Red Mist and Locked On – Two New Best-selling Ebooks

Ebooks have recently had another boost by two new books by a couple of the big hitters Patricia Cornwell Red Mist , her latest Kay Scarpeta book and Locked on by Tom Clancy his latest Jack Ryan book.

Patricia Cornwell is the world’s no. 1 best-selling crime writer. In Red Mist,
Kay Scarpetta’s travels to the Georgia Women’s Prison, to see an inmate who has information on Jack Fielding’s death and on a string of other killings. Scarpetta discovers connections that force her to conclude that what she thought ended with an attempt on her own life and Fielding’s death is just the beginning of something much more destructive: a web of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale.

In Locked On Tom Clancy brings back Jack Ryan and all the stars. The team have to deal with their greatest challenge ever.

Jack Ryan, Sr. is running for President again, but he reckons without the treachery of his opponent, who attacks one of Ryan’s closest friends John Clark, on the basis of trumped up charges.

Clark is in a race against time and must keep one step ahead of his adversaries, including a secretive organization with the task of bringing him in, while trying to find out who is behind this.
Another best-seller from Tom Clancy.

Amazon will no doubt be rubbing its hands over the sales of its Kindle Fire before Christmas and sales of its ebooks after Christmas ! Ebooks now outsell paperbacks on the Amazon site. The future is e-reading!

Writing your Own Ebooks

Once you have bought your ebook reader whether a Kindle a Nook or a Kobo you are going to need something to put on it and read ! All the best-selling authors are now making their books available for the ebook format (although they seem averse to reducing their prices much) but there are also a whole load of independent authors who are now aking up to the possibilities offered by self-publishing on Amazon.

If you write a novel you can upload it to Amazon, make it available for downloading at a resonable price such as $2.99 and you get 70% of the sale price i.e. around $2 per sale. There are many new authors who are making a fair amount of money (at least one of them has become a millionaire) so if you feel you have a talent as a write then you are no longer hampered by the need to find an agent or a publisher. Just do it !

For more information on writing your own ebook see – Amanda Hocking Ebooks for more mainstream ebooks check out Breaking Dawn Ebook

Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet?

One important point to consider when weighing up whether to buy the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet is that the Kindle is $50 cheaper – $199 compared with $249 for the Nook. That will lead to a lot more buyers. The Nook has slightly better specs but not enough to justify the price difference for many people.

The Kindle Fire is also better known and access to Amazon content will mean it will be a better Christmas present.

The touch screens are the same size at 7″.

The speed is the same for both at 1 GHz.

The Nook has more storage at 16GB, which can be expanded via a slot for a 32GB memory card. The Kindle Fire only has 8GB but books can be stored online with Amazon.

Theyare not competitors with the iPad except that they are $275 cheaper and most iPad users don’t need an iPad a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet would do what they want to do just as well.

One advantage for the Nook Tablet is that you can try before you buy in a Barnes and Noble.

It also has a built-in microphone.

In addition to price Amazon also wins on availability of apps and content.

Barnes and Noble may reduce the price of the Nook to $199 after the initial rush (maybe after Christmas?).

In conclusion, the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet are very similar. The Nook has some clear advantages in so far as concerns storage, microphone, and battery life (maybe). For the software the Kindle Fire is the better device. Barnes & Noble will probably increase their number of apps but at the moment Amazon has a clear advantage in this area.

Many people will probably consider that the Kindle Fire is the better bargain at $199 than the specifications of the Nook at $249. For another view of the same dilemma check out – Kindle Fire vs Nook Color

Amazon Kindle Fire Technical Details

7″ multi-touch display – anti-reflective treatment, 1024 x 600 pixels at 169 ppi, 16 million colors.

7.5″ x 4.7″ x 0.45″).

Weight

14.6 oz.

System Requirements
Wireless – no computer required.
Storage 8GB internal. Enough for 80 apps, + 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.

Free cloud storage for all Amazon content

Battery Life Up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off.

Full charge in approx. 4 hours via U.S. power adapter (included).
Charging from your PC via USB.

Wi-Fi Connectivity via private and public Wi-Fi networks or hotspots that use 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or enterprise networks with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication; does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks.

USB Port USB 2.0

Ebooks Beating Out Books

The ebook revolution is well underway. Amazon is now selling more ebooks than printed books and writers are getting in the act too. Writers now no longer need to rely on traditional publishers, they can self-publish using the Kindle format and Amazon. Write a book convert it to Kindle and self-publish on Amazon. Hey presto – you are a writer with no need for a publisher !

This is a big blow to publishers and also to booksellers. For writers it is great news and there are already people who are making lots of money from selling their ebooks, even they are complete unknowns.

So if you think you have a talent then get your finger into gear and churn out your best-selling ebooks quick, there is a bandwagon underway, make sure you jump on it. Popular genres are mystery and thriller of course, but also lots of romance ebooks, paranornaml romance and fantasy.

Make sure to price your ebook cheap – $2.99 seems to be the best price, cheaper if it is your first ebook. Then sit back and watch the cash roll in, plenty of people are already doing it and there is no reasonwhy you cannot join in. It just takes a bit of efort to put together your novel. The actual conversion into ebook format is pretty easy – only takes a few minutes and there are videos on Amazon explaining just how it is done.

This is the death knell for bookstores – Borders a has already gone under and no doubt there will be more on the way, but you can’t stop progress so you may as well forget the past, forget printed books and tiresome publishers, just publish yourself on the Internet, you know it makes sense !

Wake up and smell the Kindles.

Looking for an Ebook Reader as a Christmas present or just for yourself then there is now a new kid on the block in addition to the Kindle Ebook Reader and the Sony Reader there is the nook from Barnes and Noble.

The nook will use the Android platform and should be available on November 30, it will set you back US$259.

It has Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, a 6″ E-Ink display and a separate colour touchscreen to be used as primary input method.

It has a MicroSD expansion slot for extra storage. One innovative feature that the Kindle Ebook Reader does not have is the ability to lend books once to someone for up to 2 weeks.

It is however a US-only device.

It also includes a built-in WiFi adapter, allowing free access to AT&T-powered hotspots in B&N retail stores.

One thing that is missing is the text-to-speech tools that the Kindle has and the battery life is only 10 days, compared with 14 days for the Kindle.

Amazon Has Launched a Kindle for PC Application

Amazon’s share price rose over 20% on Friday when it reported $199 million net profit.

One of the reasons for this surge in profits is the Kindle ebook reader which is now Amazon’s “number one best-selling item both in unit sales and dollars”.

In another move to increase profits and cash in on the enthusiasm for the Kindle, Amazon is making an application available free of charge to allow you to use Kindle software to turn your PC into an ebook reader .

Here are some facts and figures.

1. The Kindle application will be free to download

2. It will be available in November.

3. It will be available for Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows XP.

4. Windows 7 version will have more features

5. 360,000 Kindle ebooks will be available

6. You can transfer previous purchases free.

7. You don’t lose your place if you switch from PC to Kindle or iPhone.

8. Kindle notes or highlights will be synchronized.

9. You can choose font size and select the number of words to appear on each line.

10. Best-selling books will cost $9.99 to download

Amazon has announcesd a slimmed-down version of the Kindle Ebook Reader for the UK and at the same time Plastic Logic has revealed that it will be launching the QUE in January 2010, describing it as the first proReader for business professionals.

The QUE ereader will support document formats for business users  (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc.).

“QUE enhances business performance and gives you a competitive edge. More than an eReader, QUE means business.”

The QUE will be ultra thin, lightweight and wireless-enabled, and measure 8.5 x 11 inch, and be less than a 1/3 inch thick.

It will have the largest screen in the industry and an intuitive touch screen user interface.

It will also feature a shatterproof plastic display which along with E Ink Vizplex® technology will provide an “outstanding reading experience”. The battery can also last days, instead of hours.

Kindle DX Launches this Summer

Amazon has sold so many of its Kindle version 2 ebook reader that it decided to make a bigger version so that people wouldn’t have to scroll up down and across the 5 inch screen.

The new screen is 9.7 inches. Amazon has also signed a deal with the New York TImes, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe who have agreed to subsidize customers who also take out a subsciription to their newspapers. A good deal for Amazon but maybe not such a goo ddeal for the newspapers.

The Kindle DX in addition to being a lot bigger than the Kindle 2 is also a lot more expensive, with a rettail price of $489 compared to $359 for the Kindle 2 – a lot and maybe too much for a lot of peopl eso there is no guarantee that Amazon will have the same success with the Kindle DX as it had with its two provious ebook readers. Most people will buy the version 2 I would imagine. Personally I would buy the cheaper version and use the money I saved to buy a fine designer handbag from Radley Bags

Amazon KIndle Problems

If you are thinking of buying a Kindle Ebook Reader then you may want to think again. Apparently if you send too many things back to Amazon they can get quite upset and switch your Kindle off.

Amazon recently banned one user from using their services because he had made too many returns. His returns were not ebooks or anything else related to his Kindle but that didn’t stop them switching his Kindle off !

If they do switch your Kindle off what happens? You can still read books you have already bought, but you can’t use it to download anything new.

So you are now the proiud owner of a $359 piece of plastic.

The user finally got his Kindle access restored by Amazon, who said this was a “courtesy”, but they reserve the right to switch it off again if he does anything they don’t like.

They said that “if a higher-than-acceptable number of concession incidents occur in the future” they will switch his Kindle off again – sounds like blackmail to me !

If you are a techy you can work out how to remove the Digital Rights Management on the ebooks you buy so you can read them on any device.

Well I certainly won’t be queuing up to buy a Kindle !

For more info. see : Kindle Ban User

Amazon Kindle Patent Lawsuit Filed by Discovery Communications

The Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader must be doing well ! Hwo do we know that ? Because people keep starting lawsuits against it. If they weren’t selling any nobody could care less about lawsuits. But Amazon are making some dosh with thei Kindle Ebook Readers and also the sales of ebooks that go hand in hand with the numbers of ebook readers sold – so people want to get a piece of the action.

The latest lawsuit comes from Discovery Communication of Discovery Channel fame – they claim they had a prior patent – for full information have a look here Ebook Reader patent litigation

I reckon ebook readers are the way reading is going – who wants to carry about 20 kilos of books when they can put them all on one electronic device and download newspapers and magazines and even have the ebook reader read out the books to them wihot the need to even read the book yourself – much more flexible and innovative – plus soon there will be colour to look at and no doubt at some point video or animated cartoons or god knows what the sjy’s the limit an dyou rimagination of course !

The only problem with ebook readers of course is the price which Amazon and Sony have put way too high for the simple reason that they can – in a year or two I’m sure the price will have com edown so that any old Joe Bloggs can afford his ebook reader. Laprops are dropping in price and netbooks and notebooks too so I see no reason why ebook readers should be the same price as a gaming laptops.