Kindle Review – Kindle 2 Review, Books

The Tools of Change for Publishing Blog has collated some of their best posts into a Free Best of TOC eBook. I love the blog and went through the posts and here are some thoughts -

Update: Bob Stein’s Unified Field Theory of Publishing in the Networked Era is an exceptional post and a Must Read. This single post made reading through the whole 27 articles worthwhile. I don’t know why it’s buried at #19.

1. DRM Vs Enforcement – Don’t get it.
2. Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In – Do get this. A good article for understanding Publishers’ perspectives and why they fear Amazon so much.
3. Ebook Format Primer – A good post. And there’s room to expand it into a much more comprehensive article, almost a mini book. Also, MobiPocket Creator is free now.
4. Ergonomics and Book Success – OK.
5. Responsibly Assuaging Author Concerns about File Sharing and “Piracy” – Basically, they’re saying that Piracy is better than Obscurity, might help you sell more books, etc.
6. It’s Time to Accept an Ambiguous Digital Fate – A powerful idea and insight.
7. Story-telling 2.0: Alternate Reality Games – Not my cup of tea.
8. Content Owners and Consumers Need Digital Quid Pro Quo – this went over my head.
9. The Pitfalls of Publishing’s E-Reader Guessing Game – Instantly irrelevant as Sony has released their numbers and Kindle is now much more of a success.
10. Treating eBooks like Software – A good, solid article. A lot of the concepts in here like shareware, samples, affiliate marketing, affiliates are concepts publishers ought to understand much better.
11. On Publishers and Software Development – Don’t get it.
12. eBooks and Print Books are Not Mutually Exclusive – This post is like an introduction with the main body missing.
13. POD Opens Door to Magazine Experiments and Customization – I really like MagCloud and recommend reading this interview.
14. Web Community Management Tips – There is no way you can write a good post on this topic in less than 1500 words. It’s almost as if someone has instructed the TOC bloggers to avoid going over 500 words. They really should read Jakob Nielsen’s thoughts on article lengths.
15. Reinventing the Book and Killing It are Separate Things – Starting off a good idea/post and finishing it are separate things too.
16. Q&A with Developer Who Turns eBooks into iPhone Applications – A really good interview.
17. Terry Goodkind follows the Money – so-so post.
18. Web Analytics Primer for Publishers – A very useful article, assuming this is aimed at Publishers new to Web Analytics.
19. Highly Recommended – already mentioned at the top of this post.
20. How many publishing CEOs know what an API is? – It asks an important question. Why does it matter whether your CEO knows what an API is? And follows up with a one paragraph, half-baked, fails to explain anything, answer.
21. Why You Should Care About XML – A good post and lots of good comments.
22. Publisher as Brand – This is another exceptional article. Publishers need to understand that seeing Publishers as people makes everyone much likelier to try to understand their perspective, and not view them as monsters standing in the face of progress. Not to mention that Brand is going to become super important as the Publishing industry evolves with technological advances.
23. Regulating the Google Settlement – OK.
24. Point Counter Point: Anti Digital DRM. See below.
25. Point Counter Point: Pro Digital DRM. Very good articles.
26. Interstitial Publishing: A New Market from Wasted Time - Its almost as if Jeff Bezos read this article and came up with Kindle Mobile. Excellent. Instead of letting pointless casual games and nonsensical iPhone Apps dominate this niche, Publishers and Authors need to look at this. Amazon already is.
27. The Once and Future eBook – Very good so I won’t complain about breaking it up into 7 pages for page views .

Overall Thoughts

The absolute must reads -

1. Articles Number 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27.

Actually I figured out exactly what I feel about these posts – Jakob Nielsen’s advice to Write Articles, Not Blog Postings. Except for the 6 posts I’ve listed above, the rest are basically just quickly blogged snippets.

This book brings across the idea that TOC generates a lot of good ideas and insights. However, it doesn’t help me get in-depth insights and doesn’t establish the TOC bloggers as area experts.

That’s why only 6 articles are Must Reads and another 8 of the 27 articles are worth reading in my opinion. As opposed to something like Jakob Nielsen’s Alert Box where nearly every single article is a gem and a must read.