News

Tech Tip – Via A Kindle World, I learn about an easy way to convert Google Books from ePub to Kindle format. The answer is RetroRead.

Interview (14:07) – Richard Nash is putting his visionary ideas about how to link authors with readers to work in creating his startup independent publishing business, Cursor.  We spoke on August 23 about how it’s going and what’s ahead. If you’re looking for a good read, he recommends You Were Wrong by Matthew Sharpe.

Content – I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman made history when the e-book version outsold physical copies during the book’s first week of sales.

Comments – Roy in L.A. passes along two links from MobileRead about reports of slow page turns on the Kindle 3. Allen MacDiarmid gives his first impressions of the Kindle 3.  Jean Remple is still trying to figure out what the microphone on the Kindle 3 is for, and Nick Todd has an idea about how he’d like to use it.

News

Tech Tip – Paul Levin provides my first Kindle 3 tip, using the WiFi to transfer personal documents without a charge.

Interview (10:55) – My wife Darlene and I compare notes after a week of trying out a review copy of the Kindle 3.

Content – If you’re looking for new Kindle-related podcasts, be sure to check out eBook Ninjas and Unruly Guides.

Note – Please click here to vote for my South by Southwest Interactive 2011 panel proposal, “Surviving the E-Book Revolution.” Thanks!

In this fireside chat on a stormy day at Ocean Park, I compared the WebKit browser in the new Kindle 3 with the browser in the Kindle 2. I looked at the speed with which they both arrived at a web page, and I considered the differing views of the web page by each. I also looked at the new Kindle’s Article Mode in operation, but so far I have not been impressed with it. I may be doing something wrong, or there may be updates coming.  Filmed by Darlene on my iPhone at Ocean Park, Maine, on August 25, 2010.

Click on the player below for a smaller, lower-resolution video that will go on the RSS feed for mobile devices:

I’ve been reading on and exploring a new Kindle Free 3G +WiFi for three days now, using an Amazon review copy that arrived here in Maine on August 18.  This video presents what I think is so great about the Kindle 3, as well as one disappointment I have in it.

I had already pre-ordered my new Kindle 3, so I plan to donate the review Kindle to EBooksForTroops as part of our new project to donate used Kindle 2′s to U.S. soldiers on active duty in Afghanistan. You can learn about this initiative by clicking here.  We also just received word that the IRS has approved the E-Books for Troops 501(c)(3) application, so donations to the nonprofit are now officially tax-deductible. We will use the Gazelle listings for value of the donated Kindles for tax purposes.

This video demonstration of the new Kindle compares it with my Kindle 2 and covers size and weight, speed, clarity of display, improved PDF capabilities, accessibility, WiFi, and the missing row of numbers keys.

(The video player below links to the Blip.tv version of the review, which is identical in content but has lower resolution and file size — it’s the one that will go in the RSS feed and be available if you subscribe to The Kindle Chronicles in iTunes: )

Craig Findlay and his son, Cam

News – 1. Blogger Keith Peters takes a VERY close look at the Kindle and iPad screens.  2) Amazon updates its Kindle for PC app. Andrys Basten comments.  3) The expected shipping date for new Kindles slips again, to September 17. 4) Stephen Windwalker is finishing up his latest Kindle Nation survey. 5) The IRS gives unusually fast approval  to the 501(c)(3) application of E-Books for Troops, making it official that donations to the nonprofit are tax-deductible.  Also, we launch Kindle 2 for Troops, a way that you can send in your Kindle 2 and we’ll distribute it to a soldier in Afghanistan. Thanks to Mike Cain, iReaderReview, TeleRead, and Stephen Windwalker for helping to spread the word!

Tech Tip – Allen MacDiarmid alerts me to a better way to highlight long passages on the Kindle, and also shares a shortcut for Text-to-Speech controls.

Interview (12:01) – Craig Findlay of Kelso, Scotland, is an avid Kindle user who is delighted with the opening of Amazon’s new Kindle U.K. store.  In a Skype call from Maine to Scotland on August 18, 2010, we discussed the pace of e-book adoption in the U.K., the pricing of e-books, and more.  Craig is going to take this creative writing course at Open University, the better to publish his own novel on Kindle some day.

Content – Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership by Lewis Hyde looks like a great read, and I have an interview scheduled with the author on September 2, 2010.

Comments – Judy Lin on Kindle gifting, Chris Baker on my Wolf Hall Tournament of E-Readers video, Amy Leigh on her 10 Kindle Cases You Can Build For Free post, Rick Askenase on the Kindle tipping point, Jean Remple on Bob Stein, and Steve Wisener on bundling e-books with print books.

You can help! Click here to give a thumbs up to my South by Southwest Interactive panel proposal, “Surviving the E-Book (or EBook) Revolution.”

News

Tech Tip – Courtesy of the Me and My Kindle blog and Teleread, a reminder on how to delete a whole bunch of typing with one click.

Interview (starts at 12:03) – Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle Content, in a conversation by Skype and phone on August 11, 2011, talks about social media, Google Editions, and whether there will be serious shortages of the Kindle 3.

Content – Pete Hamill’s upcoming book on immigration, They Are Us, will skip print altogether and go straight to e-book format this fall.

If you’d like to support my panel proposal for South by Southwest Interactive 2010, titled “How You Can Survive the E-Book Revolution,” with Joshua Tallent, please click here and vote for the proposal and leave a comment. This might improve our chances of being selected to present the panel at SXSW.  Thanks!

If you are itching to pre-order a Kindle 3 but don’t know what to do with your trusty Kindle 2, check out E-Books for Troops early next week. Ken Clark and I are cooking up a great solution.

Photo by Alexa Lee

News – 1: The next-generation Kindles are temporarily sold out, and the ship date has slipped from August 27 to September 4.  Andrys Basten details more features of the Kindle 3. 2: Amazon updates the Kindle for iPad/iPhone/Touch app. 3: Jeff Bezos explains to Charlie Rose the difference between an iPad and a Kindle. Hint: one of them is not used to play Angry Birds. 4: Are Shuffled Row and Every Word the first two Kindle Apps? 5: I receive direct confirmation from the Google Books Team that the soon-to-be-launched Google Editions e-book store will not debut with the Kindle as a supported partner device, but you will be able to buy my mother’s book in non-DRM’d PDF format for reading on your Kindle.

News That Broke Too Late for Audio: Amazon announces the opening of its new U.K. Kindle store.

Tech Tip – You can make a nice e-book from your WordPress blog with the Anthologize plug-in. Thanks to Chris Martin for this tip!

Interview – Baratunde Thurston, Web and Politics Editor at The Onion, was my very first interview guest two years ago on TKC 1, which was uploaded on July 26, 2008.  So it was great to talk to him again for an update on his Kindle habits, including the sad news of his original Kindle’s untimely end  on the streets of New York City. We spoke via a Maine-to-NYC Skype connection on August 4, 2010.

Content – Stephen Windwalker releases an important new book, How to Price eBooks for the Kindle: A Pocket Pricing Guide for Authors and Publishers to Maximize Sales and Royalties with the New 70 Percent Royalty Option. Mrs. GeekTonic reviews FantasticFiction, a good site for finding e-books to read on your Kindle, and Candy Yates recommends KindleIQ, a site that will notify you of free e-books and price decreases.

Comments – Thorn on the too-many-ebooks problem and Patrick Scott with a good question on K3 hardware.

This is NOT the new Kindle...

In this abbreviated episode, I share impressions of the new Kindle with the only other person I know who saw one during previews conducted in Boston by Amazon.  Stephen Windwalker, creator of the Kindle Nation blog, took time out from his on-deadline authoring to explain why he believes Amazon has once again managed to hit “the sweet spot” with a host of new features and design improvements to the six-inch Kindle, available now for pre-order, with deliveries beginning August 27.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_106_Stephen_Windwalker_1.mp3[/podcast]

This episode comprises my first impressions of the new Kindle, recorded on Beacon Street immediately after the preview, as well as some added details from the press release, recorded in Cambridge, Mass., on July 27, 2010.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_Extra_7-27-10.mp3[/podcast]

Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson

News – 1: Amazon announces stunning new data showing the Kindle has done quite nicely during the first three months of the iPad Era. Mike Kane says Kindle is now the new standard for eBook formats. Also weighing in on the news are Stephen Windwalker, Andrys Basten, Bufo Calvin, and Abhi. 2: Literary Agent Andrew “The Jackal” Wylie makes good on his threat to create his own publishing arm, which makes an exclusive deal with Amazon for 20 $9.99 Kindle titles by modern literary giants.  Random House is not amused. Mike Kane says get over it, Amazon has won. Here’s a good Guardian piece on the row and Harvard Magazine’s profile tells how The Jackal got his name.  Andrys Basten suggests you back up these titles if you buy them, in case Random House succeeds in rolling this deal back somehow. 3: Amazon’s stock price recovers after opening sharply lower as a result of great earnings in the second quarter. Huh? 4: My video take on the new Borders e-reader, Aluratek’s Libre.

Tech Tip – With help from Joshua Tallent, listener Alan Morris completes his labor of love, turning a memoir by an RAF pilot, The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary, into a high-quality e-book.  He’s offering the e-book at no charge to publishers who own the rights to the book, in hopes it will survive into the digital age.  You can help by clicking here and then clicking on the “I’d Like to Read this Book on Kindle” button. Alan gives a very thorough account of how he did it in this blog post, which you might want to check out if you have a similar e-book project you’d like to undertake.

Interview – Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book, spoke with me from Portugal on July 13, 2010, about his vision of the book.  Also mentioned in our conversation: Craig Mod’s “Embracing the Digital Book,” Sophie, Commentpress, Eucalyptus reader, and Eastgate Systems. Click here for the “On the Media” NPR program on which Bob appeared on July 2, 2010. If his plans for a new publishing venture materialize, you’ll see information about it here.

Comments – From John C. Adamson, Mary Hundley, and Rick Askenase.

Next Week – To celebrate the second anniversary of the Kindle Chronicles, I plan to interview my very first guest, Baratunde Thurston, who appeared on TKC 1 on July 26, 2008.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_105_Bob_Stein_1.mp3[/podcast]

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/Test_Audio_7-2-10.MP3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – Andrys Basten of A Kindle World blog shows how you can use your Kindle to get Google map text directions. You might also want to try KindleMap, brought to her attention by Bob Hart.

Interview – I spoke with Hoa Loranger, a director of user experience at Nielsen Norman Group, on July 14th about the research which she ran comparing user experiences with Kindle, iPad, desktop computer, and book. Click here for information about the tutorial she will be presenting next month in Toronto.

Content – So many books, so little time.  My lament, and — whaddya know? — there’s a book for that!

Comments – Ken Clark on Ender’s Game, Jean Remple on the Nielsen study, Mark Brass on Kindle questions showing up on cruise line forums,  John Halkias on what people asked about his Kindle this year on vacation compared with last.  Plus, comments quoted from recent posts here at the show notes page from Jeffery Koroknay, Pastor Mark Pierce, Marie Sotiriou, Peggy Poellot, Chris Martin, Alejandro Bonilla, Jim Jones, and Rick Askenase.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_104_Hoa_Loranger_1.mp3[/podcast]

In this video I review three covers designed to protect Kindles at the beach and elsewhere this summer. You’ll see the Guardian ($79.99) by M-Edge Accessories,  the KlearKase for Kindle 2 (intro price of $39.99) by KlearKase and the Waterguard case for Kindle ($14.49 + $5.75 shipping) by TrendyDigital. I filmed this review today at Ocean Park, Maine, late in the afternoon when a few horse flies showed up as unwelcome extras.

News

Tech Tip – Tom Semple helps me improve my earlier idea for Darlene, on how she could e-mail a list of recommended titles to her sister and friend.  Here are the steps Tom outlines for e-mailing the screen shots as a PDF directly to their Kindles instead of to their personal e-mail addresses:

1. connect Kindle via USB
2. navigate with Finder to /Volumes/Kindle/documents
3. select screen_shot*.gif files and Open with Preview (Mac only; PC would require another program)
4. if there’s more than one .gif file to send, Preview opens a sidebar with thumbnails of each. Select all items in the sidebar by clicking in it and choosing ‘Select All’ from the Edit menu (or use Command+A)
5. from File menu, choose ‘Print selected images’
6. ideally, set up a custom Paper Size the size of Kindle’s screen (3.5″ x 4.75″) and select that as the Paper Size (results in smaller file)
7. click PDF dropdown and choose ‘Mail PDF’. this will launch the mail client and attach the PDF to a new email
8. address the email to the Kindles (you could set up an email address Group for this) and send
9. (cleanup) close Preview and delete the .gif files from the Kindle.

Content – A favorite author of mine, Lewis Hyde, has a new book available for pre-order in Kindle edition, Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership. Whispernet delivery is scheduled for August 17. Click here to watch Hyde’s presentation at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Interview – Lawrence Schwartz, Marketing Director at E Ink Holdings, Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., explains how come the new Pearl E Ink screen looks so good on the Kindle DX Graphite which arrived here in Ocean Park, Maine, this week.

Comments – Rebecca, Loren Casuto, and Jean Remple weigh in on last week’s provocative comments by my 14-year-old nephew visiting from Nebraska. Tom Semple announces his new website on digital publishing. Marie Sotiriou links to a great “On the Media” episode about the future of the book, featuring comments by Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book.

Click here to download this episode.

The FedEx guy was headed past the cottage when I flagged him down for delivery of a new Kindle DX Graphite this morning. This unboxing video provides a peek at the new E Ink Pearl screen, which truly does have noticeably better contrast than existing E Ink screens. I’ll have an interview this week with a representative of E Ink for TKC 103, to learn more about how the company managed to improve its screen for the Kindle and, I’m sure, other e-readers.

I have three new Kindle covers with me in Ocean Park, Maine, all of them helpful to protect a Kindle at the beach or other summer destinations. In this video, I loaded my Kindle 6-inch US-only wireless into a waterproof Guardian cover sold by M-Edge Accessories for $79.99. Case and Kindle survived the ride in fine style.

News

Tech Tip – Courtesy of Joel Anderson, a way to send periodicals content from Calibre to your Kindle via AOL’s free e-mail. The following is a condensed print version of the steps I discuss in the audio:

• If you are new to Calibre, run the Welcome Wizard, which you’ll find by clicking an icon at the upper right named preferences. This gives you a place to enter your AOL email address and to click on whichever e-reader device you’re using.  For Amazon, you can choose to optimize content for either Kindle 1 and 2, or DX.

  Next click on the Fetch News icon on the top menu bar. This will bring you to sources for news and features.  Some require username and password for subscription content, but many of them are free.  When you find a periodical you want, you can click on “Download Now” and it will take a while for Calibre to fetch the content and convert it to .mobi format for the Kindle, if that’s what you specified in the Welcome Wizard. Once it’s finished, you’ll see the publication name on your main library list.  From there, right click on the name of the periodical, choose “Send to Device” and roll the cursor right to “email to” and you should see your AOL address.

  Go to your Kindle and from the Menu button, choose Experimental and then “launch browser” next to Basic Web.   Navigate to AOL, move the 5-way down till the “Get Free Mail” box is highlighted.  Near the top of the page that appears next you’ll see Already have a username? Move the 5-way to highlight login and enter your username and password. When your inbox of mail appears you should see a message titled E-Book: and the name of the publication. Highlight and choose that message and then move the cursor down to “View Header (1 attachment)” and select it.  On the next screen you’ll see the name of the attachment.  Select and activate that link and you’ll see a message titled “Download file,” stating that the file will appear on your Kindle home screen and are you sure you want to proceed?”  Click OK.   You’ll know it’s working if you see percentage numbers near the top of the screen, making their way to 100 percent and Done. Once you see that, click on the Home button, and you’ll see the item ready for reading.

Interview – With three young teens (ages 13, 14, and 15)  visiting us in Ocean Park, Maine, this week, I did a joint interview with them to talk about the Kindle and reading.

Content – Amazon this week launched Kindle Editions with Audio/Video and one of the first titles with the enhanced content is Together We Cannot Fail: FDR and the American Presidency in Years of Crisis by Terry Golway.  I reached Golway for an interview on June 30th, shortly after he himself had heard about his previously published book’s enhancement with audio for Kindle on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

Comments – Jack Greene on Apple products and Tom Semple on the Russ Grandinetti interview.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_102_Kristin_Sarah_Steven_1.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – More about Collections and how to change your primary dictionary in Kindle software 2.5.2.

Interview – Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle Content, on June 23rd talked to me from Seattle about authors as customers, ePub, blog subscriptions, Harry Potter, and more.

Content – As we begin our stay at the beach, I’m passing along what looks like a promising beach read – To Speak for the Dead by Paul Levine, the first of his thriller-novel Jake Lassiter series, now available on Kindle for $2.99, 20 years after it was first published.

Comments – Dan Meyers on Instapaper, Jim Corkrum on Instapaper in Collections (not), Ron Mertens on e-book numbers, Andrys Basten on e-book numbers, and Ann Miner on her son’s avid Kindle reading. Also: Maurice Lawles with a link to his post about the Kindle and nook price decreases, and ePub.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_101_Russ_Grandinetti_1.mp3[/podcast]

Joining me during the hour were Brett McNeill from Olympia, Washington; Alan Rose from Gunnison, Colorado, Jim Jones from Omaha, Nebraska, and Karen Haggland from Detroit.  We talked about the podcast, what’s coming for the Kindle, and how we’re using our iPads, since everyone on the call has Kindles AND iPads.  Interesting.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/BTR_Callin_show_6-16-10.mp3[/podcast]

Pastor Mark Pierce of Church Requel gets us off to a centennial-style start with a creative audio tribute.  Thanks, Mark!

News – Amazon updates its Kindle for iPad application to version 2.1 and posts a manual download for the new Kindle software, 2.5.2 .

Tech Tip – More about Instapaper, courtesy of listener Joel Anderson.

Interview – My wife Darlene (and Claire) return to the podcast to celebrate 100 episodes and consider the benefits of Collections and what a serious reader needs next from the Kindle.

Content – Paul Biba and ResourceShelf highlight OpenLibrary’s new Kindle connection.

Comments – Audio from Jim Jones, Bob Anderson with feedback on TKC content, Craig Scarberry on dictionaries and iPad apps, Tony Roberts with a couple of items from past episodes that rubbed him the wrong way, Andrys Basten on speculation about a low-low-low-priced Kindle, and Linda Hopkins on TKC 200.

Thanks to Brett McNeill, Alan Rose, Jim Jones, and Karen Haagland Hagglund for joining me for the TKC 100 Call-in Show on BlogTalkRadio on June 16!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_100_Darlene_1.mp3[/podcast]

CORRECTION – In the audio’s introduction I misstated Zoe Winters’s name but got it right in the intro to the Content section.

News – Item 1: Seth Godin‘s free advice for Amazon with reaction from Abhi and a followup interview by The Wall Street Journal. Item 2: A slippery slide on e-book market share at Steve Jobs’s WWDC keynote sparks controversy and a suggestion by Stephen Windwalker for what Jobs should have said.

Tech Tip -  Via Kes Woodward, a reminder of the joys of Instapaper and a new resource, Longform.

Interview – John Just, assistant superintendent for management information systems at the Pinellas County School District, visited with me by Skype on June 7 about what would apparently be the first high school in the nation to issue Kindles to all students instead of textbooks. Click here to send John a tweet with information that might be helpful in the project.

Content – Thanks to Zoe Winters, I have read my first paranormal romance in five decades as an otherwise-omnivorous reader. Kept, the first of a trio of novellas in her Blood Lust series, is a well-written, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny account of a heroine who can shift into the form of a cat and back.  Click here to listen to the full “Whiny Indie Authors” episode of her podcast that I excerpted in this TKC episode.

Comments – Tom Semple’s rebuttal to a couple of points made by James McQuivey in the interview last week, GuitarLover 1999 on the Joe Konrath interview, and Al MacDiarmid on the wonders of Calibre.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_99_John_Just_1.mp3[/podcast]

Correction: In the podcast, I have the date of the Kindle launch at Target wrong. It’s Sunday June 6, not June 5.

News – Item 1: It looks as if Bloomberg got the scoop on plans for the next Kindle, reported to becoming in August. Engadget adds some details, including the codename, Shasta.  Item 2: Andrys Basten at A Kindle World has this about Amazon’s delay in rolling out the 2.5 update for Kindle software. Item 3: Consumer Reports in a comparison of the Kindle and the iPad declares the Kindle “the better e-books choice for most people.” Here’s what CR has to say about three other e-ink e-readers.  Item 4: If you want to help the cause of Kindle domination, you might stroll on over to your local Target store Sunday (June 6) and help answer customer questions when the first Kindles show up for sale. Item 5: Stephen Windwalker and Julie Bosman of the New York Times each have data indicating this e-books thing isn’t likely to blow over soon. Click here for the podcast episode in which Bosman reports on BookExpo America. Click here for the Digital Book World Roundtable podcast recorded live from BEA, hosted by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez.

Tech Tip – Bufo Calvin relates steps you should take if you lose your Kindle.

Interview – James McQuivey in a conversation recorded on June 1, 2010, explains why he’s worried Amazon may be about to miss a once-in-a-lifetime shot, if they don’t come up with an iPad killer.  James is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

Content – Looking for something good to read on your Kindle?  Check out Jan Zlendich’s Kindle Reader blog.  You can subscribe to it on your Kindle for 99 cents a month by clicking here.

Comments – Rick Askenase emailed me the link to a good Wall Street Journal piece about e-books and publishing. David Deitrick emailed me the following procedure for adding non-Amazon (or non-iBooks) content to your iPad:

Import the files I want to put in the iPad into Calibre that came from sources other than Amazon.
.MOBI files seem to work.  The .AZW are copy Protected and won’t convert.  OTOH, I think that all of the .AZW files are available in my Kindle for iPad application
1. Select the .MOBI files that you want to convert (this works for PDF files as well)
2. Convert the files to EPUB
3. Select the files that you want to put on the ipad.  If you don’t touch anything, the files you selected for the conversion will still be selected.
4. Click on “Save to disk”
5. Select a folder or director in which to save your files.  I picked “ConvertedForIpad”
6. Click on “Choose”
7. You will then find a bunch of sub folders of Authors.  Select the folders you want on the iPad and drag them to the iTunes icon in the Dock (on a Mac, I haven’t tried this on a Windows machine).
8. The books will be imported to the “Books” section of the iPad Device in iTunes.
9. Select the “Sync Books” box and either “All Books” or “Selected Books” and then the books you want on your iPad
10. Sync the iPad.  The books show up in iBooks with any cover art that was in Calibre.  The News feeds that are configured in Calibre will also convert and download into iBooks.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_98_James_McQuivey_1.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip - Jesslyn Hendrix shares the following steps for resetting the “furthest page read” sync location on a book in your Kindle collection:

Use the same device for all of the steps below before opening the book on a different one, the below example is using a single Kindle

1. Set the Synchronization off  on your Amazon Account (Go to Amazon -> Your Account -> Manage Your Kindle -> Manage Kindle Device Synchronization -> click the “Turn the Synchronization off” button to turn off the synchronization)
2. Wait about a minute, then exit & re-enter your book
3. Go to the beginning of your book on the Kindle
4. Sync to the furthest  page. If it tells you that you’re on the furthest location, you’re good to go. You must get this exact message “Already at furthest read location”, If not, see 4.1.
   1. Select Cancel on the sync message that is displayed, exit and re-enter the book to attempt the reset again.  (I think that the Amazon databases have to get reset-thus the delay; in any case, it always works for me on the 2nd attempt). Proceed to Step #5 if you get a message “Already at furthest read location”
5. Turn on the synchronization setting on your Account – your Furthest Page read will be reset to your new location.
6. On your other devices–if further along in the book, you will have to go to the beginning of the book, but once done the Furthest Page Read location will sync with your Kindle.

Interview – J. A. Konrath’s AmazonEncore deal has everyone in publishing talking, it seems.  In a Skype interview on May 26 linking us in Denver and Chicago, Joe told the back story and details of the deal, in which Amazon will release the Kindle version of the seventh book in his Jack Daniels police mystery series, Shaken, on October 26, 2010, to be followed on February 22, 2011, by the paperback edition.  Click here for a free sample of Shaken and click here for a Digital Book World Roundtable discussion of Konrath’s accomplishment.

Content - You’ll have to listen to the podcast for this one.

Comments – Craig Scarberry on the iPad, Kipp Poe Speicher on his new blog,  Allen Day on the new social media features of Kindle 2.5, Bob Anderson on Travels with Kindle, and Jim Jones on Mike Elgan.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thekindlechronicles/TKC_97_J._A._Konrath_Final.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Amazon’s Kindle Support section has lots of good ideas, especially for new Kindle users.  This week’s tip explains how to set a limit on the cost for sending a personal document from your computer to your Kindle.  Here are the steps:

1. Visit the Manage Your Kindle Page.
2. Scroll down to the “Your Personal Document Charge Limit” section.
3. Enter your preferred maximum charge value.
4. Click the “Update limit” option when finished.

The limit you set is a per document limit. If you send multiple documents for conversion in a .zip file, the total aggregated charge for conversion of all the documents may exceed your per document limit and conversion and delivery will be successful.

Interview – Mike Elgan, Silicon Valley-based columnist, writer, speaker and blogger, this week published a ComputerWorld column titled “Why iPad Owners Need a Kindle, Too.” In our conversation on May 18th, he provided background to his list of 13 reasons why he thinks every iPad owner who loves books and reading also needs a Kindle.

Content – Amazon announces AmazonCrossing, a new publishing imprint that will bring new translations of foreign books to the Kindle. The first title will be The King of Kahel by Tierno Monénembo, a novel published in French in 2008. Click here to pre-order it for $7.99 for delivery to your Kindle on November 2, 2010.

Comment – Dan Meyers on the Kindle for iPad app’s ranking compared with iBooks, and more.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_96_Mike_Elgan_final.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – A consideration of the difference between e-books and e-book apps.

Interview – Jay Marine, Amazon’s Director of Product Management for the Kindle, spoke with me from Seattle on Tuesday, May 11.  His job in such conversations is to avoid any predictions of future products or enhancements, and let’s just say he’s good at his job.  But if you listen between the lines, you’ll hear encouraging passion regarding Amazon’s commitment to keep those Kindle innovations coming.

Content – A new e-book trove of William Styron titles is now available on Kindle.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_95_Jay_Marine_final.mp3[/podcast]

Darlene's photo of the co-founders of E-Books for Troops

News – My Kindle was updated wirelessly the evening of May 5th with the 2.5 software, so I’m bringing you my hands-on impressions of the six major enhancements it contains.

Tech Tip – How to use the new Daily Refresh capabilities of your Kindle library in the cloud.

Interview – After working by e-mail and phone for two months on the creation of E-Books for Troops, Ken Clark and I finally had a chance to meet in person here in Cambridge, Mass., on Monday, May 3.  After our planning session, we finished up by doing this week’s podcast interview.

Content – Is Google finally getting serious about launching Google Book Editions this summer?  Stephen Windwalker has his doubts, despite a Google guy’s guarantee at a panel discussion in New York City.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_94_Ken_Clark_final.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – How to deregister a Kindle you’re giving to someone, based on my experience this week sending the first two E-Books for Troops Kindles to Afghanistan. (Click here to donate.)

Interview – Stephen Windwalker, creator of the must-read Kindle Nation Daily and iPad Nation Daily blogs, spoke with me on April 27, 2010, about how the Kindle is winning the war and whether the iPad is Jeff Bezos’s nightmare – or an anticipated opportunity for Amazon to remain at the head of the e-books table.  You can try out a 14-day free trial to the Kindle edition of either blog by clicking here for Kindle Nation and here for iPad Nation.

Content – Worth checking out, and not for women only: The sassy, smart and occasionally outrageous Kindle Women podcast and the Girl eBooks blog.

Comments – A question about Calibre from Amy DeVitt, a funny Kindle comic strip emailed by Jeff Freedman, and Blair Slavin decides he likes his iPad better than his Kindle.

THIS JUST IN (Too late for the audio): Jesslyn of My Kindle Stuff just alerted me (Wednesday evening) to the Kindle’s new software update, version 2.5, to be released soon.  Features: collections to organize your stuff, zoom and pan PDFs, password protection, more fonts, improved clarity, Facebook & Twitter posts and “Popular Highlights” as in “See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you’re reading.” Very cool.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_93_Stephen_Windwalker.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – More on last week’s navigation tips, from the Reading Edge Facebook page.

Interview – Carolyn Kellogg caught my attention with her Los Angeles Times blog post titled “iPad’s book-like touches may appeal to traditional readers.” The Blog is titled Jacket Copy, and you can subscribe to it on your Kindle by clicking here.  In a phone/Skype conversation on April 20, we discussed the essence of the book and other topics.

Content – Stephen Windwalker discusses Amazon’s exclusive Kindle book published with Time Magazine – Love, Sex, Freedom and the Paradox of the Pill, available for $5.59 at the Kindle Store.  Another book you won’t find in the Apple iBooks store is Blockade Billy, a novella by Stephen King, priced at $7.79.  Also, a quick comparison of reading the Wall Street Journal on Kindle versus the same newspaper as an iPad app.

Comments – I hear back from dizzle, who called me out here and turns out to be a “she”, as well as a former Kindle owner saving up for an iPad. Also, Greg Keck on his iPad experiences and a long message from CEN about migraines, LCD screens and the Kindle DX as cure.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_92_Carolyn_Kellogg.mp3[/podcast]

Also: Social media evangelist Bryan Person has uploaded Part 2 of our conversation about the iPad and Kindle, and I’ll post it soon at The Reading Edge.

Tech Tip – Following up on an e-mail from listener Jonathan Bloom, I share some navigation tips taking advantage of the Kindle’s versatile five-way controller.

Interview – Cali Lewis, the happy, shiny Geek Girl who hosts GeekBrief.TV, has been a loyal fan of the Kindle since the beginning, when the original Kindle renewed her reading habit.  She’s also a keen experimenter with the iPad, so I was very glad to have a chance to visit with her by Skype on April 12, 2010, about where things stand with the Kindle in the first weeks of the iPad Era.

Content – A classic science fiction novel, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, is now available on the Kindle.

Comments – Ron Mertens tips me off to a report by DisplaySearch estimating that Amazon sold 3.3 million Kindles last year.  Rho ponders the iPad. Brett McNeill says listening to the Kindle Chronicles is like talking tech and literature with a friend over coffee. A blogger who goes by Dizzle takes exception to the “absurd snobbery” of my suggestion last week that Robert Scoble has abandoned the Kindle for the iPad because he only skims his reading material, as opposed to Kindle fanboys like me who immerse themselves in books.  Point taken, and I’d love to hear more from Dizzle, whose snarky and well-written blog is titled “i drank the kool-aid clutching my dixie cup of apple goodness.”

Production Note at 11 p.m. Mountain Time: Darlene won her bet, and I dutifully delivered a five-dollar bill to her quilting studio on my way out the door for the DOC training.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_91_Cali_Lewis.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Calibre‘s latest version adds a Fetch Annotations feature.

Interview - James McQuivey of Forrester Research scores the latest round in Apple v. Amazon and predicts a third combatant may enter the fray soon.

Content - How you can load The Atlantic and Le Monde, among others, to your Kindle for free using Calibre.

Comments - Jeff Freedman and Bill Brogdon weigh in on the iPad.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_90_James_McQuivey.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip - Via Andrys Basten, how to move content to your Kindle without using the USB cable OR paying 15 cents a meg for Whispernet transfer.

Interview – Bryan Person of Austin saves the day by letting me use his interview of me all about the iPad v. the Kindle.

Content - Despite the press release, I doubt these new Michelin Driving Tours would be worth $3.99 each, even on Kindle for iPad.

Congratulations to Alan Jackson of Padukah, Kentucky, for winning yesterday’s drawing for a free Kindle and cover, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Octovo. Click here to watch the drama-filled video of the drawing, with audio connection to China for comments by Alexis Mann, marketing manager for Octovo.

By the middle of next week, this new link should be live for E-Books for Troops, formerly known as Kindles for Kandahar.  Ken Clark and I are making good progress, and the first two Kindles will probably be headed for Sgt. Andre Corbin to distribute in Afghanistan by the end of next week, with covers and lights donated by M-Edge Accessories.  Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_89_Bryan_Person.mp3[/podcast]

From left with students in Ghana, Colin McElwee, Mike Sundermeyer, and David Risher

News – Amazon announces Kindle for Tablet Computers including the iPad. CNET’s Tom Merritt has some video fun with reasons For and Against buying an iPad.  Citi’s Mark Mahaney doesn’t think the iPad is going to make much of a dent in the Kindle’s dominance of eBooks. My anonymous source says the Kindle App Store could open as soon as April 1st, but more probably around May 1st.

Tech Tip - Courtesy of Allen MacDiarmid, a way to create some folders – not on your Kindle, but to organize content on your computer for use with Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac.

Interview - David Risher, a co-founder of Worldreader.org, spoke with me on March 22, 2010, from Barcelona about a truly inspiring effort to provide a library for every child in every family, through eBooks.

Content – Check out Stephen Windwalker’s Free Kindle Nation Shorts for a taste of some great reading you might very well want to purchase.  For example, Tuesday Tells it Slant by Holly Christine.

Your Comments – Jonathan Bloom recommends Symptio – now known as ebits, a hybrid between bits and pulp for buying eBooks; Allen MacDiarmid on Kindle for Mac, and Jim Jones recommends You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_88_David_Risher.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip - In which I transfer to Kindle for PC and Mac a screenplay I’m reading, written by my nephew Jesse Betlyon, graduating this month from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. Hooray!

Interview – Joshua Tallent, founder and CEO of eBook Architects, spoke with me in person on March 14, 2010, in Austin, where I was attending South by Southwest Interactive.  We discussed the iPad, eBook prices, and how authors can succeed in publishing for eBook formats, especially the Kindle.  Click here for Joshua’s last appearance on the podcast, 65 episodes ago.

Content - John Grisham has a change of heart regarding eBooks.  Doubleday announces that all 23 of his novels are now available in Kindle and other eBook formats.  Via Techflash, click here for his Today Show interview, back when he had little good to say about eBooks.

Here are some more content suggestions via Twitter: MaryGoBlue recommends ManyBooks. Kipp Poe likes Smashwords and authors’ pages, including those for Tom Raimbault, J.A. Konrath, and Andersen Prunty.  Robert Anderson loves the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg, as do I.

Your Comments – Allen MacDiarmid on the iPad, Alan Morris on Kindle for Mac, and Ronald Molnar on Apple’s job listing for an Independent Publisher Account Manager.

EBooks for Troops Update – I’m partnering with Ken Clark (who blogs here) to create a nonprofit to expand the project of providing Kindles to active-duty troops.  We’ve settled on a new name, EBooks for Troops (EB4T), which is not as pleasingly alliterative as the original Kindles for Kandahar, but more descriptive.  M-Edge Accessories donated the first Kindle and accessories, to Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who will soon be deployed in Afghanistan, ready to identify troops to receive the next Kindles.  We have raised approximately $1,000 in contributions so far.  Thank you to everyone who has participated, especially M-Edge!

Still Time to Win A Kindle - I will award a Kindle and accessories to a fan of my Reading Edge Facebook page at noon Mountain Time, April 1, courtesy of a sponsorship by Octovo.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_87_Joshua_Tallent.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – My personal system for active reading, in this case to prepare for an author interview.  The secret sauce is this handy cache of all your highlights and notes on books you’ve bought from Amazon.

Interview - Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, found herself in the midst of a Kindle Kerfuffle which she handled gracefully on her blog. In this interview recorded on March 8, 2010, she talks about literature, reading on her Kindle, and what it was like to have pre-orders on her book blocked during the Amazon v. Macmillan showdown.

Content – The New York Times plans to offer its great Book Review section as a separate digital eReader product for the Sony Reader, Kindle and nook. BTW, if you haven’t tried listening to the weekly NYT Book Review podcast, you really should check it out.

Your Comments - My friend Kes Woodward reports on a wintry stress test for his Kindle in Denali Park. Listener Gib Wallis helps listener Bob Anderson with a tech problem. Two questions from Patrick Scott.

Kindles for Kandahar – What a week! More than $600 in contributions will enable the purchase of at least two Kindles to be distributed in Afghanistan to active-duty troops by Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who will be in country by the end of the month. Listener Ken Clark is helping me set up a nonprofit and a web page. Click here for the genesis. M-Edge Accessories CEO Patrick Mish and his team are planning their sponsorship activity to support the project.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_86_Elif_Batuman.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – How to check your Evernote account on your Kindle, using the mobile version.  Via Evernote’s latest podcast, we learn the CEO has three Kindles, and the team is looking at the Kindle API with an eye to closer coordination between the Kindle and Evernote.  Click here for Abhi’s Start Page Tool post if you’d like to streamline your Evernote access on your Kindle.  Click here for the bookmonk tool.  If you haven’t tried Evernote yet, check out Walt Mossberg’s rave review.

Interview – Andrys Basten’s “A Kindle World blog” had its debut on March 19, 2009.  In this interview recorded on March 2, 2010, we talked about what a difference a year has made in the world of the Kindle, especially in the hoard of competitors to the Kindle that has arrived on the scene.   Click here to subscribe to Andrys’s very useful blog on your Kindle. One non-Kindle eReader she mentions, depending on your reading needs, is the Sony Pocket Edition.

Content – Amazon announces how you can find lots of free content for your Kindle in places other than the Kindle Store. Click here for the great copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I found at ManyBooks.

Your Comments - Maurice Lawles buys a Kindle. Jim Jones loves Stitcher. Kevin Roher tests the Kindle’s battery. Glenn Blinckmann is not happy about the big increase in Kindle subscription price for Time Magazine. Blair Slavin thinks I may love reading my iPad in my favorite chair. Kevin Parsons puts flesh on the economics re: eBook pricing. Mike Detlefsen gets an unacceptable answer from Amazon.

Note: I will be in Austin, Texas, next week for this little gathering.  If you’re in the halls, twitter me and maybe we can rendezvous to say hi or have a coffee.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_85_Andrys_Basten.mp3[/podcast]

Scott Stossel

News – An interview with Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who is headed for active duty in Afghanistan next month.  His gear will include a new Kindle and accessories in a sponsorship by M-Edge Accessories.  Andre describes how well-suited eReader technology is for military personnel serving in remote areas, and he announces his intention to blog about his experience in Afghanistan at Corbinistan.com (an in-process blog template, with content to come.)  Also, comments by M-Edge CEO Patrick Mish on why he and his team were so enthusiastic in their support for this project.

Note: Among the items mentioned in my conversation with Andre were the books Ghost Wars by Steve Coll and In Afghanistan by David Loyne Loyn.  Also mentioned is AAFES, which operates the post exchange at many U.S. military bases.

Tech Tip -  Click here if you have not yet received the latest slight update for your Kindle or DX software.  Listeners’ comments on my Facebook page indicate the update is a pretty good tuneup for the Kindle’s operating system, increasing reliability and speed for some actions.

Interview – Scott Stossel, deputy editor of The Atlantic magazine, describes the genesis of an innovative partnership with Amazon to sell two high-quality short stories for Kindle each month for $3.99 each.  Scott also tells what the reaction to the program has been so far from readers and authors.  If you’d like to provide feedback to him on the short-fiction program, you can email Scott directly at ScStossel AT TheAtlantic DOT com.

Sgt. Andre Corbin

Content - I’m holding over until next week’s show a creative way to organize your Kindle content using Instapaper AND Calibre.  For an advance peek, check out Dave Slusher‘s blog post describing his method.

Comments - This week I’ll post your comments as a separate episode here at The Kindle Chronicles.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_84_Scott_Stossel.mp3[/podcast]

Here’s what you’ll hear in this file:

Craig Scarberry recommends You are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. Jim Jones points to American Psychological Association guidelines for citing Kindle texts.  Bob Anderson wonders how he can get a 200-meg free baseball book in PDF format translated to Kindle format. (If you have a solution, please email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com.) Mike Detlefsen offers an articulate rant about the poor quality of eBooks he purchases from Amazon. John Halkias’s BlackBerry does not support the new Kindle for BlackBerry app.  Thorn weighs in on Heather Hollick’s comment about eBook pricing. James Cooper offers his first-hand review and a trouble-shooting fix for the BlackBerry app.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_84a_Your_Comments.mp3[/podcast]

Photo by Betty Scharf

News – Amazon releases the Kindle for BlackBerry app.  Lance Ulanoff worries about the screen size.  Motoko Rich of The New York Times gets a scoop: Perhaps rumors of Apple’s opposition to discounted prices for bestsellers was a tad exaggerated?

Tech Tip - How NOT to uninstall your screensaver and fonts apps in order to update your Kindle 2 to the new 2.3.3 .  I make some errors and am rescued by a member of KindleBoards, who pointed me to this folder of up-to-date tools for installing and uninstalling hacks. Thank you, Heather!

Interview - Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation is the third-bestselling blog at the Kindle Store.  He’s also just released a new, comprehensive survey of Kindle Nation citizens, which has information the major publishers AND Amazon ought to be paying attention to.  I interviewed Steve in person on Feburary 17, 2010, in Arlington, Mass.

Content – EduKindle creator Will DeLamater is beta-testing a new tool for creating content for the Kindle with Wikipedia and other sources. It’s named eReadUps and you can submit a request to become a beta tester.  Nice!

Comments – Richard Fischer, Heather Hollick, Marie Sotiriou with a podcast recommendation, Maurice Lawles, Bob Anderson, Brian Rupert, Craig Scarberry, Sean, and Bruce Kessel.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

ONE MORE THING…. With this episode, I’m announcing that a fan of the podcasts on my Reading Edge Facebook page, Sergeant Andre B. Corbin, will be taking a complimentary Kindle and accessories with him when he deploys for active duty with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan next month, courtesy of M-Edge Accessories.  I saw that Andre had expressed the hope he’d win the Octovo drawing for the Kindle on April 1st (see above), so I contacted Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge Accessories, to see if his company might be interested in donating a Kindle and accessories for Andre.  Patrick quickly agreed, and they are working with Andre on the details, which I’ll have for you next week. Congratulations Andre, and thank you for your service!

Click here to download this podcast.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_83_Stephen_Windwalker.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Inkmesh is checking each hour for new non-public-domain eBooks content.  Sweet!

Interview - Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com has been videoblogging since January 1, 2004, and as of January he is now a Kindle author.  His new book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, came out in Kindle and other eBook format as well as paper, published by Wiley.  We spoke on February 9, 2010, by Skype (including a video recording I’ll post separately) and discussed how eBooks in the future may succeed in providing what I found myself describing as Engaged Social Reading. Steve’s next event promoting his book will be February 25 at 6:30 p.m. at Fenway Park, Boston.

Content – Amazon and the British Library team up to offer for free 65,000 newly scanned literary gems from the 19th century. Coming this spring to a Kindle near you! Note: I was only off a hundred years in referring to the 18th century on the podcast.

Comments – From anonymous, Jean Remple, Greg Montague, James T. Atkinson, and Sean Adams.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a brand new 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Elle Moran and Octovo for sponsoring this contest! And thanks to all 165 of you who have signed up as fans of the podcast.

Note: For a guest blog post I wrote at e-ReaderFeeder, titled “How I Learned to Love the Kindle and Start a Podcast,” click here. Thanks to James Zakaria for the invitation!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_82_Steve_Garfield.mp3[/podcast]

UPDATE: Just after recording the episode, I checked Amazon for Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and it’s now available in hardcover for $13.46.  No Kindle edition at any price. Brad Stone and Motoko Rich break the story in Bits.

Forrester’s James McQuivey says that by capitulating Amazon actually wins in the short term and long term.  Dave Slusher of Evil Genius Chronicles echoes a twitterer’s question — “How does increased competition (Apple’s iBooks to Amazon) result in higher prices to consumers?” — and adds, “That, sir, is an excellent question and one worth thinking about.”  Or do Amazon simply look like fools?

News item #2: Amazon reportedly buys a touchscreen maker.

News item #3: 93 percent of these eReader owners are very or somewhat satisfied with their devices.

Tech tip - Via Andrys Basten’s Kindleworld, Steve Brady (aka The Professor) creates a Word macro (Windows only) that might bring some order to your My Clippings file.  To see your highlights and notes online, click here.

Interview - This is the conclusion of my conversation on February 1, 2010, with James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, where he covers media technology. In this part, James describes what his Forrester associates are calling “The Kindle Flame.”  That’s the next version of Kindle, the one that will really get the fire going. Click here for the first half of the interview at The Reading Edge.

Content – Instapaper just keeps getting better for Kindle users.

Your comments - Lots more discussion of the Apple iPad, and a way for authors to autograph Kindles!

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a brand new 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will at noon on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Elle Moran and Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_81_James_McQuivey.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip - How to keep track on your Kindle of words you’ve looked up using the built-in Oxford American Dictionary or another dictionary which you’ve set to the default dictionary.

Interview – Brad Stone, New York Times technology reporter in San Francisco, is one of the lucky few who not only touched but had a chance to try out an iPad at Apple’s debut extravaganza on January 27.  I spoke with him that night about his impressions of Apple’s new creation, and about what he thinks the impact will be on the Kindle and other dedicated eReaders.  This episode contains the first portion of our conversation.  The conclusion is posted here, at my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge.  Note: In fact, TKC 80 contains the entire Brad Stone interview, because I neglected to delete the conclusion here.  The conclusion is also available at The Reading Edge Episode 7 along with the Steve Jobs’s comments about the Kindle and the iBooks store.  Sorry for the confusion.  –Len

Click here to go directly to audio for the second part of the interview.

Content – Harvard Business Review and Amazon launch an innovative use of the Kindle Store, selling HBR titles by chapters as Short Cuts.  I sampled the $3.16 book summary of The Innovator’s Dilemma: Why New Technologies Cause Great Companies to Fail,  by HBS Professor Clayton M. Christensen.

Comments – Because of the volume of terrific comments prompted by the release of the iPad, I have created a separate episode for the comments this week.  Click here to hear from Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones, Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.  For audio link to comments, click here.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_80_Brad_Stone.mp3[/podcast]

Jim Jones of Omaha

I’ve been reading nonstop this week about the iPad’s impact on the Kindle and eReaders, and some of the smartest commentary so far comes from listeners of The Kindle Chronicles.

So this is a special episode comprising just your comments.  Many thanks to those who joined the conversation, namely Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones (in photo at right), Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.

There’s more to be said, so please feel free to email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com, or leave a comment here on the show notes page.  You can also leave an audio comment by calling 206-666-2713.

You might be interested in a Wired.com article titled “Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for eReaders” by Priya Ganapati.  I’m proud to be quoted by her as a die-hard e-reader fan, and I thought she did a good job reporting a complex story in a fair way.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_80a_Comments_on_the_iPad_Debut.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Via listener Bill Carson, a tip for sharing web content with someone in a place like, say, China, where not everything is available the way it is in the U.S.

Interview – Seth Harwood talks about his experimental and successful journey via podcasting to publication of his crime novel, Jack Wakes Up, and his new collection of well-honed stories available in Kindle edition, A Long Way from Disney. Photo by Mark Coggins.

Content – Via Jean Remple, a great explanation in The Times of Apple’s whatever-it-is, to be revealed next week.  Two new Kindle books worth checking out: One Way Journey by Dean Whitbread and Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield.

And your comments…

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_79_Seth_Harwood.mp3[/podcast]

Intro

News – Can the Kindle really account for 90 percent of all eBook sales? TBI Research says yes, according to unnamed sources. Abhi says it’s not totally crazy. Are you getting tired of HarperCollins delaying eBook releases?  Some of us got rowdy at the Amazon listing for Game Change, leaving one-star reviews that maybe will get someone’s attention. Stephen Windwalker notes the book is still selling well.  Marion Maneker muses about how much easier it would be to match supply to demand if publishers took advantage of the eBook platform instead of delaying eBook versions.  The National Federation of the Blind settles with ASU. Amazon makes it easy to send support to Mercy Corps to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. And finally, via Rick Limpert and Bufo Calvin, changes in Amazon’s self-publishing service, the Digital Text Platform.

Tech Tip – Via Andrys Basten, here’s the official word on whether you should turn your Kindle all the way off at the end of the day, or simply put it in sleep mode.

Interview – Harvey Chute,  webmaster and owner of the fast-growing Kindle Boards forum, sat down for a visit at CES in Las Vegas.  He was busy learning about all the rival eBook readers, and he told us about what surprised him most in the eBook TechZone.  Check out some of his photos and commentary on eBooks here.

Content – Thoughts on Michael Seringhaus’s recently published “E-Book Transactions: Amazon ‘Kindles’ the Copy Ownershhip Debate” in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.

… and lots of comments!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_78_Harvey_Chute.mp3[/podcast]

Be sure to check out my new podcast, The Reading Edge.  The first episode is up, an interview with a product expert for the Sony Reader.

News

Tech Tip – Can’t delete an item from your Kindle using with the 5-way controller? Rick Askenase to the rescue…

Interview – Not everyone with an eBook entrepreneurial mission is making eBooks. Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge Accessories, tells how he and his wife reacted early to the eBook boom by focusing with laser-like intensity on covers and other accessories.

Content – I can’t say I’ve managed to get this new source of newpaper content to actually work on my Kindle, but I’ve gotten close enough to know that PressDisplay is worth checking out.

Comments – Lots of great comments on covers, the mysterious 311 command, and more. Including an audio comment on content from Linda Hopkins.

Dan Weitman of NewMediazine did a thorough profile of The Kindle Chronicles.  Check it out here.

We’re headed back to CES for more interviews in the eBook TechZone.  I’ll be uploading them to the new podcast I’m creating, The Reader’s Edge, which will cover eBooks in a more general way than The Kindle Chronicles.  Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_77_Patrick_Mish.mp3[/podcast]

Deb, Darlene & Claire

News – Eric Engleman of TechFlash reports that Amazon’s no-numbers announcements of record Kindle sales are getting on Wall Street’s nerves. One of his sources is this item from Reuters.

Tech Tip – It’s New Year’s Eve. Do you know the IP Address of your Kindle?  Thanks to Kevin Warner, I learn how to find it.

Tom

Interview – Darlene and her sister Deborah talk about how they share Kindle books using the same Amazon account.  Separately, I talk with Tom, the third Kindle buddy sharing Darlene’s account.  He lets us know that a Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 may not necessarily meet with your bed partner’s approval.

Content – On listener Allen MacDiarmid’s recommendation, I spent $4 to purchase Why Is This Hill So Steep?, a very promising analysis of the history (so far) of eBooks, by Steve Jordan.

Comments – Greg Montague on a new game for the Kindle via the 2.3 update, Kevin Warner’s Whispernet troubles in western Australia, Patrick Scott’s link to “And the word was KINDLE,” an excellent profile of the Kindle in FLYP featuring a video interview with Jeff Bezos, Jonathan Bloom on DTP, Jim Jones on the difference between the story and the book, Kathy on why she bought nooks instead of Kindles for her sons, and David DeMorest on why he sent his nook back unopened and kept the Kindle.

Next week – Darlene and I will be in Las Vegas to cover the International Consumer Electronics Show, checking out all the would-be Kindle Killers. Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_76_Darlene__Deb.mp3[/podcast]

Kris Kindle

This is a special, abbreviated edition of the podcast featuring an interview with Kris Kindle, courtesy of Bufo Calvin, who, for his part, offers a list of terrific tips for anyone who will be learning how to use the Kindle this week because one arrived as a gift.

Here is my own suggestion: consider buying a Kindle subscription to Bufo’s ILMK blog, which offers a steady supply of highly original and useful information about the Kindle. He has also authored two books available in Kindle editions, Free Books for Your Kindle and Frequently Asked Kindle Questions.

In our phone conversation on Wednesday, December 23rd, Bufo also mentions his latest creation,  221B Blog Street: The Adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson…one chapter a day! If you subscribe to that one, you will receive a new chapter of a Sherlock Holmes short story or chapter of a novel each day directly to your Kindle, a recreation of the serial publishing era.

Bufo Calvin

Next week my wife, Darlene, and I will return to Denver for a while. Her press credentials for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) have been approved, so she will be joining me for coverage of the show in Las Vegas next month.

Thanks for listening, and I hope your new year brings many good reads on your Kindle.

Kris Kindle photo credit: User Oldschool, via Wikimedia Commons, uploaded 3/29/06.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_75_Kris_Kindle_-_Bufo_Calvin.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Len’s 2Doo list 2.o, with help from Larry Goss.  Also, your host proves to be a dim bulb in the case of a Mighty Bright clip-on light that wasn’t getting the nightime job done.

Interview – Eric Engleman, senior technology staff writer at TechFlash, pretty much covers just one company – Amazon. That gives him a lot of time for hard work and the development of  good sources, which gives him unusual insight into what’s ahead for the Kindle and its competitors.  We spoke by Skype/landline on December 15, 2009.

Content – Via Bufo Calvin’s blog, I learn that Barnes & Noble’s Fictionwise has a Kindle store!

Comments – Esmeralda deTrafford’s downloading woes down under, Bruce Bouchard on Babylon Dictionary software, Vern Elmore on eBeam, Ted Inoue on Kindle version 2.3 fonts (The one I use for a slightly darker and larger font on my Kindle-US is named update_CModBold_K2iv23.bin), Craig Findlay’s net additional cost in the U.K. to upgrade from a Sony PRS505 to a Kindle International is only 20 pounds sterling – thanks to eBay, Alex Bowman looks forward to the next TKC meetup, Craig Scarberry on Cory Doctorow, Al MacDiarmid’s trouble updating to 2.3, Peggy Poellot speaking up on behalf of the original Kindle, Blair Savin’s sunlight 2.3 problem, and Richard Fischer on the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg.

Next Week: Will TKC’s staff succeed in their (actually, her) reasonable request for just one week off a year to celebrate Christmas?  Stay tuned….

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[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_74_Eric_Engleman.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip – Amazon is rolling out the ability to delete items from your Kindle archive. (Hat tip to Rick Askenase for spotting this one.)

Interview – Brent Evans of GeekTonic returns to the podcast (click here for his last visit, in March)  for a gabfest on our first impressions of the nook.  Click here for my unboxing video. We tried out the LendMe feature, which was cool, but agreed the Kindle is easier to use than the nook and works better.   Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal agreed, in print and video, as did David Pogue of The New York Times (print here, video here).

Content – Motoko Rich of The New York Times broke the news that The Atlantic has launched “the iTunes-ization of short fiction” with exclusive $3.99 Kindle versions of two short stories, “Shovel Kings” by Edna O’Brien and “Cynara” by Christopher Buckley.

Comment – The word from Guam.

Next Week’s Interview Guest - Eric Engleman, senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, who writes a must-read blog all about Amazon.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_73_Brent_Evans.mp3[/podcast]

News

Tech Tip - Bruce Bouchard helps me find an old French dictionary and a Spanish-English dictionary as well as a 1913 Webster’s Unabridged and a very big Collaborative International Dictionary of English, courtesy of the MobileRead forum. These can all be made your primary Kindle dictionary. Another one I liked enough to pay money for: the Merriam-Webster French to English Translation Dictionary.  My dream English dictionary is not yet available for Kindle, but one day…

Interview (Begins at 17:00) – In a telephone interview on November 29, 2009,  Forrester Research’s eBook/eReader sage, Sarah Rotman Epps, talks about what’s ahead for the Kindle, the Nook, the looming Apple tablet, and much else.  Additional coverage of Sarah’s forecasts here.

Content - Opening this court file on my Kindle and DX in PDF and converted-to-Kindle formats.

Comments – Ann Miner’s link to Seattle Channel interview by Nancy Pearl with Paul Collins that wandered into a Kindle discussion at about 22 minutes (iTunes podcast link); Craig Scarberry’s recommendation of the excellent Books on the Nightstand podcast; Jean Remple on OCTO covers (more on covers here and here); Ann Miner with a good idea for Amazon; Marcy MacKenzie on a meetup with Bob Cope; an Amazon PR spokesman confirms the Facebook post stating that “a better way to organize your Kindle libraries” is coming; Jim Jones links to the Cushing Academy of Canada-Sony Reader style; Tom Lichty links to a charming coming-of-Kindle-age column by Margie Boulé in The Oregonian; Kevin Warner, a new Kindle owner from Down Under; Len Charnoff’s tutorial video on Inkmesh; audio comments from Pastor Mark Pierce of Church Requel and Bob Lee.

Next Week – Let’s try this again: Brent Evans of GeekTonic is scheduled to join me for first impressions of our yet-to-be shipped nooks.

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[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_72_Sarah_Rotman_Epps.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – Chris Westergaard writes in praise of Stanza as an alternative to Calibre for managing eBooks on your Kindle.

Interview – David Weinberger, a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, interviewed Cory Doctorow recently on copyright issues and the future of the eBook. (Click here to download audio file of the Doctorow interview.) I caught up with David this morning via Skype for his experience with the Kindle, and for more of his thoughts about the issues raised by Doctorow. Click here for David’s Wikipedia entry and here for Cory’s.

Content – A few items currently on my Kindle: Rick Limpert’s blog, “My Little Place on the Interweb” (Click here for Rick’s profile of The Kindle Chronicles); Makers by Cory Doctorow;  Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.;  A Kindle World blog, Kindle Nation Daily and the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg eBooks.

Comments – Firmware update and larger-font hack.

Next Week – I hope to interview Brent Evans of GeekTonic to share our first impressions of the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Click here to download this episode.

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_71_David_Weinberger.mp3[/podcast]

Tech Tip – New Kindle features at Instapaper.

Interview – Brian Kellett (aka Tom Reynolds) of the Random Acts of Reality blog drives an ambulance for the London Ambulance Service, and he’s a recent convert to the Kindle.  He will soon begin another blog, Paper Not Included, focusing on eBooks in the U.K.  He is also the author of Blood, Sweat and Tea: Real-Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance. (Also available as free TXT file at the Internet Archive.)

Content – A TeleRead post leads me to the Resource Shelf and then the Online Books Page and the Internet Archive, where I found an ePub edition of Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh. Can my Kindle read an ePub book? Yes, it can, thanks to Calibre.  Click here for Calibre video.  How would Edward Tufte explain all that’s out there for eBooks?

Comments – Lots of great comments, including the Kindle on an episode of “Castle” and an audio comment from Jim Jones.

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[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/thekindlechronicles/TKC_70_Brian_Kellett.mp3[/podcast]