Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Let’s start with the free and cheap stuff -

1. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe for 1 cent. A short story – not an audiobook. 
2. She’s Got it Bad by Sarah Mayberry - Free Audiobook at Audible (via MobileRead). 
3. Pulitzer Prize winning All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. It’s narrated by Michael Emerson.

Speaking of free a quick reminder that 65,000 19th century fiction books from the British Library’s collection are going to be made available for Kindle owners this spring. The project is funded by Microsoft and comprises a lot of rare 19th century editions.

Nooks will be in stores starting Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Electronista cover the news that B&N will have some amount of Nooks available for purchase in stores starting Wednesday, February 10th -

Barnes & Noble today said that the Nook will at last reach its retail shops.

While it has had demo units in stores since launch in the fall, the bookseller now says it expects most locations to have units directly available to buy on Wednesday the 10th.

That would make it the perfect time for Amazon to announce something – Perhaps a price cut? Perhaps a new product? Perhaps a news conference?

It gives B&N quite an advantage and it’ll be interesting to see whether sales trends change. The Nook has had 2 software upgrades and that may have a big impact too.

Kindle and eReader Snippets

1. Amazon hired Mike Nash (formerly of Microsoft) to work on the Kindle Team.
2. Gavin De Becker has made his bestselling books The Gift of Fear and Just 2 Seconds available exclusively (exclusive in terms of ebooks) in the Kindle Store. Amazon certainly seem focused on exclusive deals of all sorts.
3. True Slant point out that Random House are not pushing for the agency model. This quote from Madeline McIntosh of Random House regarding delaying ebook releases is very insightful -
   

   “I haven’t been convinced that it’s good for the author or consumer to delay the release.

   My fear is that the consumer who has fully embraced the technology will buy another e-book that is available or lose interest altogether.

   What if I train the consumer that the best scenario is to get it free?”

Kindle Apps beginning to get exposure

1. Android Guys have a good post comparing Android and Kindle Apps - He’s basically saying that they both use Java and that Kindle Apps at launch might be a big opportunity though Android is (much?) better long-term. 
2. Kindle Apps and the Kindle Development Kit are beginning to get a lot of coverage – The late friday announcement meant the press ignored it. However, today there are 21 news articles about it and a lot of blog posts. There are also a lot of people writing that they are signing up though whether or not they’ll code apps is up in the air. 
3. It’s pretty interesting to see different people offer up ideas on what sorts of Apps might work and what Kindle Owners might embrace.

Filed under: free books Tagged: | free audiobook