The Kindle Chronicles

Latest Episodes:

TKC 433 Laura Hazard Owen Nov 19, 2016

Show notes

Deputy Editor, Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

Interview ‪starts at 16:02 and ends at 40:51

"I think it's become very clear that there's going to be a devoted subset of people who do read on eReaders, and there's going to be a lot more reading on phones."

News

"Amazon App for iPhone Now Has X-Ray Vision to See Inside Your Packages" by Andy Orin at Lifehacker - November 16, 2016

"Alexa, What Are Your Deals?" - Amazon press release on November 18, 2016

The Grand Tour one-day deal on Amazon Prime - November 18, 2018.

"Amazon Starts Selling Certified Refurbished Kindle e-Readers" by Michael Kozlowski at Good E-Reader - November 15, 2016

Certified Refurbished items at Amazon.com

"Amazon looks to clean house—literally" by Angel Gonzalez at The Seattle Times - November 7, 2016

"Jeff Bezos Invests Billions to Make Amazon a Top E-Commerce Player in India" by Newley Purnell at The Wall Street Journal - November 18, 2016

"Amazon is going to sell cars online" by Eugene Kim at Business Insider - November 18, 2016

New Amazon Prime TV commercial featuring a priest and an imam

"Amazon TV ad features imam and vicar exchanging gifts" by Mark Sweney at The Guardian - November 15, 2016

"Jeff Bezos tweets his love for touching Amazon ad showing friendship between priest and imam" by Kurt Schlosser at GeekWire - November 17, 2016

Tech Tip

Two mistakes to avoid with Amazon Prime Fresh

Interview with Laura Hazard Owen

Nieman Foundation at Harvard

Nieman Journalism Lab

The Nieman Fellowships

Amazon Prime Reading

Six months free of digital access to The Washington Post for Amazon Prime members

New York Times podcasts

New York Times The Daily 360 virtual reality news clips

VR experience of solitary confinement by The Guardian

I'll Be Right Back Laura Hazard Owen's parenting newsletter

Publishing Trends

"Why We Are Buying PaidContent" by Om Malik - February 8, 2012

Om Malik on Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech - November 8, 2015

Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids by Nicholson Baker

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance

Content

Amazon editors pick The Best Books of 2016

"Amazon rolls out Rapids, a chat style reading app for kids" by Sarah Buhr at Techcrunch - November 2, 1016

Amazon Rapids

Next Week's Guest

Seira Wilson, senior books editor at Amazon.com

Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording" CD.

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 432 World Circumnavigator Eric Loss Nov 12, 2016

Show notes

Captain of Sea Dragon, Author of Loss at Sea: A Solo Circumnavigation

Interview ‪starts at 13:19 and ends at 36:18

"It's less difficult than it will seem at times. There will be hard points, but as long as you can power through those or endure through those, you just have to keep going."

News

"Donald Trump threatens Amazon as payback for Washington Post articles he doesn't like" by Matthew Yglesias at Vox - May 13, 2016

"The Donald, documented: The Washington Post open-sources much of its Trump reporting" by Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab - August 30, 2016

Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher

"Amazon's Stock May Be Suffering from the Trump Effect" by Jaewon Kang at The Street - November 10, 2016

"Amazon Announces Black Friday Deals on Echo, Fire Tablets, Kindle Paperwhite and Fire TV Stick" by David Carnoy at CNET - November 10, 2016

"Amazon to Reimburse Customers for In-App Purchases by Kids, Judge Says" by the Associated Press at The Wall Street Journal - November 10, 2016 (Behind paywall; try copying the headline and pasting it into a Google search to see full story.)

Interview with Eric Loss

Pangaea Exploration

Sea Dragon

The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Loss at Sea: A Solo Circumnavigation by Eric Loss

Sweetland: A Novel by Michael Crummey

Content

"Amazon Prime Reading Comes to the US Kindle App" at MacStories - November 9, 2016

Next Week's Guest

Laura Hazard Owen, deputy editor at Nieman Lab

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 431 Earplay CEO Jonathan Myers Nov 05, 2016

Show notes

Executive Team at Earplay

Interview ‪starts at 10:28 and ends at 44:37

Left to right: Dave Grossman, Chief Creative Officer; Bruno Batarelo, Chief Technology Officer; and Jonathan Myers, Chief Executive Officer

News

Charlie Rose interview of Jeff Bezos (video) - October 27, 2016

Interview with Jonathan Myers

Earplay site

Western Dramatic Literature: A Micro-Anthology by Jonathan Myers & Jennifer Bean

Codename Cygnus

Blackstone audiobooks

Audible

Codename Cygnus Kickstarter campaign

"Virtual Worlds Invite Visitors Into the Story" by Chris Suellentrop at The New York Times - November 23, 2014

"Earplay: An Interactive, Audio-Only Storyteller, Made Even Better by Alexa" by Zoey Collier at Amazon's developer site - November 3, 2016

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 430 Author Robert Masello Oct 29, 2016

Show notes

Author of The Jekyll Revelation

published by Amazon Publishing's 47North Imprint

Interview ‪starts at 10:00 and ends at 43:22

"I used to joke around that I could walk up to a table at any bookstore, and any book that wasn't published by the major houses—I could smell it a mile away. There was something wrong about the typography. The cover was somehow cheap looking. I didn't feel quite right. The margins weren't right when you looked at the text inside, that sort of thing. They have corrected that now. And The Jekyll Revelation, which they just recently sent me a box of is an absolutely beautiful book that I am proud to put on my shelves. The cover art is spectacular. It wraps around from the front all the way to the back. It's indistinguishable from anybody else's books. In fact, in many ways its better."

News

Earplay skill on Alexa

"Earplay: Alexa Hosts a Transformative New Way to Tell Stories" by Len Edgerly at Medium - October 28, 2016

Earplay website

Eastgate Systems, creator of the Storyspace hypertext tool

Tech Tip

Prime Photos

Interview with Robert Masello

The Jekyll Revelation by Robert Masello

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

The Romanov Cross: A Novel by Robert Masello

The Medusa Amulet: A Novel of Suspense and Adventure by Robert Masello

Blood and Ice by Robert Masello

Content

New York Times 2016 Bestseller List at the Kindle Store

Next Week's Guest

Jonathan Myers, co-founder and chief executive officer of Earplay.

A tool for sharing Kindle Chronicles episodes: Overcast.fm

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 429 Bufo Calvin Oct 21, 2016

Show notes

Bufo Calvin is the creator of the I Love My Kindle blog and The Measured Circle's Geek Time Trip

Interview starts at 9:49 and ends at 36:45

"If you want to watch 'Devil Girl from Mars' you can go and watch it on this site. What's happening so far is that I'm having a great time with it. I'm adding stuff to it. Virtually no one else ever goes there. I kind of feel like I'm up in my attic, and I put all these things on the wall and that's great and I'm sort of obsessed with the idea of that. But nobody is ever coming up the ladder into the attic at this point."

News

"Amazon Japan introduces 'Manga Model' Kindle Paperwhite with eight times more storage" at The Verge - October 18, 2016

Amazon press release in Japanese announcing "Manga Model" Kindle Paperwhite - October 18, 2016

Kindle Paperwhite

"Amazon Music Unlimited" at The Lefsetz Newsletter - October 10, 2016

"Music Streaming Showdown: Amazon Music Unlimited vs. Spotify" by Alex Fitzpatrick at Time - October 18, 2016

"Apple lawsuit says 90 percent of 'official' chargers sold on Amazon are fake" by James Vincent at The Verge - October 20, 2016

"Amazon could be a lot bigger than we think" by Elizabeth Weise at USA Today - October 20, 2016

Interview with Bufo Calvin

I Love My Kindle blog

The Measured Circle's Geek Time Trip at The History Project

TMCGTT links mentioned: H. P. Lovecraft, Devil Girl from Mars, Night of the Living Dead directed by George Romero, Piers Anthony,

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, Strange Worlds comic debut on November 1, 1950, Batman radio show on September 5, 1950,

Amazon Prime Reading

Kindle Unlimited

One Murder More by Kris Calvin

Content

Ken Gunther's list of free eBook sources:

www.freebooksy.com has an amazing collection of free books. I am on their mailing list and every day get an email with links to free books available from Amazon. You can filter your list and only get notified about books available in your favorite genres (science fiction, legal thriller, etc)

www.bookbub.com - every day I get an email from the folks at Bookbub with a list of books available for free, 99 cents and $1.99.

The above sites apparently carefully monitor amazon.com and when Amazon is having a free book promotion I get notified by email.

I also use ebook.bike - This site used to be called TUEBL.ca which is an acronym for The Ultimate E-Book Library. You need to go to the web site and can search for the title or author you are interested in. You can download the books as Epub or text files and then use a tool like Calibre to convert them to azw files for the Kindle. You need to click on the download link and then "Download Epub" or "Download Text" to select the format you want. There are lots of other links on ebook.bike, I stay away from them.

Calibre

Amazon's new "100 books for a lifetime of eating and drinking"

Next Week's Guest:

Robert Masello, author of The Jekyll Revelation

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 428 Tina Pohlman Oct 15, 2016

Show notes

EVP and Publisher, Open Road Integrated Media

Interview ‪starts at 15:33 and ends at 43:28

"We are not an agency publisher. So we don't have any control over the consumer price. We set the digital list price, and we don't have control over the consumer price. And Amazon is free to discount it to whatever price they want. And I would also point out that we are very aggressive in the number of and the frequency of which we promote our books in price promotions."

News

"Amazon Music Unlimited versus Prime Music: What's the Difference?" by Jeff Gamet at The Mac Observer - October 12, 2016

Amazon press release on Music Unlimited service - October 12, 2016

"Amazon to Expand Grocery Business With New Convenience Stores" by Greg Bensinger and Laura Stevens at The Wall Street Journal - October 12, 2016

"If Amazon is really opening brick-and-mortar grocery stores, it's a big deal" by Sarah Halzack at The Washington Post - October 11, 2016

Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing podcast - October 13, 2016

Tech Tip

"New! Collection management comes to MYCD (Manage Your Content and Devices)" by Bufo Calvin at I Love My Kindle - October 13, 2016

Interview with Tina Pohlman

Open Road Integrated Media

The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell: My Family and Other Animals (Book 1), Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (Book 2), and The Garden of the Gods (Book 3)

The Durrells in Corfu Season 1 on PBS Masterpiece

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell

Click here to sign up for the Open Road Early Bird Books email list

Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson with Afterword by David Foster Wallace

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Content

"PBS's 'Durells in Corfu' gets its glow from the Greek Island" by Matthew Gilbert at The Boston Globe - October 13, 2016

"'The Durrells in Corfu' Review: An Island of Charm" by John Anderson at The Wall Street Journal - October 13, 2016

Next Week's Guest

Bufo Calvin, creator of the I Love My Kindle blog

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Please feel free to leave a review of my podcast at the iTunes Store. It will help spread the word to new listeners!

TKC 427 Chris Brogan Oct 08, 2016

Show notes

Author of Find Your Own Voice

Interview ‪starts at 16:18 and ends at 42:39

"I don't think books are going to evolve, because I think other things are there to take that slack up. And I think that's okay. The one thing I can tell you is I have a lot of print books in my life, even though I read mostly digital now. Every time I have a print book I always want to be clicking a link or something. I always want to be grabbing some text and dropping it into Evernote. There are a lot of moments where the technology of paper is frustrating to me. And yet, I write on paper every day. I have a paper notebook beside me at all times every day, and I like getting a physical book. I have the new David Eggers, and it's beautiful. It looks beautiful. It smells nice, and there's nothing like that. I don't know. I don't think the future of books is as cool as we thought it might be. There's no jet pack."

News

Up to $50 off Kindle eReaders - limited time offer for Prime members

"Amazon Prime Reading gives members even more e-books" by Ben Fox Rubin at CNET - October 5, 2016

"Amazon introduces Prime Reading…and hits a sweet spot for many customers" by Bufo Calvin at I Love My Kindle

"Amazon's Alexa group is on a massive hiring spree" by Jason Del Rey at Recode - October 1, 2016

Tech Tip

IFTTT recipes for Amazon Alexa

Interview with Chris Brogan

Find Your Writing Voice: How to write more like your amazing self, for books, blog posts, and email by Chris Brogan

Essential Zen Habits by Leo Babauta

Trust Agents and The Impact Equation, by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith

Canva free book covers

Pressbooks

The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and Word Dominators by Chris Brogan (2014)

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini

How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields

The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne with introduction by Steven Pressfield

Assassin's Creed videogames

Heroes of the Frontier by David Eggers

Next Week's Guest

Tina Pohlman, executive vice president and publisher at Open Road Integrated Media, which is releasing The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell on October 11, 2016

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 426 Andrew Richard Albanese Oct 01, 2016

Show notes

Senior Writer and Features Editor at Publishers Weekly

Interview ‪starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05

"The fact that we have rapidly declining eBook sales from major publishers and that we see for two years running now in the Pew surveys that eBook readership is not growing is stunning, considering the vast offerings that are now available in digital format. I just hope that the publishers haven't, if not killed then wounded their golden reader, which is a reader that will read on any device, and certainly the data show they will read print and eBooks, toggle from one to the other. They'll buy more books, they'll check out more books. I think as reading becomes more pressured by other media, to hold back your power readers like that can't be considered a wise strategy any more."

News

Amazon introduces all-new Fire TV Stick (press release) - September 28, 2016

"Amazon's Fire TV Stick gets a smart upgrade to work with Alexa" by Amelia Heathman at Wired - September 29, 2016

All-new Fire TV stick at Amazon.com

Fire TV

Variety review of Woody Allen's Amazon comedy "Crisis in Six Scenes" - September 29, 2016.

"Crisis in Six Scenes" at Amazon Prime instant video

"Introducing the Alexa Prize" (press release) September 29, 2016

Twitch Prime Guide

Tech Tip

All-new Fire HD 8

Interview with Andrew Richard Albanese

"Print or Digital, It's Reading That Matters" by Andrew Richard Albanese at Publishers Weekly - September 16, 2016

"Book Reading 2016" Pew Research Center study - September 1, 2016

Author Earnings

Wattpad

The Frankfurt Book Fair October 1-23, 2016

Next Week's Guest

Chris Brogan, author of Finding Your Writing Voice: How to write more like your amazing self, for books, blog posts, and email

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 425 James McQuivey Sep 23, 2016

Show notes

Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

Interview ‪starts at 14:34 and ends at 44:17

"It'll happen in the cloud, and it will get propagated out to eight, 10, 15, 20 million households that will have the more rudimentary voice enabled [Alexa device], and then suddenly it will become like magic. Suddenly that device, that Trojan horse that Amazon has gotten into your home, will suddenly unleash itself and become a truly intelligent agent. Is that a year away? At least, but we're going to start having the feeling that there's a real person there pretty soon. There are already people who feel that way today."

News

"Print or Digital, It's Reading that Matters" by Andrew Richard Albanese at Publishers Weekly - September 16, 2016

BookRiot podcast Episode 174 - September 12, 2016

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

"Amazon isn't just online—it's opening a real bookstore in Dedham" by Curt Woodward at The Boston Globe - September 19, 2016

"Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn't" by Julia Angwin and Surya Mattu at ProPublica - September 20, 2016

Amazon statement related to ProPublica story and statement issued after the story was published

The New Yorker Radio Hour Episode 48 (Jeff Bezos reference ‪at 11:40)

Transparent on Amazon Video

Kindle for Kids bundle

Interview with James McQuivey

"Quick Take: Amazon Extends Its Lead By Taking Alexa Intelligent Agent Global" at Forrester - September 14, 2016

"Print or Digital, It's Reading That Matters" By Andrew Richard Albanese at Publishers Weekly - September 16, 2016

All-New Echo Dot (2nd Generation)

Amazon Echo

"I've Got a Rant in Me" - Episode 174 of the BookRiot podcast

Content

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World by Deirdre N. McCloskey

Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World by Deirdre N. McCloskey

Blog Nation list of book review blogs

Next Week's Guest

Andrew Richard Albanese, author of "Print or Digital, It's Reading that Matters" at Publishers Weekly

Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 424 John Biglow Sep 17, 2016

Show notes

Rowing medalist, challenged reader trying a Kindle

Interview ‪starts ‪at 14:43 and ends at 42:48

I remember walking home from third grade and throwing a workbook away, it was a book that I had made out of paper and was keeping notes in. I threw it in the bushes, because my teacher said, "You're supposed to take this home and get your parents to sign off on your assignments, that you've done them all." I threw it away, and I said I'd lost it. because I didn't want to show that I'd not done the reading, because I hated it so much. I just didn't like it. I can do the reading; I just don't like it. And I still have that feeling today.

News

"Amazon Alexa, Echo, and the All-New Echo Dot Coming to the UK" - press release September 14, 2016

Amazon Echo - Wikipedia

"The Best thing about Amazon's $50 Echo Dot? It's available to all" by Devindra Hardawar at Engadget - September 14, 2016

"Brief: The Future of Voice Control Goes Far Beyond Dictation" by James McQuivey with David M. Cooperstein, Alexandra Hayes at Forrester Research - April 14, 2014

"Alexa—turn on my local Heart radio station" by Roy Martin at Radio Today Industry News

"Amazon Books opens in San Diego" by Jennifer Van Grove at The San Diego Union-Tribune - September 14, 2016

Kobo Aura One

"Amazon Prime tunes into Audible" by Ben Fox Rubin at CNET = September 13, 2016

Tech Tip

More specs on the next generation Fire HD 8 tablet

Interview with John Biglow

Craftsbury Sculling Center

Mind over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing by Craig Lambert (published in September, 1999)

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel ‪James Brown

Head of the Charles Regatta

The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal by David Halberstam