SOME NEW OR RENEWED AMAZON OFFERINGSAuthor and Podcaster Len Edgerly
Len Edgerly, of the popular weekly Podcast The Kindle Chronicles, has published an Amazon Single (by request of his readers), with his thoughts on the event.
Titled Inside the Hangar at Amazon's Santa Monica Press Conference - September 6, 2012, it is an engagingly written, informative take on what he heard during the announcements, what he saw during the hands-on demo stations afterward, and what he heard in his interviews with the several Kindle VPs who were made available for two hours of Q&A with approximately 400 representatives of the media, at various stations against the walls -- the usually hard to find VPs simultaneously doing show & answer sessions with often time-consuming lines of individuals from the media with microphones and videocams.
Edgerly organizes the material well, puts everything in context and gives it all a balanced perspective. He enjoys both Amazon and Apple offerings and has recently also been enjoying the Nook Glowlight. There are things he finds impressive about the new Kindle offerings and things he wishes were different, and he gives some guidance from a wider frame of view and hands-on background than is normally experienced in this type of report.
In the appendix he has links to other reading with varied and unique points of view, though I haven't finished those yet.
Highly recommended.
My own thoughts on some of this
He also covers the aftermath, when it became more apparent that the lower cost of good hardware and many software features not seen in competing e-readers comes at the cost of seeing more 'Special Offers' than many might prefer, although some consider the lock-screen ads no problem due to some actual attractive discount offers and the fact it usually involves only a brief glimpse of an ad before starting the Kindle, especially if you have the Kindle in a case.
Jeff Bezos emphasized at the press event that while they never plan to take a loss on hardware (as some media had thought), they obviously focus on lower margins on these and hope to make their revenue on the use of the devices, meaning they're being enjoyed, but the obvious meaning is they hope the owners will spend money at Amazon via those devices. Amazon is a store, but a creative one that focuses on adding quite a bit of informational content in the many special features, for its book-leaning consumers.
As investors in the stock market know, Amazon's margins are kept low, in general, unlike other successful companies, so there ARE product suggestions, based on items you've bought. I do feel that those who'd prefer a tablet free of any online store should buy something like the Google Nexus. (I just noticed that Amazon now has a separate Tablet Store, while looking at this product page on which Digitz is selling that tablet for a bit more {maybe because they're in shorter supply these days?} and the orders are fulfilled by Amazon).
Buyers should keep in mind, though, that for $200, the Nexus has only 8 GB of storage space, in a world of large HD files, while the Kindle Fire HD starts with 16 GB. Also, the Nexus has one mono speaker vs the KFireHD's two Dolby-enhanced speakers, and the KFireHD has an "HDMI out" to show its HD files on an HDTV.
Buying-suggestions on the bottom of the Home screen (not unlike what is seen on the bottom area of the B&N Nook home screen) are, at this point, not covered by the $15 ads-opt-out, but they can be replaced by a screen of one's Favorites with a click of the star icon or avoided entirely by viewing in Landscape.
Amazon is said to be considering an opt-out on those too, though I found today that they are keyed to specific books I've bought that are displayed on the Carousel as recent reading, and they change depending on which book is shown in the middle. As a personal note -- and many won't feel the same way -- I've come to find it useful, while I'm hoping for a general opt-out choice on that too.
At any rate, Edgerly discusses the post-event reactions also, from his own point of view.
Throw in the Vowel
Throw in the Vowel is a popular word game for all e-Ink Kindles except the Kindle 1 (the latter has no direct access to the screen) and is briefly available on sale at 99 cents.
I was late to get to this, so the sales window is shorter on this.
"Kindle Classics on Audible.com, for Free"
Commenter John Sauter sent in a great tip, which (as with Throw in the Vowel) I wasn't able to get to sooner, but the deal is still active. These are free Kindle books (classics) that come with professionally-narrated audio versions (also free at this point), but read on...
Olivia Flores Alvarez, reporting for Art Attack, a Houston press blog, reminds us of a great, no-cost, way to become acquainted with and benefit from excellent examples of classic Kindle books that come with the new Whispersync for Voice technology announced at the press conference Sept. 6.
Amazon has a list of 20 free classics on Kindle that come with, for now, a free copy of the narrated version on Audible.
The FIRST classic on that listing, however (A Tale of Two Cities) shows at the moment a $7.95 price for the audio narration and is likely a mistake, because of the promo-list it's on and since the other books I clicked on, so far, come with free audio versions as part of that promotion.
I would wait on that one, and I've asked for clarification of that Kindle/Audio book status.
Example - using a book I enjoyed long ago
Amazon, which has owned Audible.com for years, now is able to sync material between professionally-narrated Audible versions and corresponding Kindle books purchased by its customers, so that Kindle book owners, after ending a reading session, can pick up at the last book-location read, when wanting to use the audio version and vice versa.Generally, if you buy the Kindle book and it has a corresponding audio narration, the cost of getting the audio book this way will be between $0 and $3.95 (but much higher for the audio version when not bought with the Kindle version). While the Paperwhite model has no audio, the Kindle book and audio can also be read and heard on a mobile device owned.
How you get one of the free promos:
First, 'buy' the Kindle book linked to, for $0.00 and make sure the audio version for this promo is also $0.00 (it's noted in a box lower in the header section) since you're doing this to learn how Whispersync for Audio works in response to an Amazon promo.
Once you've 'bought' the Kindle version, then you're told you can get, in this case, the $19.59 audio version for $0.00 because you bought the Kindle edition also. When you click to get the free audio version, but are not yet a member of Audible.com, you're given a short membership form to fill out and they allow just the Amazon password to be used and there's no added cost to join.
I just completed my purchase of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and it's nice to see all those $goose-eggs, when exploring how useful a feature might be.
So, as I've mentioned before, it's a form of bundling that's been much requested, except that in most cases, it's not free but a fairly hefty discount is applied. Information may 'want' to be free, as some put it, but those who labor to fulfill a request may want/need to be paid for the work.
I'd like to receive feedback on how well this works for anyone trying it and your thoughts on the combo pricing. Thanks.
UPDATE - We've received quick and detailed feedback from QZA, who downloaded six of the currently-free Kindle/Audible combos and reports on the quality. He also has excellent advice on the amount of device space these will take. An excerpt:
' ... Every hour of audio will take up about 29MB of space on your device. An average audio book classic is about 7 - 8 hours (Moby Dick is much longer) so make sure you have about 250 MB free space before you download an audio book. Amazon does not display file sizes, only book length in hours and minutes. All 20 audio books won't fit on your Kindle even if you were to delete all your books so it's better to download a few and keep the rest in your archive for free fast delivery as needed. 'You can read the rest of of QZA's feedback here
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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