Google Books and Other Digital Books

Back in 2004 Google launched the Book Search Project as it was known. Supposedly there are now some 10 Million books that have been scanned and made either wholly or in part available on line. I say "supposedly" because I have definitely not counted them.

Some authors and publishers were either not contacted or could not be contacted and so some scans were done without permission. So there was a lawsuit. Not that a lawsuit about something like this is a big surprise.

Then in 2008 a settlement was reached whereby Google would pay some $125 Million to various parties. There have been at least three federal investigations and I don't know where those stand.

It's been in the news recently, too. And at least one blogger I read posted about Google Books.

So I thought I should check it out.

I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was a young reader. I think I read most of his works although not all by any means. I am not even certain how many books he wrote.

I clicked on one of the titles the search brought up. I honestly don't know if I've read it or not. I could read it online on my computer, download a PDF or a TXT file, buy it from a list of sellers, or find a library. Pretty good I thought.

So I clicked on the Amazon link to see if I could buy the book as a Kindle version.

Sure enough I could buy it for $.80. Actually that's pretty good, too, because if I wanted it on my Kindle and downloaded it from Google then I would have to convert the PDF and then copy over to my Kindle or use the TXT and copy over. Probably worth $.80 to do that.

But while I am looking at the page I see one of those "also bought" links to a "Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs" that contained 50 of his books. FIFTY! So I click and sure enough it is what it says and is priced at $4.79 for the Kindle. That's 50 books for $4.79 for the Kindle. That's amazing.

The publisher is MobileReference.com so I surf over to their site. They have a whole bunch of books that are ready to go for the Kindle.

I did not buy the Edgar Rice Burroughs book but I might. The reason I didn't buy it is I have more books I am reading right now than ever before in my entire life. I see so many titles I would like to read and it is so easy to get them.

If it were just easier and faster to read them now.

National Kindle and koffee Day

National Kindle & Koffee Day
June 6, 2009 10 am

This was first proposed by Kathy S on the Amazon Kindle Forum on May 21.

Pretty simple idea: if you owned a Kindle then show up at your local Starbucks (or other coffee shop if no Starbucks) on Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 10:00 am.

I've been reading the various Kindle forums since the recent comments by author, Alexie Sherman, about his disgust and loathing for the Kindle. I am interested in how rather diverse people come together over different things and form a community. And I've been an active member myself of several different virtual communities.

In some ways they are all alike, too. And those similarities, negative and positive, are much in evidence on the various Kindle boards.

But I found this idea of a National Kindle and Koffee Day to be particularly interesting.

For one thing it was conceived and proposed by a member of a board who was not associated with either Starbucks or Amazon. She simply owns and uses a Kindle and posts on the Amazon hosted boards.

For another is the national scope of the idea. It wasn't to be just a small, local area or even a state or a region but the entire United States. It could have been the entire world just as easily I suppose except that the Kindle really isn't the same outside the United States although there are some out in the wild.

I wondered if anyone would show up at my Starbucks but I had not made up my mind about whether I would attend or not. I think that was Wednesday last week. The time didn't really work out quite right for me. Usually I am in Starbucks earlier than that.

But I happened to mention it while I was in Starbucks on Wednesday. Immediately a barista told me that she really wanted a Kindle and would look forward to Saturday when she could look at one herself. So that sealed the deal for me and I decided to be there.

I didn't want to be alone so I tried to get my brother and my son to join me. But they both had other stuff to do.

So I showed up about 9:30 am and got my coffee and one of those new-to-us breakfast sandwiches. Those sandwiches are really good by the way and the one I get with low fat cheese and turkey bacon is pretty low calories actually.

No one else with a Kindle showed up. I kept mine out in plain view so that if anyone else had come in with one they would surely have seen me. I was sitting right near the order station.

The barista did come over for her hands on demonstration and another fellow came over as well. The barista said she was going to get one for Christmas and the other person said he was going to think about getting one sooner.

I posted about it on a thread on the Amazon boards after I returned home. As of the time I am writing this there are 55 people who have submitted 84 posts on the thread.

I wonder how many people actually will end up buying a Kindle. I wonder what will happen to Kindle "community" users if a lot more Kindles are sold.

At any rate I find the entire thing fascinating.

Kindle Readers Elitist According to Author

I found this quote interesting in a recent article I was reading:

At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, "I wanted to hit her."

The article was in the NY Times titled: Book Fair Buzz Is Not Contained Between 2 Covers by Motko Rich. Oh it was dated 5/31/2009, too.

I read my Kindle on an airplane once. There were two of us with Kindles on that same flight in fact. Never did occur to me that I should be afraid of people attacking me because they would think I am an elitist.

And the Kindle is a great thing to use to read on an airplane or in a waiting room or any number of other places where space is a premium.

Never ceases to amaze me what people actually say and think.

Believe I'll pass on that book or anything else by that author.

I don't quite understand the author's hysteria about the Kindle but I suppose anyone who would consider hitting someone reading on an airplane is not really a serious person.

This generated quite a discussion on the Amazon discussion forum.

UPDATE (after original post):
The author, Sherman Alexie, has a web site, shermanalexie.com and has posted a response about both the Kindle and the article and all the emails he received.

He seems like a decent guy with deeply felt concerns about the Kindle. I really don't understand his concerns but he did post on the Amazon discussion thread about his remarks and that earned him some points with nme.

I've Been Reading Again

Run for Your Life
by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Certainly not the best Patterson book I've read. Still I enjoyed it.
I liked the characters or most of them at least. I even found a little
sympathy for the villian. It is pretty simple. Big, good looking guy
is pushed over the edge and decides to teach as many as possible a lesson by
killing as many as possible. Michael Bennet, NYCPD detective, has to stop
the killer while dealing with his own grief as a relatively new widow and single
parent with a housefull of kids. Killer decides at last minute to kill
Michael. Wonder how it ends?

The 6th Target
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Another of the women's murder club stories. I like them.
Lindsay has to solve a string of children kidnappings while breaking in a new
partner and dealing with other stuff including her romance with Joe. She
does in case anyone might wonder.

7th Heaven
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Yet another women's murder club story. I liked this one better I think
that 6th Target but then again I read it most recently. Everyone of the
club gets into the act in this one except the reporter I guess. I thought
it was enjoyable. Several stories all happening at the same time.

Wicked Prey
by John Sandford

A team of thieves puts together a pretty decent plan to pull several high dollar
robberies in the midst of the Republican convention in Minneapolis - St.
Paul. Lucas has his hands full trying to figure it out and stop them. I really like Lucas Davenport and friends -- just very cool characters.

One interesting thing about this one is that the Kindle version originally was nearly the same price as the hardcover book. Because of that I joined a boycott which is rather more political than I really am.

But when the price declined to $9.99 I bought it for my Kindle.

True Detectives, A Novel
by Jonathan Kellerman

This one really dealt with two new characters although my old favorites, Alex
Delaware and Milo Sturgis, do show up. The pace was a little slow at
first and for a while I didn't think I was going to like the characters
much. But by the end I had decided I would read more about these 2
brothers. Not exactly up to Kellerman's normal book I think.

The $9.99 Kindle Boycott Forum

A few days ago I was about to purchase a new title for my Kindle when I noticed that the price for the Kindle version was nearly the same as the price for a hardback copy of the book. This fact irritated me.

My irritation resulted in noticing the Amazon tags for the title in question and also noticing the Amazon discussion forum.

Tags are a very useful feature. Several tags for this particular title concerned a "boycott" of offerings costing more than $9.99 for the Kindle.

On the discussion forum there was a lengthy topic concerning the same subject.

Finding new things I like and jumping right in are things I do far too frequently and is not virtuous.

So for the last couple of days I've received email messages every time there is a new post on the boycott topic.

Good grief!

Discussion boards are not good places for me.

I must learn to leave them alone.

Kindle - $9.99 Boycott - Revisited

Just a few days ago I blogged about the so called "Kindle Boycott" of titles costing more than $9.99 by Kindle users. That blog was titled A Chink in the Kindle - $9.99 boycott.

I was on the verge of purchasing John Sandford's new book, Wicked Prey, when I noticed the price for a Kindle version was only $1.40 less than the price of a hardback edition.

So yesterday (May 21, 2009) the price was reduced to $9.99. I bought it and it was delivered in a few minutes to my Kindle. I haven't started reading it yet but I will probably read it over the weekend.

The "boycott" is a pretty loose term I think for what is happening over at Amazon. I think a lot of us that have expressed our disappointment over the Kindle pricing are not much into boycotting stuff. I am certainly not.

But in one of the discussion forum topics about the $9.99 price issue there are more than 360 participants and more than 2500 posts. I remember one time someone telling me that less than 1% of the people would respond to a survey but that 1% would reflect the same sentiment of a much larger group. If that's true that means there could be tens of thousands of people who feel that the Kindle pricing is out of line.

I seriously doubt the "boycott" had any real bearing on Putnam reducing the price of the book I wanted to buy. It might have but really I have no way of knowing for sure one way or another.

More likely I suspect is that a whole bunch of us made similar individual decisions about buying. At the same time I think publishers and authors are struggling with complex issues about how to address this new digital age in which we all find ourselves living.

Regardless the reason I am happy the price was reduced on a title I wanted and I am happy I was able to buy it.

A Chink in the Kindle - $9.99 boycott

Tuesday I noticed that one of my favorite authors had a new book out. John Sandford's 2009 novel, Wicked Prey, was available from Amazon.

So I went first thing to buy it for my Kindle.

And there I was reading the 2 reviews about the book and wondering how the reviewers read it so quickly and then got their reviews posted. And that's when I noticed the price: $15.37.

Now most of you who have been reading my blogs for a while know that I would not let that price deter me from purchasing the product based on cost alone. I've shared too much for anyone to have that idea of me.

When I bought the Kindle though most of the books were $9.99 or less. In fact, that was a selling point about the Kindle. You buy a digital version and save some money. Some people think it might be environmentally friendly, too; but, I haven't really researched that aspect.

Excuse me but $15.37 is considerably above $9.99. So I checked the price for the hardback from Amazon: $16.77. Then I checked Barnes and Noble: $18.16 or $16.34 depending upon membership status. The latter is with free shipping, too. Amazon is free shipping for me as well.

I am not going to drive the 10 miles to check out the price in the actual Barnes and Noble store. Sorry Barnes and Noble.

So I can get the digital copy of the book for $1.40 less than the cost of the hardback book

I am not buying the book period!!

I've really enjoyed the Prey series by Sandford. I've purchased all of the previous 18 titles and a good many in hardback versions. I've purchased a second copy a few times. I had no idea the last one I read might be the last one ever.

I am not blaming Amazon by the way because Amazon does not set the price nor does the author. The price is established by the publisher. In this case that is Putnam which is part of Penguin apparently.

So I am not buying this book in any version. I am not buying anymore Putnam books and I'm going to try to avoid Penguin. And I am joining the $9.99 boycott for Kindle titles.

I didn't know about it until I became upset over this title but it turns out that quite a few publishers are trying to charge more than $9.99 for Kindle titles and quite a few users have begun tagging such books with "9.99boycott" to alert others.

If it means reading less or reading different authors then so be it.

Amazon Kindle iPhone App

I had another doctor appointment on Friday. It was another endoscopy at the urologist's office. I won't go into detail about the procedure itself in the interest of propriety and modesty -- not mine -- yours.

But it isn't very hard to guess what it might be.

For reasons unknown there was a delay and I ran out of things to do pretty quickly. I didn't have my Kindle 2 but thought it would be nice if I did. Then I remembered the iPhone app.

I downloaded it and within a few seconds was reading one of my books on my iPhone.

I thought it really worked well. The screen is not bad at all for reading and you just change pages with a flip action of your finger on the iPhone screen. My delay was about 90 minutes so I was really glad to have it and I enjoyed reading a new Jonathan Kellerman book, True Detectives.

The nurse apologized profusely when she finally called me back. Apparently they "forgot" me somehow. Maybe it was me subconsciously hoping they would forget me forever and not perform the procedure. I was already wondering if my mind had exaggerated my symptoms and maybe I just needed to cancel this whole deal.

I wasn't looking forward to this but I needed to know the problem and this was how to find out. When I told my brother I was having it he said to run the other way or at least to try to get them to put me under. He had the same thing a couple of years ago. But the doctor had assured me it wasn't that bad.

It is a little embarrassing I suppose for some men, especially with a female nurse. My caregiving career seems to have permanently altered my sense of modesty as in I apparently haven't any left. When I have to wait I fall into caregiving waiting mode, too.

When the doctor came in he was so very apologetic. I told him caregiving had taught me that I did not control the world. I think he may still harbor the opposite idea. Maybe as a doctor he does but apparently with significant limitation in my case.

I got all ready for the procedure in the exam room. The nurse applied some deadening gel. The doctor was rather "far along" when he said that the machine was broken and he couldn't tell anything.

So then we moved to another room and did everything over -- from the beginning -- and I do mean everything.

The results were conclusive though and he gave me some medicine to try for a few days.

I don't think I can take this medicine though because I have every side affect listed on the patient information sheet. I plan to persevere at least through Sunday though.

In the meantime I am happy to report the Amazon Kindle iPhone application is 5 star in my opinion.

Authors Attack Readers

Authors Guild, and thereby the authors represented, has successfully pressured Amazon to silence the text-to-speech (TTS) function on the Kindle 2 (K2).

Amazon announced in a press release that it will make the TTS function optional at the publisher's discretion.

If you can't tell this has made me extremely angry. I was angry enough that I wrote an email to Author's Guild complaining.

Now I hate audio books for myself. I understand there's a place for them but it isn't with me.

But I have found the TTS that the K2 provides to be very useful. I let it read to me as I drive home and to work and so on. Another surprising use I found was to let it read to me while I am exercising.

The picture is my K2 on my elliptical machine. This use had not even occurred to me before I bought the thing. It works great.

Now the TTS is not audio-book quality. I can't imagine people who like audio-books actually using the TTS on the K2 as a substitute. More likely it would be people like me who allow it to read to them when they can't read by sight.

A friend whose father has macular degeneration thought he might get his dad a K2 just for the TTS.

I can understand book publishers being upset about the Kindle. I guess I can understand a little bit how publishers might be upset about TTS. But honestly I do not understand why authors would be upset about it. Well, maybe the big authors that make mega-bucks selling books through the big publsihers. In those cases there is not a huge difference between the publisher and the author.

But nearly all authors should benefit from both the Kindle 2 and the TTS.

This is so much like the music industry. When artists start having battles to the death with the very people that make it possible for the artist to perform then it is obvious that there is a revolution going on.

Infuriatingly stupid.

Got My K2!!

It arrived a day early!

I was uncertain for a long time about buying the Kindle 2. After all we are in a recession or depression or economic downturn or something.

After listening to the President's speech last night I think we are in a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

But that's a different subject and I should not allow myself to stray too far from my subject.

Even when I decided to order the K2 I was uncertain whether I would use it myself since I really have gotten used to my old K1.

It arrived just before lunch via UPS. We know our UPS driver and think very highly of him. This is another digression but I was thinking when he arrived how nice it was to know people who do thins for us like UPS and USPS and the folks at Chili's and Starbucks. We know a few at Chick-Fil-A and several at the Tractor Supply and some from the City. I like that about our little community here. It really is what makes us a community.

So our UPS driver actually brought the package from Amazon inside for me and we signed his electronic tablet device. He watched as I hurriedly and quickly opened the package and took the K2 out of its packaging.

I let it charge while we were at lunch. It takes about 3 hours to fully charge. The charger is much improved now being the USB type. I like that much better than the old one.

The layout of the controls and how they operate and the size and feel all are improved. Some things are vastly improved. All are going to take me a bit of adjusting. But they are better.

The best thing has to be the Text-To-Speech software!!

Okay, it is not audio-book quality by any means. But I don't like audio-books. The TTS is definitely sufficiently good that I intend to let the thing read to me on the way home. And I never thought I'd do that.

I think Amazon has hit a home run with this thing.

Better than I expected. Easier to use. I am excited about it.

Kindle 2

I ordered my Kindle in November of 2007 when they first were offered for sale by Amazon. I didn't receive it until January, 2008 and I blogged about it.

I paid $399 for mine.

I've purchased more than 50 titles in the slightly more than 12 months since I received my first one. It broke by the way but Amazon replaced it for free as soon as I let them know about the problem.

I've also purchased 2 more Kindles. My brother and his family use one. My son uses the other. I think I am going to get my daughter one although the current economic crisis has caused me to postpone that decision.

My 50 or so purchased books for my Kindle cost about $450. I've saved between $500 and $750. My son and my brother share my library.

Amazon today announced the Kindle 2.

It is a little longer and significantly thinner. The buttons have been moved around a bit. I think that's likely an improvement although I've become quite adept at using the original buttons. It has text-to-speech so it can "read" to you. I might use this feature if I spent much time in my car. But I don't and I really don't like listening to books in general so I can't imagine using this feature.

It has more storage built in. With my first one I bought a memory card but honestly I don't use it. So I think the additional memory isn't a very big deal for me. I found that it is best for me to just carry around the books I'm reading right now on my Kindle. My entire library is at Amazon anyway so I can easily download a title anytime I want it which is not very often once I'm done with a book.

The thing that you notice right away though about the new Kindle 2 is how thin it is. That's not just compared to the original but compared to about anything - like - say a pencil.

Just look at this thing!

They are comparing it to a pencil!!

Now it looks really cool I think. Only thing is I don't know if I'd like it or not. Oh I'd probably become accustomed to it regardless.

But one of the things I do like about my original Kindle is its size. It kind of feels a little like a paperback to me and that is, strangely I grant, somewhat comforting to me.

So I'm not certain whether I'll buy one of the new ones or not. I am not much for fixing stuff that's not broken. And my Kindle is definitely not broken.

Sometimes people see me reading mine - usually in Starbucks - and ask me about it. Usually they want to know what it is. They have somehow missed hearing about it.

Of course that is a significantly smaller group since Oprah featured the Kindle on her show a while back: Oprah's Favorite New Gadget (10-24-2008).

It is reported in the blogosphere that some 200,000 units were sold right after that program. If true, and I suspect it is, then that means Amazon sold somewhere around 500,000 Kindles in 2008.

I've seen a graph where a guy compared the Kindle to Apple's iPod. So far he thinks that more people are buying Kindles than bought the iPod in the same year after announcement. And books for the Kindle are usually in the $9.99 range whereas songs for the iPod are in $.99 range. That's a big difference.

Anyway a lot of people believe the Kindle will provide Amazon with more than a billion dollars of sales this year.

So why do I like the Kindle so much?

Well, for one thing I like reading on it. It's the first e-book deal I've actually enjoyed using for reading. Apparently quite a few of us like it that way, too.

Then I like being able to carry all my books I'm currently reading with me in one small, convenient package. That's just so great.

I like having Amazon keep my library for me. Very handy.

I like being able to search books and add notes and "highlight."

I read my morning paper now on my Kindle. I like that. Costs me like $5.99 per month or something. Lots cheaper than getting the actual newspaper and then having to mess around throwing it away.

Yes, I could do that on my laptop but I don't always have my laptop and it is still a bit bulkier than the Kindle.

Maybe the best thing though is that if I hear about a book and decide I want to read it then I can usually buy it and have it on my Kindle in a couple of minutes.

I did just this very thing Saturday. I was reading my morning paper on my Kindle while I was sitting in the Starbucks at Fritts Farm. It was about 6 am. There was an article about this author, Harry S. Dent, who has written this book, The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History. He is scheduled to speak in Oklahoma City next week and my son and I signed up for tickets today.

The book came out on January 6th and is available in hard cover or audio. I checked Kindle availability when it first was published but it wasn't available. I clicked a link that let Amazon know I wanted it on the Kindle. When I checked again on Saturday it was available! How's that for good service?

Anyway I bought it and began reading. I never left my chair in Starbucks. I've done this much I'm already taking it for granted.

Very interesting.

I'll blog about Dent's ideas over the next few days.