Poke the Box, traditional publishers, Amazon’s culture, the Domino Project, and lots more.

Content – Oops! Revolution in the Arab World, a timely e-book published by Foreign Policy Magazine, DOES come in a Kindle edition, as well as PDF. TKC regrets the error and looks forward to an interview with the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief in a future show.

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How Seth Godin inspired me to poke the box a year ago, leading to the creation, with Ken Clark, of E-Books for Troops. Click here for the new E-Books for Troops Facebook page.

News

Tech Tip – Listeners Howard Dunlavey, Kate Harper, and Allen MacDiarmid give Darlene help in easily transitioning from a sample to the whole book.

Interview (Starts at 13:19) – I spoke with author Aaron Goldfarb on Tuesday, February 22, 2011, by Skype about his raunchy, profane, and compelling satire on success in America, titled  How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide and available in Kindle format for $2.99.  At the same time, he published The Cheat Sheet, a collection of short stories for 99 cents.   Aaron has been hitting the podcast circuit to do other good interviews with Catherine MacDonald of BookLending.com and Melissa Giovagnoli of Networlding.  Click here for his YouTube Channel.

Content – Foreign Policy Magazine has published a special and timely $4.99 e-book in PDF format titled Revolution in the Arab World. If you use Amazon’s free conversion service, you can read it on your Kindle more easily than if you simply move the PDF file to your device.

Next Week’s Interview – Seth Godin on the Domino Project and his new book, Poke the Box, available for $1 Kindle pre-order until March 1, 2011, when the price will increase.

News

Tech Tip – Yes, Virginia, you CAN read digital books you purchased at the Google eBookstore (or even better, the Tattered Cover) on your Kindle. The eBook Reader Blog shows us how.

Interview – My wife Darlene solves the mystery of the more than 250 mystery books that have been gathering dust for the past two years on the bookshelves of our bedroom here in Cambridge. Books mentioned: The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan.  If you, like me, are a fan of the McLuhan classic, please click here to the “Tell the Publisher!” you’d like to read this book on Kindle.

Content – Kate Harper’s helpful article about how to publish articles for the Kindle store is titled How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle: 12 Tips for Short Documents, and it costs 99 cents. She’s offering another article, free to Kindle Chronicles listeners, showing how to create a cover for a book you’d like to publish for Kindle.  Details in the audio.

Links Mentioned in Comments -

The BBC’s Wilbert Rideau interview.

Beyond the Book podcast interview with Michael Cairns on the challenge e-books pose to the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) system.

News

Tech Tip – Courtesy of Marie Williams’s KinWorm blog, here’s how to listen to podcasts on your Kindle. Click here for video.  Click here to contribute to her work.

Interview (starts at 10:22) – On February 8, 2011, I visited in person with Neil Strandberg, manager of operations at Denver’s Tattered Cover Book Store, about how the e-book revolution looks from the vantage point of one of the nation’s most highly regarded independent booksellers. (Thanks to Stephen Windwalker for his helpful background briefing on the plight of indies, based on his own experience as a bookseller back in the day.)

Content – Jeffery Deaver, who was invited to write a new James Bond novel, has been reading Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love and sharing his highlights and notes publicly for Kindle users. His new book will be titled Carte Blanche and is available for pre-order on Kindle here. I found it fascinating to see what Deaver considered noteworthy in the classic Fleming novel, through the use of Public Notes.

Note: If you purchased and read Stephen Baker’s excellent Final Jeopardy after listening to my interview with him last week, please consider leaving a review of the book here.  I left one myself, here.

Photo by Carolyn Cole

News – 1) Apple rejects Sony‘s e-reader app for the iPhone, which could mean changes in the way the Kindle for iPad and other Apple devices functions, regarding e-book purchases. Covered by the New York Times, Digital Daily, and Tecca.  2) You can now buy a Kindle at any of the Fred Meyer stores. 3) The Man Booker Prize judges are toting Kindles.

Tech Tip – Two ways to save a non-lighted Kindle 3 cover with posts, courtesy of listeners Mike Gordon and Tom Keitel.  Also, it turns out you can’t delete your Kindle’s dictionary. (Sorry, Dad.)

Interview (begins at 14:03)- Stephen Baker, author of The Numerati and  Final Jeopardy, tells the story of IBM’s Watson, the computer who would be a Jeopardy champion.  We spoke by Skype on January 31, 2011.  You can watch the final match on Feb. 14, 15, and 16. Click here for Stephen’s blog.  For a sneak peek at Watson’s prowess click here, and here for the video.

Content – Flip It! – a great new game for 99 cents, by Abhi. Click here for help on getting past Level 5.

E-Books for Troops Update – We’ve received a grant of $2,500 and another in the same amount as a matching grant. So it’s a great time to make a tax-deductible contribution to enable us to distribute more Kindles to U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.