Tag: ebooks

Special eBooks for Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving Curious George book and Kindle ebook cover

Are you ready for some Thanksgiving fun? Thursday is the great American holiday, and if you’re traveling for the holiday – or just have some extra time to relax — I’ve picked out a few Thanksgiving-related ebooks.

It’s sort of a tradition, since last year I also recommended some Thanksgiving ebooks, and it made me feel like in some way I was celebrating the holiday together with my readers. I like to joke that we all have at least one thing that brings us together: we can all be grateful that we own a Kindle! And yes, I’m especially grateful, because it’s been exactly one year since I published my very first e-book. (A funny, short Thanksgiving mystery about turkeys written in rhyme – which is now free until Wednesday night!)

Anyways, for this year’s holiday, I’ve identified some of the best ebooks — in different categories — that are available for for Thanksgiving in Amazon’s Kindle Store.

The Best Romance
“Thanksgiving” by Janet Evanovich

Best-selling author Janet Evanovich wrote several funny mystery novels — but she actually began her career writing romance novels at the age of 45. One of her first books was “Thanksgiving,” written in 1988, describing how overworked Megan Murphy meets a good-looking doctor at historic Williamsburg, Virginia. (Megan’s enjoying a cup of hot cider and two sugar cookies from the Raleigh Tavern Bake Shop when she discovers the doctor’s giant pet rabbit is eating a hole through her skirt!)

According to the book’s description on Amazon, “she meant to give its careless owner a piece of her mind, but Dr. Patrick Hunter was too attractive to stay mad at for long,” and soon “the two are making Thanksgiving dinner for their families.” And 12 different Amazon’s reviewers gave it five-star reviews, including one who wrote that “If you’ve enjoyed Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, you’re going to get a kick out of her stories for the Loveswept Romance imprint…”

The Best Cookbook
Thanksgiving 101 by Rick Rodgers

Perdue Farms sells over $4.6 billion worth of poultry every year, and for eight years, Rick Rodgers was their media spokesman. He traveled the country giving classes, according to Amazon’s description of the book, and delivers “everything, absolutely everything, you would want to know about buying, thawing, prepping, and roasting a turkey.

“You needn’t look any further. There’s a long question-and-answer-style section that anticipates any questions you might have. Then it’s right on to everything from Perfect Roast Turkey with Best-Ever Gravy to Holiday Meatball Lasagna.” And in addition, there’s lots of recipes for stuffings, side dishes, appetizers, and even leftovers. 29 of the book’s 34 reviewers on Amazon gave it five stars, while the other five
awarded it four. It’s a classic — Amazon’s first review of the book was written in 1998 — but even today, it’s become one of Amazon’s best-selling holiday cooking books.

The Best History Book
On Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford

Who better to tell the story of Thanksgiving than the pilgrims who lived through it? (My favorite chapter was the one about the very non-Puritan antics of Thomas Morton…) William Bradford began writing his history of America’s most famous pilgrims back in 1630 (according to my anthology of American literature), and he continued chronicling their life up to 1647. But the invaluable manuscript was never published in his lifetime, and after Bradford’s death, his family passed it down through the generations.

The precious unpublished memoir traveled its own complicated journey, down through Boston’s Old South Church, and eventually even back to England. Finally it was published in 1856 — a full 200 years after it was written. It never did arrive on the shores of Amazon’s Kindle Store, but you can download a free Kindle version from Project Gutenburg. I’ve always thought it’s excited that, thanks to the Kindle, today we can take peek into the lives of those very pilgrims who first started celebrating Thanksgiving.

The Best Children’s Book
Happy Thanksgiving, Curious George

Just 12 weeks ago, a new Curious George book appeared, and this one has a special surprise. Yes, you may have read other children’s books about the playful and accident-prone monkey… But this one rhymes!


George wakes up in the morning.
Something smells quite nice.
He knows for sure he wants some —
A piece, a smidge, a slice.

He rushes to the kitchen
and there he sees the man —
with yellow hat an apron,
A turkey in the pan.

The turkey’s in the oven.
It takes some time to cook.
But every now and then
George can’t help but take a look….

Uh-oh, I bet there’s going to be trouble.

Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!

100 eBooks for July for $3.99 (or Less!)

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Amazon Kindle 399 ebook sale

Hurry! There’s only two more days to snatch up some great ebooks in Amazon’s special sale for July. They’re offering 100 Kindle ebooks for just $3.99 or less. And because it’s the last week of the month, this really means you’ll get 200 bargain ebooks to choose from — because there’s the 100 discounted “July” ebooks, and then 100 more different ebooks, starting on Wednesday!

Both sales will appear at this URL — tinyurl.com/399books.

Amazon’s discounting books from eight different genres, so there’s a nice variety to choose from. There’s romance, literature, mysteries, and even fiction for kids and teens — plus history, cookbooks, travel books, and more! I’ve taken a good look, and decided to highlight some of the more interesting titles (below). And there’s a few cases where some great ebooks aren’t in the category that you’d expect!


P.S. I Hate It Here: Kids’ Letters from Camp
Amazon stuck this book in their “general non-fiction” category, though it’s description notes that it’s “hilarious and heart-warming.” They’re real letters, written by children between the ages of 8 and 16, and they were all carefully collected together by a real mother who, yes, sent her children away to summer camp. “These letters reveal that kids are wittier and more sophisticated than we might assume,” according to the book’s page at Amazon, “and that the experience of being away from home for the first time creates hilarious and lasting memories.”


In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero
Amazon’s tucked this ebook into their mystery section, though it’s really a loving appreciation of a favorite mystery author. Robert B. Parker wrote 40 detective novels starring Spenser the detective — starting in 1973, and continuing for the next 38 years! But for this book, the best-selling mystery authors of today explain how he influenced the way mysteries are written. Publisher’s Weekly notes that Parker is “widely credited with reviving the hardboiled private investigator genre,” according to the book’s page on Amazon. And Amazon’s also cites another reviewer who calls it “a fun read that brings back wonderful memories of the man who created Spenser and so many other characters.”


Garbage Pail Kids
Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize for his graphic novel, Maus, but he started his career drawing parodies for bubble gum cards! In 1985, Topps launched a new series of cards parodying the Cabbage Patch dolls (which were that year’s hottest Christmas gift). But instead of cute children, these cards featured funny freaks! Spiegelman was one of the editors for the series, and this ebook collects all the dark fun together for the first time – including four previously unreleased cards. There’s a good introduction by Spiegelman himself – and the 206 color images will definitely bring some rowdy retro fun to your Kindle Fire!


Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century
A British journalist formed real connections with the people he met playing games in an online world. But exploring the topic much more deeply, he discovered that games really can tap into our deepest human needs – and concludes that they’ll become a bigger part of our lives in the years to come. Newsweek argued recently that the internet may literally drive some people crazy – though there’s also a positive side, too. A reviewer at the Irish Times called this book “A lively, thought-provoking and thoughtful read on an entertainment juggernaut many of us have failed to properly recognize…”


We Are All Weird by Seth Godin
You may remember a fascinating 2011 best-seller called Poke the Box, urging initiative and risk-taking as the keys to success. But its author also wrote this fascinating follow-up which, according to its description on Amazon, argues that “new era of weirdness is upon us.” In an era of mass production and conformity, Godin applauds the new breed of consumers who are “stepping forward and insisting that the world work in a different way.” Godin has an MBA, and once worked as a brand manager – yet he’s against the idea of a one-size-fits-all corporate solution, suggesting it’s more important to offer choices, to “allow people to survive and thrive.”


Remember, there’ll be ANOTHER 100 ebooks on sale starting on Wednesday. And both sales will appear at this URL…

tinyurl.com/399books.

My Interview with a Best-Selling Author!

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Kindle blogger Michael Gallagher

He’s written one of the 100 best-selling ebooks for all of 2011 — and he also writes Amazon’s #1 best-selling blog! (In fact, it’s been one of Amazon’s 100 best-selling blogs for over two years…) Michael Gallagher writes the blog “Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips,” but he’s also adapted it into one of the year’s top 100 ebooks! And as a Christmas gift, he’s agreed to share his story here in a special Christmas interview.

“Actually, I’ll be the first to tell you I didn’t know this version of the book was sitting at #72 for 2011 until I saw your email!” he told me earlier this week. “I am surprised, and my first smart*&% comment was ‘that’s worse than last year!'” Gallagher is regularly updating his 21-page ebook, so this really makes the second year that it’s appeared on Amazon’s list of the year’s best-selling ebooks. “Last year for the full year was #53, and was significantly helped by a few million people opening up Kindles under the tree on Christmas Day! ” he explained. “The week of Christmas in 2010, the sales for that week accounted for 50% of the total year’s sales. Not that I sold a million copies, but it was significant to me.”

His author’s page on Amazon describes him as “an obese, gray-haired, and desk-bound guy in Texas who spends way too much time with his Kindle.” But like the Ghost of Christmas Future, Michael Gallagher now has a prediction for all self-published authors. “If the last two years’ worth of history holds true, not only me but every other author should have a surge in sales from about the 24th of December to the end of the first week of January.” The holiday apparently brings a special gift to anyone who’s self-publishing on Amazon — new sales from enthusiastic new Kindle owners! And Michael agreed to answer a few questions from his unique perspective as one of Amazon’s 100 best-selling authors of the year.

Q: There’s one question I’ve been dying to ask you: how many ebooks did you sell?

A: I won’t share the exact number of copies sold of that title because there are a lot of copycats who picked up on the ranking of last year and have their competing products out there – and it’s certainly not rocket science on what I did – and I certainly don’t need other competitors but I will tell you this: the number of sales so far through the end of November of that one title equals all of 2010.

Q: eBook sales really seem to be increasing. It seemed really significant to me that this year the #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks of the year weren’t even available in print editions. Since you’re one of the year’s 100 best-selling ebook authors, I wanted to ask: do you have any official pronouncement on what lesson we should learn from this year’s best-sellers list?

Q: As far as an “official pronouncement”… the Kindle publishing platform for independent authors truly levels the playing field. Good books will rise to the top as word-of-mouth, the Amazon customer review/rating system, Kindle Discussion forum and blog posts, and good old-fashioned guerrilla marketing on Facebook, Twitter, etc. can equal and in some cases more than offset what the Big Six publishers can do. Of course, the Big Six are still there and will continue to be there, but small guys who have a good story to tell – yet may get shunned from the large publishers because they already have a stable of successful authors – can make it.

Q: You don’t just have the #1 best-selling blog for the Kindle. You’ve got five of the top 100 best-sellers, including Trivia of the Day, Bible Verse of the Day, and Kindle Books for a Buck (or Less). What’s it been like, publishing multiple best-selling blogs on Amazon?

A: Overall, the blog experience has been fun — I’ve “met” a lot of interesting people and characters, picked up more free books than most people can read in a lifetime, and learned more than enough about the Kindle than you can imagine. However, there is a certain level of disappointment as there is a real lack of support for blog publishers from Amazon. Granted, most of the blogs aren’t generating money for themselves or Amazon, but I think a lot of that has to do with no promotion from the Amazon side. I have seen membership for most of my blogs decrease for the last two months, when they had done nothing but increase each month for the previous 18 months. With the launch of the Kindle Fire and blogs not having a subscribe option, although you can certainly subscribe via the Pulse app on the Fire, I wouldn’t be surprised if this time next year Amazon drops the blog component – that would be a loss of some serious money for people in the Top 20 or so blogs.

Q: Well, whatever happens, when they write the history of the Kindle, they’re going to have to mention Michael Gallagher, the Kindle’s #1 best-selling blogger. Thanks for paying me a visit – and happy holidays!

Will Self-Published Authors Create New Kinds of Books?

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Yoshi drawing with a crayon

I’ve always wondered whether self-publishing was as popular as it seems. But it’s at least earned some new attention from The Wall Street Journal. In October they dug up some actual statistics on the new growth in self-published titles. They contacted the publisher of Books in Print,” who had calculated that in 2010, there were 133,036 self-published titles.

That doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s more than the 51,237 self-published titles that they’d estimated for 2006. And of course, their estimates haven’t been updated yet to include 2011. There was a 66% increase in self-published titles from just 2009 until 2010, and if that trend continues, by the end of this year there should be more than 87,000 more. And that would bring the total of self-published ebooks to at least 220,000 by the end of December…

But many authors publish more than one book, so the number of self-publishing authors is probably much smaller, maybe even less than 100,000. And the Journal argues that self-publishing “is increasingly a tale of two cities,” with big sales going mostly to established authors (who have established audiences) while the earnings of new authors fall into a smaller, second tier. Author Nyree Belleville clearly falls in the “big sales” category, earning half a million dollars in just 18 months for her ten romance novels. In the “small” category would be Derek J. Canyon, who’s sold $10,000 worth of his four novels and a how-to book about self-publishing.

My favorite part of the article was these stories about different authors, and what happened when they explored a new kind of publishing. Nyree Belleville had been going through a traditional print publisher for her romance novels for seven years, according to the Journal. (She writes under pseudonyms like “Bella Andrea” and “Lucy Kevin”). But since April of 2010, she’s sold 265,000 copies of her ten romances as self-published books, and earned more than $500,000. The Journal notes that Amazon lets self-published authors keep 70% of their revenue — more than what they’d get from a print publisher (which is usually less than 25%). Previously the most Nyree had ever earned from a book was $33,000.

The Journal also tells the story of Darcie Chan, who self-published a “women’s fiction” novel about a secretive Vermont widow in May. In the last six month’s it’s sold “hundreds of thousands of copies,” even though it had already been rejected by several mainstream publishers. It’s all got me wondering if this will ultimately lead to new kinds of books. With hundreds of thousands of brand new writers in the Kindle Store, maybe some of them will have original new ideas that actually re-define what we’ll expect to find in books.

Just as an example, imagine the first ebook published by a teenaged reporter at a high school newspaper. If they collected their memories of their senior class, it probably wouldn’t attract a national audience. But would that really matter? Hundreds of other students in their own high school might download the ebook – and maybe also even their relatives (including curious grandparents and aunts and uncles). The high school student would be thrilled with sales in the hundreds of dollars, and maybe the book could be positioned as a kind of “alternative yearbook” — a personal and subjective counterpart to the high school’s official yearbook.

I’m not saying I know what the next big ebook will be. I’m just saying there may also be thousands of interesting “little ebooks” that carefully target a very small audience — and then make them very happy.

100 Kindle eBooks Now $3.99 or Less!

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Amazon discounts 100 ebooks for less than four dollars

Every month Amazon picks 100 ebooks to feature in the Kindle Store for just $3.99 or less. They’re “hand-selected” by Amazon’s editors, according to the tagline at the top of a special web page. You can always reach this month’s selection by pointing your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/399books . And Amazon’s finally unveiled their new collection for December.

There’s lots of names you might recognize — but also a few surprises!

Dangerous Games by Michael Prescott ($1.99)
Amazon describes this as a “psychologically complex thriller” about the hunt for a serial killer with new appearances by characters from some of Prescott’s previous mysteries. In fact, it’s the first story in a trilogy about maverick FBI agent Tess McCallum and “freelance security agent” Abby Sinclair. But there’s also apparently an interesting story behind this story, since I see Prescott listed on best-seller lists at USA Today as a self-published author using Amazon Digital Services. Dangerous Games was written in 2005, but in 2010 Prescott re-released as an ebook for the Kindle and other digital readers, and by November of 2011, it was among the top 40 best-selling books, according to USA Today.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler ($2.99)
This book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when it was released in 1985, and it actually won the prestigious annual award from the National Book Critics Circle. It’s the dramatic story of a man in a failing marriage who moves in with his two divorced brothers and an unmarried sister. It “chronicles his journey from lonely self-absorption to an ‘accidental” new life’…,” according to the novel’s description on Amazon. A movie adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards when it was released in 1988, and it ultimately won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for a role played by Geena Davis.

Absolute Mayhem by Monica Mayhem ($1.99)
I wondered why this book had such a trashy cover, until I noticed its subtitle — “Secret Confessions of a Porn Star.” Apparently Monica Mayhem is an Australian “adult film actress,” and at the age of 33 she’s written a raunchy autobiography. According to the book’s description on Amazon, she jokingly writes in the first paragraph, “Here’s what a ‘busy day at the office might mean for me…” Apparently she started out as a stock broker, but her career took an unexpected turn…

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston ($1.99)
This is the first in a series of nine novels “expanding” the fictional universe from the Star Wars movies. It takes place after the first Star Wars movie (which, for fans of the franchise, is referred to as “Episode IV: A New Hope”.) “In a shocking move, Chief of State Natasi Daala orders the arrest of Luke Skywalker,” according to the book’s description on Amazon, “for failing to prevent Jacen Solo’s turn to the dark side and his subsequent reign of terror as a Sith Lord. But it’s only the first blow in an anti-Jedi backlash fueled by a hostile government and suspicious public.”

Do the Work by Steven Pressfield ($1.99)
This is a new motivational/self-help “manifesto” that’s drawn some pretty good reviews on Amazon. It argues that we don’t need better ideas — we just need, well, to do the work! “There is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us,” reads a quote from the book on Amazon.com. “Step one is to recognize this. This recognition alone is enormously powerful. It saved my life, and it will save yours…” But my favorite quote appears in one of the user-submitted reviews on Amazon. Why should we dare to actually do the work? Because “The gods, witnessing our boldness, look on in approval…”

This listing includes something I’ve never seen before. For members of Amazon’s Prime shipping service, they’ve flagged this as one of the books that can be checked out for free from the Kindle Lending Library. Of course, you can only check out one ebook a month — which seems a little wasteful, since for December they’ve cut the price by 85%. Amazon’s leaving users to select from two very appealing choices. Do you want that ebook for free for 30 days — or forever, for just $1.99?

And don’t forget — Amazon also discounts a new ebook every day. To see the special deals, just keep pointing your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/DailyKindleDeal

Monday Only: 900 Kindle eBooks on Sale!

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Cyber Monday Kindle eBook Deals

Wow! Amazon’s slashed the price on more than 900 Kindle ebooks in a surprise one-day sale which ends at midnight. (“Time Left on Today’s Deal: 0 Days, 14 Hours, 51 Minutes, 23 Seconds…” Amazon warned this morning at the bottom of one page…) Just point your computer’s web browser to
tinyurl.com/CyberMondayEbooks . Amazon slipped the special announcement onto their “Daily Deals” page, which usually features just one ebook at a special price.

Today’s there’s hundreds of ebooks that have been discounted up to 75% — and they’re spread across seven different categories!

     Mysteries
     Romance
     Literature and Fiction
     Science Fiction
     Biographies
     Nonfiction
     Children’s and Teens

So what kind of books are on sale? In the fiction section, there’s novels by famous authors that I’ve actually heard of, including Leon Uris, Alice Walker, William Styron, and Pat Conroy. (Plus some humorous sixties novels by Terry Christian). Other sale-priced authors include James Jones, John Gardner, and Lawrence Block. But it seems like some categories had more discount books than others.

Over 300 of the discounted books are in Amazon’s “Mysteries and Thrillers” category — but many of them are by best-selling authors. There’s mysteries by James Elroy, Carl Hiassen, and Ellery Queen —
and Amazon’s usually offering discounts on more than one of their books. There’s also mysteries on sale by Stephen Koontz, John Lutz, and Susan Isaacs — plus Patricia Wentworth, Jack Higgins, and Loren D. Estleman.

I was also surprised how many “Children and Teen” books were on sale — more than 200 — though that number is higher because it includes dozens of books from the “Boxcar Children” series. And there’s several interesting memoirs on sale, including many books by Rebecca West and five books by veterinarian James Herriot. There’s also one very unusual best-seller that’s on sale — a parody of children’s picture books called “Go the $#%% to Sleep.” But these 900 bargain-priced books may be only the beginning.

Amazon displayed today’s daily deal next to graphic which announces “Cyber Monday Deals Week”.

Is it possible that there’ll be a new crop of discounted ebooks on Tuesday?

Amazon’s Cyber Monday deal on a Kindle

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Amazon's Cyber Monday deal on a Kindle

Amazon’s biggest shopping day of the year isn’t Black Friday. It’s “Cyber Monday” (according to a new announcement from Amazon.) Except it should really be called “Cyber Sunday,” since Amazon’s already announcing big savings today. And Kindles are still on sale — at least, the big Kindle DX tablet, which Amazon’s offering at a 32% discount from the usual price of $379. (Just point your computer’s web browser to TinyURL.com/BlackFridayDX !)

But there’s other big savings too – like a nearly 40% savings on a 42-inch HDTV, and a line of sale-priced ebooks. “Cyber Monday Deals Week Starts Today,” Amazon posted Sunday on a special web page, promising “low prices and sales on electronics, video games, DVDs, and more.” Last year Amazon sold more than 13.7 million things just on Monday, November 29th — which means that on average, every second they were selling 158 items. “Our customers love Cyber Monday,” Amazon said in an enthusiastic statement.

But interestingly, Amazon used that press release to tout their new line of Kindles — at the regular price — before listing the other special deals. “At just $199, Kindle Fire is already the best-selling item across all of Amazon,” reported a senior PR manager at Amazon (adding “Amazon customers have made the Kindle Fire one of their favorite holiday deals already this season.”) And the second sentence of Amazon’s press release stops to acknowledge the whole Kindle line, promising that customers “will find hundreds of great deals with free shipping on millions of eligible items…along with the new $79 Kindle, $99 Kindle Touch, $149 Kindle Touch 3G and $199 Kindle Fire.” And yes, there’s even a special line of Kindle ebooks that are on sale.

“Kindle’s Cyber Monday Deals Week features hundreds of books as low as $0.99,” announced Amazon in an e-mail today. For example, for just $3.99 you can get “Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson’s Muppets” or “Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History. There’s even a funny novel called “How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend” (for $3.99), and for $1.99, there’s an Oxford Press biography about the life of Dr. Seuss. And for $2.99, there’s also an illustrated version of Marilyn Monroe’s autobiography, and a collection of “frank” writing by 28 women that was edited by Erica Jong! Browse the whole list of bargain ebooks by pointing your computer’s web browser to /tinyurl.com/CyberMondayBooks .

Even some Kindle games are on sale now. Electronic Arts has slashed the price on all their best-selling Kindle games to just 99 cents, including:

Monopoly
Scrabble
Trivial Pursuit
Yahtzee

Of course, there’s some other non-Kindle items for sale. (For example, all the DVDs in the “Twilight” series are on sale for a special price.) And somewhere in there is a bundle of games for the Microsoft XBox that’s being offered at a $100 discount. It’s the unofficial holiday of bargain shoppers everywhere. So if you’re in the market for some online shopping fun…happy Cyber Monday!

Amazon Announces Best Books of 2011

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Go the #### to Sleep cover illustration

It’s that once-a-year day when Amazon chooses the very best book of 2011. In fact, they’re released their list of the one hundred best books of the year, plus top 10 lists “in more than two dozen categories, from Literature & Fiction to Children’s Picture Books to the new category Kindle Singles.” On that special web page, Amazon’s also also created separate links for “Print editions” and “Kindle books” — which means you’re also be able to see Amazon’s picks for the 100 best ebooks of 2011. (Though the lists seem nearly identical.)

And some books even earned the highest honor, of not just being in the top 100, but but in the top 10.

“There are three first-time novelists among our top 10 picks,” announced Amazon’s senior books editor, noting their #1 pick was a debut novel — about baseball. “The Art of Fielding,” just released in September, is a story of friendship and coming of age, and in the nine weeks since its release its received over 135 reviews on Amazon. Its average rating is three and a half stars on Amazon — but at least one reviewer blamed their one-star review on what they see as a trend among Kindle ebooks.

“Why is it that all Kindle samples start off well? I was lured into buying the book by the sample. Downhill from there…”

But fortunately there’s something for everybody in Amazon’s “best of 2011” list — including a new book by Kurt Vonnegut. (It’s “While Mortals Sleep,” a collection of unpublished short fiction.) Amazon’s top 100 also features some interesting nonfiction titles, including the new biography about Steve Jobs and Tina Fey’s Bossypants, plus biographies about actress Diane Keaton and chess prodigy Bobby Fischer. I’m intrigued by Steven Levy’s new book about Google (titled “In the Plex”). And there’s even a parody of children’s bedtime picture books called, simply, “Go The *** To Sleep”. (It’s available for just $3.99 on the Kindle, and there’s also an audiobook version – read by Samuel L. Jackson that was named one of Amazon’s 10 best audiobooks of the year.)

It looks like Amazon’s fiction choices are equally impressive. Just yesterday Stephen King released a new novel about the Kennedy assassination — titled 11/22/63 — in which Lee Harvey Oswald may ultimately be confronted shortly before his infamous day in American history. Ironically, it’s already racked up three one-star reviews — though two of them are just complaining about the ebook’s price of $18.99. And its third one-star review complained the price included “audio/video for other devices.” There is a cheaper ebook version without them — for just $16.99 — though I’m actually impressed that for just $2.00 more, you get an ebook with supplementary video and audio material!

“With choices from literary masterworks to genre fiction to nonfiction, there’s something for everyone,” gushed Amazon’s senior books editor. And I’l admit I was also intrigued by a new book from Tom Perrotta — The Leftovers, a comedic novel about the Rapture released just 10 weeks ago. It’s fun browsing through Amazon’s lists, just to see what they selected as their “bests” in each category. For example, in the graphics novel category, there’s the yet-to-be-released Batman: The Black Mirror and a collection of new “Love and Rockets” stories by Jaime Hernandez.

Unfortunately, these graphic novels aren’t available yet for the Kindle. But I’m hoping that will change very soon, since Amazon struck a deal with D.C. Comics to make digital versions of 100 graphic novels available exclusively on the Kindle Fire. They’ll include popular superhero titles like Watchmen, Batman: Arkham City, and Green Lantern: Secret Origin — as well a MAD magazine collection and, 13 volumes of Sandman by Neil Gaiman. It touched off a minor controversy, with Barnes and Noble protesting the exclusivity by pulling the print editions off their shelves.

Amazon’s list ultimately doubles as a reminder that this year not every book will be available for the Kindle. For example, Amazon’s “Best of 2011” page also includes their selection of the top 10 best book covers of the year — print editions only. I was surprised that the cover of the new Steve Jobs’ biography made in onto their list — which is available as a Kindle ebook. But the list also includes a breath-taking coffee table book, a print-only edition whose cover is a black-and-white photo showing sunshine on a snowfield, titled “The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott: Unseen Images from the Legendary Antarctic Expedition”.

To see all of Amazon’s “Best of 2011” lists, point your web browser to amazon.com/bestbooks2011.

Amazon Unveils a Free Ebook Library

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Amazon Kindle Owners Lending Library

“Wow! That’s fricking awesome!” my girlfriend said when I told her the news. Amazon’s making thousands of new ebooks available for free to anyone’s who’s subscribed to Amazon’s Prime shipping service. The service offers one year of free two-day shipping for a flat fee of $79 — and as a bonus, it includes free access to Amazon’s online library of movies and TV shows. Now as an added incentive, you’ll also get access to “the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library.”

“Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free,” Amazon explained today in their press release, “including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.” The selection looks very appealing — I see over 5,000 ebooks, and they’re ebooks that I’ve actually heard of, and ebooks I actually want to read. For example, there’s Moneyball Michael Lewis’s exploration of professional baseball (which was recently turned into a movie with Brad Pitt). And this library also includes Lewis’s other more-recent books about Wall Street — The Big Short and Liars’ Poker — plus the entire Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

And whether or not you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can still can browse the library right now on your Kindle. Just go to front page of the Kindle Store. (One way to do this is by pressing your Kindle’s Alt key and the HOME button at the same time.) Then select the link at the top of the page (in the second column) which says “See all categories”. The link triggers a pop-up menu, and as of today the bottom of that menu is displaying a brand new choice: the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Click the link, and you’ll see over 5,000 titles to choose from!

Kindle Store Menu with Lending Library link

They’re sorted by which ebooks are the best-selling, which means three of the first four choices are from Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. But there’s a link at the top-right of the page which lets you narrow the selection into 28 categories — like fiction, nonfiction, mystery, humor… “Owning a Kindle just got even better…,” Amazon’s CEO said in a statement today. “Prime Members now have exclusive access to a huge library of books to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates.”

Remember, you can only check out one ebook a month, but at least some Prime members are feeling excited. “I read really fast,” my girlfriend told me, “and if I can read it without having to pay for it and then return it to the lending library — that’s fabulous!” In fact, she belongs to a book club, and at least three of the books they chose to read are already available for free in the new lending library. (There’s Water for Elephants and The Finkler Question.)

So how can Amazon afford to loan the ebooks for free? In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is borrowed by a reader…,” their press release explained. Amazon’s getting the cheaper wholesale price, but still covering the cost themselves “as a no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this new service presents.” And for “the vast majority” of the library’s ebooks, Amazon’s just negotiated a single flat fee with the publisher for the right to include the book in their lending library.

The bottom line is that now you’ll have a wider selection of free ebooks to choose from. And “Just as with any other Kindle book, your notes, highlights and bookmarks in borrowed books will be saved,” Amazon’s press release adds, “so you’ll have them later.” I feel like this is a news story that speaks for itself, so I’ll give Amazon the last word. On the web page for their lending library, they explain the entire program in just eight words.

Own a Kindle + Prime Membership = Read for free

How Zombies Conquered the Kindle

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Cover illustration from R. L. Stine's Goosebumps zombie high school ebook

Are zombies taking over the Kindle? If you haven’t been paying attention, you may not have noticed the rising zombie invasion. Search the Kindle store for the word “zombie” and you’d see 1,992 results — back in September. Perform the same experiment this morning, and you’d find 277 more Kindle ebooks about zombies….

That’s an increase of 13.9% from one month to the next! And currently one of the top 100 free ebooks in the Kindle Store is something called Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb. The real message may be that this Halloween, there’s more self-published authors writing zombie fiction. Even the Library of Congress has only 523 books with “zombie” in their title. Oh my god, run everybody — Amazon’s Kindle store has four times as many zombies!!!

They’re not real zombies, but it does suggest the Kindle store’s amateur authors are especially attracted to the zombie genre. (Or are they? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the amateurs from the pros.) Take a peek at the new titles, and you’ll be startled at just how many zombie ebooks there are. Don’t look now, but the living dead could be shambling up to your Kindle!

Here’s some of the stranger ebooks.


Zombie Girl Invasion
Wesley and the Sex Zombies
The Scarlet Zombie Sketchbook #1
Bachelorette: Zombie Edition

A Girl’s Guide To Falling In Love With A Zombie
Rock And Roll Reform School Zombies
My Life as A White Trash Zombie
The Zombie Attached To My Head

Zombie Lust and The New Flesh
How to Make Love like a Zombie
My Lovesick Zombie Boy Band
Lesbian Zombies Are Taking Over The World!

Trailerpark Zombies
Zombie Road Trip
Jesus vs. the Zombies of Perdition
Texas Biker Zombies From Outer Space


To be fair, “Texas Biker Zombies From Outer Space” is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, “intentionally designed to give the reader an interactive experience using the advantages over print that E-Books allow.” And Zombie Spaceship Wasteland was written by actor/comedian Patton Oswalt, using the horror movie monsters as a metaphor in a collection of essays “vividly evoking his zombie-like co-worker,” according to Booklist‘s review. Even 71-year-old literary author Joyce Carol Oates — twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize — named her 2009 novel Zombie (P.S.) It’s about a serial killer — named Zombie — who keeps a diary as he pursues his victims.

But yeah, most of the titles in the Kindle Store aren’t as ambitious.


I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It
Married with Zombies
Zombie Blondes
Zombies Eat Lawyers

Confessions of a Zombie’s Wife
Slow and Sweet: A Love Story, With Zombies
Zombie Erotica: An Undead Anthology
Never Slow Dance with a Zombie

A Cold Dark School with Zombies at the Gates
Zombie Queen of Newbury High
Zombie Fight Song
Jesus Camp Zombie Bloodbath

The Code of the Zombie Pirate
Battle of the Network Zombies
Hungry for Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance
Diary of a Duct Tape Zombie


I can understand why some of these books aren’t in the Library of Congress. (It’s probably more surprising that there’s any zombie books in the Library of Congress.) But to explore the popularity of stories about the shambling undead, I asked my friend Thomas Roche, a professional writer for more than 15 years, who’s just published his first novel about zombies. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a quote back.

I think zombies may have actually eaten his brains.

Or maybe he’s just busy reading all the ebooks he’s competing with…


Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies
Zombie Dawn Apocalypse
Breaking News: an Autozombiography
Brains For Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?!

Road Kill: A Zombie Tale
I, Zombie
The Christian Zombie Killer’s Handbook
Zombie Hero #3: “Keep On Truckin”

Zombie Combat Manual
The Zurvivalist – Real Life Solutions to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Zombology: A Zombie Anthology
Brains: A Zombie Memoir

Zombie Sniper
You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News
Zombie P.I.
Why I Quit Zombie School


That last book is actually the newest book in R. L. Stine’s popular “Goosebumps” series of scary stories for younger readers (which have sold more than 350 million copies. I used its colorful cover at the top of this blog post. It’s easy to laugh at the titles, but they may have tapped into a storyline with some primal universal appeal. Some authors have enjoyed wild success by re-creating our darkest nightmares, and maybe that’s the ultimate irony.

It’s not that the zombies are attracted to our brains. It’s that our brains are attracted to zombies!


Zombies vs Unicorns
Zombies Sold Separately
Zombies and Power Tools
Every Zombie Eats Somebody Sometime: A Book of Zombie Love Songs

Zombie Jamboree
Zombie Safari
Zombies for Jesus
Attack of the Shark-Headed Zombies

Jailbait Zombie
What Do You Do With Dead Zombies?
Zombiestan
Forward, Shamble!: A Bob the Zombie Novel

The Art of War for Zombies – Ancient Chinese Secrets of World Domination, Apocalypse Edition
Superheroes vs Zombies
The Adventures of Zombie Boy
Zombie Butts from Uranus


There’s even zombie Christmas books, believe it or not, including A Zombie Christmas Carol and A Christmas Carol of the Living Dead: a zombie holiday tale. (Plus A Zombie Christmas and “A Christmas Wish: A Zombie Tale for the Holidays.”) If you think that’s confusing, try reading The Christmas Zombie: The story of why zombies celebrate Christmas. And if you’re just looking for holiday cheer, there’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies (Christmas carols “composed specifically for…the decomposing).”

Some authors have also tried their hand at creating zombie books for other holidays. (Like Dangerous Hunts: A Zombie Father’s Day Tale.”) And A Very Zombie Holiday even follows a zombie father as he attempts to celebrate every holiday with his living family. If you’re after a classic bedtime story, there’s Snow White and the Seven Dead Dwarves: A Zombie Fairy Tale.” And for educational purposes, there’s also something called Zombie Ed Counts To Twenty, and its sequel, Zombie Ed Loves Halloween. (“Text-to-speech enabled… Finally! A zombie book for children! “)

And — uh-oh. Here comes another wave of more strange zombie ebooks…


Zombies vs. Nazis
Don of the Dead: A Mafia Zombie Novel
The Zombie Cookbook
“Rednecks Who Shoot Zombies, on the Next Geraldo”

501 Things to do with a Zombie
Zombies Wearing Hats
Zombies Hate Vegetables, Too
Grampa’s Zombie BBQ

Frankenstein, The Zombie Hunter
Love in a Time of Zombies
An Inconvenient Amish Zombie Left Behind The Da Vinci Diet Code Truth
Zombies Don’t Play Soccer

Dr. Zombie Lives Next Door
Zombies Ride Motorcycles
Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion
Zombies at the Bar Mitzvah


I’m not sure what to make of an ebook called James Joyce and the Zombie Priest, though it’s attracted at least one positive review on its web page at Amazon. (“If there is a better zombie version of Araby by James Joyce, it would be news to me!”) This trend probably all started when real-world bookstores started seeing big sales of a 2009 parody novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (crediting Jane Austen as a co-author). It rose to #3 on the New York Times best-seller list, according to Wikipedia, apparently spawning a new generation of even stranger zombie novels — and zombie ebooks. There’s even a Garrison Keillor parody called The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten that’s attributed to an author named Harrison Geillor. (“The humor in this parody lies in the simple truth that even a zombie bear with a hatchet in its head won’t faze a Minnesotan,” writes Publisher’s Weekly.)

And there’s zombie parodies of other books — like Zombies of Oz (and The Terrible Zombie of Oz). There’s also The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim and Wuthering Heights and a Werewolf…and a Zombie Too.” Someone’s even written zombie versions of two Sherlock Holmes stories, a book of zombie fairy tales, and a zombie version of The War of the Worlds (“plus Blood, Guts, and Zombies”). And if you liked Great Expectations, you might try Pip and the Zombies, by Charles Dickens and Louis Skipper.

In the two years since Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the concept has apparently festered its way into a full-fledged literary movement. I was surprised to see a book titled simply Zombies for Zombies — until I realized it was a parody of the “For Dummies” book (receiving thirteen 5-star reviews). There’s also The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zombies, which strangely is not a parody, but an official title in the “Idiot’s Guide” series, which traces the origin of zombie stories with chapters about books, movies, and comic books. But just when it couldn’t get any creepier, I discovered that there’s even some zombie books that are actually about personal investing.


Zombie Economics: A Guide to Personal Finance
How to Prosper During the Coming Zombie Apocalypse
Workplace Of The Living Dead: What Zombies Can Teach Leaders About Engaging Employees
Zombie Project Management


And there’s also some zombie history books. (Which, honestly, throws some doubt over their historical accuracy.)


A Zombie’s History of the United States
A Tale of Zombies in Czarist Russia
A Tale of Zombies in the Old West
Everything My Grandmother Taught Me about Killing Zombies
The Eagle has Re-Animated
Pappy’s Old Time Zombie Radio Show
Zombies Take Manhattan


There’s something strangely inspiring about the sheer number of books that have ultimately been inspired about zombies. It’s nice to see this massive outpouring of new creativity, as people all around the globe start wondering what’s going to happen in their imaginary zombie scenario. In fact, zombies are turning up in a surprising variety of different kinds of books. Though some authors even seem to think that maybe the lonely zombies just need a friend…


Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy
Jude and the Zombies
Peter Crombie, Teenage Zombie
Nobody Wants to Play With Zombie Jesus

Jasper, the Friendly Zombie
How I met Barbara the Zombie Hunter
The Student from Zombie Island
Zombie Joe and the Pogo Stick legs

Growing Up Zombie
Oh No, Our Best Friend is a Zombie!
Timothy Holbrook and the Zombie Curse
Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies

Zombie Mommy
Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
Day of the Field Trip Zombies
Mom and Dad Aren’t Getting Along (Now That Mom’s a Zombie)



Maybe they were also inspired by the success of the Twilight series of books about a vampire’s teenaged romance. (One ebook author has even written Vampire Among the Zombies.) But I had to laugh when I saw an ebook titled “Where are the Zombies?”

Dude, you’re not paying attention. They’re everywhere!

Kindle eBooks from Your Public Library! The 8 Biggest Advantages

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Carnegie Public Library

It’s happening! Today Amazon announced that all across America, they’re making Kindle ebooks available for free through local public libraries! (“Libraries are a critical part of our communities,” Amazon said in today’s statement, “and we’re excited to be making Kindle books available at more than 11,000 local libraries around the country!”) Amazon also posted the news on the Kindle’s page on Facebook — and within one hour, nearly 2,000 people had clicked on its “like” icon.

Here’s eight reasons why this is very exciting news.

– You can even read them if you don’t own a Kindle!
The library ebooks are also compatible with Amazon’s free Kindle apps. This means that even people who don’t own a Kindle can still read Kindle ebooks that they’ve checked out from the public library on their iPhone or iPad, and on Windows and Android smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers (as well as on Blackberry devices).

– You can read them in a web browser
Last month Amazon released the Kindle Cloud reader for the Safari and Chrome browsers. It’s a full-color application for reading Kindle ebooks on a desktop computer — or on a tablet (like the iPad). Amazon originally just wanted to create a way for their customers shop in the Kindle store on Apple devices. But now those same customers can also check out Kindle ebooks for free from their public library.

– You can highlight passages in the library’s ebooks
I’d never use a highlighting pen on the library’s only print copy of a book. But when you check out a virtual ebook, you’ll be able to fill it with your own virtual highlights and notes. Amazon will sync
them to your account, so whenever you check out that ebook from the library, you’ll still be able to see your original highlights and notes. And you’ll always be able to access them through Amazon’s special web page for highlights, at kindle.amazon.com.

– 24 Hour Access, From Home
My local library keeps reducing their operating hours — but fortunately, their Kindle ebooks can be checked out using the library’s web site! (After selecting your book, just sign into your Amazon account, which is linked to your Kindle or your Amazon reading apps.) You don’t have to make a trip to the library just to get new ebooks — and you don’t ever have to drive back there again later to return them!

– It Even Works with a WiFi-only Kindle
The ebooks aren’t delivered using Amazon’s WhisperSync technology, so you’ll receive them by making a local WiFi connection. (And they can even be transferred to your Kindle using its USB cord!) Obviously Amazon’s not earning any money when customers check out a Kindle ebook from their public library…but they’d otherwise still have to pay for the cost of every download (since Amazon buys its wireless “bandwidth” from AT&T).

– Long Check-Out Periods
Amazon didn’t put any restrictions on how long the ebooks can be checked out. (On their help page, they stress that you should contact your local library for the length of the check-out period and the availability of specific ebooks.) But Amazon still lets you know when you’re getting close to the end of the library’s check-out period. “Three days before the end of the loan period, we’ll send a courtesy reminder e-mail about the loan expiration,” Amazon explains on their web page. (Adding that “Once the loan period has ended, an additional e-mail notification will be sent.”) Again, the length of the check-out period is set by your local public library. (And thankfully, it looks like there won’t be overdue fines for ebooks!)

– Good Technical Support
Amazon’s created a special web page offering answers to the most frequently-asked questions, and there’s also a dedicated e-mail address just for feedback about the Kindle Library Books (at kindle-publiclibraries-feedback@amazon.com ).
Users can also see how many days are left in their check-out period just by visiting the library’s web page, or on their “Manage Your Kindle” page at amazon.com/myk .

– They’re Everywhere!
Amazon’s offering Kindle ebook check-outs through the OverDrive system, which has already been set up in over 11,000 American public libraries. “We’re thrilled that Amazon is offering such a new approach to library ebooks…” said the librarian at Seattle’s public library, adding that it “enhances the reader experience.”

“This is a welcome day for Kindle users in libraries everywhere and especially our Kindle users here at The Seattle Public Library.”

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”.

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!

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!

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!

Over 900 Ebooks On Sale!

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Amazon Big Deal 99-cent ebook sale


Better hurry. Amazon’s announced a big sale on ebooks — but it ends Wednesday. “Now through July 27, more than 900 Kindle books are on sale,” they explain on a special web page, “for $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, and $3.99.”

They’re calling the promotion “The Big Deal,” and it’s a nice way to highlight the wide selection of e-books that are now available in Amazon’s Kindle store. Besides fiction, I see celebrity biographies, plus books about cooking, fitness and parenting — and everything from Christian fiction to a satirical e-book called “Stuff Christians Like.” Even if the special prices aren’t available in your country, it’s still a nice way to imagine new things you could be reading on your Kindle. I browsed through the list today, and found some books that I didn’t even know existed!

One of the most-popular ebooks on sale today is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” — which is billed as an “expanded edition” of Jane Austen’s classic 19th-century romance novel. (“85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with ‘ultraviolent zombie mayhem,'” explains the book’s description on Amazon.) “This parody shows that Austen’s novel has remained so powerful over time that even the undead can’t spoil it,” reads another review. But it turns out it’s just one of several strange literary mash-ups that are now available at a reduced in price.

There’s also “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls” — which is billed as a prequel by a new author — as well as his follow-up effort, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After”. Through Wednesday each ebook is available for just 99 cents — and you can also purchase a similar ebook titled “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.” Someone’s even attempted a similar re-working of a famous short story by Franz Kafka — The Metamorphosis — by changing its plot so the protagonist turns not into an insect, but a cat. Its title? The Meowmorphosis. (And apparently there’s even a zombie ebook for children, titled “That’s Not Your Mommy Anymore: A Zombie Tale”…)

I’m not the only one who’s excited about the sale. “Just got my Kindle a few days ago, so the timing is perfect…” read one comment on Facebook. In fact, when Amazon announced the special prices, 538 different people indicated that they liked the deal (by pressing Facebook’s “Like” icon) — and another 101 left comments. “At $0.99, it is a perfect opportunity to try new authors,” read another comment, which added “I have found several new authors to read…”

It looks like there’s price discounts on nearly a thousand ebooks. (The best-seller list ends at #972…) But some of the ebooks are just enhanced editions where the text is already available elsewhere as a free e-book. For example, one of the special deals touts the classic Zane Grey western — “Riders of the Purple Sage” — for just $2.99, though the work is now in the public domain, and you can already find a free edition elsewhere in the Kindle store. There’s also an audio/video-enhanced version of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin for $1.99 — though if you’re looking for just the text, a free edition is also available.

I was surprised to find another ebook available for free — an indie biography (with a lot of pictures) called The Beatles: Fifty Fabulous Years by Les Krantz and Robert Rodriguez. But that just goes to show how much fun I had browsing through all of the sale-priced ebooks today. I discovered that even Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, has a funny ebook available at a special sales price, called “Your Movie Sucks” — a collection of his sharpest reviews, now available for just $1.99. And for $1.99, you can also read “Day of the Triffids” – the classic science fiction novel-turned movie that was immortalized forever in the opening song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

There’s also two food-related books seemed interesting. One was “The I Love Trader Joe’s Cookbook: More than 150 Delicious Recipes Using Only Foods from the World’s Greatest Grocery Store” — specially-priced at just $2.99. And for ketchup lovers, there’s even “H. J. Heinz: A Biography” for only $3.99.

So what other interesting ebooks are on sale today in Amazon’s Kindle Store?

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland ($2.99)
Kindle 3 For Dummies ($3.99)
The Art of War by Sun Tzu ($2.99)
The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (99 cents)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey ($5.99)
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ($5.99)
Old Yeller – $1.99
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary ($3.99)
Bermuda Shorts by James Patterson – $4.99
Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs – $3.79
Wuthering Heights: The Wild and Wanton Edition ($2.99)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ($3.99)

Click here for a complete list

Who is the Most Highlighted Author of All Time?

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Suzanne Collins

Do people highlight passages on their Kindle? According to Amazon, the most-frequently highlighted passage of all time has been highlighted just 4,743 times. It’s this sentence from Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”


In fact, the same novel also contains the fourth most-highlighted passage (highlighted by 3,965 Kindle owners).

“Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”


Amazon’s made a complete list available showing hundreds and hundreds of the most-highlighted passages of all time. But it turns out that Jane Austen isn’t the most-highlighted author in the top 10. That distinction belongs to Suzanne Collins — the contemporary novelist who recently became only the sixth author to sell million e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store. Three of 10 most-highlighted passages all come from her “Hunger Games” trilogy, with two from its final book — including the second- and third-most highlighted passages of all time!


“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

     — from Mockingjay
        (Highlighted by 4,390 Kindle users)

“Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.”

     — from Catching Fire
        (Highlighted by 4,001 Kindle users)

“We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

     — from Mockingjay
        (Highlighted by 3,206 Kindle users)


Collins also has three more passages in the top 50, and another 7 in the top 100, for a grand total of 13 different passages which all made it into the top 100. And Amazon has also created a second list of the passages which were most-highlighted in the recent past — where Collins holds six of the top 10 spots!

“what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”

     — from Mockingjay

“District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety.”

     — from The Hunger Games

“The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

     — from The Hunger Games


It’s fun reading the highlights, getting quick glimpses of new books I might want to read, and discovering which surprising sentences other Kindle owners picked out as their most-favorite sentences. Reading all the highlights can give a tiny peek into what the actual books are like. And I have to admit, after reading those highlighted passages from Suzanne Collins’ books, it made me curious to read the whole thing! But it’s also made me want to spend more time visiting kindle.amazon.com — just so I can see more highlighted passages.

Amazon’s also identified which books are the most-highlighted of all time — and it’s an entirely different set of books. Four of the top 10 are different versions of the bible, and one holds the #1 spot on the list. In fact, surprisingly, there’s just one work of fiction in the top 10 — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The other five books are self-help titles, including two by science writer Timothy Ferris. The second most-highlighted book is “The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman,” and the fifth most-highlighted book is “The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.”

So now I have a dilemma. Should I read about rapid fat-loss — or The Hunger Games?

Colleges Begin Using All-Ebook Libraries

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Drexel University Library Learning Terrace

Time magazine just announced the news: “the bookless library has finally arrived.”

Last month Drexel University opened their new “Library Learning Terrace,” offering students 24-hour access to the university’s 170 million e-books, digital newspapers, magazine and journal articles, and other educational material. Everything, that is, except printed books. The Philadelphia unversity’s Dean of Libraries says the facility will let them “define a new library environment,” and they’re now considering the idea of building even more book-free learning hubs across the campus.

But they’re not the only university library without printed books. Ten years ago, Kansas State University got rid of most the books in their engineering library, according to Time‘s article. And it also notes that last year Stanford “pruned all but 10,000 printed volumes from its new engineering library,” and that San Antonio’s “ditched print in lieu of electronic material when it opened its engineering library in 2010.”

Of course, it’s only a few examples — but it suggests a big question for the future. As students get more comfortable with digital texts, will campus libraries begin stocking their shelves with e-books? Imagine a magical world where nothing’s ever overdue, and there’s always an endless number of copies for every single book. Plus, even the bookshelves could be eliminated, replaced with a few remote book servers. It’d leave more room for desks and tables for studying — some of which would inevitably be equipped with special screens for displaying e-books!

We may be witnessing the start of the book-free era without even realizing it – but at Drexel University, they celebrated with a party. It had its grand opening just last month, according to the library’s web page, with over 250 attendees marking the occasion. “As the crowd counted three, two, one…the shades of the Terrace were drawn and the attendees saw the new Terrace for the first time,” remembers a post on the library’s blog. It happened at twilight, as “their wrists aglow, the sighting of the first star kicked-off the opening remarks.” (Glow sticks had been passed out to the attendees, according to a description on Flickr, which adds that the festivities also included a DJ and snacks.) There were also prize give-aways, according to the university’s student newspaper, which reported a handful of lucky students were chosen “to have the honor of being the first to enter the facility.”

It’s stirred up a debate this week in the comments at Time magazine. “There is no guarantee that technology we use ten, twenty or fifty years from now will be capable of accessing the data we currently have stored on our CDs, DVDs, servers and hard drives,” posted one reader. But another comment argued that the only real issue was fear of change. “No one was up in arms when music began to go digital vs physical, we are seeing the same with movies, so why is this so shocking when it come to literary work?” And another comment agreed, arguing much of the resistence is “an entirely emotional and nostalgic reaction. Future generations will be just as inspired by the media they encounter; it’s the content, not the format, that counts.”

And whatever else you can say about Drexel’s new book-free library — it looks really nice!

Drexel University Library Learning Terrace picture

Celebrate Independence Day with Three Free Ebooks

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Thomas Jefferson

Last year I found a fun way to celebrate the America’s “Independence Day” with my Kindle. On the 4th of July, I’d pointed my Kindle to Wikipedia’s web page with a fascinating history of the Declaration of Independence. Just seven months before the famous document was signed, author Thomas Jefferson had written “there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do.

“But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America…”

Wikipedia walks you through all the events that led up to July 4, 1776 — but you don’t have to content yourself with a Wikipedia for your American history fix. When he was 65 years old, another American patriot — Benjamin Franklin — began writing a fascinating autobiography of his own life. More than 200 years later, it’s become one of the best-selling free e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store. Franklin had continued working on his biography over the last 20 years of his life, until his death at age 84 in 1790 — noting wryly that “the Affairs of the Revolution occasion’d the Interruption…”

It’s especially poignant that Benjamin Franklin began writing it in 1770 as a loving letter to his son. But soon Franklin’s son had sided with the British druing the American Revolution, and Wikipedia notes that they were hopelessly estranged by the time Franklin sat down to write part two in 1784. Now he was 78, and laying down his thoughts in the year 1784 about his the ideas for…a public library. And in part three — written in 1788 at the age of 82 — Franklin also remembered inventing his famous Franklin stove…and then declining to patent the invention because he’d created it for “the good of the people.”

His biography is currently one of Amazon’s top 30 free ebooks, so I’m obviously not the only person who’s reading it this weekend. It’s a great way to answer the question: What kind of men launched the American Revolution? And it just goes to show you that with a little research, the Kindle can give you an almost magical glimpse into the realities of our past…

Last year I’d discovered that it was impossible to find a free copy in Amazon’s Kindle store — but in 2011, there’s now a free copy available for downloading (as well as a free copy of the U. S. Constitution). Currently the Declaration of Independence has received two five-star reviews from Amazon customers (“As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I heartily recommend this timeless classic to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history…”) — while the free version of the Constitution received only four and a half. (“Accurate reproduction and free, but does not include any amendments…”)

But there’s also a fascinating story about how the Declaration of Independence first came online. 40 years ago, a student at the University of Illinois launched a mission to make the great works of literature available for free to the general public. Remembering the man who’d revolutionized the world of reading by inventing the first mechanical printing press, he named his collection “Project Gutenberg”. By 2009, they’d created over 30,000 free e-texts, according to Wikipedia. And it’s a cause that’s near and dear to the hearts of a lot of geeks online.

But here’s my favorite part of the story. He’d launched this lifelong campaign back in 1971, anticipating all the great literature that he’d be sharing with the entire world, and even making available for new generations to come. So on that first day, 40 years ago, which great work of literature did he choose as the very first one?

The Declaration of Independence.

Amazon Announces Their Favorite New Kindle E-Books

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Amazon's best e-books of 2011 list

Amazon obviously knows a lot about e-books, and they’ve just released their list of the best Kindle e-books of 2011… “so far”.

“This midyear retrospective highlights the best books released in 2011 between January and June,” Amazon explained in a press release. “Customers looking for great books to read this summer will find an eclectic list, from a faux memoir conceived as an introduction to a long-lost Shakespeare play to one of the most fantastic survival stories of World War II.”

I like the way they’ve filled their “best of 2011” page with several different lists — nearly a dozen — where Amazon’s selected the best books in different categories. There’s the best novels, the best biographies and memories, the best mystery and thriller e-books, and even the best books on business and investing. And they’ve also selected the best romance e-books of 2011 (so far) — and the best science fiction. Here’s links to all the different categories where Amazon’s chosen this year’s best e-books.

Fiction
Non-Fiction
Biographies and Memoirs
Business and Investing
Mysteries and Thrillers
Romance
Science Fiction
Teens

So what books made the list? #1 is “Lost in Shangri-La,” a non-fiction best-seller which Amazon picked as their favorite e-book for May. (In 1945, 24 airline passengers crashed in a New Guinea jungle, and the three survivors are “caught between man-eating headhunters and enemy Japanese” as they seek sanctuary in tribe of superstitious natives.) And Tina Fey’s humorous autobiography “Bossypants” has also reached the #6 spot on Amazon’s “best of 2011” list. (Amazon called the memoir it “Short, messy, and impossibly funny.”) Here’s the complete top 10.

Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
Bossypants by Tina Fey
22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson
Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

But Amazon also noted that Fey’s book was part of surprising trend. “Perhaps surprisingly, half of our favorite books so far this year were written by debut authors.” There’s even a first novel by comedy writer/actor Albert Brooks (who wrote and directed the movie “Defending Your Life” and supplied the voice of the father in Pixar’s “Finding Nemo”). Surprisingly, it turns up on Amazon’s science fiction list — though there’s also a few political jabs about the way America approaches social security, healthcare, and preparedness for natural disasters. Its title? “2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America.”

This list-making is one of Amazon’s favorite activities, according to their Managing Editor of Books. “Our goal with Best of the Year So Far is to go beyond our personal favorites and identify books that transcend genre,” he said in a statement Monday. “The books on our Top 10 list are engrossing reads that you could give to anyone, no matter what their taste.”

Did Amazon get it right? Click here to explore their “best of” lists yourself!

The Secrets of Amazon’s First Self-Published Million-Seller

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Donovan Creed e-book author John Locke

It’s hard not to find this inspiring. Amazon’s only had seven authors who have ever sold one million e-books in their Kindle store. But last week Amazon announced an eighth author had also achieved that milestone — and this time, it’s a little different. Instead of working through a major publishing house, Amazon’s latest million-seller is a self-published author!

As of last week, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books, Amazon announced — and he did it using Amazon’s own Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Locke said (in Amazon’s press release) that the platform “has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the book selling industry. Calling it “the greatest friend an author can have,” he said “Not only did Kindle Digital Publishing give me a chance, they helped at every turn.”

It’s always exciting to see someone strike it rich, seeing all of their dreams coming true. Last week the Associated Press asked Locke if he’d want to sign a deal with a major publisher, but Locke casually
insisted that no, “It just wouldn’t be fun for me.” Instead he said breezily that he liked the idea “of being able to walk away from writing if it stops being fun.” And he’s just published another e-book offering the secrets to his success — called “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!”

Yes, five months — if the book’s title is to be believed. “John Locke has sold more than 1,000,000 eBooks by word of mouth!” reads an announcement on the author’s web site. “All this was achieved PART TIME, without an agent, publicist, and at virtually no marketing expense!” he adds in the description for a new book. And in its introduction, Locke lists out some equally impressive accomplishments.

For example, he’s the first self-published author to reach the #1 spot on Amazon’s best-seller’s list — and the first to hold both #1 and #2 at the same time! In fact, at one point he had four books in the top 10 — and he’s also had seven books in the top 34 simultaneously, and eight books in the top 50. “These numbers are not positions within a category,” John writes in his new book. “They are positions that include all Kindle sales including fiction, non-fiction, magazine subscriptions, and game apps!” Locke writes that by the middle of March, “it had been calculated that ‘every 7 seconds, 24 hours a day, a John Locke novel is downloaded somewhere in the world.'”

Ironically, his book opens with a boilerplate disclaimer. (“Names, characters, places and incidnets are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.”) But it’s an exciting story for anyone who’s ever considered writing an e-book. Between September of 2010 and March of 2011, Locke’s monthly Kindle sales went from 63 e-books…to 369,115. And when he released “Vegas Moon,” it jumped to the #3 spot on Amazon’s best-seller list within just two weeks.

But the numbers aren’t the real story, and it’s even more inspiring to read Locke’s perspective about how the world of book publishing is changing. He describes the publishing industry as “high school on steroids” — where beautiful people hold the upper hand over everyone else. (In this case, through expensive newspaper ads promoting their books, along with in-store book displays and carefully-arranged promotional reviews.) “As a self-published author, I’m boxed out of these marketing opportunities,” he notes. “Worse, I can’t afford to offer my my print books as cheaply as they can…! I’d like to complete, but it’s hard to beat the home team on a playing field that’s hopelessly slanted against you!”

“eBooks allow a guy like me an opportunity to level the playing field.”

Maybe it’s more proof that the world really is changing — already — due to the popularity of the digital readers like the Kindle. It seems like more and more authors are now starting to cross that magic line: one million e-books sold. Three more authors joined the “Kindle Million Club” in just the first week of June, and within two weeks Amazon was announcing that this fourth author had joined them. Maybe there’s just more people this year who are finally able to buy e-books.

Last week, the signs seemed pretty clear. Amazon’s Vice President of Kindle content even issued a statement, saying “It’s so exciting that self-publishing has allowed John Locke to achieve a milestone like this. We’re happy to see Kindle Direct Publishing succeeding for both authors and customers and are proud to welcome him to the Kindle Million Club.” But meanwhile, Locke himself continues writing away on his personal blog on the internet, sharing a peek into the mind of one of the eight most-successful Kindle authors of all time. His latest slogan?

“You only notice the ones who are breaking the rules!”