Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

There’s not that much happening today. So let’s look at various eReader and eBook related things that have come up.

Another Indie Author’s Book gets optioned for Film

Karen McQuestion was the first indie author to get her book rights optioned for a movie. Now Christopher M. Finlan is the second.

The book in question is Not a Fire Exit and it’s available in the Kindle Store for $2.99. It’s rated 4.5 stars on 22 reviews.

Hurry up, she thought, quickly bypassing the rest of the menu. The message began, her face turning ashen as she listened. She stopped and replayed the message from the beginning, hand trembling as she pushed each key. But there was no mistaking Dr. Schad’s voice in the message she heard. It consisted of just two words –

“Go ahead.”

And so begins the story of Jim and Sarah Knox, two individuals who make an extraordinary couple and are about to have their lives changed forever by a single cupcake. From the first Nolan Knockout to the last drop of Gringo Moreno, it’s a love story wrapped in a mystery that’ll keep you laughing throughout and have you racing to sign up for your own “Felines for Frederick’s” program.

You can read up on the Movie Option and get more details on the writing of the book at the author’s blog. The company that’s optioned the film seems pretty legitimate and the producer has quite a bit of film experience.

Huffington Post thinks ebooks will make midlist authors an endangered species

There are multiple sides to every story. Here’s Huffington Post’s take on what ebooks and the Kindle will do to mid-list authors -

… portends to destroy the economic foundation that supports a large class of writers known as midlist authors, the triple-A minor league players of publishing.

Consider some of the common ways books by lesser-known authors are sold everyday in a store:

• Examining the history section of a store, a customer is drawn to a book by its eye-catching cover;
• Picking up a book by a popular author from a table, a customer is intrigued by a novel in an adjacent stack;
• Approaching the cash register, a customer decides to get one additional book after reading a sticky note that says “staff favorite,” one of the many ways booksellers “hand-sell” a promising title.

As of yet, there is no digital substitute to this serendipitous manner of bringing readers and writers together.

The post’s author is wrong about there being no serendipity in the Kindle Store. Amazon’s recommendations, Kindle owners’ recommendations in the forums, blogs, genre bestseller lists, and browsing the Kindle Store all provide this serendipity.

He also forgets to mention a few major advantages mid-list authors now have -

1. Ability to price their book anywhere between $1 and $10 (or more) and compete on price. It’s the first time they can, arguably, provide better value for money than big name authors.  
2. Option to price their book between $2.99 and $9.99 and earn 70% of book revenue. Even outside this range they get 35%.
3. To reach multiple captive audiences – Kindle owners, Nook owners, and iPhone/iPad owners. 
4. Not having to wait to get a Publishing contract before sending out a book.
5. Ability to talk directly to customers and react quickly on feedback.

It’s a lot more work – work that in the past Publishers used to handle. However, if you’re getting 70% and you no longer have to get the rubber stamp of approval of Publishers it’s well worth it.

Judge Books by their Cover – According to Mr. Publisher

The Huffington Post has this quote from the President of the Independent Publishers Group that demonstrates how stuck in the past most Publishers are -

“The way you sell music is by sample,” Suchomel said. “The most interesting thing when judging a book is the cover.”

He obviously isn’t aware that both Kindle Store and B&N Store let users read samples before buying a book. In fact, the sample, reviews, and the author are all factors considered much more important by Kindle owners than the book’s cover.

Here’s a list from a previous post on users’ top criteria when deciding to buy a book -

The factors that were mentioned most were -

1. Author. 
2. Description.
3. Review. 
4. Price.
5. Sample.
6. Available on Kindle.
7. Publisher.
8. Genre.
9. Title and Cover.

So, Mr. President, there are now samples for ebooks too, and people are depending on them and on things like reviews much more than they are depending on covers.

Time for you to stop talking about mid-list authors being endangered because they are no longer at your mercy.

Agency Model is failing even in iBookstore

Divine justice rains down in the UK iBookstore as The Bookseller is appalled to find out that cheap and discounted ebooks dominate iBooks in the UK -

HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan have consistently scored well, with Chris Evans’ memoir, It’s Not What You Think, priced £3.99, holding onto the top spot for nearly two weeks.

It was knocked off on Wednesday morning by Peter James’ £1.99 Quick Read Perfect Murder. The print a.s.p. of Evans’ book is £5.37, while James’ book is £1.98. Gordon Ramsay’s Humble Pie (HarperCollins) is £1.99 on the iBookstore, where it is fourth, but has a print a.s.p. of £7.74

So much for $14.99 and $12.99. Even iBooks customers prefer £1.99 and £3.99.

Apparently Harper Collins UK are beginning to think with their heads -

“Our goal is to find the optimum price for our e-books to maximise value for ourselves and our authors, while giving consumers a fair deal and incentivising them to buy, rather than motivating them to fileshare our digital content.”Roth-Ey stressed the discounting was an attempt to “right-price” e-books, warning it was important to encourage people to pay for books “not drive people to find pirated editions elsewhere”.

He explained:

“If the average selling price of a hardback book with an r.r.p. of £18.99 is £12, we can’t reasonably charge £18 for the digital edition. Physical book r.r.p.s are a point of reference for determining an appropriate digi­tal book price, but not the determining factor.”

Wish more Publishers, including Harper Collins USA, would figure out this crucial little detail.

Steve Jobs’ 22% handwaving comes under more criticism

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez at Digital Book World points out that all eReader and eBook companies, not just Steve Jobs, are obfuscating ebook sales figures.

From consumer demand, to devices and DRM schemes, to piracy concerns and reliable sales data, the nascent but undeniably booming eBook market is becoming a smoke and mirrored mess for anyone looking for straight answers.

Of course there are two main possibilities for all the hiding of sales figures -

1. They’re really bad and companies want to pretend they’re good.
2. They’re really good and companies don’t want other companies to know.

By not disclosing figures eReader/eBook companies are letting people and publishers believe whatever they wish were true. 

FTC jumps onto the ‘Let’s Save Newspapers’ bandwagon

Teleread cover Ars Technica’s coverage of FTC’s suggestions/conversation starters for how newspapers could be saved (PDF).

They range from decent to pathetic and Ars Technica has a good take on them. Recommendations include -

1. $5 a month surcharge that Internet subscribers pay. 
2. ‘Hot News’ rights where the first paper to report on a news item would have exclusive rights on it for some period of time.  
3. Let news organizations collude and create a giant paywall. 
4. 5% tax on consumer gadgets.
5. Tax your cellphone usage.
6. Tax credit for journalists.
7. Let Voice of America and Radio Free Europe be broadcast in the USA.

It all sounds rather convoluted. If an industry is dying out it’s worth considering that perhaps it’s usefulness is dying out too. The grand assumption is that newspapers are the backbone of our democracy and we couldn’t survive without them. That’s quite an assumption and the FTC is adding on an even bigger assumption i.e. end users should prop up struggling newspapers.

Filed under: news Tagged: | agency model boycott, ereader news