A GUIDE TO THE KINDLE-COLLECTIONS FEATURE

HOW TO USE KINDLE COLLECTIONS
This is a folders-like feature available for Kindle 2's, DX's and Kindle 3's  (UK: K3's), implemented with 'tags' or category-labels (as seen with Google's GMail).

I'm placing here, into one blog entry, some excerpts from some earlier pieces on Collections and may modify it over the next week or two.

COLLECTIONS - BASICS
Modified from steps given us by Marc Miwords

. From Home, click on "Menu"
. Go to "Add New Collection"
. Name the Collection.  Repeat as wanted  *

. Go to your listing of books or documents on the Home screen
. On each title, push the 5 way controller to the right
. From that menu, click "Add To Collection"
. Using the 5 way Controller, scroll to a Collection label that you want to use for that particular book
. Click the 5 way controller
. One click ADDs it, another click REMOVES it -- from the collection but not from your device

. If you want to add a book to several collections, go down the Collections listing (alphabetized for the Add-Book-to-Collection process) until you see another Collection that should include the book and click on the Collection label to add the book.  Repeat as wanted.

. Press Back button to get back to where you were in the Home screen books-listing.
. Repeat until you have all of your books in collections.

ALTERNATIVE Collections-creation method
* NOTE: You can, instead, create a Collection, name it, and THEN choose to
ADD books to it, and you will be taken to your book collection on the Kindle Home screen and you can mark the books that are to be added to the collection.

  A book can be added to many collections. '

INTRO AND GUIDE - Main portion
The Kindle Collections feature was added with Kindle 2 and DX software version v2.5x and is a feature of the newer Kindle 3

 Basic answers to most questions on this feature are in the online documentation.
  So I've linked to the Amazon help pages that describe how this new feature works.

ALPHABETIZING KINDLE COLLECTIONS FOR THE HOME SCREEN
Amazon did not, for some reason, choose to show us our Collections-set in alphabetical order.  It's as if they expected that anyone browsing a library shelf would prefer to see the book titles in the order they were last accessed by us rather than in alpha order.

So this is an introductory workaround for that.

The Home screen image starting this section is of my Kindle screen after I applied  a workaround recommended by knowledgeable Kindle users from Kindleboards, including luvmy4BRATs who led an Amazon Kindle forum discussion on this, with some great ideas added by other ultra-creative people in those Amazon forums, ideas and examples which I'll use in another Collections blog entry in the future.

   Collection titles: Using certain prefacing symbols such as '*' or '[' or '{'  forces the Collections group-names into an alphabetical sort when using the  "By Title" sorting-option, which people with many Collections will find more useful than the official and separate "Collections" sorting-option that is given us by the new software.



That official Collections Home-listing, as seen in the image at the right, sorts only by most-recently accessed Collection, making it quite difficult to find the right collection if you have many of them.

  Note that the active Sort-type is shown at the top right and you can cursor up there to change it by moving the 5-way button to the right when you get there.

  With 30 Collections and three pages of those on my Kindle 2 (U.S.), I had problems finding any Collection I knew held the book I wanted because I had to check each Collection name on the Home screens, which took forever.

  Again, the image on the right displays the Default listing for sorting the Home screen books by Collections (rather than by Title, Author, or Most Recent).

  Then note the image above that, at the left, for the workaround using the Titles sorting-option that I mentioned

"Drawback" and "Bonus" of using Titles Sorting-option:
  Drawback: The individual books are shown BELOW your alphabetized Collections (which is why we'd make symbols prefixing the Collection titles -- to keep them above the listing of individual titles).
  It should be easy to ignore the trailing list of book titles though.

  Bonus: When you're viewing a Collections listing alphabetized via using the Titles sort, you can go directly to the Home screen section with the first letter of a Title if you want --  But ONLY THE FIRST LETTER because if you type two letters, the Kindle would start a Search of the entire Kindle for a word composed of those two letters.  That takes an eternity, so keep it to only the first letter.

    In other words, if you're looking for a title starting with the word "Nights," you'd type just 'n' and click the 5-way button, to be taken to a page with book titles starting with the letter 'n' -- this means that you can see your Collections in alpha order AND access a book title more easily when you want.

TIP
Periodicals - Amazon has a default Collection that holds your Kindle-edition subscriptions to newspapers and magazines when the issues are no longer the current ones.
 When you're not using the Title/alpha sort (and instead sorting by "Most Recent" or by "Author"), you'll see Periodicals at the END of your Home Screen listing, along with the "Archived Items" Collection always created by Amazon for books you've bought from Amazon but don't have on your Kindle at the moment.
  Tip2 - You can get to the last page of your home screen listing by typing the number of the last page and clicking on the 5-way button.

TIP 2
Getting a series of books into the right order within Collections
To get a series of books into the right order within a Collection while using the Kindle's SORT by Title work-around option as described above:

  Add another prefacing like-symbol to a Collection title as you ascend in order (or even use different symbols (to mean 1, 2, 3, 4, etc) but I feel the latter is more difficult and Amazon tends to change the ordering of its symbols in different software versions).

  Adding extra prefacing like-symbols to Collection titles (making them act as sub-collections, which the Kindle does not have) has worked well for some who were able to order their series this way.

  Quick example (remembering these are 'Collections' you are adding as a form of sub-collections (since Amazon does not offer sub-collections). You create them the same way.
    .. booktitle
    ...booktitle 2
    ....booktitle 3
or, using the symbol I used above:
    {{booktitle
    {{{booktitle 2
    {{{{booktitle 3


TIPS AND EXAMPLES FROM AMAZON HELP PAGES WITH ADDITIONAL TIPS I'VE ADDED
Following are some tips and examples from Amazon's help pages with tips I've added:


USING THE COLLECTIONS FEATURE
Information and Examples from Amazon's Online Help (all emphases mine)

* Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.

 

Sorting Content and Using Collections

As with earlier Kindle software, we still go up to the top of the HOME screen and navigate the SORT options, which now include (except for Kindle 1) "Collections," which are categories we create (except for "Periodicals" and "Archived Items" which are essentially Collections put in place by Amazon).    The set-categories given us in earlier software (Personal Docs, etc.) are no longer offered, but we can roll our own.


The HOME screen looks the same as the Kindle 2's, but when we go up to the SORT options area at the top of the screen, we'll be able to choose to view the Collections we've created.  You can see that the Collections are shown along with the number of books or documents in those Collections.

  The default Sorting-option for the Home screen listing of books remains "Most Recent First" unless we arrow over, at the top, to Collections option (or Title or Author) and click to select another sort-order.

  You can review the Step-by-Step for Adding Collections and books for them at the top of this blog article.  You can then just use the 'Back' option on your web-browser to return here.

As you've seen, Collections are created from a Menu key option when you're at the Home screen, and Collections can be renamed or deleted later (see screen image below).

  A book can be in several collections, but even if it is in only one collection, the deletion of that collection won't affect the book, which will still be shown on and accessible from the Home screen.



  Collections can be transferred across registered Kindle devices and you'll be able to import collections from your other Kindle devices under the Archived Items page, using "Add Other Device Collections."

  If you RE-download a deleted Amazon book that was once a part of a Collection you made, it will download to the Collection or category it was a part of before.

Except for no option for Alpha sorting of Collections, this feature is especially well thought out (except for the non-alpha order of the Sort-by-Collections listing), so it's intuitive, logical, and therefore easy to use after the initial intro to it.  Collections have a tag-type structure, so that you can have a book in several groupings at any time.  There is only one level of groupings though, so there's no sub-folder-like feature.

  I have 30+ named Collections under which I want to find things.   But it's still brought my list of 200+  books and documents way down and, as a result, it's now really easy to find the books I'm in the mood to read.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   K3 Special, $114   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Amazon's 4th Qtr Results: Reactions, Kindle Profitability

The Wall Street Journal Blog's Dan Gallagher, after Amazon's 4th Qtr report Thursday, writes that while the Amazon Kindle is "far and away the most popular of the dedicated e-reader devices on the market"..."it remains unclear just how much profit – if any – the company is able to realize from the device and its associated e-books business."

It's an interesting angle because most of the stories are about how Amazon sold 115 e-books (not counting free ones) for every 100 paperbacks sold, during the first quarter of this year so far and that includes paperback books for which there is no Kindle edition.  This would include a spurt of e-book buying after Kindles were opened during the holidays, but it's not unlikely that the new Kindle owners would continue to buy e-books more often than they'd bought printed books, as that is a common report.

Retail Gazette in the U.K. pointed out that Jeff Bezos remarked:

' Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected - and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales. '

  I won't quote all the details of the dollar stats, as you can just read them in any of the financial articles, including the ones linked here, but the WSJ's Gallagher brings up an interesting point, re profitability on the Kindle.

  Although the company reiterated that it has sold more units of the Kindle 3 than the final book in the Harry Potter series, making it Amazon's top-selling product ever, Gallagher continues:

'...the revenue boost may not be flowing to Amazon’s bottom line; in fact, it may even be weighing it down.

  For one, it looks likely that Amazon makes little to no money on the device itself.   A study by market-research firm iSuppli last year estimated the total cost of materials for the 3G Kindle at $155.56 – about $33 less than the $189 selling price for the device.

 Since iSuppli’s estimates do not include the cost of software, licensing, royalties, manufacturing expenses (Amazon outsources production of the Kindle) and a cut for the wireless carriers, analysts suspect Amazon likely sells the Kindle at a slight loss. '

  When asked about this during a conference call with analysts Thursday, Amazon's financial officer, Tom Szkutak, "refused" to give specifics about the Kindle's profitability.

  Many have brought up the razor-razorblade model for the Kindle and Amazon's e-books.  But Ben Schachter of Macquarie Research feels that "lack of profits from the device, along with Amazon’s move to sell more lower-margin electronics and general merchandise, is keeping pressure on the bottom line" and therefore there is frustration that "margins are not improving."

  " 'That's why people are frustrated that margins are not improving,' Schachter says.  'Any margin improvement from e-books is being hurt by spending, the [cost of] Kindle hardware and the shift into [electronics and general merchandise] categories.  Amazon is willing to push margin on that to make money over the long term.' "

Even though Net Sales increased 36% to $12.95 billion in the 4th Qtr and Net Income increased 8% to $16 million, there was "unfavorable impact" from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, and shares sank 9% after hours Thursday.

  It's all about high expectations -- and even then Amazon's net income beat expectations, hitting 91 cents per share while analysts had expected 88 cents per share, per Factset.  However, they'd "expected" more than 36% net sales and Amazon also "warned that operating profit could decline as much as 34 percent [AB here: or as little as 2 percent] compared with the first quarter of 2010" as they invest long-term in building the company.

Other highlights:
  . It was Amazon's first $10 billion quarter.
  . The U.S. Kindle store now contains 810,000 books, including New Releases and 107 of the 112 books on the New York Times best-seller list.  About two-thirds of the books cost $9.99 or less, the company said.
  (Barnes & Noble, as well as Sony, count the ~1.5 million free public domain Google books in their totals.)

In its SEC 10-K filing dated January 28, 2011, Amazon has to set out all the possibilities, especially the negative ones, and it's an interesting read.  Of note for us customers, Authorlink.com writes:

' The company plans to rapidly and significantly expand global operations, including increasing product and service offerings and scaling infrastructure to support retail and services businesses.  This expansion increases the complexity of its business and places significant strain on management, personnel, operations, systems, technical performance, financial resources, and internal financial control and reporting functions.  In assessing the risks of its growth, the company said "We may not be able to manage growth effectively, which could damage our reputation, limit our growth and negatively affect our operating results," the filing said. '

  That's par for the course with SEC 10-K filings.
  The PR release says it, of course, more positively: "Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce and the various factors detailed..."

  The SEC 10-K filing continues on in the vein quoted by Authorlink and they end the article with, "Despite these risks, the company expects significant growth next year."


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Q&A from today: How to find past appearances of a character in a book - Update

FROM THE KINDLE FORUMS, A QUESTION TODAY

Saw the following question on an Amazon Kindle forum today and thought it might be good to post the Q&A here as well.  There are also good answers to new customers' questions on a number of common puzzlements in that thread.

Q: I have a kindle but I was wondering if there was a quicker way to go to the beginning of a book you are reading to review names from the previous pages.  I have been using the back button but it takes a long time to find what you want to know.  With a book you can just turn the pages.  This happens frequently when you may not get back to what you are reading for days...

A:  [There were several good answers at the forum.  The one below was mine (slightly modified for the blog), but you might enjoy reading the other ones on that page too, and you can click on the forum link to see them.]

Update - The answer is for a Kindle 3 as there were several million new owners of these in the last few months.  The steps for Kindle-2 and DX are on an earlier, separate page.  End of Update

  Here are the steps:

1. RIGHT on the page you're reading -
  Start typing the the name of the character
    whose previous appearances you
    want to see again.
  The searchbox will come up with your
    typed name in it.
  You then cursor down one step and then
  cursor right one step to get "find"
    as an option.
  Click on that and wait for the usually
    several results,
    each surrounded by context and with
    a link to the page that holds it.

2. If it's a complex name to type, then
  Start a highlight on it instead.
  Click on the 5-way button at the
    beginning of the name, word or phrase
    to start a highlight, and then
  go to the right with the 5-way button until
    you get the last letter of the name,
    but -don't- click the 5-way button as
    you might for an actual highlight.

  Instead, press the spacebar to end it, and
    that'll put the name into the
    search box for you, and you can
  go down one step and
  go to the right one step
  to get the 'find' option.

  As CLS10, Bufo Calvin and others show, there are many different ways...

Getting back to the beginning of a book
As for how to get back to the beginning of a book, one can just -- as was pointed out in the forum thread -- press the Menu button and the default option will be "Go to..."

  Click on that and you'll get the "Go to" box where you can cursor down one step and then cursor left to choose either "beginning" or even "cover."

  Any tips you may have are always welcome in the Comments area.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindles in schools - SRC Stock Charts on Kindle - Kobo2 Review - Colour Kindle

A Story About Another School Trying Out Kindles

In fact, 200 Kindles.  Nashville High School in Arkansas is using the Kindle in English classes, in hopes that it'll be possible to use them in other subject-areas as a replacement for paper textbooks.

School officials hope it'll encourage students to read more (this is likely, as it's a common experience for those who use e-Ink devices) and do their school work "more efficiently."  For non-fiction books especially, the way the Search function works and also the way that Annotations are kept on both the device and the special password-protected Annotations webpage are a boon in my case.

The brief video (delivered by the tv newsperson with strange inflections) includes a response by one student, who's not only happy to be able to use a Kindle but she wants one when she graduates -- it'll be interesting to see what the e-reader field looks like at that time though.

Securities Research Company's Stock Chart Books Now Available On the Kindle
From their PRNewswire:

' Securities Research Company's Digital Division, SRC Digital (www.srcdigital.com), today announced that it has released its best-selling "The SRC Blue Book® 12-Year NYSE Stock Chart®" and five other titles in the Amazon Kindle Store using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing.

  Other titles released in the Kindle Store include "The SRC Orange Book® of 12-year NASDAQ Charts®", "The SRC Industry Book® of 12-year Charts®", "The SRC ADR Book® of 12-Year Charts®", "The SRC ETF Book® of 12-Year Charts®" and "The SRC Red Book® of 21-Month Charts®".  Customers can download these publications from the Kindle Store and receive weekly or monthly updates depending on the title.  Additional titles will be rolled out over the next few months until all of SRC's publications are available in the Kindle Store. '

 The cost is not trivial, of course.

Kobo, now with WiFi - a Review
Adam Turner reviews the new Kobo and its online store at Borders, for smh.com.au.  He finds the store slow-going and feels the Search option is where the Kobo "falls short" and makes him miss the QWERTY keyboard of the Kindle.  The onscreen keyboard uses the 5-way rocker to move from one letter to the next and doesn't always detect presses unless you go slowly.

  He's impressed that they squeezed in the WiFi features for the same price as the old model but says it has a "long way to go before it can rival the slick Amazon/Kindle user experience."  He doesn't recommend the Kobo over the Kindle "unless you're determined to stick with the ePub format rather than Amazon’s eBook format."

Our First Year With Amazon Kindle as an Independent Publisher
FutureBook's very upbeat report on the first year with Amazon as an independent publisher is an interesting read.  The main reason I'm mentioning it here, though, as a news bit, is what popped out at me in the paragraphs below written by steveemecz:

' Where is it going?  My contacts at Amazon can’t share anything specific, but they did say that the customer experience, both for consumers and publishers is a key focus.

Well, in 2011 we expect to see Kindle device sales and follow on book sales go from strength to strength.  Amazon themselves have big expansion plans and that will mean more footfall through the Kindle stores.  We expect them to launch Kindle into new countries ... and of course there has been lots of talk around the colour Kindle device. '

There has? With their Amazon contacts? Or with others? (See earlier reports.)  "Show me the money colour!"


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

"Kindle Singles" are now available and look interesting

AMAZON SINGLES FEATURE READY TO GO.
Amazon announced today that the first set of "Kindle Singles is ready, and can be seen at Amazon's KindleSingles page.

  What are they?
  Below is what I wrote on October 13.  Essentially, they're shorter works not forced into the expected size of a regular novel, and, as a result, they're not as expensive either.  Pricing is between 99 cents and $4.99 and include original reporting, essays, memoirs and fiction.
  There are some really interesting looking offerings there, at good prices, and you can still get samples first.

When I first saw the PR release at MarketWatch, I thought Amazon was expanding into the Dating-Services area, but instead:

' Less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000: that is the choice writers have generally faced for more than a century--works either had to be short enough for a magazine article or long enough to deliver the "heft" required for book marketing and distribution.

But in many cases, 10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) might be the perfect, natural length to lay out a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well illustrated--whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event.

Today [Oct. 12], Amazon is announcing that it will launch "Kindle Singles" -- Kindle books that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book.  Kindle Singles will have their own section in the Kindle Store and be priced much less than a typical book.
  Today's announcement is a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world.

  "Ideas and the words to deliver them should be crafted to their natural length, not to an artificial marketing length that justifies a particular price or a certain format," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content.  "With Kindle Singles, we're reaching out to publishers and accomplished writers and we're excited to see what they create." '

Nick Bilton of the NY Times points out that

' This medium-length format has traditionally been difficult for writers to sell to publishers as it doesn’t fit into the mold of a printing-press distribution model.

  In a digital distribution system, those pricing structures no longer exist, and a digital price can be adjusted accordingly.

  By promoting this new format, Amazon can also avoid upsetting publishers who were frustrated with the company when it introduced its own self-publishing product, allowing writers to price and directly sell their content on the Kindle platform. '

Engadget's Joseph L. Flatley refers to these as "really, really short books"

  To Engadget's mostly tongue-in-cheek analysis - "It looks like Amazon has finally admitted what we knew all along: most books are too long. And boring.
  We need more e-publications that reflect our torn jeans, frayed hair, coffee swilling, ca. early-1990s slacker lifestyle.
  Kindle Singles, as announced by "the man" in an ironic blast of "PR," are described as e-books anywhere from twice the length of a Maximum Rock'n'Roll feature article to a few chapters in a typical book...."

  In the Engadget comments area, Nick Sweetman writes:

' Have you ever heard of this thing called attention span? It's when you actually get to '

  IMHo predicts:

' Mark my words: in 2020 they will come out with Kindle Fractions, for page-and-a-half publications, because by then singles will be considered long and boring :) '

  And, on a more serious note, jtnoel adds:

' Amazon is one of Dime Novel Publishing's distribution channels.  In fact, we currently have close to 30 titles published (although Amazon does not provide publishers the ability to offer texts for free...unless you are one of the big guys).

  The issue is about getting noticed. Publishers pushing short/serialized content through Amazon are, in short (no pun intended), lost in the shuffle.  By breaking this out into its own model, there is a great opportunity for authors/publishers like us to get some real marketing push from Amazon. '

 Dingus is amusing:

' The "Amazon Singles" name is all about branding.  Because calling them "Amazon Short Stories" sounds like a comic from the '50s.
  Also the acronym might not fly. '

 And, on a note that might please Amazon and Singles-authors, Mark points out why this might work:

' There are probably a lot of awesome short stories by authors I love, that I don't read.  Why?  Because I don't want to buy compilations with other short stories I am not interested in reading. '

zippycart.com makes some good points:

' ...Others view Kindle Singles as a new revenue source [for writers].  Writers can now take a different approach, and create smaller books that have a more narrow focus.

  It might take a year to write a traditional book, but Kindle Singles could be easily produced in two weeks to a month.  This quick turn around time could allow writers a chance to sell more digital work, so they can have the money to allow them to spend time focusing on bigger books.

  Other writers, on the other hand, may look at this as a new opportunity to carve out a unique niche, where they produce dozens of 30 to 90 page books.   Either way, this new addition to the Kindle Store provides a great deal of opportunity for many. '

Technorati's Laura Zavelson writes:

' If viewed through a magazine/newspaper lens, this could be the first step in letting journalists and writers produce their own work rather than having to be on staff or go through the tedious pitch process.  While the press release did not discuss the business model, there is also the possibility that writers might even be able to earn more for their work by going straight to distribution and bypassing the publishers.

  ... The newsstand price of a top consumer magazine runs about $5. What if you could spend less and just buy the articles you're interested in?  Would you do it? '

TODAY'S ANNOUNCEMENT - January 26, 2011
Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content, said "This first set of Singles was selected by our team of editors, and includes works by Rich Cohen, Darin Strauss, Ian Ayres, and the first-ever books published by TED. We think customers will be riveted by these stories that can take them to a Swedish bank heist or to the Mexican border town of Juarez, or to consider a new way to think about happiness."

The new Kindle Singles section of the Kindle Store is now available at Amazon's kindlesingles page and are available to both Kindle device and app users.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Library E-book feature overrated? New Lending site: eBook Fling

GETTING FREE E-BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY MAY BE OVERRATED?

LibraryCity.Org reports on a blog article by Nathan Groezinger of The eBook Reader blog, opining that since more and more "people are turning to the library as a source for ebooks, the limitations of the service has [sic] become much more obvious."

He lists five problems he's noticed with this, and I'm just quoting the heading for each point and you should read the details there

  (Kindle-edition readers can now follow any article link and, after the article comes up, Kindle-3 users can click on Menu -> Article Mode to get rid of the non-article side-links) and read in larger fonts, with better contrast.
  Kindle-2 and DX users should use Basic mode to get larger fonts with better b&w contrast.

  He gives personal experiences as reasons for his doubt, and the commenters to the page's premise make interesting points on both sides.  The five problems listed (with his article-summary following the headings here) are:

#1. Limited number of copies and waiting lists
#2. 21 Days
#3. No library ebooks
#4. Fees for library cards
#5. Poor selection and random selection '

While access to library books is a real plus and the Kindle doesn't offer this feature (though the new lending sites are helping), Nathan G. wonders if libraries will be able to keep up with the demand, "especially with many publishers and authors feeling uncomfortable about library ebooks to begin with."

ANOTHER KINDLE-BOOK LENDING SITE AND THE EFFECT IT MAY HAVE
The L.A. Times's Alex Pham writes about eBook Fling as a "Netflix Instant Watch for digital books."


Their official Kindle-book lending/borrowing site opens officially today, though it was up and running yesterday, Pham says.

' Here's how it would work. Users can list any digital book they've purchased. When another member requests to borrow it, EBookFling sends the book owner a message with step-by-step instructions for lending it.  Each time the user lends a book, they earn a credit, which can be used to borrow other members' books.... Each lending period lasts 14 days...   [AB: because that is the time limit the publishers chose for this feature at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon.]

At the moment, the site is only registering new subscribers and letting them submit the titles they're willing to lend.  Users won't be able to start borrowing for a month or so while the site ramps up to a full launch, according to Nick Ruffilo, chief information officer for EBookFling. '

Its backer is BookSwim, "a profitable, privately held book rental service that operates much like Netflix.  The service lets subscribers borrow physical books via mail for a monthly fee ranging from $23.95 for 3 books checked out at a time to $59.95 for 11 books."

  How will they make money in the case of e-book borrowing?  Advertising?

An important point Pham makes is:

' Still, the service needs some cooperation from publishers, which ultimately get to decide whether they enable the lending feature for Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

  If lending eats into sales, publishers may reduce the lending period or opt out of the feature altogether. '

However, the extremely limited terms the publishers made (14-day loan, maximum, and a book being loanable only once ever) should allay publisher-anxiety in that the positive aspects (more people aware of and reading the author) will likely make up for the negative (any loss in sales).  And we can, in a way, see why they placed such heavy restrictions on the loaning feature.  It can become a bit like a multi-player game.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Downloadable Bookmarks file. Revised 1/25/11 - Ongoing file

UPDATE 1/25/11
This is to let readers know that the ongoing Kindle Bookmarks file ("Mobiweb WebLinks") has been revised.

I've added the download-link for this file + upload-date to the reference column on the right side of the website so that people can check the date of the latest one.

  I'll continue to add more sites as I go but won't be announcing revisions for smaller changes, so check the file every now and then.

TIP: You can bookmark pages in this 'book'-like file.
 A Kindle-3 user wrote to ask about skipping past the Kindle-2 section.  To do that make a bookmark with alt-b (this key-combo toggles a bookmark on and off for the page you're on -- check the dog-ear at the top right to see if it's "taken" when you do a bookmark).

  To get to any bookmarks you've made in a book file, press Menu button and select "View My Notes & Marks" while that book is open.

  But Kindle 3-users won't need to go further than the Kindle 3 section now, as I've added, into each weblinks listing, the individual Mobile Website-Downsizer sites (which emphasize text portions of pages to increase loading speed on the Kindle).

  These include Skweezer, Cantoni, Reading the Net (new) and Web On Your Cell.

Until Amazon revises how the web browser works, I've kept in the Google-features advice on workarounds for problems accessing versions of GMail or other tools with the Kindle 3.

See the basuc information on using the file in the earlier and main Bookmarks article that explains more.

In the meantime, let me know if you have any trouble getting the file.  Thanks!

Photo credit: petittscreations.com.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

The Kindle Chronicles interviews KindleLending founder. Kindle Notepads.

THE KINDLE CHRONICLES Podcast for this Friday
The Kindle Chronicles host, Len Edgerly,  interviews Catherine MacDonald, founder of Kindle Lending Club this week.

Len's text intro for the interview that begins at 16:22 of the podcast:

"Catherine MacDonald, who lives on the island of Gozo in the nation of Malta in the Mediterranean, spoke to me on Tuesday, January 18, 2011, by Skype about how she and her husband came to create the Kindle Lending Club.  It’s one of several startups taking advantage of the Kindle’s new lending capability to put borrowers in touch with lenders.  Their Facebook page already has more than 8,000 'likes,' and you can also follow the action on Twitter. "

American Consumer News distributes a Press Release about the new KindleLending site's function as a free website providing a "crowdsourced virtual library for Kindle" connecting e-book borrowers and lender via its current 7,000+ membership which has seen 2,500+ book loans in the past couple of weeks.


Taking Notes on your Kindle
On that podcast also: "Hunter Davis provides a creative solution to last week’s query about how to take notes on your Kindle." and Len suggests you try the free, downloadable Kindle Notepad from Will DeLamater's EduKindle.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

The Amazon Trade-in Program - 3 stores - Update

THE AMAZON TRADE-IN PROGRAM
This includes Movies & TV, Paper Books and Textbooks, Video Games

In general, the program enables customers to send in items to a third-party merchant in exchange for an Amazon.com Gift Card.

Amazon's Trade-in Program enables you to send in items to a third party merchant in exchange for an Amazon.com Gift Card and includes DVDs, Blu-ray discs, or HDDVDs; eligible used books and college textbooks matching editions wanted and which are in good condition; and video games in good working condition.

USED BOOKS (Paper)
Plus a side note on the book highlighted in Amazon's current ad for that

I personally didn't realize Amazon has a trade-in program for used paper books.  The current Amazon used-book ad (see image at top left here) happens to show a more unusual book that I actually bought (there is no Kindle version): Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940.

  This was during the years when The Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect.

  There are side-notes explaining references made in most of the poems (translated to English), interesting historical photographs, and some memories from some who made it through and later became citizens.

  For the few who might be interested in what that era and place was like for those getting off the boats and onto the West Coast's equivalent of Ellis Island, I made a recent photo gallery (Intro here)


of a day spent visiting Angel Island's newly restored Immigration Station detention barracks, where the Chinese immigrants were, by design, held much longer (weeks or months or even two years, instead of 2 days) until they could answer questions satisfactorily or be sent home, and it was found that many of the men carved poems of dispair on the walls, which were often painted over.

  Some of the carvings (discovered one night in an inspection by Park Ranger Alexander Weiss touring the barracks with a flashlight) are now on display, with many of them reproduced and translated in this book along with history of the time, place, and of some of the people involved.  The intro to my photo-set, linked above, leads to the full photo gallery, for those interested in the exhibition of life in the barracks.

  The detention areas were restored only a couple of years ago as a historical exhibition of the immigration station, which was on, ironically, a quite beautiful island.  At least one current docent in his 80s entered the U.S. as a child during that time when relatives of many of us arrived at the Station with their parents.

The rated "Most Helpful" customer review of the book gives a good synopsis, while the first poem he cites reminds me of how many of us use our Kindles today.

BACK TO THE AMAZON TRADING PROGRAM
For more information, see the Help pages listed on Trade-in Program home page and visit the following Trade-In stores for:

  . Movies & TV
  . Textbooks and
  . Video Games.

Here's the Trade-in Program FAQ

STUDENTS AND TEXTBOOKS
I'm not sure many students and parents are aware of this program.  Amazon recently sent out an email on this that included: "Students, no matter where you bought your textbooks you can get up to 60% back when you sell them at Amazon.com's Book & Textbook Buyback Store."

IF ONLY
If only Amazon and the publishers would add a trade-in program for Kindle books...
  (Coming to my mind from a Beatles John Lennon song right now:
    You can say, I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one...)

(Thanks to Stuart for the correction.)


On-topic note about the Kindle
In the meantime, you might enjoy the latest online newspaper column of the "No Kindle for me!" type.  Laura Moyer rightly worries about the effect of the Kindle on brick and morter bookstores.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

NY Times: Web paywall soon, Kindle versions. Kindle DTP now Kindle KDP

THE NEW YORK TIMES PAYWALL RISES AGAIN

According to Bloomberg's Brett Pulley, a person "who declined to be identified" has told Bloomberg that the New York Times Co. will begin charging readers "less than $20 a month for full access" to the newspaper on the Web when it introduces this plan sometime this quarter.  The timing was mentioned by Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson last month at an investor conference in New York.

 The price would be less than the $19.95 price for special daily delivery of the NY Times on Kindle, but people accessing the web via computers have not been likely to pay that kind of price and in a previous 'exploration' of the paywall idea, they had to remove the wall they put in place for access to their popular opinion columns.


  Pulley adds that Robinson also said there would be a "set number of articles for free each month, and heavy users will have to pay a subscription fee"  No details were given at the time.  Print subscribers will get full access with no extra charges.  The print edition is $11.70/week or about $50/month.

The article has a lot more on what several newspapers have been or will be trying with web pay models.

KINDLE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE NY TIMES
As many have heard, the subscription cost of a Kindle Edition of the NY Times was raised a few months ago to $19.95 per month; this includes the Sunday Edition, with the magazine included.

  For awhile, Amazon has had an extended free trial on the NYT -- instead of 14 days, it's two months and the offer expires Feb. 15.

  The monthly cost is too steep for me, even with the nicely organized navigation relative to the free methods of access on the Kindle to the text (none of the pictures, usually).  For those on a print subscription currently, the Kindle Edition is lighter, both physically and cost-wise, relative to $50/mo.

  And now we have the NYT Crossword puzzles as Kindle games.

Sunday Edition of NYT
However, those interested in getting the Sunday edition of the NY Times can download it each Sunday (no automated delivery) for $1 per issue.  That's true for any day's issue but the Sunday one is large and packed with special features, including the NY Times Review of Books.  I do tend to get the Sunday edition when I remember and I just press alt-Home, select Newspaspers, US and download a copy.

NY Times - Latest News "blog" edition
The subscription I have had for 2 years though and which I think is the best deal in the shop is the "blog" edition of the New York Times Latest News, which sends fast-breaking headline news updates to your Kindle through the day, usually 8-10 stories in full (some are quite long and detailed), as they happen.  The cost is $1.99 a month.  Many don't know about it because it's under the "blogs" area rather than the 'newspapers' section.

  This seems to be updated 5 or more times a day.  Probably more but I don't leave my wireless On all the time.  EACH edition overwrites the last one, so if you don't have time to read one of the updated sets, you may not see one of the stories if it's not included in the next update.

  That does tend to have me deciding not to download the latest update until I read a story I'm particularly interested in, but the news stories do also overlap of course.  You can 'clip' a full article for the "My Clippings" file on the Kindle, to read later, but that loses the special formatting and is seen as streamed text.

 Each update has something new but will drop an older story or two.
  There's a 14-day free trial on this also.  I highly recommend it for news addicts who aren't around their computers all the time.  This is one area where 3G cellular wireless comes in handy, as you can download the latest headlines almost anywhere you are.


AMAZON'S "DIGITAL TEXT PLATFORM" (DTP) IS NOW "KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING" (KDP)
That's a good change, as "DTP" always seemed to mean DeskTop Publishing to me, and "Digital Text Platform" seemed very vague and was hard to remember.

Anyone can self-publish e-books for the Kindle store.  There's no charge for that.  There's also an option to make print versions.

  Here's the sign-in page to explore or try Kindle Direct Publishing

  Amazon announced the change yesterday while releasing the news that Amazon's self-publishing feature with the newer 70% royalty program is now extended to books sold to Canadian customers.

' Books self-published through KDP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices.  With KDP, you can self-publish books in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and specify pricing in US Dollars and Pounds Sterling.  You will also find useful information on our active community forum. '

THE 2011 AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD
Amazon's Createspace asks:
  "Do you have an unpublished or self-published novel you know Amazon.com readers will love? Enter your novel in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for a chance to win one of two $15,000 publishing contracts with Penguin USA and distribution of your novel on Amazon.com."
  Details here.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

The moguls at Amazon buy out "the Netflix of Europe"

AMAZON ACQUIRES REMAINING SHARES IN LOVEFILM

Wall Street Journal's Ben Rooney writes, for TechEurope, that LoveFilm is Europe’s leading DVD-by-post rental service.

'Amazon already had a significant shareholding in LoveFilm, reported to be around 42%.  Unofficial reports put the cost of the deal at £200 million ($320 million).

The deal makes perfect sense for Amazon.  The company has all the bases covered now: books with Kindle, retailing mp3s and now video-on-demand with LoveFilm. '

  Actually, Amazon already has video-on-demand for U.S. customers.  I've found that many aren't aware of that.  This would allow Amazon to include much of Europe.

  With the U.S. video-on-demand program -- if you don't rent a video but buy it, Amazon stores a copy in "Your Video Library" on its servers so that you can watch it online if you want, from wherever you are, or you can also download it for off-line viewing on Windows PCs using the Unbox Video Player.  "Downloaded videos can be transferred to compatible portable video players so that you can watch your videos on the go."  Something I didn't know.  I also don't know the quality level of it vs getting a DVD or Blu-Ray disc.   A bit more:

' In just over seven years, LoveFilm has become one of Europe’s largest entertainment subscription businesses with over 1.5 million subscribers across the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
. . .
  Investors in LoveFilm are a pretty good 'who’s who' of top European venture firms [and] include Balderton Capital, DFJ Esprit and Index Ventures. '

Read more at the WSJ article

This is not about a Kindle-feature, but many of us who read on Kindles (UK: K3)'s probably tend to be interested in Amazon's expansion into the product areas of films and streaming video as well, whether in the U.S. or Europe etc.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Send to Kindle: any web page text, with one click, using Chrome browser.

Using a Google's Chrome browser extension to send a web article to your Kindle with one keypress, more or less.

While this blog has an earlier article on using Instapaper to send articles to the Kindle and a revision of Instapaper has made it even easier now, what's described here is a new feature possible via the Chrome browser.

  With the new Send to Kindle option, you can specify that the text content of a webpage you're on be sent to your Kindle at [you]@free.kindle.com.  This Kindle address avoids the 15 cents per megabyte charge for sending a personal document over 3G Whispernet instead.  The [you]@free.kindle.com Kindle-address is designed for free delivery to the Kindle over WiFi.

 (If you don't have the WiFi capability (older models) and don't want to get the article by computer and move it to the Kindle via the USB cable, the 3G cellular network capability of any Kindle can be chosen instead by using the [you]@kindle.com address but the delivery would cost 15 cents per megabyte [99 cents per megabyte for non-U.S. Kindle owners]).

  See the earlier Kindleworld guide that explains how to use the no-cost [you]@free.kindle.com address for free delivery to your Kindle (UK: K3).

  Essentially, to use the Send to Kindle feature, Kindle users need to:


  1. open the feature's "Options" page and enter their Kindle's registered email ([you]@free.kindle.com) there, and

  2. add the Chrome-extension sender, kindle@klip.me, as an approved sender at Amazon's Kindle management page.

' Once those two actions are completed, clicking the extension's icon will give you a live preview of how the article will appear on your Kindle and provide you with a "Send" button that will send it to your Kindle.  Just make sure Wi-Fi or your Whispernet connection is activated on your device so it has no trouble getting there. '

I've not tried it but saw the article last night.  Will be interested to see how this works for those who try it.
  There is an automated option and a manual one.  Remember that you can select what part of the page is sent to you or use the automated option and, in both cases, only text (not images) is sent.

Tip:  To get the images accompanying a story, I highlight what I want and paste it all into a Microsoft Word document and then send the saved document to my free.kindle.com address.
  Amazon converts it to Kindle format before sending it to the Kindle.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindle Book Swap Groups, Kindle Publishing Guide, Android Apps Pricing Model

A FEW WEEKEND STORIES, while I was away

KINDLE BOOK LENDING CLUBS
With the fast proliferation of sites for Nook and Kindle book-lending and borrowing, eBook Exchange offers something different in that this new site lets Kindle & Nook owners "swap e-books and "help kids while doing so."

 With the book-lending programs (however limited they are) now available at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon,  Tainted Green's Kathryn Robbins asks,

' But what if you could share your e-books outside your circle of friends and benefit children's literacy programs? eBook Exchange hopes that their used e-book idea can change the marketplace and help literacy programs aimed at kids.

  eBook Exchange is a hybrid of a second hand bookstore and library.  Kindle or Nook owners can use their sharing feature to share any number of their titles online.  According to their site, titles can be shared for free or borrowers may pay a fee that goes to childhood literacy programs.  Cheapskates will love the fact that the fee is essentially optional; if they score a title they are encouraged, not forced, to pay.  The company says that one hundred percent of their profits in 2011 will go to charity. '

I guess how "profits" are calculated is key, depending on what they expense, but it sounds promising.  See eBookExchange's page to read how this would work, but both will use the ebook lending functionality put in place by the two online book stores.

The earliest lending sites have geared up, the most successful one, at Facebook, needing to branch out in the last week to its own site because Facebook's setup was not able to handle the level of interest.


Here are a few that have been checked out by news sites, the one getting by far the most publicity being the mentioned lending club originally at Facebook and now at Kindle Lending Club, run by Catherine MacDonald, who has made an effective opening page showing current activity and a FAQ that explains how the club works.

  An article at ReadWriteWeb gives background, mentioning that her project management experience helped her acquire $12,500 in "angel investment" to build a web team to handle an interested Facebook membership of now 6,200+ people.  The new beta website had almost 800 members in the first two days or so and almost 2,000 books offered for lending already.
  Bear in mind that many are finding that the books they're most interested in don't have lending approved by the publishers (not even for a one-time ever loan).

Starting up at the same time, and announced on the Amazon Kindle forums were Books for my Kindle, blog.bookborrowr.com, Goodreads' Kindle Lending, and eBookLending Library.com, the latter putting out a press release that wound up in some news stories but, at only 64 members tonight, doesn't have nearly the volume of Kindle Lending Club.

A Kindle forum thread actually discusses concerns by members that these clubs may have been a concern of publishers after watching the Nook club that is active and it's easier to understand, they say, why there was a limit of one loan per book.  Lending physical books to friends is an old concept and a long-time natural activity, but a focus on only trading over speedy Internet organizations on a continuing basis is likely not appealing to publishers or authors.

  But probably until Amazon ever decides to make public library borrowing possible, there'll be a lot of interest in this.  It's difficult to argue with business success when you read of book companies that are losing money and putting themselves up for sale or headed toward bankruptcy as we've been reading.  I do want the e-book market to stay strong and also competitive.


HOW TO: PUBLISH YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON KINDLE
Business Insider's Dylan Love has written a clear guide to publishing your book on Kindle.  I know some talented, creative people interested in doing this, and this is one of the more streamlined guides I've seen.


AMAZON'S NEW PRICING MODEL FOR ANDROID APP DEVELOPERS
Econsultancy.com's Patricio Robles writes about a brewing controversy among the developer community over a pricing program for Amazon's Android apps store that differs from the model for Apple's.

Referencing a Google drawback as perceived by some Android app developers, Robles sees Amazon as relatively attractive to developers right now.  But a clause in its developer agreement is causing controversy -- Amazon reserves the right, when developers suggest pricing for their apps, to sell the app at a discount — or even give it away for free, according to Technologizer's Ed Oswald.  The developer would receive 70% of the selling price, or 20% of the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP), whichever is greater, and Oswald considers it a "raw deal." But is it?, asks Robles.

  Citing Amazon's expertise in the area of pricing, Robles feels they may be better positioned to get the price right, and they would be motivated since they receive 30% of sales.


"THE BOOK JUNKIE'S IPOD"
That's the latest column about a conversion to e-readers and specifically the Kindle (usually the case), written by Nicole L.V. Mullis for BattleCreek Enquirer, someone who loves "...feeling a story's weight in my hands.  I listen for the creak of book spines and appreciate the subtle scent of ink on paper.  I'm not Kindle's target market."

 Her children were pretty sure she'd like one despite her strong disinterest, so they sprang one on her with a two-week 'warning' so that she might get used to the idea :-).

' This was a screen?  It looked like black ink on parchment. '
  ...
  This thing is the book junkie's iPod. '

  You can read more of her reactions and reasons at her article.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

A Look at Nook, Kindle, Based on Twitter Chat? Libraries lending Kindles - UPDATE2

A COUPLE OF INTERESTING STORIES

Today, a strange piece of research by Crimson Hexagon on the relative frequency of chatter about various ereaders on Twitter gets stories by Daemon' Books, CNet, and others.

The Nook and Nookcolor, the Kindle, and Twitter
 The study focuses on the effect of the entrance of the Nook and the NookColor this last year and looks at the amount of interest in it vs other readers based on Twitter conversations.  Yes, really.  While it emphasizes that there is much more conversation on the Kindle  (UK: K3)  than on the Nook and other e-readers See the right-hand reference column), the Kindle has been around longer and the Kindle 3 has delighted many with its clarity, lightness, and very smooth functioning of features.  The Nook monochrome and Sony have been popular with those who prize ePub e-book format and the ability to use the public library lending feature of Overdrive.

Crimson Hexagon's summary

' It’s worth noting that while the Nook readers have certainly established a solid and growing position in the e-reader market during 2010, our analysis also revealed that Amazon’s Kindle is still by far the most popular e-reader on the basis of total conversation volume on Twitter.

  Looking at the daily volume of relevant Twitter conversation for each of the devices, we see that conversation about the Kindle far outpaces the Nook and Nook Color, consistently adding up to more Tweets-per-day than both Nook devices combined (an average of about 1,000 Tweets per day for Kindle vs. just under 500 per day for Nook).
  Conversation volume for the iPad is also much lower (120 per day), though this is due to our analysis of the iPad being limited to conversations about using the device as an e-reader.  Although the Kindle continues to leverage its first-mover advantage and enjoys a dominant position in the e-reader market, consumer opinion expressed online shows the Nook is making up for lost time and quickly gaining ground and market share. '

The NookColor
I have the NookColor, as a matter of fact, and enjoy it very much as a secondary reader for books with color illustrations, magazines, and fast web browsing on a ultra-portable device, and I think that the functioning of it received a lot of thought when it was designed.  It's a lot of fun to use although I can't read longer books on the LCD screen with much comfort as I can on the e-Ink screen of the Kindle, so I don't.  But National Geographic is just amazing on it.

  Not so much the books with illustrations, it turns out, as one cannot ZOOM an image (in a book) on the NookColor, to my extreme surprise (the Kindle can).  So, while I have the color, I lose the detail that is often in illustrations used.  Nor can I rotate books to see an image larger that way.  Nevertheless I really enjoy magazines on it.  And the (easily-portable, light) web access.

More on Nook (monochrome), comparison of e-Ink model features next ...


The Nook (monochrome)
  The Nook (monochrome) is altogether another story, with an e-Ink screen manipulated by using the color strip below it as if it were a remote control and it feels like it.  Everything has a slight delay and the not-reliable touchscreen below makes it stranger that the top portion (the e-book screen) is not a touchscreen.  Those not familiar with the Kindle won't likely feel these are problems though.

Comparison of e-Ink model features
  I really prize a few things that can be done on a good e-reader (one designed with regard for how some avid readers use study tools or features, some in connection with their book club discussions).

  The weaknesses of the Nook have been the out-of-sight dictionary, the many menu-steps involved in getting to it, the highlighting and notes that are hard to find once you've made them, and the awkward and hard to find Search routines (I often search past-appearances of a character in the book).  Mainly, it's that there are multiple menu-steps for just about everything I would like to do.

  With the Kindle, the dictionary's summary-definition of a word is right there (bottom or top) for the word your cursor is on, the Search is started by merely starting to type a word or phrase, and the Results as well as Highlighting and Notes are shown, in context, in rows, rather than our having to go from one to the other slowly, and they're linked for fast access.

  Some extra features of the Kindle -- Text to Speech, which can be useful when you're cooking, washing dishes or driving; the Audible Books feature; and larger built-in storage -- are all nice to have.  There IS a music listening feature but it's limited.  And then there's the 3G cellular network access to the web that is free of web-data charges and which doesn't require finding a hotspot.
  Also, there's the private, password-protected Annotations webpage that we all have, if we allow backup of annotations.
  UPDATE - I forgot to add that the Nook is sold only in the U.S. and that e-books for it cannot be bought from Barnes and Noble outside the U.S. even by a U.S. resident who's just traveling.  As most know, the Kindle operates with 3G downloading in 100+ countries and allows free web-browsing in about 60 countries.

An unusually popular customer review of the Kindle
As far as comparisons go, however, I've been fascinated by watching the reactions to the leading customer review of the Kindle, which is unusual in that it compares the Kindle with the Nook, feature by feature, as the customer has both in his home.

  It currently has a count of 17,083 people who bothered to click Yes on the "Was this review helpful to you?" question.  The customer, Ron Cronovich, responds to questions there, as do some Kindle owners who usually have older Kindles and are interested in the Kindle 3 or who are used to helping on the various Kindle forums.
  But it's Cronovich who does the heavy lifting there, with a lot of patience, good will, and very little bias that I can see except that he's bought both e-readers and prefers the Kindle.  Cronovich gives the pros and cons of both, and the readers' responses show that he has been clearer than most reviews or reports that those browsing have read in the past.  The review has had 1,221 responses.  Really an amazing review-thread.

 The review with the next highest number of recommendations has 5,400+ 'helpful' votes and 89 responses.  If you or friends are trying to choose between the two readers, it's a good one to read, just for the detail included.

MEDIA BISTRO'S GALLEYCAT: THE RISE OF THE $5 BOOK
GalleyCat, which writes on the publishing industry, found that the Top 20 paid bestseller list in the Amazon Kindle store includes six titles with a $5 pricetag.

  So, they asked, over on their eBookNewser pages, "Is the $5.00 eBook the New $9.99 eBook?," pointing out that "Publishers have used the $5.00 eBook like a lure for fiction series, introducing readers to The Hunger Games or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  If successful, the new price point could drive eBook prices even lower."  They ask for reactions and thoughts there and have received some.

  With the low percentage that the larger publishers give authors, lower book pricing won't work that well for authors, the latter write there, as it requires more books to be sold to make the same amount, at a low percentage royalty, as at $10, but the reality is that paperbacks have always come down to $5 to $7 also, after the initial run.  The $5 books here tend to be for books no longer debuting.  Never mind that e-book pricing now tends to be higher than paperback pricing too often for a product you can't re-sell or give to a friend.   You CAN lend it once, if the publisher "allows" you to.  That will have to change.

  If an author is willing to hire editing and marketing help, they can do better, percentage-wise, with Amazon, Smashwords, and others.  Add that they won't be pink-slipped, so they can spend the energy that would be spent on sending the book to one and all, hoping for acceptance, on writing another one :-)
  The gate-keeping and marketing clout of the larger publishers are good for the authors who make it through, except for the reduced percentages in royalties in the last year.

LIBRARIES ADDING KINDLES
There is a story about the Rowan Public Library in Salisbury, NC, and the 12 Kindles it loans out, each with 80 books loaded, including latest fiction and non-fiction best sellers.  There are other news stories like this, as more and more libraries are lending reading devices, with some keeping on hand an assortment of different types.

  However, a librarian pointed out in a story yesterday that the Kindle allows an e-book to be shared on up to 6 devices, depending on the publisher's authorization.  Those depending on Adobe's ADE digital-rights-protection (Nook Sony, Kobe) present a tougher problem with that.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

More on some problematical Amazon non-lighted Kindle covers, UK also. UPDATE2

Be sure to read the earlier blog article on for details on a problem affecting some non-lighted Amazon Leather Kindle3 Covers and the U.S. Amazon Kindle team statement concerning a resolution for those affected by problem batches of the non-lighted Amazon Kindle-3 cover.

  If anyone has one of the covers that cause reboots, Amazon has been giving refunds on that and have also often added credit toward buying the lighted version of that cover if the customer has reported problems earlier.  The Amazon post giving instructions and phone numbers to use, for U.S. Kindle owners, are in the earlier post.

  I just saw an article on what Amazon UK is doing.  The title of the article is "Amazon blames Kindle cover problem on plastic clips."  ExpertReviews' David Ludlow writes:

' Posted on 11 Jan 2011 at 11:48

Amazon customer services in the UK have told us that the Kindle leather cover problems, which cause the eReader to reboot and do other strange things, is caused by the plastic clips on the standard case.

The lighted leather case, which uses metal clips in order to conduct power from the Kindle to the light is immune to these problems...

As such, Amazon.co.uk will credit affected users with the £50.99 required to buy the Lighted Leather Cover (UK US) instead.

From our experience, the process is a painless one.  Just make sure that you phone the UK phone number, as the US site will attempt to refund in dollars instead of pounds. '

Since this problem is still being reported in the U.S. forums, this is a posting that includes U.S. Kindle owners as well.
  U.S. residents can find the U.S. Kindle phone numbers for this issue at the earlier blog article that goes into more detail.

The basic non-lighted Amazon cover is $35 U.S. and £30.99 UK, and an added external light that uses separate batteries would cost about $12 to $30 average.

  The lighted cover costs $25 additional, does not need separate batteries, and shuts off automatically when the Kindle goes into "sleep mode."
  It is a tad heavier because it has the light built in.  Bear in mind that the light does not go 'On' until you actually start up the device.  It's not an ultra-bright light but some find this better for spouses closeby at night or for airplane use.

Customer Kindle forum message threads discussing the lighted cover:
  K3's Lighted Cover Saves the Evening! and Lighted cover too bulky for me

  NOTE: If your web browser (especially Firefox) drops you onto the Amazon forum list of topics instead of bringing you to the forum thread, click on Refresh or Reload to get the message thread itself -- or click on the link again.  I don't know why a 'retry' is often needed, but it is.

Here's the CNet Review - Amazon's secret weapon: Kindle Lighted Leather Case.

UPDATE - 1/13/11, 8:13 PM (Original posting 1/13, 8:28 AM)
I'm adding below, a section taken from the first Kindleworld blog entry made about the non-lighted case problems, as it gives alternative links to more types of Kindle covers.

' Side note:  A couple of Kindle owners have solved the problem for themselves by putting electrical tape (or even a bit of scotch tape) around the upper hinge's contact point.

  The non-problem lighted-cover costs $25 more, and while many are happy with it, as seen in various forum threads and a good added light will cost an average $15 or so, this will be too much for some even if they have liked the case quite a bit -- and there are less expensive non-lighted cases.  One example is the Acase, a platform type that costs about $11.  While the quality won't be as high (as pointed out in the few customer reviews from confirmed buyers), people still give it 4 stars out of 5 and, at the least, it will keep the Kindle safe while making a decision on a better one.  Others are planning to accept the refund and apply it to the lighted case.

  But there are a plethora of Kindle-3 covers from which to choose.

  I should add that I use a Cole-Haan with hinges but it has caused no reboots and the Kindle is always in the cover; however, it's expensive and I got it when there was a large discount on it briefly.  So any hinge problems would be with certain batches of the official Amazon Kindle non-lighted cover. '

UPDATE2 - 1/13/11, 8:28 PM
Here are less-expensive Kindle 3 covers for those living in the UK, who use the Amazon UK Kindlestore (not available to non-UK customers).


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.