The Kindle Chronicles

Latest Episodes:

TKC 374 James McQuivey Oct 03, 2015

Show notes

Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Interview starts at 14:38 and ends at 41:53 It’s not about Amazon Echo, it’s about putting microphones in various contexts in your life. Plug one in, like a Glade air freshener, into your bathroom, one next to your bedstand, one in the hallway, one in the laundry, and pretty soon you don’t need Dash buttons. All you have is Alexa everywhere in your home. And you can have Alexa on your phone or in your car if you want, but but most of what Amazon sells you are thinking of in your home, in specific contexts. And so long as you have that microphone sitting everywhere, listening for you to wake it up by saying “Alexa,” that gives you frictionless commerce opportunities that are astonishing, really, compared to what we think of Amazon in 1998 when they were starting to do things like single-click ordering, and you think, “Wow, that was convenient.” We are so far past that now. News Amazon Flex “What Amazon’s Uber-like delivery service means for the sharing economy” by Brian Fung at The Washington Post - September 30, 2015 “Why I Work for Amazon: A Response” by Maria Renz at re/code - September 25, 2015 You can help the Kindle Chronicles by purchasing your new tablet using these links (thanks!): Fire and case Fire HD 8 and case Fire HD 10 and keyboard case “First Look: Amazon’s $50 Fire tablet” by Chris Meadows at TeleRead - October 2, 2015 Tech Tips Listener Tom Semple’s tip for accessing the diagnostics screen an original Kindle: Go to Settings page, then type ALT-4-1-1. The first line will say something like 'The FRAS, FIRS, WEBSITE, TODO, CDE server is UP, UP, UP, UP, UP' when everything is working. These will all be 'DOWN' if wireless is turned off or some mix of UPs and DOWNs when there is some other issue (again the meaning is not particularly clear other than 'UP' is good and 'DOWN' is not good). ALT-5-1-1 initiates a 'loopback test', which always seems to fail on my Kindle. No idea what it is for. Finally there is ALT-6-1-1, which seems to show absolutely nothing. If I remember, it was sometimes necessary to switch cellular networks, maybe that is what it is for. Click here to buy a $25.95 replacement battery for the original Kindle. (via Tom Semple) Interview with James McQuivey Content Starts at 41:57 and ends at 44:28: Excerpts from my conversation with Gabby Wallace, author of the forthcoming Kindle book, Go Natural English: Learn to be Fluent in 15 Minutes a Day . Recorded on September 25, 2015 at the Agents of Change conference in Portland, Maine. Next Week’s Guest Alexandra Alter, publishing industry reporter at The New York Times 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 Persepctive " CD by Public Transit Recording" CD. Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 373 Dina Hilal Sep 25, 2015

Show notes

General Manager of Amazon’s Kindle Scout Interview starts at 16:58 and ends at 44:45 It’s really the best part of the job. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not either extremely proud as a publisher or really inspired as a human. Intro Agents of Change conference on September 25, 2015, in Portland, Maine hosted by Rich Brooks of Flyte Media Click here if you are interested in purchasing a digital pass to AOC for $199. News Note: You can sign up as a new member for Amazon Prime membership for just $67 on Friday, September 25, 2015. The offer celebrates Amazon’s win of five Emmys for “Transparent” at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards. The deal begins at 12 a.m. ET and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT. Press Release. “The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print is Far from Dead” by Alexandra Alter at The New York Times - September 22, 2015 Author Earnings “Will the Supreme Court Take Apple’s E-Book Appeal?” by Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly - September 18, 2015 Mike Shatzkin’s post about the demise of Oyster and Alexandra Alter’s piece - September 23, 2015 Interview with Dina Hilal Kindle Scout “Kindle Scout Success: An Aspiring Author’s Journey” by Christina Taylor at Publishers Weekly - September 17, 2015 Kindle Press titles mentioned: Rising Tide (SIRENS, Book 1) by T. L. Zalecki, Eddie & Sunny: A Love Story by Stacey Cochran, Royal Date by Sariah Wilson, Grave of Hummingbirds by Jennifer Skutelsky, Wrangling Echoes by B. Breckenridge, Housebroken by The Behrg, The Dead of Summer by Heather Balog, Her Billionaire Bodyguard Bridegroom by Lisa Weaver “Amazon’s Kindle Scout Crowdsourced Publishing Platform Expands Globally, Remains English-Only” by Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch Oyster blog post on sunsetting its book subscription service Next Week’s Guest James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research 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 Persepctive " CD by Public Transit Recording" CD. Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 372 Amazon Fall Product Launch Sep 19, 2015

Show notes

Links related to Amazon’s 2015 Fall Product Launch in San Francisco Amazon news releases on the new $50 Fire tablet, the new Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets, new Fire Kids Edition, new Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD and Fire TV Stick with voice remote The new Fire Tablets lineup “Amazon has 6 New Devices—and an actual plan for hardware” by David Pierce at Wired - September 17, 2015 How Spritz works - February 16, 2014 My interview with Dave Limp, Amazon senior vice president for devices, starts at 25:44 and ends at 32:27 Next Week’s Guest Dina Hilal, general manager for Kindle Scout

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 Persepctive " CD by Public Transit Recording" CD. Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

TKC 371 Michael Dirda Sep 12, 2015

Show notes

Author of Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books Interview starts at 15:46 and ends at 42:34 My main attraction to a Kindle is only age-related. If my vision deteriorates enough that I need to make the type bigger, then I could see that it’s just a wonderful tool to have. But so long as I can enjoy the books that I have, the physical books, I’ll stick with them. I have nothing against them [eReaders]. I believe that what fundamentally matters is stories, poems—people need them. The means that we access them isn’t crucial at all. News “Amazon to Release $50 Tablet as it Struggles to Sell Pricier Devices” by Greg Bensinger at The Wall Street Journal - September 7, 2015 (Behind paywall - copy headline and paste into Google) “What’s New Tonight from Amazon—Summary of New Kindles and Fires” at The Kindle Chronicles - September 17, 2015 “Amazon Kindle Voyage 2 to be Released November 2015” by Michael Kozlowski at Good e-Reader - July 9, 2015 “Amazon’s Kindle Scout Publishing Platform Expands Internationally” - press release September 9, 2015 “20 Years of Amazon.com Bookselling” by Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly - September 4, 2015 Tech Tip How to type like 1,000 monkeys on a Kindle on-screen keyboard Interview with Michael Dirda Reviews of Browsings in The Washington Post, The Minneapolis StarTribune, and Wall Street Journal “Book Shopping with the Best-Read Man in America” by John Lingan at The Paris Review - December 28, 2012 Michael Dirda’s reading at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C. - August 10, 2015 Twisted Clay by Frank Walford On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle Professor Challenger Premium Collection by Arthur Conan Doyle The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle Content Books published by Kindle Press based on Kindle Scout reader input Housebroken by The Behrg Eddie & Sunny by Stacey Cochran

TKC 370 Mike Reeves-McMillan Sep 05, 2015

Show notes

Author of The Well-Presented Manuscript Interview starts at 12:13 and ends at 42:27 There are some wonderful stories that I just can’t enjoy, because the author has done such a poor job with the language. One of the reasons that I wanted to write The Well-Presented Manuscript was selfishly to increase my own enjoyment of other people’s books by helping them to not make so many errors that would keep hooking my attention as I was reading them. News “E-Book Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts” by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at The Wall Street Journal - September 3, 2015 (Behind the pay wall, try Googling the reporter’s last name and the headline to get full story.) “Amazon Could be Working on These 6 New Devices” at The Motley Fool - September 2, 2015 Amazon press release on video downloads to iOS and Android devices - September 1, 2015 Amazon page on downloading Amazon Video content to iOS and Android “Amazon Prime Video now does what Netflix won’t: offline playback” by Bryan Bishop at The Verge - September 1, 2015 “Amazon Stock Delivers Rebound as Prime Now Launches” at Investor’s Business Daily - August 25, 2015 Amazon announces Prime Now - August 25, 2015 Tech Tip Read - Ultimate ePub Reader app for iOS Interview with Mike Reeves-McMillan The Well-Presented Manuscript: Just What You Need to Know to Make Your Fiction Look Professional by Mike Reeves-McMillan Other books at the Kindle Store by Mike Reeves-McMillan The Review Curmudgeon, Mike’s reviews blog Mike’s Goodreads page Fantasy Book Review “How to Calm Yourself Down” and “How to Get Into a Good Mood” (YouTube Videos) by Mike Reeves-McMillan Books by Tim Powers Hide Me Among the Graves: A Novel by Tim Powers clippings.io “Immerse or Die” at Creativity Hacker Content Essays after Eighty by Donald Hall The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin and Irina Maununen “RH Children’s Buys Self-Pubbed Phenom ‘Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep” by Rachel Deahl at Publishers Weekly - September 2, 2015 Next Week’s Guest Michael Dirda, author of Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books

TKC 369 Sara Nelson Aug 29, 2015

Show notes

Editorial Director of Books and Kindle at Amazon.com Interview starts at 14:54 and ends at 39:15 On The Story of the Lost Child: I think this is going to break Elena Ferrante out as a bona fide super star in this country. And nobody knows who she is, which I love! News “Amazon e-book deal with NYC public schools postponed as blind advocates say it would leave out visually impaired students” by Lisa L. Colangelo and Ben Chapman at The Daily News - August 25, 2015 “Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices” by Greg Bensinger at The Wall Street Journal - August 26, 2015 Amazon Devices Team, US jobs page with video “Amazon Shoppers Not Swayed by Workplace Horror Stories” by Ashley Rodriguez at Advertising Age - August 26, 2015 Tech Tip The Daily Review at kindle.amazon.com Interview with Sara Nelson Amazon’s Big Fall Books Preview Press release on Fall Books Preview - August 19, 2015 Fall Reading Preview at the Amazon Book Review The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four by Elena ferrante Cancer Vixen: A True Story by Marisa Acocella Marchetto (graphic novel) Fall Books Preview: Children’s Books The Thing About Jelly Fish by Ali Benjamin Content “21 Great Novels It’s Worth Finding Time to Read” by Jacquelyn Mitchard at AARP - September 2014 “Read the World’s Best Books for Free with the Harvard Classics” by Rob Nightingale at MakeUseOf - August 26, 2015 Harvard Classics Wikipedia entry, listing the contents of all 51 volumes Next Week’s Guest Mike Reeves-McMillan, author of The Well-Presented Manuscript: Just What You Need to Know to Make Your Fiction Look Professional

TKC 368 Jason Snell Aug 22, 2015

Show notes

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Six Colors Interview starts at 17:44 and ends at 42:27 I hope the E Ink readers stick around, because I do love them. But it’s going to be a niche market. It’s going to be for people who are dedicated book readers who are willing to spend at least a little bit of money for a nice, distraction-free experience. News “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace” by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld at The New York Times - August 15, 2015 “Was Portrayal of Amazon’s Brutal Workplace on Target?” - blog post by Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of The New York Times - August 18, 2015 “Jeff Bezos Responds to brutal NYT story, says it doesn’t represent the Amazon he leads” by John Cook at GeekWire - August 16, 2015 An Amazon employee’s response to NYT article at LinkedIn - August 16, 2015 Tech Tips "How to renew digital titles” at Overdrive Interview with Jason Snell Jason Snell’s Six Colors blog National Novel Writing Month Upgrade podcast episode #8 with Jason Snell and Scott McNulty re: Kindle Voyage Content Amazon’s Fall Reading Preview French translation of David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece Infinite Jest (Slate) (Available at amazon.fr) Next Week’s Guest Sara Nelson, editorial director at Amazon.com

TKC Mobile Test a Aug 17, 2015

Show notes

I am experimenting with iPhone apps that may enable me to post episodes of the Kindle Chronicles while Darlene and I are in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands this fall. I won't bring my MacBook Air, but it looks as if the tools for mobile podcasting have greatly improved in the past few years. I found an iOS app named Opinion that has a very simple editing function for recording audio, and it can share the file to Libsyn via my Dropbox account.

I am including a photo of Claire taken here at Ocean Park last week. On the road, this could be a giant turtle or sea lion!

We don't leave until October, so I will have time to perfect my traveling podcast studio before the trip.

Please let me know how this sounds. You can email me at PodChronicles AT gmail DOT com.

Thanks,

Len

TKC 367 Harry Bingham Aug 15, 2015

Show notes

Creator of the Fiona Griffiths crime series Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 37:59 Whoever heard of a retailer offering 70 percent royalty? It’s never happened before. How’s that not a good thing for authors? So I just think the Authors United group are bananas, quite frankly. And I think there is increasingly a swell of opinion among authors—not amongst yet among the more traditional structures—but there is a sort of side movement thinking, “Hang on. Amazon actually offers us quite a lot. News “The Rise of Phone Reading” by Jennifer Maloney at The Wall Street Journal - August 12, 2015 Tech Tips Kindle software updates Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr Interview with Harry Bingham1. Talking to the Dead2. Love Story, With Murders3. The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths 4. This Thing of Darkness The Writers' Workshop Cotard’s Syndrome (Wikipedia)Review of This Thing of Darkness by John Cheal at Crime Review - July 4, 2015 Content “The Best Romances of August” by Adrian Liang at The Amazon Book Review - August 7, 2015 “10 Best Novels by Poets” by Naja Marie Aidt at Publishers Weekly - August 7, 2015 Next Week’s Guest Jason Snell

TKC 366 Carie Harling Aug 08, 2015

Show notes

Creator of Dispatches from the Frat House Interview starts at 14:23 and ends at 40:20 I’d like to write the kind of book that I’d like to read. And immediately there’s that thing in your head that goes, “Why? There are a gazillion books out there. Why would you want to write a book? This little wife in the midwest surrounded by kids—who’s going to want to read that?” And the other part of my brain goes, “Well why not? Why shouldn't I write that? If nobody reads it, I wrote it, I’m happy. So why not?" News “Watch out, Siri, Amazon’s Alexa could be coming to iOS soon” by Jeff Brynes at appadvice.com - August 3, 2015 Alexa Voice Service blog post at Amazon - July 31, 2015 “Why Apple and Amazon Chose to be ‘Frenemies’” by Michael Blanding at Forbes - August 3, 2015 "Frenemies in Platform Markets: The Case of Apple’s iPad vs. Amazon’s Kindle” by Ron Adner, Jianqing, and Feng Zhu at HBS Working Paper Series (Full paper in PDF) “Amazon Cuts Down on Prime Members Sharing Their Benefits” by Sarah Perez at TechCrunch - August 3, 2015 Tech Tips Christina Warren’s method for adding author autograph to a Kindle cover - on the Accidental Tech Podcast - May 29, 2015 Kindle Direct Publishing KDP Pricing Support Beta Psychotherapeutic Reiki: A Holistic Body-Mind Approach to Psychotherapy by Richard Curtin Jr. - $3.49 on Kindle Interview with Carie Harling “Clippings.io and Evernote” - YouTube video by Carie Harling October 21, 2015 Clippings.io Evernote Amazon’s kindle.amazon.com retrieval tool for Kindle notes and highlights Moleskine Evernote Smart Notebooks Carie Harling’s “Cheating” post on switching to paper planning tools - March 14, 2013 “Digital Vs Paper Planning” by Carie Harling at Filofax - October 17, 2013 Omnifocus Carie Harling’s “What’s Your Why Not?” site Stochasticity post Content “Awesome Indies Books (A Criticism of Book Awards and Seals)” by Derek Murphy at CreativeINDIE Awesome Indies Blue Ink Review Comment Legimi, a book subscription service in Poland Google Books Next Week’s Guest Harry Bingham, author of the Fiona Griffiths mysteries - 1. Talking to the Dead 2. Love Story, With Murders 3. The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths 4. This Thing of Darkness

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