Amazon Kindle -- A Year Later?

Mine came yesterday afternoon.

I read two thirds of a book last night in down time at work.

I love this thing, though I'm pretty sure my budget will definitely not.

*Oh god I just bout $100 worth of books.

TheCounselor wrote:

Wait, so I can buy a hard copy and get the Kindle edition for $3.99? Or does it depend on the title? I'd buy a lot more hard copies if this were true, if only to have the option.

As far as I know you can't get the Kindle edition that way, I've never done it but I'm fairly certain it's a PDF.

I have to wait all day for the UPS guy to show up....

For those that think 9.99 is too expensive for books on this thing I rationalized it as follows...

1. I am a member of the SciFi Book club. I routinely pay $10-$15 for a hardcover book plus S&H so this is going to be cheaper for me in the long run.
2. I won't have a "physical" book to hold in my lap, but I am out of space in my office library with books already.
3. I also like the ability to start reading a book for free and if it grabs me I can buy it immediately. Too often I've purchased books that got good reviews only to find that it just didn't do it for me. This will allow me to try it before I buy it.
4. Having the ability to browse through the book selection and grab anything of interest is going to cause me to read more which is always good.

Today's xkcd features the Kindle.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

eBooks will eventually win me over, if only because I'm out of bookshelves.

eBooks already have won me over, for that reason. I recommend www.baen.com, I haven't bought a dead tree copy of a book in years, yet I buy a new book or three or seven a month, from them.

While I haven't looked into the prices on the ebooks for the Kindle, the prices mentioned so far (halfway through the thread) are a case of sticker shock for me. Much higher than I pay, legally. $10 for an ebook? Ripoff. I'm happy at the $6 and less price point. Baen tends to have great deals, and getting them in .rtf file format is a big selling point for me.

LtWarhound wrote:

While I haven't looked into the prices on the ebooks for the Kindle, the prices mentioned so far (halfway through the thread) are a case of sticker shock for me. Much higher than I pay, legally. $10 for an ebook? Ripoff.

$9.99 is a ripoff? For a brand new book that is only out in hardcover? Show me somewhere that sells brand new books for less, and I'll give you a cookie

I think RTF is an inferior format when it comes to structured documents of considerable length that have to deal with anything but fiction works. No TOC, no intra-document links (footnotes, references etc), no flow control, limited metadata options. Other than absense of DRM, I don't see any pluses.

I caved last night.

I've got to travel all next week for work, so I figured it'd be the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with it.

I've had a RocketEbook 1150 for about 4 years now, I bought it for $100 so I figured I'd splurge on something nice to read now. I'm a fiend for Gutenberg.

SommerMatt wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:

While I haven't looked into the prices on the ebooks for the Kindle, the prices mentioned so far (halfway through the thread) are a case of sticker shock for me. Much higher than I pay, legally. $10 for an ebook? Ripoff.

$9.99 is a ripoff? For a brand new book that is only out in hardcover? Show me somewhere that sells brand new books for less, and I'll give you a cookie

Hardcover only? Ripoff. When a new book hits the shelves, it should also hit the e-shelf. I don't have to wait 6 months to a year to get a new David Weber, as soon as Baen Publishing makes his hardcover available (with attached CD), so is the downloadable electronic version, in several formats, for less than $10.

Older books tend to be much less than than $10, with bundles discounted even more. And the Baen website offers ebooks from more than just Baen Publishing, several other smaller publishers release ebooks (new and reissued) through them.

That's the system I support, not the Kindle/Amazon system.

LtWarhound wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:

While I haven't looked into the prices on the ebooks for the Kindle, the prices mentioned so far (halfway through the thread) are a case of sticker shock for me. Much higher than I pay, legally. $10 for an ebook? Ripoff.

$9.99 is a ripoff? For a brand new book that is only out in hardcover? Show me somewhere that sells brand new books for less, and I'll give you a cookie

Hardcover only? Ripoff. When a new book hits the shelves, it should also hit the e-shelf. I don't have to wait 6 months to a year to get a new David Weber, as soon as Baen Publishing makes his hardcover available (with attached CD), so is the downloadable electronic version, in several formats, for less than $10.

Older books tend to be much less than than $10, with bundles discounted even more. And the Baen website offers ebooks from more than just Baen Publishing, several other smaller publishers release ebooks (new and reissued) through them.

That's the system I support, not the Kindle/Amazon system.

I guess I'm just no understanding your argument. If you can find an ebook edition of a brand new hardcover (a book that's on the NYT bestseller list, for example) at a price cheaper than Amazon offers, I will repeat my offer and give you another cookie.

Apparently, you love Baen's ebook system. That's cool. That's an extremely limited pool of titles and authors, however.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I think RTF is an inferior format when it comes to structured documents of considerable length that have to deal with anything but fiction works. No TOC, no intra-document links (footnotes, references etc), no flow control, limited metadata options. Other than absense of DRM, I don't see any pluses.

Have to agree, for anything other than light reading, RTF has its drawbacks. But, for that matter, for textbooks, reference manuals, anything heavy in charts, tables and graphics, I haven't found an electronic format I like.

RTF works great for me because I can quickly and easily access it on pretty much any networked PC (or non-networked, if it has a USB slot I can stick my library on a thumbdrive in), can manipulate it to exactly the font, font size and 'page' size I want. This makes reading an ebook enjoyable, even for hours on end, without eye strain or headaches of any kind. Slow days at work, I go through a novel or two, easily.

This isn't true for everyone, obviously. My significant other hates reading books on a PC, she wants a dead tree copy.

If you can find an ebook edition of a brand new hardcover (a book that's on the NYT bestseller list, for example) at a price cheaper than Amazon offers, I will repeat my offer and give you another cookie.

Apparently, you love Baen's ebook system. That's cool. That's an extremely limited pool of titles and authors, however.

That's why I mentioned David Weber by name. 13 times on the NYT bestseller list, to date? Storm from the Shadows is his latest, its coming out shortly, I'd be happy to bet it will hit the NYT bestseller list by mid-March.

And it will be available in several electronic editions, at the same time its released in hardcover, cheaper than Amazon. So, paying Amazon $10 for a new ebook is, to me, overpriced.

Compared to the NYT list, sure, its a much smaller pool of both authors and titles. Which isn't a problem for me, since most of the mainstream publishers aren't releasing what I want. Being on the NYT list isn't a draw for me.

***

Edit: Funny thing, this thread made me go back to Baen, where I found the book already released, thought it was to come out March 3rd. I handed over my $6, and downloaded the RTF version. Something for lunch.

I also found a lot of Kindle integration in the site, Kindle format being just one of the many e-formats offered, and there is a link to email the book to your Kindle. So, Baen Publishing likes the Kindle, it seems.

Are the books on Baen already available through Amazon?

LtWarhound wrote:

That's why I mentioned David Weber by name. 13 times on the NYT bestseller list, to date? Storm from the Shadows is his latest, its coming out shortly, I'd be happy to bet it will hit the NYT bestseller list by mid-March.

And it will be available in several electronic editions, at the same time its released in hardcover, cheaper than Amazon. So, paying Amazon $10 for a new ebook is, to me, overpriced.

What's the big deal, then? Buy it from Baen in RTF, convert it to AZW using Sanza, and copy it to Kindle!

Or just buy it from Baen in Kindle format, you filthy skimmer you! Which, actually, I think I'm going to do. Repeatedly.

Check out www.webscription.net. More than just Baen on there - Tor is there too! Kindle-friendly goodness! Now I *really* can't wait.

I'm so tempted by this... Going to have to give it more thought. Also, going to have to retry Stanza on my iPhone, couldn't really get it to work right the first time.

Robear- That link is fantastic. Thank you!

I just opened my new Kindle. It sure is sexy. It came with all of my previously purchased books loaded into an archive folder, and transferring my email address and subscriptions was easy as pie. The leather cover is nice, and has a locked clip that slides into two slots in the side of the Kindle. It's much better than the old cover, even though it doesn't have a strap to keep it closed.

Got mine too, and I really do like it. The screen is noticably different side by side, and the thing just feels way more substantial, while still being light and thin. The keyboard sucks, but I think I've used my Kindle keyboard for a grand total of 100 words since last year. The faster screen isn't noticable so much for page flipping, but for navigation it's SOOOooo much better than the old click wheel system.

Truly loving it so far, and they made the transition dirt simple - I just turned it on.

rabbit wrote:

Got mine too, and I really do like it. The screen is noticably different side by side, and the thing just feels way more substantial, while still being light and thin. The keyboard sucks, but I think I've used my Kindle keyboard for a grand total of 100 words since last year. The faster screen isn't noticable so much for page flipping, but for navigation it's SOOOooo much better than the old click wheel system.

Truly loving it so far, and they made the transition dirt simple - I just turned it on.

The navigation switch is heaven compared to that click wheel.

I also like that the power cord is a normal size this time around. Oversize adapters don't play well with my outlets.

Have you tried the text to speech yet? That's really going to get Audible.com concerned...or maybe not.

The text to speech is too much like windows text to speech to suit me. It didn't mispronounce any words or do anything weird the bit that I used it, but I'm pretty sure that's a feature that's just not for me.

I suspect text-to-speech is or can get to being good enough for non-fiction, reading newspapers and blogs and the like.

Can it ever match the quality of Roy Dotrice reading George R.R. Martin's books? Well, I'm not gonna say never, but that would be pretty amazing...

(Apparently other humans aren't as good as Mr. Dotrice -- for some reason with the fourth book they switched narrators and listeners more or less hate the new guy...)

Been playing with this since UPS dropped it off. VERY very slick.

One minor complaint I have... I downloaded some samples and while reading decided that I wanted to buy it. After buying it I have to go and open the full version. I wish they had figured out how to get it to seamlessly add onto the sample so that I didn't have to go out, delete, and open the real one.

minor complaint though. All in all this was well worth my $ and I have only been reading for an hour or so.

I spent some more time with mine as well. Someone commented about "ghosting" on the screen. While I did see it for abotu 40 page flips, it's now completely gone away. I have a feeling it might be something of a break in.

Love the fact that the powercord is now a normal USB thing, and the USB transformer it ships with is now the smallest one I own, beathing my iPhone adapter by a mile. The case is also really nice. Wish it had the elastic the old case had though.

rabbit wrote:

I spent some more time with mine as well. Someone commented about "ghosting" on the screen. While I did see it for abotu 40 page flips, it's now completely gone away. I have a feeling it might be something of a break in.

The ghosting effect was definitely there on mine too, but it disappeared after less than an hour of use and I haven't seen it since.

Still waiting for the textbook tie in. In all seriousness, I read a lot of PDF excerpts or articles for classes but getting my texts on this would make it a no doubt purchase for about every college student.

Haven't seen the ghosting, at least nothing that hangs around after the page loads.

I was really surprised at the quality of the packaging, it's like they hired Apple to design the whole deal. Very minimalist but still fancy. The box for the leather cover matched the box for the Kindle. Both have a black paper motif with letters and symbols in shiny black ink all over them. It's Steve Jobs' wet dream packaging.

One cool thing is that when you put it to sleep, it brings up a page with the picture of a famous author. I got Edgar Allen Poe.

I like that it has my Amazon recommendations, and it refers to itself by my name. It's customized. Shameless but it's a good touch.

Anyone having trouble getting this thing to detect when plugged into a USB connection? It appears to be a problem with a bunch of people judging from the amazon forums.

Seems like the first time the kindle will be detected just fine, but if you plug it in again you'll get a "unknown USB device" message. Restarting the kindle from the options corrects this. I still haven't managed to actually get into the drive from my computer. I can see the drive but clicking on it just results in the thing clocking. Makes it a challenge to move some mobi books onto it....

LtWarhound wrote:
Kurrelgyre wrote:

eBooks will eventually win me over, if only because I'm out of bookshelves.

eBooks already have won me over, for that reason. I recommend www.baen.com, I haven't bought a dead tree copy of a book in years, yet I buy a new book or three or seven a month, from them.

While I haven't looked into the prices on the ebooks for the Kindle, the prices mentioned so far (halfway through the thread) are a case of sticker shock for me. Much higher than I pay, legally. $10 for an ebook? Ripoff. I'm happy at the $6 and less price point. Baen tends to have great deals, and getting them in .rtf file format is a big selling point for me.

Same - love the Baen site. Hooked me on the Vorkosigan novels They do have some phenomenal deals from time to time. I also use Fictionwise, eReader.com, and the various sites through Mobireader.