Tag: sales

Amazon’s Surprise Sale on Kindle Tablets

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Amazon front-page announcement about a sale on Kindles

There’s a surprising announcement on the front-page of Amazon. “Limited time only…” it reads. Amazon’s color Fire HD7 tablet is now just $119!

For a shortcut to Amazon’s special sale, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/HighestThanks

It’s a “thank-you sale”, according to Amazon. Customers voted Amazon into the #1 spot — “highest in customer satisfaction” for tablets — in a survey of by J.D. Powers. Apple’s iPad came up short, finishing second, and in third place was Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. But Amazon was so excited, they’ve rushed out a discount on their Fire HD 7 tablets.

Normally it retails for $139, but Amazon’s offering a special 15% discount. If you want an even cheaper tablet, Amazon also offers a six-inch “Fire HD 6” tablet Fire for just $99. You may even start to wonder if Amazon’s selling these at a loss, because Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 costs a full $199. Amazon’s tablet has the exact same high-resolution display — with 216 pixels per inch — and the same two built-in cameras. And of course, Fire HD 7 tablets are available in five different colors (Yellow, Pink, Blue, Black, and White)!

But the low price may be helping Amazon in more ways than one. The voting for “highest satisfaction” was incredibly close, and on a scale of 1 to 1,000 the top three tablets were all within six points of each other. Amazon beat Apple by just three points, and Samsung’s tablets were just three more points behind. For years Apple had always won the “highest satisfaction” award, every year that the survey was taken, in an unbroken streak, according to Computerworld — until the end of 2013, when they faced a surprise upset by Samsung’s tablets.

Ironically, Apple iPad’s reclaimed the #1 spot in the “highest satisfaction” survey release May of 2014, but only to lose it again this month — to Amazon! It was Amazon’s “Mayday” feature that customers seemed to like, according to another article in Computerworld. They’d interviewed a senior director at the surveying company, who explained that after talking to 2,700 tablet owners all acros America, they saw a surprising jump in Amazon’s popularity. After finishing fourth in the May survey, “I figured [Amazon’s] scores would improve, but I didn’t think they’d take the top spot!”

Today Amazon is blasting the news. “Fire tablets ranked ‘Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Tablets,’ screams the announcement on their front page. But of course, it’s also becoming a win for holiday shoppers.
“To say thanks, save $20 on Fire HD 7 — limited time only…”

For a shortcut to Amazon’s special sale, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/HighestThanks

Three New Ways to Save Money on a Kindle Fire Tablet

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If you’re shopping for a new Kindle Fire tablet, I’ve just discovered some great new ways to save money. For example, if you’re just shopping for a basic Kindle Fire tablet, you can buy one now from Amazon for just $134. It’s a refurbished Kindle Fire, a previously-owned device that Amazon promises has been “refurbished, tested, and certified to look and work like new.” That’s a savings of $25 — and Amazon’s also offering similar discounts on some of their other Kindle Fire tablets!

This means that you can also save $30 on the high-definition versions of Amazon’s 7-inchKindle Fire tablets. A refurbished model now costs just $169 — a nice discount from its usual price of $199. These tablets come with 16-gigabytes of storage space, but Amazon’s also offering the same discount on the tablets with more storage. For $199, you can buy the 32-gigabyte version of a refurbished Kindle Fire HD tablet — though the new ones would normally cost you $229!

That may actually feel like a $50 savings to some people, because up until this month, Amazon was charging $249 for the 32-gigabyte version of their Kindle Fire HD tablets. But sometime in April, they quietly discounted its price to just $229. Now they’ve discounted that another $30 if you’ll purchase a refurbished version. And if you opt for the 16-gigabyte drive instead, you’ll save $80 over what the 32-gigabyte version would’ve cost you in March!

I was hoping Amazon would also discount some of their black-and-white, e-ink Kindles. But when I checked this morning, they were still on sale at their regular price. In a way, that makes these refurbished tablets seem that much more special. The only thing better than a multimedia Kindle is one that Amazon sold you at a big discount!

“Every Certified Refurbished Kindle is backed by a full one-year limited warranty,” Amazon explains, “just like a brand-new Kindle.” (Before shipping them to customers, Amazon performs a full diagnostic test, install the latest software, give the devices a thorough cleaning, and even re-package them in a new box.) It even comes with a free month of Amazon Prime, so you can watch thousands of movies and TV shows in Amazon’s Instant Video library without having to pay for them individually. Amazon Prime also qualifies you for a discount on faster shipping of any products you purchase from Amazon — but it also earns you some fun Kindle freebies, like the ability to access new books for free in the “Kindle Owner’s Lending Library”!

And as a last selling point, Amazon’s even created a new web page where they compare their Kindle Fire tablets to Applet’s iPad mini. The page’s slogan…

“Don’t you love getting more for less?”

Grammy Meets Kindle

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janis_ian

So I was lying on my couch Sunday reading a Kindle. I switched over to my Kindle Fire, and decided to pull up its Facebook app. In the background I was listening to my favorite album — some classic jazz to help me unwind for the night — when I spotted an announcement on Facebook from Amazon’s music page.

“Need some new tunes? Get current and past GRAMMY-nominated songs for $0.69 each.”

It seemed too good to be true, but within minutes I was sharing the news to all of my friends. (“Guess what happens when you go to tinyurl.com/GrammyMp3s ? Amazon’s discounted 73 past and present Grammy-winning songs to just 69 cents!”) Amazon’s discounted songs by some of the biggest names in music, including Beyonce, Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen, and John Mayer.

And then I discovered that Amazon had also discounted over 168 Grammy-nominated albums — some as low as $2.99.

See the selection by pointing your browser to tinyurl.com/GrammyAlbumMp3s

There were discounts on several classic albums are on sale for just $2.99, including Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, Carol King’s Tapestry, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. But there were also discounts on more recent albums, like Wild Ones by Flo Rida, as well as two albums by Coldplay, two by Bonnie Raitt, and two by Kelly Clarkson. There were sales on digital music albums by everyone from Bob Dylan to Barbra Streisand, and even an album by Cannonball Adderly and MTV’s special “Tony Bennett Unplugged”. In 2004, at the age of 73, Ray Charles had recorded his final album, a new collection of duets with famous musicians called Genius Loves Company. Amazon’s discounted that album to just $3.99.

With 168 albums to choose from, it’s a great way to look back at the history of music as seen by the Grammy awards — all the way up to the present. (The Lumineers were nominated as “Best New Artist of 2012” — and Amazon’s discounted also two of their songs to just 69 cents.) But I learned tonight that there was also a lot of excitement over the surprise upset win in an unusual Grammy category — “best spoken word album”. First lady Michelle Obama and former president Bill Clinton were competing against Janis Ian, a singer-songwriter who’s probably best known for her thoughtful 1975 song, “At Seventeen”. Other nominees included Ellen Degeneres and Rachel Maddow, but in the end, Janis Ian won the award for a heartfelt recording of her autobiography — Society’s Child.

And best of all, it’s available for the Kindle — both as an ebook, and as a Grammy award-winning audiobook. It’s available at both Amazon and at Audible.com, which describe her memoir as “a relentlessly honest account of the successes and failures – and the hopes and dreams – of an extraordinary life.” But just three ago, Janis Ian had one more story to tell. On her Facebook page, she shared the news that first lady Michelle Obama had just posted about her on Twitter — a message of congratulations. (Ian responded on Facebook: “OMG.”)

Once a year, the Grammy awards remind me of how many different artists there are who are trying to create some really great recordings. And it’s especially nice that this year, there’s a way to enjoy them on your Kindle!

100 eBooks for November for $3.99 (or Less)

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Amazon Kindle 399 ebook sale

Each month Amazon picks 100 Kindle ebooks to sell at a special discount — and there’s still a few days left to browse November’s deals. You can find all 100 ebooks at tinyurl.com/399books — and when December starts, there’ll be 100 more discounted ebooks at the same URL.

As always, Amazon’s discounting books from seven different genres, so there’ll be a nice variety to choose from. And it looks like this month, Amazon’s discounted some ebooks about business and investing. (I don’t remember ever seeing these discounts before on Amazon’s business ebooks!) Plus, there’s some additional discounts on “popular romances” at the bottom of the page, including holiday-themed ebooks like Kissing Under the Mistletoe and Christmas on Mimosa Lane.

Here’s some of the November discounted ebooks for November that I thought looked especially intriguing.


SuperFreakonomics ($3.79)

It’s a sequel to the wildly successful “pop economics” book Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Their original has sold over 4 million copies, and according to the new book’s description at Amazon, “fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.” It’s hard to resist the book’s tantalizing topics, like “What’s the best way to catch a terrorist? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?” Amazon’s description promises that the two authors “mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else… By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.”


Ali in Wonderland – Enhanced Edition with Audio/Video ($3.99)

Ali Wentworth has written an “addictively funny and warm memoir,” according to Amazon’s description of the book — and what a life she’s led. Her mother was the White House social secretary for President Ronald Reagan’s wife Nancy, but Ali “rebelled against her blue-blood upbringing, embracing Hollywood, motorcycles, even a few wildly inappropriate marriage proposals.” She eventually became a comedic actress — Ali started her career doing sketch comedy in Los Angeles with Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow. And though her wild life story usually costs $25.99, Amazon’s selling it in November for just $3.99. (They’re billing it as a special “enhanced edition” with 25 audio clips of the author herself telling the stories, but there’s a disclaimer that says those clips are only available if you’re using the Kindle apps for the iPad, or the iPhone or iPod Touch!)


Overconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet ($2.99)

A surprising book offers a fresh perspective about the world of today by William H. Davidow, a former senior executive at Intel, who warns that the online world’s “overconnection” could have very bad consequences not just economically and politically, but also on our everyday lives. The book’s gotten some great reviews — James Fallow wrote that it “has the wonderful effect of explaining seemingly unrelated problems in a way that instantly makes sense once it is pointed out, and that also suggests feasible corrections,” calling it “clear, original, and worth being widely read.” And a Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor named David M. Kennedy has emphatically declared that Overconnected was “a bold and brave book.”


The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope ($2.99)

A former reporter for the Associated Press teamed up with a young African named William Kamkwamba to tell a fascinating story. At the age of 15, in impoverished Malawi, young Kamkwamba decided to try to build a windmill for his village using discarded junk and some borrowed textbooks. It’s an inspiring story — Amazon picked it as one of the best books of the month when a reprint was released in 2009. Kamkwamba explains that the windmill “meant more than just power, it was freedom,” and the book’s publisher even boasts of an endorsement from former Vice President Al Gore, who described the book as “a moving and exciting story”.

Plus, this book comes with “Whispersync for Voice” capabilities — so you can switch from reading the ebook to listening to the audiobook edition on your Android or iOS smartphone. (The audiobook edition is sold separately, but the reduced price is reduced to $9.95 when you buy the discounted ebook.) And the audiobook/ebook combo can also be combined on any Kindle Fire tablet for “Immersion Reading”, so each word is highlighted as it’s being read in the audiobook.


Remember, you can find all 100 ebooks at tinyurl.com/399books

and when December starts, there’ll be 100 more discounted ebooks at the same URL!

A 50% Discount on “Throw in the Vowel”!

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Throw in the Vowel - a Kindle word game

It’s just 99 cents now to purchase the new Kindle word game, “Throw in the Vowel.” (I know, because I’m the game’s co-creator!) :) Take a look at this URL…

http://www.tinyURL.com/ThrowInTheVowel

But I was really excited to see new five-star reviews piling up for the game. It’s gotten 16 of them so far, from all around the country — from Alabama, Florida, California, Kentucky, Oregon… Those five-star reviews have helped to make it one of Amazon’s top-rated Kindle games — we’re actually two ranks above Yahtzee — and it’s always a thrill for me to read what other people are saying.

“I find myself unable to put it down…” wrote the reviewer in Louisville.

“This game is one of the neatest and most different I have ever done… Definitely a great word game if you are not into crosswords and get tired of word search.

Here’s a screenshot showing how the game actually looks. (I almost cried when I saw how beautiful the background image was, thanks to our very talented graphic designer…)

Throw in the Vowel Kindle game screenshot

I spent over a year creating this game with my business partner, Dr. Jeffrey Prince, so it was really rewarding to finally see actually people playing with what we’d built – and enjoying it! “If you love word games, you’ll love this!” wrote a reviewer in Pennsylvania, who said it became “one of my favorite Kindle games.” And Len Edgerly, the podcaster behind the popular “Kindle Chronicles” online broadcasts, described it as “Invigorating fun with words.”

“Throw in the Vowel is made to order for taking a break that refreshes and entertains. Highly recommended!”

We just launched the game this spring, but we didn’t release the Kindle Touch version until just this June! And right now our game is still one of Amazon’s top-50 best-selling Kindle games! (In fact, it’s now the #5,097 best-selling item in the entire Kindle Store!) I’m actually not sure how many days this special 99-cent offer is going to last, so this is your best opportunity to see what everyone’s getting so excited about it. As we ask on the game’s web page at Amazon…

Can you “Throw in the Vowel”? :D


Check out the game and its five-star reviews at
http://www.tinyURL.com/ThrowInTheVowel

Amazon Gives Away FREE Music Downloads!

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Amazon Twitter $2.00 Discount .mp3 Music Sale

I’ve really enjoyed Amazon’s music give-aways – and I’m always amazed at how many there are. I think I’ve gotten more than a dozen music files for free, which I’ve loaded onto my Kindle for reading “background music,” but this week Amazon’s announced another sale. They’re giving away a $2.00 credit for free music downloads — any .mp3s — if you’re willing to let them post one appropriate message on your Twitter account.

“I just got a $2 credit for music from @amazonmp3 and @imdb. Get your credit here…”

Here’s my shortcut to the URL for Amazon’s free music offer – just go to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeAmazonMp3s

The offer is good through Saturday, July 28th, and it applies to any digital music downloads (but not CDs) purchased at mp3.Amazon.com. To accept the offer, you temporarily connect your Amazon and Twitter accounts — but you can revoke the connection just as soon as you’ve used your $2.00 credit. (Just click the “Edit Your Profile” button at the upper-right of your profile page, and then click the “Apps” links which appears at the right of your screen…)

I was surprised that Amazon’s offering more free mp3s so soon after their last free music give-away. But apparently they’ve partnered up with the movie web site, IMDB.com, who are listed as the “sponsors” of this latest round of free music. Now I’ve started keeping a “wish list” of songs I’d like for background music, so I’ll be ready the next time Amazon announces a free music give-away. You can keep up on all of Amazon’s music give-aways by “Liking” their page on Facebook (at facebook.com/amazonmp3 ).

For this week’s free music offer from Amazon, just go to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeAmazonMp3s

Twenty MORE Songs for Just .25 Cents Each!

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Vintage phonography gramophone record player

Amazon’s doing it again! Last week they’d picked 20 “essential summer jams,” and then dropped the price for downloading each song to just 25 cents. But they also promised they’d discount more songs,
and sure enough, they’ve finally announced their second selection of twenty more songs. You can download them all to your Kindle, your mp3 player, or your computer for just 25 cents each!

See the whole selection at
tinyurl.com/20moreSongs

Amazon’s calling this batch of 20 songs their “Customer Picks Playlist.” (“Recently we polled our Facebook and Twitter followers to find out what songs they wanted to see for $0.25 each…”) There’s more cheery summer classics, like “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina & the Waves and “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley. But there’s also a surprising selection of recent artists, like Flo Rida and Linkin Park, plus some hard-rocking tunes from Metallica, Green Day, and even Led Zeppelin. Plus, as I told my friends on Facebook, Amazon’s even discounted that “We Are Young” song by Fun that the radio keeps playing over and over again…

And remember, even if you don’t buy anything, you can still have some fun with this sale. The web page plays a free 30-second sample of each song, so even if you’re really cheap, you can still listen to a 10-minute “montage” of music — the best “summer jams” as selected by other Amazon customers! Below is a complete list of all the new songs that Amazon’s discounted to just 25 cents.

Plus, Amazon’s also keeping the prices low on last week’s selection of “essential summer jams,” which means there’s now a total of forty songs that you can download for Kindle background music…

1. Oh Love by Green Day
2. Runaways by The Killers
3. It’s Time by Imagine Dragons
4. We Are Young (featuring Janelle Monáe) by Fun.
5. Ho Hey by the Lumineers
6. Pontoon by Little Big Town
7. Wanted by Hunter Hayes
8. The Boys Of Summer by Don Henley
9. Enter Sandman by Metallica
10. No Quarter by Led Zeppelin
11. Burn It Down by Linkin Park
12. Too Close by Alex Clare
13. Whistle by Flo Rida
14. Go Get It [Explicit] by T.I.
15. OMG by Usher (featuring will.i.am)
16. Over And Over by Hot Chip
17. Tongue Tied by Grouplove Never Trust A Happy Song
18. Good Time (featuring Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen) by Owl City
19. Smooth by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas)
20. Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves

Download any of the songs listed above at
tinyurl.com/20moreSongs

1. Wild Ones (Feat. Sia) by Flo Rida
2. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
3. California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg) [Explicit] by Katy Perry
4. Nothin’ On You [Feat. Bruno Mars] (Album Version) by B.o.B
5. Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
6. I’m Yours (Album Version) by Jason Mraz
7. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
8. Hot In Herre by Nelly
9. In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry
10. Good Vibrations (2001 – Remastered) by The Beach Boys
11. Sunshine by Matisyahu
12. Lights by Ellie Goulding
13. Everybody Loves The Sunshine by Roy Ayers
14. Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
15. Love Shack (Album Version) by The B-52′s
16. Some Nights by Fun.
17. Blister In The Sun by Violent Femmes
18. California Girls by David Lee Roth
19. Hot Fun In The Summertime (Single Version) by Sly And The Family Stone
20. Red Solo Cup by Toby Keith

Download any of these 20 songs at
tinyurl.com/20SummerSongs

Twenty Summer Songs for Just 25 Cents Each!

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Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding, The Beach Boys, and David Lee Roth

Amazon’s announcing another fun sale on music for your Kindle. To celebrate summer, they’ve slashed the prices on 20 “essential summer jams”, discounting the price of each song to just twenty-five cents! There’s everything from a classic Beach Boys single to “Wild Ones” by Flo Rida. I’m really impressed by the great variety in Amazon’s “essential playlist”.

To see the selection, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/20SummerSongs

So what counts as a summer song? Well for starters, there’s two different versions of California Girls — one by David Lee Roth, and “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (with Snoop Dogg). Brian Wilson, the lead singer for the Beach Boys, actually performed the background vocals on David Lee Roth’s version, and for another quarter, you can also download the Beach Boys’ own hard-to-find summer classic, “Good Vibrations”. To see a complete list of all 20 songs, just go to the bottom of this blog post!

“Amazon MP3” posted the news Wednesday on their Facebook page, also promising they’ll update the list with more songs next week based, on the comments they received. But even if you don’t buy anything, you can still have some fun with this sale. Amazon’s web page for this summer special plays a 30-second sample of each song. So even if you’re really cheap, you can still listen to a 10-minute “montage” of music — 30 seconds from each of Amazon’s 20 “essential summer jams!”

I think it’s a fun way to add some “seasonal” fun to your Kindle. Amazon brags about the ability to read your Kindle on the beach – and now there’s a sale on some appropriately beach-y music! When you’re doing some light summer reading, sometimes it’s nice to have some happy, sunny sounds in the background. Here’s a list of the 20 “essential summer jams” that Amazon’s selling for 25 cents each!

1. Wild Ones (Feat. Sia) by Flo Rida
2. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
3. California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg) [Explicit] by Katy Perry
4. Nothin’ On You [Feat. Bruno Mars] (Album Version) by B.o.B
5. Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
6. I’m Yours (Album Version) by Jason Mraz
7. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
8. Hot In Herre by Nelly
9. In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry
10. Good Vibrations (2001 – Remastered) by The Beach Boys
11. Sunshine by Matisyahu
12. Lights by Ellie Goulding
13. Everybody Loves The Sunshine by Roy Ayers
14. Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
15. Love Shack (Album Version) by The B-52’s
16. Some Nights by Fun.
17. Blister In The Sun by Violent Femmes
18. California Girls by David Lee Roth
19. Hot Fun In The Summertime (Single Version) by Sly And The Family Stone
20. Red Solo Cup by Toby Keith

Children’s Picture Books – Now 99 Cents Each!

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The Velveteen Rabbit cover illustration

Over 45 different children’s picture books are now each available for less than a dollar in Amazon’s Kindle Store! “From Aladdin to The Velveteen Rabbit,” Amazon posted on one of their Facebook pages, “these 45 Kindle-exclusive Rabbit Ears picture books are just 99¢ each for a limited time.” Amazon posted the announcement on the Facebook page for their Kindle Fire tablets, presumably because of the lavish cover images for each of the books. But these are “Kindle Edition” books, so you can enjoy them on any kind of Kindle!

There’s three Beatrix Potter stories in the mix, along with some adaptations of a few folk tales, and classic children’s stories by Rudyard Kipling (and two by Washington Irving). There’s even a few characters from history, whose lives are being re-told in special biographies for younger readers. To see the selection, just point your browser to tinyurl.com/DollarKidBooks. It looks like some of these books are brand new, and they normally sell for $7.77 — so it’s a pretty big savings.

Here’s a list of the 45 children’s books that have been reduced in price to just 99 cents!

The Velveteen Rabbit
Beatrix Potter’s A Tale of Two Bad Mice
The Three Little Pigs
How the Leopard Got his Spots by Rudyard Kipling
The Three Bill Goats Gruff
Johnny Appleseed
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen
How the Camel Get His Hump by Rudyard Kipling
Jack and the Beanstalk
Goldilocks
Pecos Bill
Rip Van Winkle
Rumpelstiltskin
The Elephant’s Child by Rudyard Kipling
John Henry
How the Rhinocerous Got His Skin
Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby
The Night Before Christmas
Anansi
Red Riding Hood
Tom Thumb
Noah and the Ark
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Paul Bunyan
Pinocchio
Annie Oakley
Davy Crocket
Parables That Jesus Told
Aladdin
Beatrix Potter’s Tales of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
Mose the Fireman
The Bremen Town Musicians
Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester
The Emperor and the Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen
Princess Scargo and the Birthday Pumpkin
The Boy Who Drew Cats
The Firebird
Follow the Drinking Gord
The Tiger and the Brahmin
Peachboy
The Monkey People
Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Squanto and the First Thanksgiving
The Fisherman and his Wife
Stormalong

Amazon Give-Away: $2.00 in Free Music Downloads

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The Avengers movie soundtrack cover

I love listening to music on my Kindle — and now Amazon’s making it even easier. Today they posted a special offer for music-lovers on their own page on Facebook — facebook.com/amazon — promising readers a $2.00 credit for any music download from mp3.Amazon.com. “Happy Friday!” reads their announcement. “Thumbs up if you like free music!”

To claim the credit, just visit this web page — or go to tinyurl.com/TwoFreeMp3s — and then just complete this sentence. “My favorite song right now is: ____.” A blue button lets you share your response with your friends on Facebook — and then claim your $2.00 credit for music downloads from Amazon!

You can even combine Amazon’s credit with the other discounts they’re already offering on their music page. For example, they’re offering downloads of entire albums for just five dollars — and sometimes even less. Madonna’s new album Mdna — released just seven weeks ago — is available for just $3.99, and so is Coldplay’s newest album, Mylo Xyloto. Plus, there’s a section of free song downloads, even songs by big-name, major-label recording artists like the Flaming Lips, Heart, Spoon, and Ziggy Marley. (I was excited to find some free classical tracks — one by Luciano Pavarotti, and a Rachmaninoff piano concerto by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.)

I’ve been uploading Amazon’s .mp3-format music files onto my Kindle, trying to create the perfect “background music” effect while reading certain ebooks. (When I read U.S. history, I like to listen to Aaron Copland!) Sometimes I’ll keep skipping through my music files, trying to find the right fit for the ebook I’m reading. And of course, I’m also a big fan of listening to music files while I’m surfing the web on my computer!

If you’re a movie lover, Amazon’s discounted the cost of downloading the entire soundtrack albums for some of this summer’s biggest blockbusters. Avengers: Assemble is just $5.99 (with music “from and inspired by” the movie.) And Amazon’s offering the same low price for The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. (Or, for $5.00, there’s a similar collection of songs from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. ) Remember, that’s the price before you subtract the special $2.00 credit that Amazon’s giving away online.

This means that all of Amazon’s $5.00 albums now cost just $3.00 — including the Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat album and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s Live Bullet. And some albums are even cheaper. For example, for $3.99 — or, $1.99, after applying the discount — Amazon will sell you one of nearly 400 different five-song collections from Rhino Records, commemorating classic rock artists like Foreigner, Foghat, Deep Purple, as well as “oldies” groups like The Coasters, The Drifters, Little Richard, or Otis Redding, plus collections of Ray Charles, John Coltrane, or Sammy Davis Jr.

I was really impressed by the wide variety of $3.99 $1.99 five-song collections that Rhino Records has available as .mp3 downloads. There were collections for 1960s bands like the Grateful Dead, The Association, and The Monkees, and there were collections for 1980s bands like The Cars, the B-52s, the Roches, and even Twisted Sister. (Also available were collections from some favorite light rock artists, like Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, George Benson, and Bread.) Plus, Rhino’s even selling discounted collections with five comedy tracks from Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, or Cheech and Chong. There’s some rap albums in the mix, with collections of Busta Rhymes, Coolio, or Ice-T — and more “alternative” bands like They Might Be Giants, the Rembrandts, and the Ramones…

There’s some other interesting full-length albums that are also available for just $3.99 $1.99 , including “99 Must-Have Christmas songs,” which Amazon pointed out was a $92.04 savings over the cost of buying each .mp3 individually. And for the same price, you can also buy Bill Cosby’s classic comedy album, 200 m.p.h..I think my all-time favorite title for any album on the site was Yeah Yeah Yeah by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. By the end of the afternoon, I’d spent nearly an hour browsing through all the choices before finally spending my $2.00 credit.

So what’s your current favorite song right now?

Are Fewer People Buying Kindles?

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Thursday is a big day. Amazon is going to announce their first earnings report for 2012 — and hopefully, some statistics about the popularity of their new Kindles. Obviously a lot of people received a Kindle Fire tablet for Christmas (or a new $79 Kindle, or a Kindle Touch) — but those sales were all counted as part of 2011. So it’s this report which could reveal not only whether Amazon’s selling a lot more digital movies and music downloads now — but also, whether even more people are still buying Kindles!

But at least one analyst thinks they’re not. “[W]e cut our 2012 Kindle e-reader unit sales forecasts to 12.3 million from 24.0 million due to weak demand,” Chad Bartley announced last week. He’s a senior research analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, an investment bank that focuses exclusively on technology. And he’s not just concerned about the Kindle Fire tablets, but even Amazon’s sales prospects for their black-and-white e-ink readers.

The firm conducted its quarterly “consumer technology” survey — and they noticed a big drop in the number of people who wanted a Kindle. “[O]nly 5% of respondents intend to purchase a Kindle e-reader in the next 12 months,” he explained in a note released last week, “which is well below the 10% reported in our last survey.” Of course, the problem could be that the Kindle is already very popular — and maybe there’s just fewer people left who don’t own a Kindle. “We attribute weakening demand to the large install base of Kindle e-readers…” writes Bartley, estimating that over 28 million people now have a Kindle! Digital readers have also “matured,” with lots of new competition.

But the Kindle is also facing competition from apps, which let people read ebooks without ever buying a Kindle. (Bartley’s note specifically cites a recent study by Pew Internet Research, which found that just 41% of e-book readers are actually using a Kindle-like device, “while 42% read them on a computer, 29% on a cell phone and 23% on a tablet!”) In an odd coindence, I found this article on a web site called Business Insider — just a few days after they ran another article proclaiming “The Death of the Printed Book”

That article cited a remarkable statistic: that 21% of Americans now say they’ve read an e-book within the last year — a big jump from the number two months earlier, when only 17% of Americans said they’d read an e-book. And when given a list of typical reading situations, a majority still said they preferred ebooks over printed books in nearly every one! (For example, reading in bed, or reading books while traveling…) So while the e-book is clearly gaining in popularity over the printed book — people may not be reading those e-books on a Kindle! Still, not everyone’s convinced that Amazon’s in trouble.

After all, Amazon sells books as well as Kindles — and in the comments on the article, there’s a least a few people who won’t blindly trust a business insider. “I think I’ll take what the ‘experts’ say with a grain of salt,” posted a user named Dan Delgado. “If I recall correctly (and I think I do), ‘Experts’ said Amazon and Kindle were ‘in trouble’ when Apple launched the iPad and colluded with book publishers. Apple (they said) would take over the ebook business.

“A couple years later, Apple has 10% of the ebook market and is being sued by the Justice Department for price fixing!”

A Big Valentine’s Day Sale for Kindle Owners

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Kindle Fire cover

Promising “a sweet deal” for Valentine’s Day, Amazon’s reduced the price on many Kindle accessories by 30%. The deal ends Tuesday (February 14th), but there’s still time to place an “overnight” order if you need a quick gift. And Amazon’s offering bigger discounts elsewhere on their site for some other traditional gift items. On some pieces of jewelry, Amazon’s even announced up to 70% discounts — and free one-day shipping!

But I was more intrigued by the bargain-priced Kindle accessories. For example, you can dress your Kindle Fire tablet in a genuine leather case for just $48.99. (Normally the Versa Marrakesh cover sells for $69.) And for the new Kindle (and other models), there’s also a wide selection of sleeves and cases. Even the Kindle power adapter is reduced in price, to just $14.99 (though you can also buy used adapters for as little as $2.00.)

Amazon promises these accessories make a great gift “for yourself or your favorite Kindle owner this Valentine’s day.” But they’re also offering big savings on “classic” Valentine’s Day gifts like chocolate, fragrances, watches, and clothing. There’s even gifts for men in categories like sports and recreation, fitness, and gear for sports fans. (Amazon promises that “Whether your leading man is a gadget guy, outdoor enthusiast, avid golfer, or devoted sports fan, we’ve got the perfect gifts to express your love.”) You can browse through all the discounted gifts in a special page Amazon’s created as a “Valentine’s Day store”.

To reach the page, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/AmazonValentines

Amazon’s even got a gift for Kindle lovers that you can purchase on February 14th. They’re offering “instant delivery” on an Amazon gift card via e-mail. (And I’m guessing the graphics are very attractive.) The selection includes “Kindle-branded” gift cards, so you can send a store credit that’s announced by the silhouette of a reader sitting happily under a tree. And you can really surprise your valentine on Tuesday by delivering your gift card as a Facebook “wall post”. (Amazon reminds you that besides ebooks, they’re also redeemable for “millions of other items at Amazon.”)

But best of all, you can even order a bouquet of flowers from Amazon, from companies like 1-800-Flowers and Proflowers!

Amazon Sells Special Mp3s for Just 69 Cents

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Vintage phonography gramophone record player

Amazon just announced a big sale on mp3 music files. They’ve identified 129 “one-hit wonders” — from six different decades — and they’re selling their most famous songs for just 69 cents each!

You’ll be able to listen to them on most Kindles — everything except Amazon’s new bargain $79 Kindles — and you’ll even be able to purchase them on your Kindle Fire tablet. (Otherwise, just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/69centMp3s .)

But what’s really fun is the way Amazon’s letting you hear a preview of all 129 songs automatically. Every 30 seconds, they’ll switch to a different song, creating a massive jukebox that covers the entire history of pop music — from the 1950s through the 21st century! At one point I heard Phil Spector’s very first song from 1958, “To Know Him is to Love Him” (which, according to Wikipedia, was inspired by the words on his own father’s gravestone). But towards the end, you’ll hear a song by Jace Everett — who wasn’t even born until 14 years later. (In 2005, Jace released the song “Bad Things,” which became the theme to HBO’s True Blood series in 2008.)

So what songs can you get from Amazon for 69 cents? It’s a fascinating mix!

1950s AND ’60s CLASSICS

“Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp-Bomp-Bomp)”

The original “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen

“Yakety Sax” — immortalized forever as the background music for The Benny Hill Show.

“(Do the) Loco-Motion” by Little Eva (who was Carol King’s baby-sitter!)

“Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies

“Tequila” by the Champs

“Barefootin’ ” by Robert Parker


’70s CLASSICS

The theme to Rocky (“Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti) — a special digital remaster from 2006

“Black Betty” by Ram Jam

“Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet

“Kiss You All Over (’til the Night Closes In)” by Exile

“Brandy” by Looking Glass

“(Tired of) Toeing the Line” by Rocky Burnette

“You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone

A forgotten top-10 hit by John Travolta called “Let Her In”


’80s HITS

“Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones

“Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners

“I Know What Boys Like” by the Waitresses

“99 Luftballons” by Nena

“Come on, Feel the Noize” by Quiet Riot

“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers

“Down Under” by Men at Work

Irene Cara’s “Flashdance”

“I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tiffany

“The Promise” by When in Rome (which was later used as the closing song in Napoleon Dynamite)


’90s HITS

“No Rain” by Blind Melon (which they promoted with the famous “dancing bee girl” music video on MTV)

“Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer

“Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice

“Unbelievable” by EMF

“Cotton Eye Joe” by the Rednex

“Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star

“(I’m a) Bitch” by Meredith Brooks

“Insane in the (Mem)Brain” by Cypress Hill


21st CENTURY HITS

“Stacy’s Mom (Has Got It Going On)” by Fountains of Wayne

“(Just) Breathe…” by Anna Nalick

“Who Let the Dogs Out” by Baha Men

“Everything You Want” by Vertical Horizon

“Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop” by Landon Pigg

“Stars are Blind” by Paris Hilton


It’s a fun jumble of music, and I’ve thought about surprising my friends with an mp3 — or maybe teasing them with one of my least favorite songs. (Amazon’s page helpfully reminds you that you can also “gift these songs to your friends and loved ones.”) There’s even some novelty numbers on sale, like “Monster Mash” by Boris Pickett and “Alley Oop” by the Hollywood Argyles, or “Shaddap You Face” by Joe Dolce — and even the song “Rubber Duckie” by Ernie from Sesame Street. I like how Amazon’s offering discounts on songs that I actually remember from when I went to high school many years ago.

And I really like how they’re selling each one for what’s basically the loose change in your pocket — two quarters, a dime, a nickel, and four pennies!

Amazon Announces Last-Minute Christmas Specials

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Amazon offers free shipping on Kindles for Christmas

There was some real excitement right around Christmas time. It’s easy to buy a new Kindle, now that the cheapest Kindles cost just $79. And on December 21st, until 8 p.m. (in Seattle), Amazon offered free two-day shipping on any Kindle, so it’d arrive just in time for the holidays!

“[W]e’re making it even easier to give a new Kindle this Christmas with free two-day shipping,” an executive in Amazon’s Kindle department bragged (adding “The new Kindles are hands down the best gifts you can give this holiday season…”) They offered the free two-day shipping to any address in the (continental) United States for any of the new Kindle models — including the color touchscreen Kindle Fire tablets, the Kindle Touch, and the new $79 Kindle. And of course, Amazon’s announcement also reminded you that you can “gift” an e-book, and schedule it’s delivery for a specific day — like Christmas. And they offered one more helpful suggestion for how to spend money at Amazon. “For $79, customers are buying multiple Kindles to use as stocking stuffers!”

But there’s also some deals that lasted even after Christmas at Amazon. I see some of the best games for the Kindle have gone on sale now for the ultra-cheap price of just 99 cents! For example, last week Electronic Arts released a slick new Kindle version of the classic game, Battleship. They’d originally priced it at $4.99 — but right now, it’s available for just 99 cents! (Just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/KindleBattleship

And it’s not the only great game that’s suddenly lowered its price. In fact, every game from Electronic Arts is now specially priced at just 99 cents. (Point your browser to tinyurl.com/MoreEAGames .) There’s even a master game pack that’s called “POGO Hearts, Spades, and More” which also includes Euchre, Gin, and Canasta in a single download. Here’s a list of the other EA games which are currently on sale for just 99 cents.

    Yahtzee
    Scrabble
    Solitaire
    Monopoly
    Trivial Pursuit
    Texas Hold’em
    Sudoku

But it gets better, because Amazon’s announced their list of the best games for all of 2011 — and all of those 25 games are on sale now for just 99 cents! That includes Mobigloo’s version of Mahjong Solitaire — which normally costs $3.99, and which Amazon named the #5 best game of the year. (Mobigloo’s Jewels — normally $1.99 — also grabbed the #3 on Amazon’s “best games of the year” list.) But it was EA Games that took four of the top ten slots on the list, including the #1 spot (for Yahtzee) and the #2 spot (for Scrabble).

To see the complete list, just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/Best2011Games. There’s New York Times crossword puzzles, many variations on Sudoku, and several apps with calendars, calculators, or Yoga poses.

And surprisingly, you can even get a discount on SpongeBob Squarepants’ Treasure Quest – since Amazon’s declared it the #16 best game of the year!

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!

A Black Friday “Secret Sale” on Kindle Keyboards?

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Kindle gift-wrapped as a Christmas gift

Everyone’s talking about Amazon’s new 32% discount on the Kindle DX. (Just point your computer’s web browser to
tinyurl.com/BlackFridayDX ) But if you visit Amazon today, you’ll also see big savings on the Kindle Keyboard (which used to be called “the Kindle 3”). Now you can buy one for as little as $79.00!

They’re used Kindles discounted by third-party sellers, and it looks like some Kindle owners may be upgrading to newer models, and then selling their older Kindles as a way to defray the costs! With names like “starving student” and “the Kindle Man,” they’re selling at least 50 different Kindle Keyboards at a discount — both the WiFi-Only version and the one with free 3G wireless connectivity. And at least 200 more are also being sold at a discount — on eBay! In fact, if you’re looking for a “Special Offers” version today, a used Kindle Keyboard may be your only option, since it it looks like Amazon’s sold out!

I’d been wondering if Amazon if Amazon would try to “clear their inventory” of the older Kindles, maybe timing the sale to occur on the “Black Friday” shopping day after Thanksgiving. In 2010, Amazon lowered the price on previous-generation Kindles (the Kindle 2) to just $89. But this year, even a new Kindle is $10 cheaper, at $79, so maybe that’s a hard price to beat. “There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less…” Amazon’s CEO said when they announced their new Kindle. “We are firmly in the second camp.”

Plus, by this time last year, Amazon had already announced their special sales prices (on Tuesday afternoon). So if Amazon were planning a Black Friday sales on Kindles, they probably would’ve said something by now. What’s really interesting is that Amazon’s cheap Kindles have now spurred a kind of price war, with Barnes and Noble scrambling to offer an equally low price on Friday for their touch-screen Nook!

Of course, last year I wrote that Amazon probably wouldn’t discount the Kindle on Black Friday — just 24 hours before they did! (“BIG UPDATE…” I’d added later to the post…)

So I haven’t given up hope that this year, Amazon could surprise us again…

Amazon Offers Special Low Prices on Kindle eBooks

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The Haunting Hour book cover by R I Stine

Time is running out — and I almost forgot to share one of my favorite web pages for the Kindle! Every month Amazon picks 100 ebooks to offer at a big discount — always $3.99 or less. (Just point your web browser to http://www.tinyurl.com/399books ).I’ve looked through this month’s selection, and discovered there’s some really great books that are still available at very cheap prices! The special offer ends Monday — but then Tuesday there’ll be 100 more ebooks available at the same low prices.

And of course, every day Amazon offers yet another 24-hour special on another ebook at amazon.com/kindledailydeal. Today’s “Daily Deal” is especially intriguing if you like Matt Damon’s movies in the “Bourne Identity” series. I’ve seen all the movies based on Robert Ludlum’s books — but I didn’t know his series had continued after Ludlum’s death in 2001. Starting in 2004, seven more “Bourne” books were written — the second of which is available today for just $3.99. It’s identified as Robert LudlumTM‘s The Bourne Betrayal, though it’s written by Eric Van Lustbader. “Subsequent to his death, books written by other authors have carried the phrase Robert LudlumTM on their covers,” Wikipedia reports, “thus asserting the name Robert Ludlum as a trademark. The actual author (not technically a ghost writer) is identified inside.” It’s a Halloween miracle – an author who kept writing after he was dead!

But I’m equally intrigued by the 100 other ebooks Amazon’s priced at just $3.99 or less for the month of October. (Watch out! These deals will disappear at midnight on Halloween!) Amazon’s even ready to help you celebrate the holiday with some special “spooky” books. If you’re a fan of R.L. Stine, they’re selling two different collections of his scary short stories for just $1.99 each.

Each collection has 10 short stories, and one enthusiastic fan declared Nightmare Hour the “Best Short Story Book Ever!!” In a 2007 review on Amazon, they described the creepy plots of each of its ten stories. (“Pumpkinhead… A crazy tale of three kids who go to a pumpkin patch at night, and the terror that lurks within.” ) Even the titles of the chapters suggest lots of fun for young horror fans. There’s “Make Me a Witch,” “Alien Candy,” and even one that’s called “Afraid of Clowns.”

You can see the book’s creepy cover at the top of this post. “I hope you get the picture and buy the book,” writes the enthusiastic reviewer, “because it’s really awesomely cool and fun and terrifying to read at night!”

R. L. Stine had sold over 400 million books by 2008, according to Wikipedia, and there’s a second collection of stories available that’s called Haunting Hour. Some of its more intriguing titles are “How to Bargain with a Dragon,” “The Bad Baby Sitter,” and “Revenge of the Snowmen.” And for every parent who’s had to drive their children on a long trip, there’s even a short story called “Are We There Yet?”

I think the first really scary movie that I ever saw as a teenager was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho — and it’s the subject of a great book by Stephen Rebello. Apparently the movie was based on a real-life serial killer, according to one review, and when novelist Robert Bloch sold his book’s movie rights, he “had no idea who bought it and sold it for very little, but his reputation was made for life.” Psycho‘s startling surprises (and its “shower scene”) made the movie a legend, and a shared experience that a lot of movie-lovers still treasure. This book’s author interviewed nearly everyone involved in its production — including Alfred Hitchcock — and the movie’s star, Anthony Perkins, called it “marvelously researched and irresistible … required reading not only for Psycho-philes, but also for anyone interested in the backstage world of movie creation.” (And Time‘s movie critic called it “one of the best accounts of the making of an individual movie we’ve ever had.” )

Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho house book cover

You can probably tell that I love movies, and you know who’s reviewed every single one of them? Roger Ebert. I’m also a big fan of Roger Ebert — he once let me do a short interview back in 2001 — and now for $2.99 you can get the newest edition of his “Movie Yearbook”. It includes 500 full movie reviews — including every review he’s written in 2008, 2009, and seven months of 2010 — plus his interview with Muhammad Ali, essays about the Oscars, moving tributes to John Hughes and Walter Cronkite, plus his reports from the Cannes Film Festival. He’s a famous film critic (and a Pulitizer Prize-winning author), but what did he think of Avatar, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Inglourious Basterds? The print edition of Ebert’s book normally costs you $29.99 — so it’s a minor miracle that through Monday night, Amazon’s pricing it for just $2.99.

I never actually read the “Boxcar Children” series of mysteries — and I was surprised to learn it dates back to 1924. In fact, it was during World War I that a Sunday school teacher named Gertrude Chandler Warner first got the idea for a series of stories about four orphan children who live together in an abandoned boxcar. Nearly a century later, new stories are still being written for her characters — and in the newest one they confront zombies! “Is someone hiding information?” suggests a plot synopsis at Wikipedia.

“Or should the Boxcar Children really be afraid of things that go bump in the night?”

Buy a new Kindle for just $85?

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Amazon's 85 refurbished Kindle 3 sale

Normally a new wi-fi Kindle costs $139 — and even if you buy one that’s loaded with Amazon’s “Special Offers,” it’s still $114. But today, Amazon advertised a refurbished wi-fi Kindle 3 (with special offers) for just $84.99. The total savings? More than 25%.

Within a few hours, they’d raised the price of a refurbished Kindle 3 (with special offers) — but only to $99.99. (Though that’s still a big discount of over 12%.) Throughout this morning, that big discount then seemed to disappear and re-appear around Amazon.com. At one point on the same page, Amazon warned shoppers page that “We’re sorry. There are currently no Refurbished listings for Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Pearl Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers.” But when you then visited Amazon’s “Buy a Kindle” page, it was still listed as “In Stock” at the $99.99 price!

Amazon's special 99 dollar Kindle discount offer

And then shortly before noon, all the refurbished Kindles seemed to have disappeared.

What’s going on? I think Amazon’s trying to reduce their inventory of Kindle 3s because they’re planning to release an even newer version of the Kindle in the next few weeks. That’s especially interesting, because I’d heard a rumor that Amazon was only releasing a color, touchscreen version of the Kindle (but not a new black-and-white Kindle with an e-ink screen). But if that rumor were true, it seems odd that Amazon would be reducing their inventory of refurbished Kindle 3s.

Still, maybe Amazon expects there’ll be fewer people who want a Kindle 3 when there’s also a new color, touchscreen multimedia tablet. It’s pointless to speculate until Amazon finally makes their move. The bottom line is that if you want to buy a Kindle 3, you can get a good price if you keep your eye on the Amazon store.

And if you keep re-loading the web page, there’s a chance that the prices will change again!

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.

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!