Email I received From Amazon:"We’re excited to introduce Amazon Kindle 2 , the next generation wireless reading device. With a sleek and thin design that makes Kindle 2 as thin as a typical magazine and lighter than a paperpack, the new Kindle has seven times more storage and now holds over 1,500 books. It has a longer battery life and faster page turns. An advanced display provides even crisper images and clearer text for an improved book-like reading experience. And Kindle 2 even reads to you, with “Read to Me”, our new Text to Speech feature.
"With Kindle 2 we kept everything readers love about the original Kindle—the convenience of reading what you want, when you want it, the immediacy of getting a book wirelessly delivered in less than 60 seconds, and Kindle’s ability to “disappear” in your hands so you can get lost in the author’s words. We’re also excited to announce that the Kindle Store has over 230,000 ebooks available."
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I just recently Kindled my first novella, The Kissing Room, which for me was quite a learning experience. Admittedly, I am html challenged. Thankfully, Smashwords has a wonderful "how to" pdf, outlining the proper formatting for your Word document that makes understanding this process very simple. And they offer conversion and sale in many formats. They seem to be the front-runner as the Lulu for ebooks at the moment. Now, with the sale of e-books on the rise, I think it’s worth the effort for authors to get their books to readers in whatever format is available, more options means more readers. Plus, I can offer the book at a cut-rate cost since there are no production dollars associated with the end product. Readers are more willing to take a chance on a new or self-published author if the investment is minimal.
Now, onto the hub-bub..
Over at Dear Author they have an interesting thread relating to a comment by the Author’s Guild where they are: Telling Authors to stay out of the Ebook Game because the Kindle audio feature may infringe on the author’s derivative right to audio performances. Have you ever heard audio readback from a computer? I have, and let me tell you, it’s painful, and I really don’t see it affecting audio book sales. But that’s just my .02. What can you do? -- cannegardner
1 comment:
Hi Cheryl-
I totally agree with you that POD authors should definitely jump on board the E-Publishing train. With outlets like the Kindle and Smashwords, there are more ways for us to publish these days and reach a wider range of readers.
And as E-reading catches on more and we become more "paperless" whose to say the expensive hard copies we pay for now won't be a thing of the past?!
As far as the whole hoopla about Kindle's voice feature, who cares? Why are people all in a tizzy? Next thing you know the company that manufactures calculator buttons will want to sue too because the Kindle buttons are too much alike!
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