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Books

360Flex Indy, done

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I’m back home in Denver after 360|Flex Indy, and finally able to get my thoughts down on ‘paper’

The conference itself was a huge success, we had about 289 people with us in Indy, which you have to admit ain’t bad for “this economy”.

The hotel and conference center was awesome, i mean, an old train station? awesome! I’m not a huge fan of the layout we ended up with, but i kinda knew that going in. I just hate conferences that span floors, and we did that. Lesson learned.

The sessions, well what’s there to say but that we had 45+ sessions from some of the best minds in the community. Open source projects were launching like kites in a tornado. It was awesome, to be able to be the place where that kind of cool stuff was happening.

Oh and then there was Doug

The parties were a ton of fun, and if there was some way we could do a week of parties, I’d totally know each attendee! By the last party on Tuesday I was able to identify a god number of people by face as they came up to get their drink tickets.
The Wednesday keynote went well and is always my favorite part. Getting a chance to talk to everyone, talk about the conference, what Tom and I are up to etc. Fun times.
It was nice for Tom and I to share that InsideRIA, InsideMobile, and 360|iDev are in full force effort mode, coming in rapid succession this summer, starting in July. We’ve partnered with O’Reilly for the first two, and that’s crazy exciting. Tom and I have been working with our Pal Steve at O’Reilly on this idea since mmm well it probably started on the Ebay Town hall patio at the first 360|Flex, yeah it’s been a while in the making. The partnership should really open some door’s for O’Reilly and 360|Conferences.
An added bonus was we got to meet Joe Wikert, Steve’s boss, who’s also a big eBook/Kindle fan. It was cool to talk to him about 360|Whisperings, which he was really interested in. I can’t wait to get our first few authors up onthe site.

Guess we’re lucky we have cars and electricity

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In perusing my kindlefeeder report this morning I came across two very interesting blog posts, about the same topic. Apparently the New York Times (not dead yet?) had an article about the Kindle and essentially literary snobbery. Here’s Joe’s thoughts, and CJ’s.

I hereby put not only the NYT, which is fighting against time for it’s own life, but the author (JOANNE KAUFMAN) of yet another (basically) ‘progress is ruining it!’ article on blast. GET OVER YOURSELVES.

I’m the first to admit, I have very strong elitist tendencies, and my mac snobbery knows few bounds. That said though, I don’t care who sees me with what book, and I carry my Mac as proudly (though with only one arm, not two) as I did my Dell.

The Kindle is, as I’ce said before, a game changer for publishing. The wall of books, to impress your friends, will be gone in another 20 years or less. Just like the enormous display of CDs and (largely) DVDs on display near your TV and home entertainment center is already gone. picture-4That’s just how it works. There’s also not a stable in my back yard, not a store room of candles, or a cellar with huge blocks of ice.

Tom mentioned this when we got our Kindle‘s and you can see it on this snapshot, The Kindle it letting people read crap they’d probably be too embarrassed to read otherwise.

Sara Nelson is clearly to entrenched in her own world to really appreciate what consumers want, this quote clearly illustrates that.

“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”

So let’s think about this from two perspectives; 1. the best selling list from Amazon. While not yet Mass Market Paperbacks the teen vampire series is clearly (no offense) not Tolkien or Dostoevsky or even King, and while I’m sure the NeoCons are loving their manifesto, it’s certainly not going to be a classic. 2. let’s look at my my Kindle. Two mass Market Paperbacks, a business book, KindleFeeder report, and the collected works of Poe, oh and the Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (cuz you know, I’m a kid at heart, and my girl Beatrix rocked). So while I’m sure Ms. Nelson only has the classics from the most famous writers on her Kindle, the rest of us are either putting what we’d normally carry, or putting what we’d be embarrassed to carry on ours.

Oh and don’t worry Anne Fadiman, your book won’t be requested on the Kindle, good luck with the sales and making your royalty back.

TO some book lovers and editors, there are myriad reasons to deplore the Kindle. Publishers will no longer get the bump that comes when travelers see someone reading, say, the latest James Patterson and say to themselves: “I’ve been meaning to get that. I think I’ll buy a copy at Hudson News before I hop on the train.”

Joe poked fun at this line and I’m going to too. It’s retarded! Who does that? Who is so simple minded and forgetful, that while waiting for a train (something they do every day) they see a book in someone’s hand and it flips a switch in their brain that today is the day they need to buy that book?

How’s this scenario, which is enabled by the kindle. You’re at that same train station and realize you finished your book last night on the way home. You either a, have other books ready to be read, already on your Kindle, or b, you fire up the Kindle store (conveniently on the Kindle) and browse and purchase a new book, that is on your device in a minute or two.

There have have been plenty of times I’ve been at an airport (coming or going) and realized that the book I brought I was almost finished with, or I finish it my first night in the hotel. Books are awesome but heavy so packing spares and back ups is not something I enjoy doing, in the off chance I’ll finish the one I’m reading. Schlepping dead tree around sucks.

In reading the article it reinforces for me the (as with the music industry) fucked up nature of publishing. Publishers and Authors alike, can’t stop being reactionary and freaking out for one minute, to realize that (just like the iPod) the Kindle is going to reinvigorate people to read, and boost sales.

And services like KindleFeeder and (to pimp my own stuff) 360Whisperings, will be the wave of the future, offering just what you want in a portable format that doesn’t waste paper!

Kindle !=Book, just like iPod !=Tape Deck

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saw this post and got to thinking, what a bunch of reactionary malarky. Perhaps the write is just trying to get some link love, and that’s fine.

The author makes some basic assertions, that not only don’t really apply or stand up, but seem to be based on strangely romantic, almost anti technology notions.

“Argument one: The Kindle destroys the trace of the author. After the death of the individual author, books continue to live…”

If for no other reason than it’s wasteful, Any book I purchase on the Kindle isn’t likely to go away. Most of my paper books are on my shelves, books are meaningful.  I can’t argue that there’s something special about the feel and heft of a book, but it’s 2009, we don’t play music on magnetic tape, and we don’t need to kill trees to read about over sexed vampire teenagers. So yeah the Kindle isn’t the same, but that’s not a detractor, any more than a tractor not being a vespa doesn’t make one better than the other.

“Argument two: the Kindle destroys the community of readers which books engender. The Kindle has been devised by a society that wants to make profit each time a text is read rather than each time a book is purchased. In the old system, once I bought a book I owned it as an object. I could read it as many times as I liked and give it to friends who may give it to their friends…”

Long before the Kindle arrived, I hadn’t set foot in a Library in years. The only time I went into a book store was the random time I needed a book faster than amazon could deliver it, or was traveling. While I might be alone in this, I almost never loan out books. I’ve purchased a new book and gifted it, several times. Books that meant something special to me, were purchased for people, never gifted. I can count on one hand the books I’ve loaned out. People don’t value other people’s things, they lose them, mistreat them, etc.

The Kindle changes the field, most definitely. Sadly we’re at a stage in technology where long standing industries don’t grasp technology so they try to lock it down. But if you look at the iPod, you’ll see the future of eBooks, unlocked, open to owner to use fairly. Being able to one day trade notes on a shared book, is what I’m hoping the Kindle offers.

“Argument three: the Kindle denies the call to deep, meditative reflection. Books have a magic power in that they can draw us into the world of the author and make time pass quickly while we are immersed in the text. The book is the ideal format for presenting complicated, philosophical arguments that require the reader to pause between paragraphs and reflect. The Kindle is the opposite — it is merely a television for reading text, a computer that will distract us…”

This pretty much clears it up that the author hasn’t ever used a Kindle beyond possibly picking one up off a friends desk and shaking his head and sitting it down. I’m currently reading “Metal Storm: Book 5 (I think) in the Saga of the Seven Suns” and having read the first 4 in paperback, I can say the experience of reading this book on the Kindle compared to the other 4, no different. Not even tin the slightest. I ‘flip’ to the next page and can pause to reflect. The metaphors associated with books, really translate well across the paper to bit divide.

I’d be willing to bet the author hasn’t been in a library any more recently than I have. I don’t know anyone who goes to libraries, I live very near the Denver Metro Library. The few people I know who use libraries do so to rent movies, go figure.

Libraries were great! So were drive-ins, and malt shops. The Kindle destroys libraries and books, the same way the iPod destroys music and recording, that is to say, IT DOESN’T.

I seriously hope that Micah (The author) doesn’t own an iPod, a TiVo, or a DVD or Blue Ray player, as those devices all evolved their respective mediums, not destroyed them.

As much as I hate giving link traffic to places I think don’t deserve it, you’ll have to read the entire article if you want all of Micah’s alarmist, fear mongering style arguments.

My First (well second) creation on the Kindle

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So this is my first non 360|Conferences bit of content on the Kindle.

The 360|Flex Session Description guide was put up as a test of our ability to publish content, and how the whole process works.

‘The rEvolution’ is my first shot. It’s a short story I wrote a few years ago. Mainly just a rif on the old tale of Artificial Intelligence kicking our asses, and all that.

I woulda made it free, but Amazon isn’t down with that, so $.99 it is. If you do buy it and hate it, let me know, :) I’ll paypal you $.99

The Kindle platform is dope, I’m really excited by it. You can upload HTML, or a PDF (the PDF formatting seems to suck). The HTML options are pretty limited, but then again it’s supposed to be a book, so you know, not a lot of fancy CSS options in your normal paperback.

The biggest downside is Microsoft Word. Well that kinda goes without saying I know, but “saving as HTML” is completely useless in Word, as many of us know. I almost tried it, just to see how it worked, but figured I’d just make myself angry, so I didn’t even try. One look at the HTML output of my story (which is just paraphraphs, no extra formatting, no font size changes, no color, special chars, etc) I was flabberghasted, no thank you. Clean up on aisle nine!

It wasn’t too painful to output RTF and then paste that into an HTML document in Dreamweaver. Then it was just a matter of replacing BR tags with closing P tags, and throwing in some lightweight CSS action. Viola!

I’m really looking forward to publishing folks’ content, I think the Kindle

So take a look, all criticism welcome, after all I wrote it about 3 years or so ago I think, so I’d love to know what folks think.

Is the printed book dead?

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So I got a Kindle for work, we’ve launched an effort to help developers get their articles and content up on the Kindle (to start) and make a little money. The idea being we make some money too, and help us pay ourselves salary. Wanna write for us?

OK Pitch over. So I’ve bought two books for my Kindle and even experimented with Calibre a little. The experience so far, awesome.

img_0877_modI was a skeptic, I love books. I love the feel of paper, the weight, the act of holding it in your hands, all of it. I love traveling with books and putting ticket stubs in the book. My books are like time capsules.

The Kindle changes most or all of that.

The device itself (I have the Kindle2 obviously) is lightweight, and inside it’s little leather sleeve (separate price of course) is about the size of a Moleskine, and a bit lighter. So as far a footprint, if you carry a moleskine, you’re not gonna gripe about carrying a Kindle

The screen is very readable. When we got them Toms complaint was “There’s no backlight.” I laughed and pointed out that, that was the point, books don’t have back lights either. Sure it’d be nice if it was backlit, but my books aren’t so it’s not like I’m losing some sort of functionality.

I never tried a Kindle 1 but I heard that the screen refresh was terribly slow, the Kindle 2 is fast. Probably close to about the speed that I take to reach for a page, flip and start reading. I’m very surprised by how nice the E-ink screen is. it’s very crisp and easy to read.

img_0879_mod

I remember reading that one of the biggest complaints of the Kindle 1 were the buttons. Taking up most of the right side of the device, making it hard to hold and not flip the page. The Kindle 2 solves that nicely. The buttons aren’t very large, but just in the right place.

I’m finding that the Kindle is much more a game changer than I gave it credit for when it was released. It’s truly the iPod of books. Screw Audible and the whole audio book thing. Sorry ya’ll, listen to music in the car or whatever, reading is for the eyes, not the ears.

It’s amazing when a company creates a product that is by no means the first of it’s kind, and even by no means the best as far as features, yet still that company and their product completely kill the competition. Apple did it with the iPod, and I’m comfortable calling the eReader space for Amazon. I know there’s a lot of complaint about the Kindle not being outside the US, etc, etc. but the same was the case for the iPod, and still is. Each iTunes store is different, but I think it’s fair to assume, where ever there’s an amazon.* domain, there’ll be a Kindle store so long as the publishing industry doesn’t act like dill holes.

I think in the very near future we’ll see Kindles as frequently as we see iPods.

img_0880_modThat said, it’s truly incredible that this device exists. Part of me is sad, that it spells the end (by and large) for printed books. The idea of a wall of books, ones I’ve read and need to read, lining my house just resonates with me. I’d have a real and true library in my house if there was room and money for it. It’s not. Like I said above, the printed book just feels special, and while the Kindle is awesome, it’s not a book, it’s a device and it feels like a device.

The fact that I can carry on a single device more books than I currently own (Ring any bells folks? the iPod allows the same thing with music) is a hugely mind wobbling thing. Though I wouldn’t complain if I could put content into folders, or sort by meta data or something. scrolling through thousands of titles…. no thank you.

One nice feature that makes the $300+ price tag more tolerable, is that for the most part, Kindle books are cheaper than their dead tree editions, so long run, you’re saving some money (and of course space in the house!). I do wish (AMAZON READ THIS) that there was some path where I could ‘upgrade’ books that I have purchased on Amazon as dead tree editons to Kindle editions. iTunes Plus style, there has to be a way to make that work. I’m sure part of the problem is the publishing industry, but come on!!!

My biggest complaint is the DRM. DRM sucks. It’s a terrible idea, that benefits no one, and punishes legitimate content owners. My hope both as a consumer, and now a publisher on the platform is that as more users get on board with the Kindle, Amazon follows Apple’s lead, and pushes the publishing industry (RIAA’s lost second cousin as far as fucking consumers and treating us like crap?) to wake up and drop DRM. I suspect it’s clearly working for apple, Amazon, don’t drop the ball. You’ve picked up the banner, it’s up to you now.

Join the revolution! If you’re feeling nice, click this link to buy it, kick back some coin my way to buy books :)

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