The STRANGEST Books Ever Written

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Whitman books about Hollywood movie stars

I’m amazed that they even exist. They’re printed books, each with a happy, colorful cover, that transform real-life celebrities into characters in a book! Nearly 60 years ago, a magical thing happened to Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, Betty Grable, and Annette Funicello. Each of them turned up in their own fictitious adventures in a series of Hollywood-themed books!

I remember similar books. The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family were two TV sitcoms about families that aired in the 1970s — and both of them were adapted into mystery books using all the characters from the TV shows. It’s apparently been happening since the 1940s, but it’s easier to find these books now that we’re in the age of technology. Instead of hoping to stumble across one in a used bookstore, you can finally track them all down online!

The Partridge Family Mystery book cover with David Cassidy    Brady Bunch mystery book

I’d thought about these books when I wrote my post about “the worst Kindle eBooks ever written”. (One author had created hundreds of short “quickie” ebooks about celebrities which were all apparently cut-and-pasted from the online biographies at Wikipedia.) I guess I was stunned by how little effort went into creating those celebrity-themed ebooks. In the past, authors cranked out entire novels about movie stars — each of them more than a hundred pages long!

Take a look at some of these titles.

Betty Grable and the House of Cobwebs
Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak
Gregory Peck and the Red Box Enigma
Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume
Dorothy Lamour and the Haunted Lighthouse
Shirley Temple and the Spirit of Dragonwood
Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter
Lucy and the Madcap Mystery


Lucille Ball - Lucy and the Madcap Mystery book coverYes, that’s Lucille Ball in the last book — the star of the classic ’50s sitcom I Love Lucy. “The story takes Lucy Carmichael and Vivian Bagley and their children (the characters from The Lucy Show, of course) on a camping trip,” remembers one collector of Lucy-related memorabilia, “during which all sorts of events occur, including the gang getting mixed up with the military and the FBI!” And it turns out it’s not the only print book to be based on a TV comedy. There’s also print books based on some of the silliest sitcoms ever written, like The Munsters (a TV show about a suburban family that resembles the characters from a horror movie) and even Gilligan’s Island!

The Munsters: The Great Camera Caper
The Munsters: The Last Resort
The Monkees: Who’s Got the Button?
Patty Duke and the Adventure of the Chinese Junk
Patty Duke and the Mystery Mansion
Gilligan’s Island (by William Johnson)

Gilligan's Island book

And some of the stories are even stranger then you’d expect! For example, here’s how one book collector’s site summarizes the plot of
Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume.

Judy Garland agrees to return a misplaced dress to the owner, but what should have been an easy errand becomes a lengthy ordeal, almost as though the dress has brought a curse upon Judy. Judy first traces Frederica Hammond to her boarding house and finally to the home of a sick relative.

Judy travels to the home of Myrta Mattis where she discovers that Frederica is held a prisoner by Myrta’s relatives, who appear to be attempting to poison Myrta. Frederica insists that Judy will be held a prisoner as well if her presence becomes known. Judy devises a plan of escape for herself through the basement and plans to go for help.

Judy’s escape is cut short after a servant mistakes her as a spirit that has risen from the nearby lake. Judy is then forced by a spirit swindler into performing as a spirit for his clients. It is only by a stroke of good luck that help arrives for Judy, and Frederica is saved from her prison.

Wow!

Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume

I have to mention one more book that has a very strange history. In 1892, author Janette Sebring Lowrey was born — and 50 years later she wrote the best-selling children’s picture book of all time. (The Pokey Little Puppy — one of the first twelve books in Simon & Schuster’s series, “Little Golden Books”.) Lowrey actually wrote dozens of books, including a sensitive 1950 story about a teenaged girl who moves to the city to live with her aunt and uncle. That book was originally called “Margaret”, but Walt Disney bought the rights for a TV adaptation.

During The Mickey Mouse Club, Disney broadcast short 10-minute episodes in a “serialized” adaptation of Lowrey’s book. It starred Annette Funicello — Disney even changed the main character’s name to Annette — and it proved to be extremely popular. Soon another writer had been hired, to create a series of books based on the popular Disney segment. The original characters went from a book, to a TV show, and then back into an entirely different book — that was written by a different author!

I think Annette Funicello probably holds the record for appearing in the most celebrity mysteries – each one set in an intriguing location like the Arizona desert, the California mountains, or a glamorous estate.

Annette: Sierra Summer
Annette: Desert Inn Mystery
Annette: Mystery of Moonstone Bay
Annette: Mystery at Smuggler’s Cove
Annette: Mystery of Medicine Wheel

“In one a boy’s father has been wrongly sent to prison, and in another her friend’s parents will lose their inn unless they can discover hidden money,” one collector remembers. “Annette is sympathetic (and polite), and eventually she and her friends stumble into a key discovery that invariably set things right. But the stories always begin with a leisurely and enthusiastic introduction of the characters and their settings.”

Annette Funicello book cover Sierra Summer

To my knowledge, none of these books are available on the Kindle — and they probably never will be. Collectors mostly want to cherish the colorful covers of the print editions. (And it would also be a nightmare to track down the owner of the original copyrights.) They’ve already become forgotten artifacts from a different generation, and in the age of digital ebooks, they’ll be even further away from the bright lights of our collective memory.

I guess I wanted to take one more moment to remember these fondly-written books, before they finally fall away into obscurity…

Big Kindle Discount for 18 Kurt Vonnegut eBooks

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Kurt Vonnegut

Amazon is advertising a big sale in the Kindle store for 18 novels by Kurt Vonnegut! For the next four weeks, you can buy each one as an ebook for just $3.99. For Slaughterhouse Five, that represents a 50% discount from the regular price of $7.99. “You guys really know how to empty out our pockets,” joked one Kindle owner, posting their reaction on Facebook.

In fact, within 15 hours of the announcement, 288 people had clicked its “like” icon on the Kindle’s page on Facebook. “Quite possibly my favorite author,” posted another user, adding excitedly that it was the “DEAL OF THE CENTURY”. Three different women posted an identical reaction: “love my Kindle.” And another Vonnegut fan joked that they wouldn’t need to buy any of the ebooks, because “I already have them all memorized!”

Here’s a list of the Kurt Vonnegut novels which are now available as $3.99 ebooks.

Slaughterhouse Five
Cat’s Cradle
Breakfast of Champions
The Sirens of Titan
Player Piano
Welcome to the Monkey House
Mother Night
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Galapagos
Fates Worse Than Death
Slapstick
Bagombo Snuff Box
Timequake
Jailbird
Bluebeard
Deadeye Dick
Hocus Pocus
Palm Sunday

I know a lot of my friends will be excited too, because Kurt Vonnegut has always been one of their favorite novelists. But I feel a special connection to the author, because of a precious experience I enjoyed during a visit to Los Angeles. The Paley Center for Media preserves recordings of old and rare programs in a museum in Beverly Hills. In 2006, I paid them a visit to watch the only television broadcast whose script was actually co-authored by Kurt Vonnegut himself.

Paley Center for Media - Museum of Television and Radio - Beverly Hills

It was an adaptation of a story which Vonnegut would later publish in “Welcome to the Monkey House,” though in 1953 the only place it published was the Ladies Home Journal. Five years later, Vonnegut’s sister died, within a few days of her husband, and as he adopted their children, Vonnegut wondered — at the age of 36 — whether he should give up writing altogether. But somehow in that same dark year, his name ended up on the teleplay of a very dramatic episode of G.E. Theatre.

It was hosted by Ronald Reagan, and starred a young Sammy Davis Jr. in the story of a black soldier whose troop passes by a German orphanage shortly after World War II. (One online review calls it “one of the great moments in television history,” since it was one of the first starring roles ever for a black actor on TV.) A black boy in the orphanage mistakes the lonely soldier for his father, and “Private Spider Johnson” soon has to make a very difficult choice. Reportedly even the production crew cried during the broadcast’s final scene, when the solider collapsed to his knees, sobbing.

It’s never been released as a DVD, but I watched on a viewing station at the museum. It’s impossible not to be deeply moved by the story of the orphans left behind by the war. (“Had the children not been kept there…they might have wandered off the edges of the earth,” Vonnegut wrote, “searching for parents who had long ago stopped searching for them.”) The story’s title is D.P., which stands for “Displaced Persons” — the technical military term for the desperate children.

And it’s because of this story that my favorite Kurt Vonnegut book has always been “Welcome to the Monkey House”.

ABC leaks script of new TV series on the Kindle!

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Revenge - new ABC TV series

It’s something I’ve never seen before. In two weeks, ABC will broadcast the premiere of a new TV series called “Revenge”. But Thursday they released the entire script of its pilot episode as a free Kindle ebook!

“What goes around comes around,” reads the tagline on its cover…

I wish they’d also included a picture – but obviously it was written before the show had even been produced! The ebook is identified as the “Final Network Draft,” dated January 25, but its copyrighted 2010. (“This material is the exclusive property of ABC Studios and is intended solely for the use of its personnel,” reads the official warning at the beginning of the script – which makes it feel even more official.) The table of contents has links to its five “chapters”, each without a title. (“ACT ONE, ACT TWO, ACT THREE…”) And it’s fun to see a TV show converted into words.


“REVENGE”

ACT ONE

FADE IN:

1 EXT. ATLANTIC OCEAN – NIGHT

A BLOOD RED HARVEST MOON rises high above the dark waters of the North Atlantic. Bands of crimson moonlight cradle deep rolling swells as they push their way towards the flickering lights of a distant shoreline…


And there’s another interesting twist: You can also watch the whole first episode on the internet. “[T]he free Kindle version of the script includes a link to the full-length pilot…” notes a review of the ebook on Amazon. “The most interesting thing about reading the script…is checking out the differences between what was originally scripted and what was actually put on film!” I even followed along with the script while I watched the finished product online, and sure enough, there’s lots of fascinating little differences. “Some were very minor…” notes the Amazon review, like “changing the name of Emily’s former friend Ben Porter to Jack Porter, or the name of her dog from Jake to Sam… Some were more integral (such as the decision to connect Emily’s father’s arrest to a terrorist act, or to suggest that Emily herself had spent years in prison – neither were part of the original script).”

I enjoyed script so much that I decided I’d like to read the whole thing as a Kindle ebook. It preserves some of the mystery of the story, which I think gets lost when you actually try to film it. “I downloaded a copy of ABC’s ‘Revenge’…” wrote one TV columnist. “My download quit about halfway through, and I didn’t try to reboot in order to view the rest of it, so that may give you some idea of the show, which seemed trite and melodramatic, a soap opera in the ‘Dynasty’ or ‘Dallas’ sense, but without the fun.” It’s possible that he would’ve enjoyed it more if he’d been reading the original script!

It’s a fun glimpse into the way a TV show actually gets produced, seeing how all of the on-screen details were first set down into words, and recognizing all the careful thought that went into creating the final show! “We hope you enjoyed your first taste of Revenge,” ABC teases on the ebook’s last page, trying to lead readers seamlessly to the actual broadcast version. “Now that you know Emily’s secret, we’d like to reveal more of her story to you. Visit www.abc.com/revengescreening and use the passcode MN3JozZrq to watch the Full First Episode of Revenge for free! When you’re done, feel free to share with your friends, but only the ones you trust….

“But be warned,” they add on the web page. “This is not a story about forgiveness…”

If nothing else, it’s a very interesting new use for the Kindle. The Kindle can hold any text file, not just the text of a full-length book, and right now clever people are already thinking up new ways to offer fun things for your Kindle. But it’s also really remarkable when you think about the journey that this particular story has taken. The plot of the TV series is loosely taken from The Count of Monte Cristo, a classic action-adventure novel written in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas!

And a full 166 years later, in 2010, that novel enjoyed a very special moment as a poignant symbol of the way that books were being changed by the introduction of digital readers. The founder of Barnes and Noble’s founder, Len Riggio, was being interviewed by a reporter for New York Magazine, and in a touching moment, the 69-year-old executive — born in an age before television — seemed to be struggling to make sense of the popularity of ebooks.

“I still like books,” he said, though it didn’t really need saying. All around him, in a conference room that evoked an elegant old library, were shelves lined with hardbound classics. Books had made Riggio a fortune… Books had been very good to him, and now they were dissolving into the ether…

Riggio wanted to say something, but he couldn’t quite find the words, so he burst out of his chair and charged over to one wall. “I don’t know how you can intellectualize this,” he said, “but a book is …” To continue his thought, he pulled down a copy of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, shook it, felt its substance. “This bound volume of Dumas is content. We have to understand people want to own this content. They want this. It’s very important.”


Now, thanks to the Kindle, you can download the script of a slick network TV series that’s based on that novel as a free ebook!

Another Big Sale on Kindle eBooks

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Amazon Kindle 399 ebook sale

Amazon is touting another big sale on ebooks, with 100 priced for $3.99 or less. They’ll be on sale for the entire month of September, and Amazon promises it’s “a diverse offering of deals,” each one personally selected by Amazon’s book editors. But it looks like Amazon’s “$3.99 or less” sales will be continuing past the end of September. Amazon’s describing it as “the newest section of our store” in a promotional e-mail, promising the hand-selected will be updated “each month!”

The bargain ebooks are spread across four pages at Amazon.com. (Just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/399books.) But they’re not the only ebooks that Amazon has on sale. Amazon is also continuing its “Kindle Daily Deals” page, touting special offers on ebooks that last for exactly 24 hours.

Tuesday’s special offer is “Bonhoeffer”, available for the whole day for just $1.99! The page is now in its second week, and Amazon’s already sold some great ebooks at a big discount. In fact, nearly every one of them has crashed into Amazon’s list of the top 100 best-selling ebooks. (I’ll put their current rank in parentheses).

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (#5)
Seth Godin’s “Poke the Box” (#13)
William Styron’s “Darkness Visible”
Hidden in Plain View – a Darryl Billups mystery (#17)
The Lincoln Lawyer (#20)
Food, Inc
Elizabeth Street (#86)
Water for Elephants (#28)
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

I have a theory about the marketing campaign behind both of these sales. I think Amazon’s trying to help established authors by making easier for them to climb up Amazon’s best-seller lists. There’s so many ebooks that are already available at a low price on the Kindle, and I’ve seen a few first-time authors crashing past the expensive new releases with their own low-priced, self-published ebooks. Although maybe Amazon’s just trying to fight the perception that the price of ebooks is too high. (It’s a common complaint in Kindle discussion forums — and at least now Amazon can always point to over 100 interesting ebooks which are on sale for less than $3.99.)

So what ebooks were hand-selected for Amazon’s special month-long September sale? Here’s a few titles that I thought look particularly interesting…

The Black Ice – ($1.99) – Michael Connelly is one of just 10 authors who’s sold more than 1 million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle store. (One of Connelly’s books — The Lincoln Lawyer — has already reached the top 20 in Amazon’s Kindle Store after it was featured as a Kindle Daily Deal.) But “The Black Ice,” published in 1993, was the author’s second book, and the second installment in his popular Harry Bosch mysteries. (Then-President Bill Clinton was reportedly a fan!) In this story, detective Bosch investigates the suspicious suicide of a narcotics officer in a seedy motel room in Hollywood.

Because of Winn-Dixie ($1.99) – Kate DiCamillo’s award-winning story about a scruffy dog who touches the lives of a family in Florida. (“[A]bsolutely loved it,” posted one grade school librarian on the book’s page at Amazon.com)

The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. ($1.99) – This book was published just last summer by Coretta Scott King (who wrote a special forward for the collection remembering how she’d first met her husband). There’s about 120 quotes in the book, focusing on inspirational topics like nonviolence, faith and religion, justice and freedom, and racism. And it even includes an excerpt from one of King’s most famous writing, the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Hot Water Music ($2.99) – a fascinating collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski available for just $2.99. (“This collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing,” explains
the book’s product description.)

North Dallas Forty ($2.99) – the classic sports book that, according to the book’s description at Amazon.com, is “widely considered the best football novel of all time.” (It promises “the seedy underbelly of the pro game, chronicling eight days in the life of Phil Elliott, an aging receiver for the Texas team. Running on a mixture of painkillers and cortisone as he tries to keep his fading legs strong, Elliott tries to get every ounce of pleasure out of his last days of glory…”)

There’s even a few fun books for children — like “Dinosaurs Before Dark,” the first book in the “Magic Treehouse” series. (It really does look like there’s something for everybody.) Whatever Amazon’s motivation may be, this is ultimately going to be a big win for readers. There’s finally been a real commitment to regularly offer ebooks at a much friendlier price.

Another Free Agatha Christie Mystery!

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Agatha Christie mystery book covers

HarperCollins is giving away a great mystery ebook for free. It’s a 380-page novel by Agatha Christie — the first mystery novel that she ever wrote with her famous detective character, Miss Marple. And it’s one of three other Agatha Christie mysteries which have turned up for free in Amazon’s Kindle Store.

But this one is different. The Murder at the Vicarage isn’t an old, early effort that’s inadvertently slipped into the public domain. Harper Collins just published a new paperback edition of the novel in April, and normally its ebook edition would sell for $6.99. The publishing house even commissioned a fun new cover illustration, displaying the book’s title on a tombstone, with Christie’s name appearing as a handwritten signature (under the words “The Queen of Mystery.”) “[A] dead body in a clergyman’s study proves to Miss Marple that no place, holy or otherwise, is a sanctuary from homicide,” they tease in the book’s description.

It’s being sold at a temporary discount, presumably to publicize the new edition, so if you’re interested in reading the book, download it now before the price goes up! I like how Amazon’s page automatically performs the math on the discount, helpfully explaining to anyone confused that “You save: $6.99 (100%).” And if you need more information about the book’s plot, here’s how they described it on the Harper Collins web site.

“Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,” declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, “would be doing the world at large a favor!”

It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the Colonel is found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe…

There are two other Christie novels which have fallen into the public domain (at least, in the United States). One of them is Christie’s first published novel ever — The Mysterious Affair at Styles — which is also her first story about detective Hercule Poirot. (At a mysterious estate, a wealthy woman is poisoned shortly after drawing up a new will, and Poirot is asked to investigate.) And I’ve actually started reading the other free Agatha Christie novel. Secret Adversary opens on the Lusitania — a British mail ship that was sunk during World War I. “The Lusitania had been struck by two torpedoes in succession,” Christie writes in an exciting prologue that opens the book, “and was sinking rapidly, while the boats were being launched with all possible speed…”

This feels like a big event, because Agatha Christie is acknowledged as the best-selling novelist of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. (In fact, according to Wikipedia, even outside the novel-writing genre, Christie’s tied for the title of best-selling author of all time with one other author…William Shakespeare.) In fact, there’s now over two billion copies of Christie novels scattered around the world — and she’s also earned another very important distinction. She’s one of a handful of authors who you’ll see in a screensaver image on the Kindle!

And Agatha Christie also had a cameo appearance in one of my all-time favorite articles about the Kindle. “Before I first acquired a Kindle, exactly one year ago, I didn’t usually buy books while under the influence of alcohol…” confessed author Elif Batuman. But a couple of glasses of wine lowers her inhibitions, opening up a whole new world. (“Until technology empowered me to order books while drunk, I didn’t realise the scope and diversity of literature that I wasn’t reading purely out of embarrassment.”)

A few months ago, my drunk reading tendencies converged upon a single author. The Kindle actually made the suggestion itself, in the form of one of its standard issue author screensavers: a portrait of Agatha Christie that I found staring up at me, half-obscured by a pile of bills. She was represented, as always, as elderly, wearing a scarf with a brooch, her gray perm etched in meticulous detail. Beneath remarkably heavy brows, her eyes were shrewd and weary, as with the knowledge of countless unravelled mysteries.

The last time I had read Christie novels with any regularity was between the ages of 10 and 13, when I used to borrow them from my mother’s little sister, the most beautiful and lively person in my family, then in her 20s. I read them obsessively, one after another, either despite or because of how much they frightened me. Although the style was simple and readable, not unlike that of the Baby-sitter’s Club books, and although the detectives, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, were twinkly, grandparental types, nevertheless, everywhere these gentle souls went, someone was killed in hatred.

Suddenly I was seized by a desire to revisit Poirot, the charming Belgian with his weird moustaches. Thirty seconds later, I had clicked on “Buy now”…and there would be no physical book to reproach me the morning after.

The Worst Kindle eBooks Ever Written

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Amazon's worst Kindle ebooks

I was stunned when I read it. The ebook was only a few pages long — and nearly all of its text had been cut-and-pasted from somewhere else. Specifically, it came from Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with a page about nearly everything — and everyone. Someone had looked up a popular celebrity, then transformed their Wikipedia page into a biography that they were selling as a digital ebook. For $18.95…

In my case, the celebrity was Charlie Sheen — but he’s not the only celebrity to be “honored” with a skimpy ebook biography. Amazon’s Kindle Store is filled with millions of wonderful books, but mixed into the virtual bookshelves are also hundreds of “quickies” which barely match the definition of a book. It’s a real shock when you first realize just how bad an ebook can get — and how far an author will go to earn a fast buck. In July, one blogger even discovered an author named George Andersen who’s produced nearly 900 different “derivative” ebooks in a quickie series that’s called “WikiFocus”.

Apparently this author cranked out 887 tiny tomes that were cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia about random topics that they’d hoped would be popular — including celebrities, TV shows, and even comic book characters. There’s small “WikiFocus” ebooks about Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Green Lantern — but also separate ebooks about lesser superheros like Supergirl, Catwoman, Aquaman, and the Archie comic strip! (Is the series a strange glimpse into the author’s psyche, or just an intense burst of pop culture paparazzi-ism?) Celebrities also got their own quickie ebooks, including Justin Bieber, Hulk Hogan, Eminem, and Hello Kitty. The author even tried writing a quickie ebook about the Flintstones cartoon series — but spelled “Flintstone” wrong in the ebook’s title!

Of the 887 ebooks, all but 10 earned terrible reviews, averaging one star or less — or received no reviews at all.


“This ‘book’ is just a word for word copy of the wikipedia page…”

“Total waste of money. Much shorter than any WIKI article.”

“It ends after 31/32 percent. The rest is just references.”

“worthless…a half cup of coffee would have been more worthwhile…I cannot prove it, but I seriously believe this is a 5th grader’s book report being peddled as ‘a commentary.'”

And there was even something suspicious about the 10 ebooks which earned positive reviews. Seven of the reviews were written by the same person — who had only written seven reviews, all of them about the WikiFocus series. And most of them were just a few sentences long — all of them enthusiastic, and all of them sounding generic.


“Highly recommended for anyone with an interest…”

“this is absolutley [sic] the book for you. Highly recommended…”

Most of these reviews received very negative ratings from other Amazon users. (“2 of 18 people found the following review helpful,” Amazon warns about one, which gushed that “all of the WikiFocus books I have read have been awesome material…”) That review even drew some nasty follow-up comments from other Amazon reviewers. (“You’re obviously just part of the SPAM machine, pimping out these shoddy publications that are just scrapes of free sources and sold to unsuspecting people. What a sad life you must lead…”) But undaunted, the WikiFocus fan continued leaving more positive reviews for other books in the series. (“I am not sure what the other reviewer was looking at, but this is a GREAT eBook…”)

Almost all of the “ebooks” sell for $1.99, and I was sad when I saw one reviewer who’d written “I wish i could get my money back.” You can get your money back! Amazon’s Kindle Store always let you return any ebook within seven days of purchasing it, according to Amazon’s official “Kindle Return Policies” page.


“Content you purchase from the Kindle Store is eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within 7 days of the date of purchase… To request a refund and return, click the Customer Service button in the Contact Us box in the right-hand column of this page to reach us via phone or e-mail.”

To help dissatisfied readers to reach that page, I’ve created a shorter URL — tinyurl.com/ReturnAnEbook — which should be easier to remember. I remember the reviewer who wrote “This book is a total waste of money.” If you really feel that way — go and get your money back!

If everyone did that, these authors wouldn’t have any reason to keep cranking out these quickie ebooks!

Self-Published Kindle Author Wins Simon & Schuster Deal!

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John Locke ebooks get Simon and Schuster print book deal

I’m always inspired by the success of crime novelist John Locke. He’d already made millions of dollars in insurance and estate businesses. But he decided that next he’d like to become a best-selling ebook author — and then he did!

And last week, Locke notched another victory, when he signed a deal with Simon and Schuster to distribute print editions of his ebooks. “There are many paths from author to reader,” Locke said in a statement, “and any path that puts the reader first will be successful.” It’s a special moment when a traditional print publisher can join together with an ebook author, and Simon & Schuster’s vice president of client publisher services issued a statement showing the’d recognized that they shared a common goal. “We are very excited that we can now help to expand John’s readership to include those millions of readers who still savor the joys of sitting down for a few hours of entertainment with a traditional paperback book.”

Locke got their attention by becoming only the eighth author to sell one million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle store in June, and the first one to do it as a self-published author! (“It’s so exciting that self-publishing has allowed John Locke to achieve a milestone like this,” Amazon’s Vice President of Kindle Content announced at the time, adding that they were “proud to welcome him to the Kindle Million Club.”) But I admire Locke just as much for the clever business decisions he’s made both before and after his success. Interestingly, Simon and Schuster is distributing the print editions of the books. But their publisher is going to be…John Locke. Print editions of his books will be be available by February “wherever physical books are sold,” according to last week’s announcement, but the publisher of all those printed editions will all be “John Locke books”!

And that wasn’t his only clever decision. John already had another book ready to go in June when he finally sold his millionth ebook in the Kindle store. It was called “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!”, and it’s still one of Amazon’s top 40 best-selling how-to books in the “Health, Mind, and Body” category (and the Self Help/Success category). In fact, it’s currently the #2,636 best-selling item in Amazon’s entire Kindle Store. And since he’s priced it at $4.99 a copy, Locke is earning a lot more than he did on his 99-cent crime novels.

But John also found another way to extend his success: he hired himself an agent. According to last week’s announcement, Locke was represented in the agreement by Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, a firm whose client list boasts five different Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, including B. D. Colen, Thomas Finch, and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Walt Bogdanich. And they also represent actors Richard Dreyfuss and Valerie Harper, plus Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa on The Simpsons, TV personality “Judge Judy” — and U.S. President Barack Obama. Now they’ve added John Locke to their list of clients, and lined up an impressive Simon & Schuster distribution deal.

I liked how they described John’s own career on their “clients page. “John Locke attended Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, went into insurance sales, and broke every company sales record, becoming an Area Vice President of the company by age 21. He moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he built his own insurance company. At age 35, he purchased Consolidated American Live, changed the name to Freedom Life Insurance Company, and appointed more than 6,700 insurance agents in 34 states. He owns two insurance marketing firms and owns and operates 13 million-dollar-plus real estate entities.” And of course — he also sold one million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle store.

But as impressive as it seems, remember that other authors have found big success in the world of ebooks. “It’s not the first time a self-published author has entered into a deal with a major publisher,” notes one technology site, citing reports of a $2 million deal for 26-year-old “paranormal romance” novelist Amanda Hocking. I think the real significance of both the Hocking deal and Locke’s own success is that they’ll inspire other authors to enter the world of self-publishing.

And who knows what original ideas we’ll see in the next round of self-published ebooks!

How Many Kindles Are There?

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Cartoon stock market chart showing Sales are going up

A new financial analysis just reached a startling conclusion: That within five years, there will be 53.87 million Kindles (and other digital readers) in the world. “That’s a lot of e-reader devices,” says the Tech Journal South, a North Carolina magazine which bills itself as “the technology business publication for the Southeast region…” They argue that it’s not just books, but also newspapers and magazines that will soon be re-defining themselves for the coming digital age (plus the aftermath of a bad economy).

Of course, that begs another question that’s even more immediate: how many Kindles are there now? Amazon’s never released the number, but Business Week got an estimate from a research firm called ThinkEquity. They concluded that just last year Amazon may have sold “more than 8 million” Kindles — saying the Kindle probably accounted for 5% of all of Amazon’s 2010 revenue. And in 2009, one technology blog cited “a source close to Amazon” who reported that by December of 2009, Amazon had sold a total of 3 million Kindles.

If those two numbers are correct, then Amazon would have sold more than 11 million Kindles by January of 2011. (Another analyst reached a similar conclusion — estimating that last year Amazon sold 7.1 million Kindles.) But he also predicted that the number of Kindles sold would double by the end of 2011! It was at Barclays — the world’s 10th-largest banking and finance company — where analyst Doug Anmuth made the prediction: that Amazon would sell 12.3 million new Kindles this year. If he’s right, that would soon bring the total number of Kindles up to 23.3 million by the end of this December!

And then I stumbled across what’s probably the most interesting statistic of all. E-book reader sales are tripling every year — according to the chief marketing officer at a company that manufactures the “e-ink” displays (used by digital readers like the Kindle). Speaking at a conference in Silicon Valley, Sriram Peruvemba (of E Ink Holdings) said “This technology has already emerged and it is in the mass market.” He’s got some real statistics to back it up — Last year his company generated sales of $650 million, and this year they’re predicting their revenues will surpass $1 billion. And the market research firm which held the conference even estimated that this year we’d see sales of close to 27 million Kindles and Nooks and other devices with e-ink screens.

I think it’s time to accept the fact that we’re seeing a revolution. (About 12% of the population already has a digital reader, according to an article in Venture Beat, vs. 8% with a tablet computer and 83% with a cellphone.) They also offered at least one tangible technical reasons for the popularity of the e-ink format. A device with an LCD screen expends 26% of its power on its screen — versus just 5% for the display on an e-book reader.

But my favorite part was their predictions for a future where e-ink screens aren’t used just for digital readers. Sriram Peruvemba says they could also be used for digital watches, cellphones, and even perfume bottles. One of the most interesting ideas is an electronic music stand that could display different pages of sheet music. And of course, it’s only a matter of time before even our public schools start thinking about the possibility of digital textbooks.

The Kindle is here to stay – and as time goes on, it’s only going to get even more popular…

Amazon Launches “Daily Deals” on Kindle Ebooks!

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Amazon Kindle Daily Deals on ebooks

Remember how exciting it was? Amazon’s announced a temporary price reduction on a handful of special ebooks at least twice this summer — and now they’re going to do it every single day!

In July, Amazon announced “The Big Deal” — over 900 ebooks with prices between 99 cents and $3.99. And in June, they’d announced “Sunshine Deals” — 600 titles priced between 99 cents and $2.99. But today, Amazon announced that special prices have become an everyday thing at Amazon. “Each day, we’re unveiling one Kindle book at a specially discounted price!”

“Check back daily to see what’s next!”

The deals will appear on a special web page at amazon.com/kindledailydeal. Amazon will also post an announcement about the special deals each day on the Kindle’s Twitter feed, and you’ll also see them mentioned often on the blog of Amazon’s Kindle editors, Kindle Daily Post, as well as on the Kindle’s page on Facebook. The deals “go live at approximately 12:00 a.m. Pacific time,” according to Amazon, and they’ll run for exactly 24 hours. The deals just started today, but they’ve already been creating some excitement.

Within one hour, nearly 300 people on Facebook had already clicked the “Like” icon for Amazon’s announcement of the daily deals on the Kindle’s Facebook page. “Can’t wait to take advantage of some of these deals…” wrote one new Kindle owner in a comment below the announcement. “so happy you’re doing this!” added a student in Massachusetts. And another commenter was so enthusiastic, their biggest question was what took Amazon so long?

“About darned time!” they wrote. “Amazon does Daily Deals for every other department. One for Kindle books seemed like a no-brainer.”

I thought it was sweet that Amazon launched the program with an ebook for young readers — The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. It’s by author Kate Dicamillo, who had already won a Newbery award for Because of Winn-Dixie, her story about a scruffy dog who touched the lives of a family in Florida. Six years later, she wrote this similarly inspirational novel about a porcelain rabbit, floating away from its original owner when it’s lost over the side of a boat. “Along the way, Edward learns to love the people he encounters,” writes the School Library Journal. “He also learns that family members can be cruel to one another; that hobos have family that they love dearly and don’t want to forget; that no matter how much you love someone, she may still die; and that no matter what happens in life, never give up on love.”

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“I will not be downloading this book as I don’t want to soak my Kindle with my tears!” one reader posted on the Kindle’s Facebook page. But most of the other comments were very enthusiastic.

“One of my favorite books ever!”
“If you have kids get this book!”
“My son read this book in first grade and adored it.”

And one schoolteacher even left a comment which I thought was very compelling. “I have been teaching for 13 years and every year the kids just love this book. I love the lesson of the book, all the characters and her writing style. BUY it and give it her a try.” But if you’re not interested in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, don’t worry.

Because Amazon will have another ebook on sale tomorrow!

Where Can You Buy New Kindles?

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AT&T Store (inside)

A funny thing happened when I called my local AT&T store. “AT&T doesn’t carry the Kindle,” their sales clerk told me. (Adding “Sorry about that…”) But he was contradicted by a new press release on AT&T’s web site. Five months ago, in March, Amazon started distributing their 3G Kindle through the thousands of AT&T Stores across America. And yesterday represented another step forward, as AT&T Stores also began carrying the Kindle with Special Offers!

I’m assuming the sales clerk just made a mistake at my local AT&T store. (Even though when I went down to the store, another sales clerk told me the same thing.) She even checked with her manager, and then came back with the same response. “We haven’t heard anything,” she told me. Then she suggested I try Barnes and Noble!

Now I was sure she was confused. But AT&T representative explained that it was just as much my mistake. “That’s an affiliate store,” explained AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom. While they’re an “authorized retailer,” they’re not necessarily selling every product that you’d find in an official AT&T Store. So while they’re Kindle is available at over 2,200 AT&T Stores around the country – it may not be available if your local store is just an AT&T affiliate.

In fact, there’s so many places where you can go to buy a Kindle now, that I’m starting to lose track! In the U.S., they’re available in the chains of big “box stores” like Target, Staples, Best Buy, and Radio Shack. In Australia, the same thing is happening, with the Kindle available for purchase in three more big chains — Dick Smith, Big W, and Woolworths. And it was just last August that Amazon finally opened an online store for the U.K.. “Previously, UK Kindle owners had to get their device shipped from the US,” remembers a British newspaper, “with subsequent book purchases retailed in dollars!”

Of course, AT&T has a special stake in the Kindles, since they’re also providing the network coverage for the 3G Kindle. Amazon pays AT&T between $3 and $4 a month for every Kindle that connects to their network, according to an estimate by one New York technology analyst. (And in addition, throughout America, AT&T is also the exclusive network provider for both the Nook and the Sony Reader.) This means that behind the scenes, most of the ebooks that are delivered to digital readers are travelling across AT&T’s network. And they’ve already created a page on the AT&T web site with their own pitch for the Kindle 3G

Read longer, less eye strain
True mobility – Only 8.7 ounces so you can take it anywhere
Long battery life
Kindle eBook store – More than 900,000 books…plus periodicals, blogs, and over 1.8 million free out-of-copyright books
Read to me – New experimental Text-to-Speech feature in selected eBooks reads English language content out loud
Kindle Book lending…

I don’t know why I felt so happy when I heard there’d be more Kindle appearing in my local AT&T store. Maybe it’s because it just makes it easier for more people to join in on the fun of owning a Kindle.

That is, if AT&T can actually get the Kindles into their store!

AT&T Store (sign)

Jon Stewart Mocks Bookstores

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Jon Stewart shouts over The Daily Show logo

A very funny skit just aired on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Returning from a commercial break, Stewart switched to a cultural news story — the demise of Borders bookstores — in a knowing, affectionate segment with a contrary look at writers and book-sellers.

(You can watch video of the six-minute segment at tinyurl.com/StewartBorders)

                        *                        *                        *

JON STEWART: Books! You know them as the thing Amazon tells you “You might be interested in…” when you’re buying DVDs. But did you know books used to be available in what were called… “bookstores”? Well they were…

FOX NEWS: The bookstore chain Borders is going out of business.

CBS NEWS: Borders just could not keep up with 21st century technology and trends.

CBS NEWS: The latest brick-and-mortar victim of a digital age…

JON STEWART: Borders! Now where am I going to return all my guests’ books for store credit?!

For more we turn to resident expert John Hodgman! Now let me ask you, how can — how can the beloved bookstore, an institution, compete with downloading and mail order books?

JOHN HODGMAN: Well, Jon, it’s not going to be easy. People have gotten used to the convenience of having books delivered right to them. If bookstores want to compete, they have to give the customer a better home experience than they can get in their own homes.

JON: So you’re saying re-create…

HODGMAN: Exactly, Jon.

JON: I didn’t finish what I was saying. The — the…

HODGMAN: I wasn’t listening.

Jon Stewart and John Hodgman on the Daily Show

HODGMAN: What I’m talking about is getting rid of all those old-fashioned bookshelves, and replace them — with beautiful, well-appointed downloading pods. Book-lovers simply seal themselves inside, strip down to their underwear, pick up a cold slice of pizza, and start downloading the great works of literature… It’s all the fun and isolation of home, with the inconvenience of a 20-minute car ride.

JON: There’s stuff bookstores can do…

HODGMAN: Uh-huh.

JON: …that the internet can’t!

HODGMAN: Oh, you mean like shelter the homeless?

JON: I’m talking about having authors visit stores!

HODGMAN: Oh, well now we’re just splitting hairs. The reality is, there’s nothing more depressing than seeing some pasty shut-in author bare his soul in front of a half-filled row of folding chairs. Believe me, I know! (Picture of John Hodgman appearing at a Borders bookstore)

Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman at Borders bookstore

JON: So what — what is the alternative to this?

HODGMAN: Well, instead of hosting readings, why not host exciting live writings? Bring the author in, tie him to a desk, and make him write a novel to order. Customers can shout out their own ideas while pelting the writer with $4.00 scones. It’ll be fun! George R. R. Martin not finishing that new “Game of Thrones” book fast enough for you? Well maybe some hot chai latte down his neck will speed him up. (Picture of angry reader dumping latte on the bearded author)

Coffee dumped on George R R Martin at a bookstore (Daily Show)

JON: You know, I’m not sure a lot of authors would agree to that sort of thing.

HODGMAN: Well, Jon, I think you’re underestimating authors’ desire for free chai. And, the occasional human touch.

JON: But see, that brings up an interesting point. What about the human element? Bookstores build a personal relationship with their customers you simply cannot get from a computer. There are, uh, employee interactions, employee recommendations…

HODGMAN: Oh yes, yes. Thank you. Employee picks. Thank you, pudgy neck-beard counter guy, for clueing me in to Philip K. Dick — again. What’s the matter, are you sold out of Confederacy of Dunces this week…? But you do raise a good point, Jon. Bookstores employ a very special class of condescending nerd. These are the types of people who used to work at video stores (before they went under).

JON: Where were they before that?

HODGMAN: Record stores, obviously. It’s been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.

JON: I’m not sure I understand.

HODGMAN: No, well you wouldn’t.

JON: You seem to hate bookstore employees.

HODGMAN: Oh, I loathe them, Jon. They shelved my books under “Humor”, Jon! Not “Witticism”, as I asked! I ask you, do I look like Marmaduke to you?

JON: (Laughing stupidly) Marm– Marmaduke is a very big dog. Hee hee hee hee hee! Hee hee! Ahh! Ahh…

HODGMAN: Pathetic. We have to face facts, Jon. The big-box bookstore has passed into history. And that’s something we should embrace and be proud of. By preserving Borders as a popular historical attraction.

JON: Like, uh, colonial Williamsburg?

HODGMAN: Well yeah, exactly! Bring the kids down to Ye Olde Borders Towne! Let them see what it felt like to paw through a clearance bin of Word-a-Day calendars. Or sneak a peek at pornography printed on actual paper! Right there on the giant rack of weird magazines you’ve never heard of. Including my personal favorite, Bookstore Magazine Rack Aficionado magazine.

JON: You know, I think a bookstore preserve might appeal to a — a very small market.

HODGMAN: Well, it can’t be smaller than the market of people who buy books anyway! This is what it’ll be like. (Puts on a colonial hat) “Hey! Gather round, young ‘uns, and come see how we used to sell this here itty bitty book light. Because in the One-nine-eighties, pages didn’t glow, and eyestrain was a sign of wealth!

JON: Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be right back.

Where to Find Amazon’s Best Free eBooks

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Free Sale Discount Sign

Someone asked me what’s the best place to find free e-books for the Kindle. And I always say Amazon has their own page filled with links to the biggest free e-book sites around the web! “We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles,” Amazon explains on the web page. (I’ve created a shortcut to the page — just point your web browser to amzn.to/oy4b9F.)

But the page also offers Amazon’s list of “special” ebook offers — all those ebooks which are “temporarily free” or reduced in price as part of a limited-time promotion. You can sort this list by price — from lowest to highest — so only its free ebooks are all listed at the top. I’m always impressed by the variety of ebooks available on the site. (Just browsing through it today, I found three more that I couldn’t resist buying!)

And of course, there’s another way to browse for free ebooks. Amazon also offers their own list of the Top 100 best-selling free ebooks. I’ve made another short URL so it’s easier to remember —
https://www.tinyurl.com/100freekindlebooks. Of course, you can also access Amazon’s free ebook list on your Kindle. (Just select “Shop in the Kindle store,” and on its front page choose “Kindle Top Sellers.” By default Amazon lists the top 100 paid ebooks, but if you click on the link at the upper-right of your screen, you can switch to Amazon’s list of the “Kindle Top 100 Free!”)

Here’s a quick sampling of some of the great free ebooks that are available today.

Moonlighting TV star Cybill Shepherd

Cybill Disobedience
Bruce Willis launched his career starring in an ’80s TV series called Moonlighting. But in 2000 his sexy co-star, Cybill Shepherd, finally told her own wild life story. (“Nobody kisses and tells like Cybill Shepherd,” gushed the New York Daily News.) Her memoir tells tales about Elvis Presley, Hollywood, and of course, Bruce Willis. But the book triggered an especially convincing response from a reviewer on Amazon, who wrote simply “I truly loved this book. I laughed out loud many times…”

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice
This intriguing sci-fi book takes place in the world of the Star Wars trilogy — and judging from the book’s description on Amazon.com, it’s just as complicated. (The novel promises “the untold story of the FATE OF THE JEDI’s forgotten Sith castaways, their battle to survive, and their quest to re-conquer the galaxy!”) It’s the first book in a series — in fact, book seven was just released four weeks ago. But best of all, every single novel in this series is entirely free.

Hunting bin Laden
War correspondent Rob Schultheis remembers his first encounter with al-Qaeda back in 1984 — “an encounter that came within a split second of costing me my life.” A full 24 years later, he explored the story of why the U.S. wasn’t able to capture their most-wanted terrorist. Schultheis writes for the top American news magazines, including Time, The New York Times Magazine, and Smithsonian (as well as The Washington Post), so he approaches his story with the zeal of a real investigative journalist. The book was published in 2008, but it’s fascinating to read the conclusion he reached: that Osama bin Laden was receiving sanctuary from the nation of Pakistan.

Letters to President Obama
What’s most fascinating about this book is that it was published in April of 2009 — just months after the euphoria that surrounded Barack Obama’s inauguration. The publishers hailed their book as “a symbol of this exciting moment in history,” promising “the range of emotions and aspirations Americans are willing to share…” There’s over 400 letters “from Americans of all walks of life,” and regardless of how you feel about the President, it’s an interesting peek back into time with perfect 20/20 hindsight. The book is really more about the Americans who chose to share their thoughts in the first months of the new Presidency, and Publisher’s Weekly ultimately called it “a fitting tribute to the thoughts, dreams and efforts of the populace.”

Escape from the World Trade Center
It’s been nearly 10 years since the World Trade Center collapsed — but it’s a day that’s remembered intensenly by someone who was there. “The former insurance executive shares what she saw and endured as she struggled down 36 floors in a doomed and dying building and away from a life focused on perks, prestige, and power,” reads the book’s description. It was published just two weeks ago, but Amazon already lists this book as their #1 best-seller in the nonfiction subcategory for “Religion and Spirituality,” since (according to the book’s description) it touches on “God’s compassionate presence in the midst of inscrutable tragedy.” One reader who reviewed the book on Amazon called it “Heart Wrenching and Mesmerizing at the same time.”

Sometimes Amazon’s free ebooks are an unpredictable grab bag of new and older ebooks, written by both amateur and professional writers. For example, today I noticed there was even a free Harlequin romance (called “Once Upon a Cowboy”) plus several titles that look like flat-out adult erotica by a newer class of writers. There’s a lot of books on Amazon’s “free ebook” lists that I’d never want to read, but it still makes me smile to see them all out there, each one struggling bravely to find their own audience. I guess it just affirms my sense that when you own a Kindle, there really is something for everybody to read.

And at least in Amazon’s free ebook section — you really can’t complain about the price!

Two More Million-Selling Kindle Authors!

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Stephanie Plum book author Janet Evanovich

The Help author Kathryn Stockett

Amazon announced today that two more authors had crossed the “one million mark” for their ebooks sales in the Kindle Store. But this time it’s different — for a couple of reasons — and there’s also two fascinating stories about the authors who earned the honor.

Amazon’s newest million-selling author is 68-year-old Janet Evanovich — who’s been writing the popular “Stephanie Plum” series of novels for more than 17 years. The world of digital information had barely existed when Evanovich published her first “Plum” book back in 1994 (when she was 51), but it already represented a big change in her career. She’d started her career seven years earlier, publishing her first novel — a romance — back in 1987. But according to Wikipedia, “After finishing her twelfth romance, however, Evanovich realized that she was more interested in writing the action sequences in her novels rather than the sex scenes.”

Looking around for inspiration, Evanovich ultimately based Stephanie Plum on the bounty hunter played by Robert De Niro in the 1988 comedy Midnight Run, and even followed some real-life bounty hunters to learn about their jobs. (Interestingly, Robert De Niro had also followed real-life bounty hunters to prepare for his role — and 22 years later, was preparing a sequel!) And Hollywood is also finally working on a film adaptation of Evanovich’s own Stephanie Plum novels, staring actress Katherine Heigl (from Grey’s Anatomy) in the title role.

“My books have pizza and cussing and sexy guys,” Evanovich later joked about her formula — and it’s earned her a huge audience of loyal followers. Each of the last 11 books in her series debuted at the #1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list, according to Wikipedia. In fact, according to Amazon’s press release, Evanovich’s latest Plum novel, Smokin’ Seventeen, spent over 100 days on the Kindle Best Seller list — even though it was released just 56 days ago! Before the book was even available, Evanovich’s loyal readers had pre-ordered so many copies, the she obtained “best-seller” status for a full 44 days before the book was even released!

When she heard the news about the million-ebook club, Evanovich made sure to thank her readers, saying she was grateful “and looking forward to reaching more milestones with them and with Amazon in the years to come.” And she added that it was a very exciting distinction, saying “I’m thrilled to join such a talented group of writers who’ve also reached this million-copy milestone.” But when Amazon tracked her down for their press release her first reaction was a simple one-word interjection. “Wow!”

Of course, it’s easier to join the million-sellers club when you’ve written a lot of books — but author Kathryn Stockett did it the hard way. She published her first and only book, The Help, just two years ago — and 30 months later, she’d already sold over a million copies in the Kindle Store. “Kathryn Stockett is the first debut novelist to join the Million Club,” announced Amazon’s Vice President of Kindle Content, saying Kindle customers “were highly engaged with her book right from its publication.”

There’s also another interesting statistic about Stockett’s novel: it’s sold around 5 million copies (according to an article published Thursday in an Atlanta newsweekly). That means that Kindle ebooks accounted for almost 20% of her sales! “It’s as exciting to see Kindle readers propel a new author’s career as it is to see them add to the success of a long-time Amazon best-selling author like Janet Evanovich,” noted Amazon’s Vice President of Kindle Content. And it’s an even more inspiring story, since her book’s manuscript was originally rejected more than 50 times.

“After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years,” Amazon explained in their press release. But there’s another story behind her novel about the maids in a household in Jackson, Mississippi. “I was born in Jackson, Mississippi,” Stockett remembered in an autobiographical article in the Daily Mail, “in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, ‘Look how far we’ve come,’ because we hadn’t come very far.” It was just days before her novel was finally published, and she acknowledged her fond memories of the housekeeper who’d looked after her as a child, then writes “I am ashamed to admit that it took me 20 years to realise the irony of that relationship. I’m sure that’s why I wrote my novel, The Help – to find answers to my questions, to soothe my own mind about Demetrie…”

Her story instantly touched the hearts of millions of readers around the world — and her life has been a whirlwind ever since. Last week a movie adaptation of book (starring Emma Stone) appeared in theaters all across America.

And it’s currently the #1 best-selling book in Amazon’s Kindle store.

Amazon Announces Big Fall eBook Releases

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Amazon Fall Book and eBook Preview

Amazon just released a special “Fall Books Preview” page, highlighting the best upcoming books “In anticipation of a season of blockbuster authors and dazzling new voices…” You can pre-order all of them now, and it looks like a pretty impressive list! I don’t normally get excited about new releases, these are authors that I’ve actually heard of — including Stephen King, Michael Lewis, and Neal Stephenson! And there’s also some tantalizing new mystery/thriller books coming out from authors like John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, and Sue Grafton…

“We hope our customers are as excited about our Fall Books Preview list as we are…” said Chris Schluep, one of the senior book editors at Amazon — and I couldn’t help noticing their “upcoming” highlights include some of the best-selling authors on the Kindle. This fall will see new books by Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, and Lee Child, which is significant. They’re three of only eight authors who have already sold more than one million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle Store!

Michael Connelly is releasing a new “Harry Bosch” mystery on November 28 called The Drop — and thanks to pre-order sales, it’s already become one of the top-400 best-selling books on Amazon! (The Kindle edition will cost the same as the hardcover edition — $14.98 — and the audiobook version will cost nearly $20!) And Lee Child will also release a new novel about her own detective, Jack Reacher, this one called “The Affair” (available September 27). At this moment, it’s the #71 best-selling book on Amazon — again, due entirely to pre-orders.

But Nora Robert is actually releasing two new books this fall — under two different names! She’ll release The Next Always (the first book in her “Inn BoonsBoro” trilogy) on November 1, and its own pre-order sales have already pushed it to the #214 spot on Amazon’s list of the best-selling books. If you just can’t wait, she’s also publishing a thriller under her pseudoynum, J.D. Robb. It’s called New York to Dallas (In Death), and it’ll be released on September 13th. (Right now it’s ranked at #280 on Amazon’s list of the best-selling books, thanks again to pre-orders!)

Stephen King’s new book is called “11/22/1963,” and I like the way Amazon described it. “King has killed a lot of people in his novels. In this one, he sends a man back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy…” (It will be released, fittingly, in November…) And the new book by Neal Stephenson is called Reamde: A Novel, which Amazon describes as “a high-stakes espionage thriller about a wealthy tech entrepreneur caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game!” (It’s available on September 20th.)

I’m really impressed with the way these books have stormed Amazon’s best-seller list — several months before they’ve even been released! On November 22nd, Janet Evanovich is publishing a new Stephanie Plum mystery called Explosive Eighteen, but it’s already one of the top 80 books on Amazon’s best-seller list. John Grisham’s also released a new legal thriller called The Litigator, and it’s currently in the #113 spot. Even Sue Grafton has a new Kinsey Millhone mystery coming out in November, called V is for Vengeance. There’s a lot to choose from!

“We love connecting readers with books we hope they’ll love,” Amazon said in a statement, “whether it’s a masterly literary debut, the perfect holiday cookbook, or the latest page-turner for those first chilly autumn nights.” The selections were made by the book editors at Amazon.com, who claim they’ve identified “the best fall titles for readers of all tastes across literature, mysteries, science fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and more.”

To visit Amazon’s special “Fall Books Preview” page, just point your web browser to tinyurl.com/FallBookPreview.

More Video from the Woman in Amazon’s Kindle Ad

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Watch actress Amy Rutberg from Amazon Kindle commercial video

I’ve become a fan of Amy Rutberg — the blonde actress who appears in Amazon’s newest Kindle ads. But I was curious to see what she’s done besides those 30-second Kindle commercials. And then I discovered a surprisingly candid video she’d filmed of herself backstage during a performance in a New York theatre! (Point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com/AmyRutberg ). Watching it, I felt a little like the Kindle ad paparazzi. But I guess it’s all part of the job…

When she was chosen for Amazon’s Kindle ad, Amy Rutberg was a stage actress. (Though according to the Los Angeles Times, years ago she’d considered going to law school after college…) And even before the Kindle ad, she’d already had an interesting career. She appeared in an L.A. theatre production of “Man of La Mancha” which started Robert Goulet, as well as a Los Angeles production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and she once did a scene with Jeff Goldblum on an episode of Law and Order. And once she even played Helen Keller in a parody of bad Broadway musicals!

Amy Rutberg plays Helen Keller

But this fall, Amy appeared in a New York stage play billed as a “holy outrageous new comedy” called “The Divine Sister.” One site described it as an “outrageous comic homage to nearly every Hollywood film involving nuns: The Song of Bernadette, The Bells of St. Mary’s, The Singing Nun and Agnes of God.” A convent’s Mother Superior was played in drag by Charles Busch — who also wrote the play’s script. His other plays include “Psycho Beach Party” and “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” — and Amy Rutberg played a character named “postulant Agnes”.

Amy Rutberg plays a nun named Agnes in the play The Divine Sister

The play had caught the attention of Playbill — an influential monthly magazine that’s passed out at most major theatre productions (with a special inset providing the cast of each play). And last November, they gave Amy a flip camera just so that she could film a backstage tour of the production for their web site! “Hi Playbill!” she says, sounding exactly like her character in the Kindle commercial. Talking fast and enthusiastically, Amy holds the camera just a little too close to her face, and announces “Welcome to The Divine Sister! I’m Amy Rutberg, and I play Agnes. So come on in! I’m going to show you what it’s like to have a typical Thursday…”

Four months later, in March, the play closed after 253 performances and an eight-month run in a 199-seat theatre. But The New York Times had called Amy’s performance in the play “delightful”, and Backstage magazine said she gave her character “an appropriately off-kilter spin.” In an apparent parody of Meg Tilly’s role in “Agnes of God,” Amy played a postulant “possessed by visions and voices,” and Curtain Up magazine hinted that her character ultimately “develops something of a Jeckyll and Hyde persona…” And in this video, Amy’s preserved that magical moment in time when the play was in the middle of its run — and at least part of the video was shot backstage during an actual performance! (To watch part 2 of the video, point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com/AmyRutberg2 ).

It all feels very authentic, especially before the production when Amy carries the camera to show the view that the actors are seeing from the stage. “I mean, we can’t really see people in the audience because it is, um, pretty dark, but we can see these lucky audience members who are in our pews,” she says — though as part of the production, the first row of comfortable theatre seats were actually replaced with authentic wooden pews. “I don’t know if you can tell, but they’re only a foot and a half in front of us. So the good news is, you know, they get to see it all up close and personal,” Amy jokes. “But the bad news is, I bet they get spit on quite a bit!”

Amy Rutberg, the blond woman actress in the Kindle book commercial

I don’t know if Amazon discovered Amy through this play — or even because of this video. But it’s fun to watch the actress just months before she appeared in a major TV ad campaign. The cast greets Tyler Furgeon (from the TV show “Modern Family”) who’d been out in the audience that night. And at the end of the video, Amy tells the camera at the end that it was “A special night because it was my birthday. We’re just having a great time.”

And then she’s seen blowing out candles and making a wish…

Why Amazon Released a New Web-Based Reading App

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Kindle Cloud Reader and Safari logo

It seemed like a big announcement. “For over two years, Amazon has been offering a wide selection of free Kindle reading apps that enable customers to ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’…” Amazon explained in a press release. “Today, Amazon.com announced Kindle Cloud Reader, its latest Kindle reading application that…enables customers to read Kindle books instantly using only their web browser – online or offline – with no downloading or installation required!”

But I discovered a big surprise when I tried to download it — I couldn’t! “Your web browser isn’t supported yet,” read a warning at read.amazon.com. I was using the Firefox web browser, but I got the same message when I tried accessing the page using Internet Explorer. “Download Chrome or Safari below,” Amazon’s web page suggested. And that’s when I realized exactly what Amazon was up to…

Their new application only works with three browsers — Apple’s Safari browser for the iPad, and Apple’s Safari browser for the Mac (and PC), plus the Chrome browser from Google, which works with both Mac and PC systems (and Linux and Chromebook). And as Amazon points out on the web site for their new “cloud reader,” the Safari browser is even built into the iPad’s operating system already!

Logo of browsers supported by Kindle Cloud Reader

It’s a way to sell ebooks directly to iPad owners, instead of having them make their purchases from Apple’s iBookstore. “Kindle Cloud Reader will be available on additional web browsers,” Amazon promised in their announcement today, “including Internet Explorer, Firefox, the BlackBerry PlayBook browser, and other mobile browsers, in the coming months.” But there’s obviously a good reason why Amazon started with the Apple products first.

“Apple wants companies to sell their content through its iTunes system, where it gets a 30 percent cut,” reports an article at ABC News. So new services like the Kindle Cloud Reader let Amazon sell directly to iPad owners. PC World called it an “uprising” against the Apple App Store, and it turns out Amazon’s not the only company using this tactic. “Other developers and publishers, such as The Financial Times, have chosen to abandon (or at least cripple) their iOS apps in order to keep more money from their sales and not split it with Apple.”

It’s easier to offer a web-based alternative when you’re a big retailer with lots of customers who’ve already given you their credit card information. For example, Wal-Mart wanted to offer online movies through a web site named Vudu, but they also discovered taht they weren’t able to send them to the iPad. The movies were being sent in the Flash format, which isn’t supported by Apple’s iPad. So today, like Amazon, Wal-Mart unveiled their own web-based application…for watching movies!

I loaded up Amazon’s cloud reader so I could take a screenshot, and it does look like it offers a nice reading experience.

Screenshot of Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader on Apple's Safari Browser

Amazon claims the book-purchasing capability in their new cloud reader is “To make it easy and seamless to discover new books.” But of course, it also makes it easier to buy those books, which is what Amazon’s really interested in!

Funny Stories About That Woman in Amazon’s Newest Kindle Commercial

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Amy Rutberg, the blonde girl actress in the Kindle commercial

I just got a message from the woman in Amazon’s Kindle commercial! I’d told her that I finally saw her third Kindle commercial for the first time on Friday night – and it almost made me want to buy a second Kindle! She wrote back, “happy to hear that, and next time buy that second kindle.

“You can keep it in your other pocket!”

It all started with a simple question. “Who’s that woman in Amazon’s newest Kindle commercial?” I’ve been asked this a few times, so I finally searched the web for an answer. The name of “that blonde woman” is Amy Rutberg, and it turns out there’s some surprising and funny stories online about her life before the Kindle ad.

Plus as far as I can tell, in real life she’s already using a Kindle!

On March 18th — before Amazon’s first ad even aired — Amy mentioned her Kindle in a status update on Twitter. (“It’s so nice outside, taking my kindle and playing hooky! Will return from my staycation by 7:30. #nicetobeanactress #springfever”) More than a month later, on April 25th, she tweeted nervously while waiting for the broadcast of that first Kindle commercial. “1st person to let me know what channel they see it on wins a prize…not a knidle sadly…”

Amy is 29 years old, a professional actress who recently moved back to Los Angeles from New York. (And two weeks from this Wednesday, she’s leaving on her honeymoon in Rome!) She may seem a bit ditzy on that Kindle ad, but in real life, she’s surprisingly intelligent. Amy actually started college at the age of 13, according to one online profile, and by the age of 15 she’d transferred to UCLA as a junior, making her one of the youngest students ever accepted to the college!

“When not performing on stage I can be found playing poker, not finishing a screenplay, shopping for the perfect pair of boots or reading my Kindle ;-)” she jokes on her Twitter feed. But when that famous Kindle ad finally aired, her mother stumbled across a blog post where her daughter was described as “hot but 2 skinny”. According to another funny Twitter update, Amy remembers that her mother said “they must have u mistaken 4 tmobile girl”. Amy then added a very special Twitter tag at the end of her post — #thanksmom.

Amy was a little ditzy when she was a little girl back in the early 1980s — at least according to a funny profile in the Los Angeles Times. They remember that “At 3, she said, she had to be carried away screaming after a production of ‘Peter Pan’ because she was certain Peter would be back to fly her to Neverland.” At the age of 16, she was cast as Eliza Doolittle in a production of “My Fair Lady” at L.A.’s prestigious Pacific Coast Civic Light Opera. But at the age of 6, “she directed her classmates in playground vignettes and broke an ankle while ‘flying,’ Pan-like, from a second-story landing…”

If you’d like to see more of “that Kindle girl’s” work, you can check out her professional blog at amyrutberg.com, which features a “reel” of short clips from her appearances on different TV shows. Last year Amy appeared on an episode of “Law and Order,” and she did another episode just two years earlier (plus an episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”.) In 2006 she played a nurse on an episode of “As The World Turns”, and she even starred in an episode of the TLC reality show about shopping for a wedding gown — “Say Yes to the Dress”.

But she’s been doing lots of live theatre, so Amazon’s TV ad was a big moment. Amy’s Twitter feed captures a fun moment in the life of a rising actress — seeing you’re own work while you’re casually watching TV. “Kindle commercial on @snl… Love it!” she tweeted on April 30th). And by May 13th, she’d sent a shout-out to some friends on Twitter who’d spotted her in the ad. “Thanks for all the kindle love peeps!

“Proud 2 b peddling it!”

Reactions to Amazon’s Newest Ad for the Kindle

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Amazon's new Friends Kindle TV commercial with 3500 books

How much has Amazon spent on TV ads for the Kindle? Just last year, they spent over $82 million, according to an article in Ad Week magazine. That’s more than four times what they’d spent the year before — just $19 million, according to the magazine. And Amazon’s apparently spending plenty of money in 2011, too, since I just saw the third ad in that series where two friends discover the advantages of owning a Kindle — a young woman and a young man.

“That is a giant purse.”

“This can hold two books, two newspapers, three magazines. Pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah. My Kindle holds up to 3,500 books. (Stacks of book begin appearing.) Magazines, newspapers — and it only weighs eight and a half ounces.”

“Yeah, but… Then I wouldn’t get to carry my giant purse. (He looks at her dubiously.) Can I see that?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah…”

You can watch the new ad, plus all of Amazon’s other Kindle ads, at the Kindle’s page on YouTube (at youtube.com/Kindle ). It’s a funny ad — but it’s even funnier if you read the comments that people have left below the video!

“I guess the Kindle gave up on competing with the IPad, and decided to take on purses.”

Another viewer was skeptical of the ad — but for an entirely different reason. (“I’m asking myself if that’s actually 3.500 books that they put up there…”) And several commenters had apparently located Amazon’s Kindle video just to ask questions about its production. “YO KINDLE,” posted one user, “Every single one of your ‘Friends’ ads has the same song as well as the ‘Pool’ ad. And on every single video, you’ve got tons of people dying to know the name of the song. Just tell us already!!!”

I’m assuming it’s original song — played on a xylophone — that was written just for Amazon’s Kindle ad. But at least three other commenters had an even more burning question.

“PLEASE tell me who that josh duhamel look alike is.”

“I don’t like eReaders, but what I’m more focused on is that dude.”

“I have such a crush on that guy ;)”

At least one comment was directed towards the other actor. (“i want a kindle because she’s hot…”) But overall, it’s a fun collection of different reactions to Amazon’s ad. Of course, not every one of them was positive. (“So last-year. And Apple-ish. But good. Shame….”) And another viewer also detected the resemblance to the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads — posting “Nice homage to the old Apple ads.”

But his bigger issue was just more of a general suggestion for the publishing industry. When you buy a printed book, he argued, the publisher should bundle the ebook with it — for example, with a “download code” that you could enter to activate the complimentary digital version on your Kindle!

And yet there was at least one commenter who made it clear that they absolutely loved their Kindle. After watching Amazon’s ad, they’d asked one simple question. “How many times does he have to tell her how AWESOME a Kindle is before she finally gets one for herself !!?!!”

“I have the Kindle app for my phone and it is 10x better than the Nook app. I’ll read books on my break at work and just buy a new one when I’m finished with the last one, instaed of having to wait until I get home to pick out a new book.

“LOVE IT !!!!”

When is Amazon Releasing the Kindle 4?

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shh - finger to lips - secret rumor

I think I’ve discovered a secret. The source for a big rumor about Amazon’s next Kindle now appears to have changed their story!

It’s something I stumbled across while reviewing all the articles about what Amazon is planning next for the Kindle. Strong rumors suggest that Amazon is planning to release a new iPad-style tablet — but three weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal also reported two additional rumors. Citing people “familiar with Amazon’s thinking,” the Journal reported that Amazon also planned to release two new versions of the Kindle. One of these Kindles would have a touchscreen (like the newest version of the Nook that was recently released by Barnes and Noble). And the Journal also reported that by the end of September, Amazon would release an “improved and cheaper” version of the Kindle.

But strangely, the second claim is no longer appearing in the Journal’s article!

You can still see that original claim being quoted in articles around the web — even though the Journal has now removed it from its site. (For example, this article from PC Magazine quotes the Journal article as saying Amazon would release “an improved and cheaper adaptation of the current Kindle.”) Does this mean Amazon won’t be releasing a cheaper version of the Kindle along with the touch-screen version? My guess is the newspaper’s source later contacted them with a correction, or with updated information — and the Journal quietly edited their original piece to reflect the new information.

I could be wrong about the significance of this change, so consider it a new rumor about an old rumor. But an even more important question is when will Amazon release the next version of the Kindle. And I also have my own theory about that.

It’s easy to see if you check the dates for when Amazon’s released past upgrades to their Kindle. In November of 2007, Amazon released their first Kindle — and then released a newer version just 15 months later (the Kindle 2). That was in February of 2009, and nearly the same amount of time then elapsed before the release of the Kindle 3 in August of 2010. (The total time between the two Kindles was now 18 months.) Of course, Amazon released a slight upgrade in May of 2011 — the cheaper Kindle with Special Offers. But if Amazon sticks to their original pattern, they’ll release “the Kindle 4” within 15 to 18 months from the time that they released the last Kindle. That would mean we’d seen the Kindle 4 between November and February.

But of course, Amazon would want to release their new Kindle before the big pre-Christmas shopping season. (Once an analyst calculated that 47% of the people who owned a Kindle actually received it as a gift!) So to catch the big wave of shoppers, Amazon would almost certainly move up the release date of the Kindle 4 so it’s available for the big “Black Friday” sales that happen on the day after Thanksgiving. The only real question is whether they’d release the Kindle on that crucial November shopping day — or a few weeks earlier, so that shoppers could hear about it first in a big wave of pre-Thanksgiving publicity. And it turns out that my estimate is within eight weeks of what the Wall Street Journal predicted — that the next version of the Kindle would be released before the end of September.

But then again, the Journal also reported — and then apparently retracted — a claim that Amazon would release a new Kindle which was “improved and cheaper”.

Amazon’s Secret Sale on Kindles?

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Amazon special warehouse sale price discount on refurbished Kindle 3

For the last two days, Amazon’s been selling the Kindle 3 at an even lower price than usual. A refurbished Kindle 3 cost just $129.99 — a reduction of more than 31% from its usual sales price of $189.00. And for the WiFi-only version of a refurbished Kindle 3, the price was just $99.99 — also close to a 30% reduction from its usual $139!

This is the lowest price I’ve ever seen for a refurbished Kindle. Back in March, Amazon lowered prices on a refurbished Kindle 3, but only by ten dollars — to $129.99 for the WiFi-only version, and $179.99 for the Kindle 3G. What’s going on here? Maybe Amazon’s getting rid of them, because they’re planning to start selling a newer version of the Kindle soon. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that by the end of September, Amazon will have released two different versions of the Kindle — citing “people familiar with the matter.” (And at least one of the new Kindles will even have a touchscreen, according to the newspaper’s sources.)

It’s a strategy Amazon’s used before. In a Kindle discussion site, one poster remembers buying a cheap Kindle 2 last summer for just $109 — only to discover that a month later Amazon was releasing the new Kindle 3! But it turns out that it’s not just Kindles that Amazon’s selling at a discount. Their “Warehouse Deals” page is also offering big discounts on over 20 different refurbished Kindle jackets and skins. (My favorite was the yellow Kindle skin with the smiling face of Mickey Mouse.)

Mickey Mouse Kindle skin

You can even buy a refurbished Kindle 2 for just $89.99. And Amazon’s special page also promises they’ve checked the quality of all the refurbished items. “Amazon receives a returned product,” explains a flow chart at the top of the page. “Product’s working order is ensured… Product quality level is determined… Product is offered at deep discount.” In fact, the home page for Amazon’s “Warehouse Deals” now features a whole section devoted to the Kindle and Kindle accessories.

So if you’ve ever wanted to shop for another — or for an interesting Kindle jacket — here’s your chance to find one at a discount!

Amazon’s Free Kindle Science Fiction Magazine!

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Free Kindle Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine cover illustration

It’s “the best fiction magazine in America,” according to Stephen King. And Amazon’s sending it to your Kindle for free!

It’s “Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine,” a legendary collection of short stories and commentary which has been publishing for over 60 years. “Each bimonthly issue offers compelling short fiction,” Amazon explained in a press release, plus ,”the science-fiction field’s most respected and outspoken opinions on books, films, and science.” You can sign up for your free subscription by pointing your web browser to tinyurl.com/FreeSciFiMag .) And according to Wikipedia, this magazine has a long history of publishing some of the world’s most imaginative authors.

For example, in October of 1978, they began publishing all the Stephen King short stories which would later appear in the first volume of “The Dark Tower”. They published Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (which ran as a serial in 1959 titled “Starship Soldier”). They published the novella “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, and Harlan Ellison was a regular columnist, contributing short stories like “Jeffty is Five” and “The Deathbird”. And the magazine even published Kurt Vonnegut’s short story Harrison Bergeron in 1961 — a story which later appeared in the collection “Welcome to the Monkey House”. (It’s set in the year 2081, shortly after the United States passes the 213th amendment to its Constitution mandating absolute equality…)

Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is “the definitive magazine of the genre,” according to Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle Content. “We know our Kindle customers are huge fans of this category, and we’re excited to offer them a free and exclusive subscription to the magazine to read anywhere.” There is one small caveat. Though each issue of the print edition — published six times a year — has a whopping 256 pages, Amazon’s free offer is for only a smaller “digest edition”. According to Amazon’s press release, subscribers “will get access to all of the magazine’s editorial content – editor’s recommendations, ‘Curiosities’ (odd books of enduring interest), film reviews, book reviews, cartoons and humor, and ‘Coming Attractions’ (highlights of each issue) – along with one short story, all at no cost.”

But you can also sign up your Kindle to receive the full 256-page edition for just 99 cents more — and it’s available exclusively on the Kindle. (Though it’s also available on the Kindle apps for the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices.) I’m a big fan of science fiction stories, so I’m seroiusly signing up to receive all 1,536 pages each year. I still remember when Stephen King a science fiction story about a Kindle which could receive descriptions of events from the future.

In real life, Stephen King has always been a big fan of the Kindle — and judging by Amazon’s latest press release, he’s even more excited now. When he heard the news about a free version of “Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine,” Stephen King had one more sentence to add.

“Kindle readers are in luck.”

10 *More* New Kindle Games!

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Hidden Expedition Amazon game for Kindle

I couldn’t believe it. Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about all the cool new games for the Kindle. And today I discover there’s 10 more games — including another new free game from Amazon!

It’s like a crazy hybrid that answers a riddle: What do you get when you cross Amazon’s “Every Word” game with a crossword puzzle? Just like Amazon’s original “Every Word,” this game presents one set of letters at the top of your screen, then challenges players to type every word that could be created from those letters. But this new version adds a twist: all those words form a crossword puzzle! If you’re stuck, just peek at the “across” and “down” words to see how many squares need to be filled in for each word, and see if any letters have already been filled in by the words that cross!

Amazon released this game — Every Word: Crossings — just five days ago. But they’ve also released a brand new version of their original “Every Word” game. It’s just like the first version, except now there’s an almost unlimited number of puzzles. (“Added over 3,600 new puzzles,” Amazon explains in a release note.) “Our most popular free game for Kindle just got better,” Amazon bragged on their Facebook page – and best of all, it’s still free! (Just point your web browser to amzn.to/roFOWM to download the newest version.)

But my favorite new Kindle game combines challenging brain teaser puzzles with…flowers! A grid of tiles represent the pipes that will irrigate the buds into blossoms. The graphics are very attractive, including the vines and grasses around the edges of the screen – and many of the puzzles are delightfully difficult. It’s from the makers of Strimko and Futoshiki, and even though it was released just a few weeks ago, Blossom’s already become one of Amazon’s top-20 most popular games.

Kindle flower game Blossom screenshot

But there’s another new game that has even more complicated graphics. A series of beautiful greyscale images depict scenes from the search for a missing African explorer. “Explore cities, temples, and ruins,” reads the game’s description on Amazon, “while unlocking the secrets of the professor’s groundbreaking research by finding objects hidden within pictures.” It’s one of the largest games ever released for the Kindle — the file size is 6.7 megabytes. But even at $4.99, Hidden Expedition: Amazon has already become the #1 best-selling game in the Kindle store!

There’s also some fascinating new number puzzles. Will Shortz, the editor of the New York Times crossword puzzles, put his name on a new Kindle version of the game KenKen. Like Sudoku, players try to add the correct digits into boxes without using any repeats in each row and column. But in this game, groups of boxes also indicate numbers that can be combined for a specific mathematical result. You’ll either be adding, multiplying, subtracting or dividing all the numbers in the grouped boxes to achieve the result – so you’ll have to work backwards to figure out which digits it could be!

And in the last two weeks, game-maker Puzzazz has released three different Sudoku collections – one of which was just released today! It’s Red Hot Sudoku, which promises 33 classic Sudoku puzzles which are guaranteed not to be too easy. “Sure, you need to know the rules of Sudoku,” promises the game’s description, “but you better have a few extra tricks up your sleeve if you want to tackle these puzzles!” If you’re just getting started, you might prefer Snap Sudoku #1, a collection of the game-maker’s easiest puzzles. (Its description at Amazon.com promises “calibrated super easy Sudoku puzzles…puzzles you can solve in a snap.”) And somewhere in between is a collection called Mad About Sudoku, 33 puzzles which the game-maker says “can be solved without heroic effort.”

I feel bad for Metalgrass Software. Ten days ago they released their very first game for the Kindle, a fun visual logic puzzle called Nonograms. It’s a collection of “simple yet challenging puzzles,” according to the game’s page on Amazon, “in which your goal is to uncover a hidden black and white pattern.” Unfortunately, two weeks earlier Amazon released their own free version in a nearly identical game called Pixel Perfect Puzzles. “Nonograms, Hanjie, Paint by Numbers, Griddlers are some of the names for this puzzle type,” explained one reviewer on Amazon, adding “It was originally developed by Non Ishida in Japan, in 1988.”

A similar problem seems to be confronting a company called CompuLab. Last month they released Word Quest, a collection of word-search puzzles for the Kindle — even though another company has already released two sets of Word Search puzzles for the Kindle. But at least one reviewer was delighted with a new feature in CompuLab’s version. “Interestingly, you can reset a puzzle — it will have the same words, but they will be in different locations!”

Last month there was also a surprising application for business travelers that was slipped into the Kindle game store. Password Manager lets you collect all your passwords into one secure location, so you can carry them all with you on your Kindle. (Protected by a password, of course.) “Password Manager can store up to 500 items,” reads its page in the Amazon Kindle store, “and includes templates for credit cards, bank accounts, PIN codes, frequent flyer numbers, web site log-ins, memberships and more.” It’ll also help suggest new passwords (and advise you on how difficult they’d be to guess), and “To help protect your data, your data is stored with AES encryption, and a security timeout feature will automatically log you off after 2 minutes of inactivity.” It’s currently priced at $4.99, though it sounds like for some Kindle owners, it could be very useful.

But I still think I’d rather play Blossom.

“Toys R Us” Will Sell Kindles!

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Toys R Us Kindle gift card

Here’s something I didn’t expect to see. Amazon will start selling Kindles in toy stores! The “Toys R Us” chain has 1,556 outlets around the world — including 840 in the U.S., where they’ll be selling the Kindle and Kindle accessories. “The introduction of Kindle provides another compelling reason for families to visit Toys R Us stores,” a company spokesperson told me on Thursday, “for the best and broadest assortment of products for kids living a digital lifestyle.”

It’s considered the largest single toy retailer in the world, according to Reuters, and their store in Times Square is said to be the world’s single-largest toy store. And if you buy your Kindle there, the toy store will give you a bonus, a company spokesman told me Thursday. “To celebrate…customers purchasing any Kindle will receive a free $10 Toys R Us Gift Card from July 31 through August 6, while supplies last.”

But the significance is obvious: Amazon is positioning the Kindle as a gift for children! “From the department of hook ’em early,” joked a blogger at the Los Angeles Times – but I think it’s part of a deep and meaningful trend. Earlier this month, the government of South Korea declared that they’ll eliminate all printed text books in their state-run schools over the next four years — to replace them all with ebooks. It will cost $2.4 billion, the country’s education minister told the Christian Science Monitor, citing it as part of a project to create “smart schools” which incorporate video, animation, hyperlinks, and even virtual reality into a “digital curriculum.

In fact, hundreds of elementary school students in South Korea are already reading digital textbooks on tablet computers, according to the article. And it may be the first sign of a new role for the Kindle and other digital readers: educating our children. In fact, in Texas, Abilene Christian University is already experimenting with digital textbook. One sophomore told USA Today that his economics textbook somehow became more appealing when it was available in a digital format. (“Just the fact that it’s on the iPad and it’s all on there, makes me a lot more interested.”)

The school launched a “mobile learning” initiative, and 75% of the incoming freshmen said they’d be willing to buy their own tablet if they were able to use them to read more than half of their textbooks. The sophomore said he was already dreading the end of this year’s pilot program, saying that when he had to finally give up the iPad, “It’s going to break my heart.” But this isn’t the only example of ebooks being used in education. There have also been several anecdotes about Kindles being used in American high schools and elementary schools — and even in a pilot program in a village in Africa.

Florida is requiring schools to spend half their textbook money on ebooks within the next three years. And there was a sweet story about a fifth grade class in New York where the students shared eight Kindles. The teacher gushed that it made her students excited about reading, saying “If we can get them excited about reading at this age, it creates a lifelong reader.” And a charity called World Reader brought 440 free Kindles to a village in Africa.

I think Amazon sees this as the next big market for the Kindle. Maybe they’re just looking for a new source of customers so they can keep competing with the Nook. But it’s possible they’ve recognized this
as the future. I think they want to make sure that the next generation gets an early chance to start reading their ebooks on a Kindle.

The Kindle Comes to College

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Amazon Kindle Textbook ebook rentals

Those poor college students. I was visiting a campus at California State University, and the textbook prices at the student bookstore were expensive! One of the textbooks actually cost $138 (new), and while there was a cheaper used edition, it still cost over a hundred dollars!

But here’s the interesting part. The cheapest option — listed on a tag on the bookshelf — was not buying a printed book at all. College students can now rent their texts in ebook format. “They’re cheaper,” a college student behind the cash register explained to me. “But you only get them for a limited period of time.”

Amazon’s trying to help — or at least, to take advantage of the situation. Last week they launched a new service called “Kindle Texbook Rentals,” now promising savings of up to 80% over the cost of a printed text-book. And there’s an additional advantage that Amazon’s technology will make possible. “Normally, when you sell your print textbook at the end of the semester you lose all the margin notes and highlights you made as you were studying,” explained David Limp, vice president of Amazon’s Kindle department. “We’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you get to keep and access all of your notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, available anytime, anywhere – even after a rental expires!”

Amazon pro-rates the cost of your e-book based on how long you rent it — for a period that can be anywhere from 30 days to 360. “Tens of thousands of textbooks are available for the 2011 school year…” Amazon promised in their press release. And you don’t even need a Kindle in order to access the ebooks. Amazon will also deliver these ebooks to any of the free Kindle apps that are available — which includes Kindle apps for Mac and PC computers, as well as Apple products like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and even the Windows Phone, Blackberry, and any Android-powered devices.

“Kindle Rental has the best prices,” concluded a textbook-comparison web site — but there were a couple of catches. First, Amazon only offered 18 of the top 100 college textbooks, according to CampusBooks.com. And even among those 18 textbooks, only five were available for the cheapest rental period. “Renting a Kindle book for the advertised 30-day period yielded the highest savings, often in the double-digits…” the web site explained in their press release, “but only five of 100 titles were available for the month-long range.”

“The other 13 titles available had minimum periods of 60 days, and the savings were less.”

And what happens if you wanted to rent your e-book for more than 60 days? “[I]f students were to rent via Kindle for a whole semester (120 days), only half of the time was Kindle Rental cheaper than buying and selling a used book.” Hopefully Amazon’s selection will grow as more students continue using it, but the ultimate judges will be actual students who are shopping for their college textbooks. On Tuesday CampusRentals.com tracked down an actual college student — a senior at Trinity College in Connecticut — who is currently giving Amazon’s new service a mixed review. “It’ll be great once they get more titles,” he told the web site.

“But for now, I’m stuck with other options.”

Surprises in Amazon’s New Quarterly Report?

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Amazon 9.9 billion in sales for 2Q 2011

This afternoon, Amazon finally told investors what their sales were for the months from April through June — and they surprised even Wall Street’s analysts. Compared to last year, Amazon’s net sales for the period were 51% higher. It was “the fastest growth we’ve seen in over a decade,” Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement — which at times sounded more like a sales pitch for the Kindle.

“Kindle 3G with Special Offers has quickly become our bestselling Kindle at only $139,” Bezos continued, touting the convenience of not having to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. But he also revealed that Kindle sales were increasing — and at a faster rate than they were last year. Of course, there might be a simple explanation for that. Amazon released the cheaper $114 “Kindle with Special Offers” in April, which you’d
expect to increase sales from the three-month lull after Christmas.

But in general, Bezos insisted, Amazon’s sales growth was being driven by “Low prices, expanding selection, fast delivery and innovation…” (It sometimes seems like Amazon is talking in code words, since they never actually reveal specifically how many Kindles they’ve sold.) Fortunately, Bloomberg News talked to an industry analyst instead, who estimated that Amazon may have sold more than 8 million Kindles just in 2010. And more importantly, they estimate that Kindle readers already account for 5% of Amazon’s total sales.

In fact, Amazon’s now approaching more than one million ebooks that are available for sale in their Kindle store (besides the millions of free, out-of-copyright books). “The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 950,000 books,” Amazon said in a statement today, “including New Releases and 110 of 111 New York Times Bestsellers.” What’s even more remarkable is that more than 800,000 books are available for less than $9.99, “including 65 New York Times Bestsellers.” In a Tuesday conference call, Amazon spoke of a “conversion from physical to digital” in their business, and seemed to hint that those offerings had been very popular with Amazon’s customers. (“We feel very good about those investments in terms of the traction we’re getting from a customer standpoint,” an Amazon official explained.)

Sales of the Kindle and electronic merchandise “are two big drivers for Amazon that continued unabated,” one analyst told Bloomberg News. Despite some pressure from costs, “Amazon is running on all cylinders,” another analyst commented. The dark cloud is the money Amazon’s been spending to achieve all these higher sales — but even there, the Kindle’s proving to be something Amazon officials point to with pride.

“We started investing in our Kindle businesses several years ago…” one Amazon official explained on Tuesday’s call, “and those have gotten great traction…” Amazon’s now opened 15 new distribution centers — which I’m guessing will play a role when Amazon finally releases an iPad-sized tablet, possibly offering free two-day shipping as part of the deal. In Tuesday’s conference call, Amazon used the profitability of the Kindle business as an example of why that’s necessary, saying the profits didn’t happen overnight. “Those are things that have happened over an extended period of time.”

There was a 34-minute question-and-answer period at the end of the call, and somebody finally asked directly whether Amazon planned to release their own multimedia tablet to compete with the iPad. But
while the question was asked, it wasn’t answered. (“We have a longstanding practice of not talking about what we might or might not do,” an Amazon official explained, “and so I can’t — I can’t help you with that question.”

I learned something I didn’t know. More than 45% of Amazon’s sales weren’t even in North America. (Amazon also has sites for Japan, China, France, England, Germany, and Italy.) Amazon’s total sales for just the last three months were $9.9 billion — and professional investors seemed to be positively impressed.

After the stock market closed, “late trading” pushed the company’s shares up a full 6.9%