The Kindle Chronicles

This is the second of my Ecuador TKC episodes, uploaded today (Thursday November 5, 2015) from the cloud forest in Mindo at the Sisakuna Lodge. You will hear our Overseas Adventure Travel guide, Roberto Quintana, on location in the Galapagos, telling us about sea lions, blue-footed boobies, and Galapagos hawks, as well as a conversation I recorded with Darlene and Deb aboard our ship, the Carina.  Before bringing you here to Ecuador, I will take a look at two news stories involving Amazon that reached me by the Internet. One is a report of new Kindles coming this month, and the other is of the Amazon Books store that opened for real in Seattle.  You will find more Ecuador coverage and photos at LenEdgerly.com and photos at Instagram.com/lenedgerly . Thanks for listening!

I am posting Friday's episode of the podcast very early, on Monday, this week from Quito, Ecuador, because tomorrow we leave for the Galapagos Islands where there will be little if any Internet connection. In this show you will hear two of our fellow Overseas Adventure Travel tour members talk about how they use their Kindles. Also, inspired music by a choir of disabled children at the Sinamune School in Quito, night sounds from a lagoon in the Amazon rain forest, our guide Juan's explanation of native healing and shamanistic traditions from his village, and initial impressions from Darlene, Deb, and me after our first week in Ecuador.  

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon Highlights from my interview recorded on July 26, 2012, at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle   The Pre-Trip Conversation  My wife Darlene, her sister Deb and I look ahead to our travels in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador Recorded on September 28, 2015 “Portrait of a Cheetah”  - November 8, 2010 “How to Make a Cheetah Purr” YouTube video - November 8, 2010 “When the Danger is Now-Now”  - November 14, 2010 “Tourists in the Townships” - November 4, 2010 “What Nelson Mandela Learned in Prison” - October 30, 2010 “Living History at Robben Island” - October 30, 2010 “Tinted Windows on Soweto” - October 23, 2010 Darlene’s quilt, “Mr Z” inspired by the Africa trip Elephant quilt Icebreaker clothing Overseas Adventure Travel DuoLingo iOS app iTranslate app for iOS and Apple Watch Tren Crucero trip in Ecuador More media from Ecuador: My Instagram photos and my personal blog at LenEdgerly.com   Next Week’s Show Audio highlights from Amazon the rainforest instead of Amazon the retailer. This will be the first of four episodes that I plan to record and upload from Ecuador.   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!

Creator of Kindle Nation Daily and BookGorilla   Interview starts at 9:38 and ends at 39:45   Of the top 100 bestsellers in the Kindle Store for the entire year of 2014, 91 of those books were made available by the publishers at prices that we discovered, put up and featured on BookGorilla. The average price of those 91 on their feature day was $2.92. The total price of those 91 books if you had bought them at their original prices would have been $996. If you bought them on their BookGorilla day it was $265. What’s not to like about that?   News Glenn Lurie, CEO of AT&T Mobility interviewed on the re/code replay podcast - October 12, 2015 AmazonCrossing commits $10 more to translations into English (press release) Click here to propose a book for translation by AmazonCrossing Andrew Richard Albanese’s review of court cases affecting publishing, at Publisher’s Weekly - October 15, 2015   Tech Tip   Interview with Stephen Windwalker Kindle Nation Daily BookGorilla The Post-American World: Release 2.0 by Fareed Zakaria (Audible version) Fall of Giants: The Century Trilogy, Book 1 by Ken Follett, read by John Lee (Audible) Ulysses by James Joyce, read by John Lee (Audible) Audible Membership plans, including the Platinum Annual Membership mentioned by Steve in the interview The Dark-Hunter Series collection thus far by Sherrilyn Kenyon   Content Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity by Douglas Rushkoff (Available for pre-order with delivery March 1, 2016) Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall, who will be my guest on TKC 382 on November 27, 2016   Next Week’s Show A reprise of my interview with Jeff Bezos on July 26, 2012 and a conversation with my wife Darlene and her sister Deborah about our trip five years ago to Africa and our plans for Ecuador. Click here for information about Darlene’s participation in a show at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts October 21, 2015, through January 10, 2016. The poster for the show has a sample from her “Ellie” quilt, showing the eyes of an elephant we saw in Africa.   How to Travel with us to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands I will upload four episodes of The Kindle Chronicles during the trip, available in the usual feeds Blog posts will appear regularly at LenEdgerly.com I hope to share at least one photo a day at Instagram.com/LenEdgerly Tweets? Maybe. If so, you will find them at Twitter.com/LenEdgerly   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!   Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

This is another test of my mobile podcasting gear, two days before we leave for Ecuador. I am hoping the photo of Claire and me shows up with RSS feeds.  For audio, I used 44:58 of recording from my visit to San Francisco to attend the Amazon new-products demonstration on September 16, 2015.  Playing with tech stuff when I should be packing, Len

The New York Times’s publishing industry reporter   Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05   For the people that are price sensitive--if you’re not somebody that reads digitally because you prefer that, because you find it more convenient--but you’re maybe a hybrid reader, you might get a paperback if it’s significantly cheaper than an eBook, if you are somebody that toggles back and forth.   News My experience with a Kindle devices customer survey First impressions of the Amazon Fire HD 10 and keyboard case  Mindjet app for mindmapping (free)   Tech Tip Overcast podcatcher app for iPhone and iPad “The best podcast app for iOS, Overcast, is now totally free” by Chris Welch at The Verge - October 9, 2015 “Overcast 2” at Marco.org - October 9, 2015   Interview with Alexandra Alter “NYTimes hires WSJ’s Alter to cover publishing” by Chris Roush at Talking Biz News - June 6, 2014 “The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print is Far From Dead” by Alexandra Alter at The New York Times - September 22, 2015 The New York Times Book Review podcast “Svetlana Alexievich Wins Nobel Prize in Literature” by Alexandra Alter - October 8, 2015 Fates and Furies: A Novel by Lauren Groff A Little Life: A Novel by Hanya Yanagihara Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates   Content Amazon Editors pick 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Outlander by Diana Gabaldon   Comments Clippings.io “Clippings.io and Evenote" - YouTube video by Carie Harling - October 21, 2015   Next Week’s Guest Stephen Windwalker, creator of Kindle Nation Daily and BookGorilla   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!

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!

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!

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!

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   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!