The Kindle Chronicles

EVP and Publisher, Open Road Integrated Media Interview ‪starts at 15:33 and ends at 43:28 "We are not an agency publisher. So we don’t have any control over the consumer price. We set the digital list price, and we don’t have control over the consumer price. And Amazon is free to discount it to whatever price they want. And I would also point out that we are very aggressive in the number of and the frequency of which we promote our books in price promotions." News “Amazon Music Unlimited versus Prime Music: What’s the Difference?” by Jeff Gamet at The Mac Observer - October 12, 2016 Amazon press release on Music Unlimited service - October 12, 2016 “Amazon to Expand Grocery Business With New Convenience Stores” by Greg Bensinger and Laura Stevens at The Wall Street Journal - October 12, 2016 “If Amazon is really opening brick-and-mortar grocery stores, it’s a big deal” by Sarah Halzack at The Washington Post - October 11, 2016 Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing podcast - October 13, 2016 Tech Tip “Ne

Author of Find Your Own Voice  Interview ‪starts at 16:18 and ends at 42:39 "I don’t think books are going to evolve, because I think other things are there to take that slack up. And I think that’s okay. The one thing I can tell you is I have a lot of print books in my life, even though I read mostly digital now. Every time I have a print book I always want to be clicking a link or something. I always want to be grabbing some text and dropping it into Evernote. There are a lot of moments where the technology of paper is frustrating to me. And yet, I write on paper every day. I have a paper notebook beside me at all times every day, and I like getting a physical book. I have the new David Eggers, and it’s beautiful. It looks beautiful. It smells nice, and there’s nothing like that. I don’t know. I don’t think the future of books is as cool as we thought it might be. There’s no jet pack." News Up to $50 off Kindle eReaders - limited time offer for Prime members “Amazon Prime Reading gives members even more e-

Senior Writer and Features Editor at Publishers Weekly Interview ‪starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05 "The fact that we have rapidly declining eBook sales from major publishers and that we see for two years running now in the Pew surveys that eBook readership is not growing is stunning, considering the vast offerings that are now available in digital format. I just hope that the publishers haven’t, if not killed then wounded their golden reader, which is a reader that will read on any device, and certainly the data show they will read print and eBooks, toggle from one to the other. They’ll buy more books, they’ll check out more books. I think as reading becomes more pressured by other media, to hold back your power readers like that can’t be considered a wise strategy any more."  News Amazon introduces all-new Fire TV Stick (press release) - September 28, 2016 “Amazon’s Fire TV Stick gets a smart upgrade to work with Alexa” by Amelia Heathman at Wired - September 29, 2016 All-new Fire TV stick at Amazon.com Fir

Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research  Interview ‪starts at 14:34 and ends at 44:17 "It’ll happen in the cloud, and it will get propagated out to eight, 10, 15, 20 million households that will have the more rudimentary voice enabled [Alexa device], and then suddenly it will become like magic. Suddenly that device, that Trojan horse that Amazon has gotten into your home, will suddenly unleash itself and become a truly intelligent agent. Is that a year away? At least, but we’re going to start having the feeling that there’s a real person there pretty soon. There are already people who feel that way today." News “Print or Digital, It’s Reading that Matters” by Andrew Richard Albanese at Publishers Weekly - September 16, 2016 BookRiot podcast Episode 174 - September 12, 2016 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz “Amazon isn’t just online—it’s opening a real bookstore in Dedham” by Curt Woodward at The Boston Globe - September 19, 2016 “Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But

Rowing medalist, challenged reader trying a Kindle Interview ‪starts ‪at 14:43 and ends at 42:48 I remember walking home from third grade and throwing a workbook away, it was a book that I had made out of paper and was keeping notes in. I threw it in the bushes, because my teacher said, “You’re supposed to take this home and get your parents to sign off on your assignments, that you’ve done them all.” I threw it away, and I said I’d lost it. because I didn’t want to show that I’d not done the reading, because I hated it so much. I just didn’t like it. I can do the reading; I just don’t like it. And I still have that feeling today.   News “Amazon Alexa, Echo, and the All-New Echo Dot Coming to the UK” - press release September 14, 2016 Amazon Echo - Wikipedia “The Best thing about Amazon’s $50 Echo Dot? It’s available to all” by Devindra Hardawar at Engadget - September 14, 2016 “Brief: The Future of Voice Control Goes Far Beyond Dictation” by James McQuivey with David M. Cooperstein, Alexandra Hayes at Forr

Author of Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids   Interview starts at 8:44 and ends at 41:26 The thing that really hit me was, this is compulsory. None of these kids have a choice. Whatever the cutoff age is, they have a choice, but all of those earlier years they cannot just decide, “I don’t want to go to school today” unless they had a very understanding set of parents or something. They have to go. And they have to get up really early. Often they’re on a bus for an hour, and then all day long they’re being told what to do. And some of what they’re learning, especially in elementary school, is very valuable—reading, for instance, and arithmetic—really, really valuable things to know on this planet. Other things are often really a waste of time. That feeling of its being both an incredibly long day and a day in which a lot of it feels kind of futile—it’s kind of a terrifying combination when you look at it from the kid’s point of view. (Photo by Elias Baker)   News Amazon announces an all-new Fire

Senior Editor, ‪Amazon.com Books  Interview starts ‪at 17:14 and ends at 44:11 "I’ve heard it said that summer’s a great time for summer reading, but it’s also a great time to sit down with that one nonfiction book that you want to take the time to read. Maybe it’s transitioning a little bit, but fall is definitely the big time to sell books. That’s when everybody gears up and starts scheduling their huge books." News “Now Arriving on the New York Subway: Free E-Books, Timed for Your Commute” by James Barron at The New York Times - August 28, 2016 “Book Reading 2016” report by Pew Research Center - September 1, 2016 “No, the Internet Has Not Killed the Printed Book. Most People Still Prefer Them.” by Daniel Victor at The New York Times - September 2, 2016 “Pew: Print Books Still More Popular Than EBooks and Audiobooks” by Daniel Berkowitz at Digital Book World - September 1, 2016 “Visiting Wroclaw Amazon. Warehouse, work and work culture” by Robert Drozd - September 1, 2016 Kobo Aura One “New Omate Rise

Publisher of Open Letter Books  Interview starts at 15:15 and ends at 43:30 Amazon[Crossing] is filling in some of these gaps, because we haven’t for a long time seen the normal mystery book that someone picks up in Spain and reads when they go on their vacation. That’s never been translated into English, because it didn’t seem like it would make a ton of money for one of the big presses, and the small presses are looking for something that’s more patently literary. Amazon’s taken up a lot of those kind of books, which is really fascinating and fills in a wide range of what the aesthetic is in these different countries.    News “Amazon plans to open a Chicago bookstore in Lakeview” by Lauren Zumbach at The Chicago Tribune - August 25, 2016 Kindle Reading Fund Worldreader.org Amazon Worldreader video at YouTube - August 24, 2016 “Denver Public Library is Lending Wifi Hotspots” by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader - August 20, 2016 “Amazon Starts Car Research and Review Site” at Associated Press - August

BookRiot contributor who writes about romance novels  Interview starts at 10:59 and ends at 42:21 We’re sort of worshipping at the temple of love, the same way that religion can help us make sense of human experience and help us to feel there's good in the world—there's a structure that is bending towards the good. Romance can impart that feeling and help you feel like you're participating in the goodness of the fabric of the world. And I think that’s a real draw. News “Mysterious ‘Project X’ points to Amazon drive-up grocery store in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood” by Nat Levy and Todd Bishop at GeekWire - August 19, 2016. Amazon Fresh “Reinventing the Work-Life Ratio for Tech Talent” event scheduled by Amazon in Seattle for August 25. “Amazon experiments with tech teams consisting entirely of part-time employees, with full benefits” by Monica Nickelsburg at GeekWire - August 17, 2016 “Amazon Plans to Produce Virtual Reality Originals, Job Offer Reveals” by Janko Roettgers at Variety - August 18, 2016 A

VP & Executive Editor, HarperCollins Publishers   Interview starts at 18:58 and ends at 43:28   There are a lot of very serious readers at Amazon, and honestly I think that that’s something that is not understood. They don’t all work on the editorial team vetting books for Best of the Month, but we did and I assume they still are using a lot of readers from the rest of the company who are not technically on the editorial team but who are passionate about reading and who read a lot. There were some really wonderful readers and reviewers that we cherry-picked from around the company. Book love is very much alive at Amazon.   News Om Malik on This Week in Tech - August 7, 2016 Wal-Mart press release on purchase of Jet.com - August 8, 2016 Om Malik’s web site “The best reason for reading? Book lovers live longer, scientists say” by Amy Ellis Nutt at The Washington Post - August 9, 2016   Tech Tip Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Kindle Unlimited   Interview with Sara Nelson “Sara Nelson Heading to Harp

Senior Editor, AmazonCrossing   Interview starts at 17:02 and ends at 38:04 [Ayse Kulin] is one of many distinguished voices from diverse cultures that we’ve had the pleasure of publishing, and I think she’s actually a really great example of what it is that we’re trying to do here at AmazonCrossing   News “Amazon Resumes Selling Amazon’s Gadgets Four Years After Rift” by Shannon Pettypiece at Bloomberg - August 4, 2016 “Amazon to test drone delivery in partnership with UK government” by Nicky Woolf and Samuel Gibbs at The Guardian - July 25, 2016 Dromida Kodo drone Amazon Prime Air (YouTube video) - December 1, 2013 “Amazon’s ‘Prime Air’ Cargo Plane is Ready to Deliver Your Packages” at NBC - August 5, 2016 “See Amazon’s Massive New ‘Prime Air’ Cargo Jet Plane” at Time - August 5, 2016 “Amazon’s latest weapon in the e-commerce wars: Its own air force” by Sarah Halzack at The Washington Post - August 5, 2016 Holy Stone RC dump truck  at Amazon.com   Tech Tips Kindle Unlimited audiobooks “7 Ways to Take F

Founder and CEO of Amazon.com   Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05   Only when I read a truly great novel do I feel that I have lived an alternate life that might actually teach me some lessons, so that I don’t have to learn them myself. My favorite book is Remains of the Day. When I read Remains of the Day I feel like I understand extreme life regret in a way that I hopefully will never experience in my own life—I don’t want to. You get to live somebody else’s life, and it’s very hard to get that emotional closeness, I think, from any other media type, still. So I think there is a place for great books and will continue to be, hopefully forever.    My interview with Jeff Bezos on July 26, 2016 at Amazon.com in Seattle Kindle Kindle Oasis Kindle Direct Publishing Kindle Unlimited Amazon Books Seattle store information page My interview with Jane Friedman, chairman of Open Road Media - June 24, 2016 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro Samsung Gear 360 camera My interview with Donald Katz, fo

Founder and CEO of the Idea Logical Company   Interview starts at 8:05 and ends at 34:24   I think it’s possible that we’re going to wake up and say we just had another black-swan event, which is that all of the big authors that have been developed over the last five years, a big share of them are Amazon authors, because they had the runway to do that, and publishers didn’t.   News “Bezos Tops Buffet as World’s Third-Richest on Amazon Rise” by Tom Metcalf at Bloomberg - July 21, 2016 Mark Mahaney on Amazon earnings (video) at Bloomberg - July 20, 2016 Amazon earnings webcast details for July 28, 2016 at 5:30 pm ET Jeff Bezos in next Star Trek movie   Tech Tip Using Time to Read on Your Kindle at The Story   Interview with Mike Shatzkin The Shatzkin Files blog Author Earnings “These Charts Show Pokémon Go’s Ridiculous Growth” by Anne VanderMey at Fortune - July 21, 2016 Pokémon Go home page Leonard Shatzkin obituary - American Booksellers Association May 20, 2002   Content Kindle Singles Classics press

Director of Marketing and Communication at OverDrive, Inc.  Interview starts at 15:18 and ends at 44:22 I’m happy to report that all of the Big Five publishers have made their titles available for library lending in eBook format. They’ve all been already in for their audiobook format. It's been a couple of years now that they’ve made their decision to add their titles on the front list, mid-list and back list available to libraries. So that’s great news for readers. You’ll see all the New York Times bestsellers and all the different popular lists of titles that you should be able to find in your library. News “Amazon’s Prime Day is the Biggest Day Ever” - Amazon press release July 13, 2016 “Behind the Scenes of Prime Day 2016” (video) Holy Stone RC Dump Truck Remote Control Car for my grandson Jake “The 2016 Kindle is Complete Crap as an Accessible eReader” by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader - July 10, 2016 "The ‘Big Change’ era in trade book publishing ended about four years ago” by Mike Shatzkin at T

Director, Product Management - Amazon Kindle  Interview starts at 18:09 and ends at 43:26 The biggest technical challenge I would say is creating a seamless Page Flip reading experience across all of our platforms. Page Flip is available on eReaders, on Fire tablets, as well as the Kindle app for iOS and Android. Across those different experiences, we wanted to make sure that things like the performance, things like the fluidity, how it worked and how it behaved—all of those things were both tailored for the experience on the platform that it’s on, but it also felt natural, it felt simple, and it felt automatic.  News The new $80 Kindle at Amazon.com The Kindle Oasis “Alexa, What are Your Prime Day Deals” (press release) Amazon Prime Day is July 12, starting at midnight PT! Meghan’s profile at amazon.jobs  “Amazon Prime Day should be much bigger this year than it was last year” by Tonya Garcia at MarketWatch - July 8, 2016 Tech Tip The new Export Notes feature Page Flip Interview with Mike Torres Amazon’s le

My Father and Grandson   Interview starts at 23:32 and ends at 44:30   News Amazon Inspire press release - June 27, 2016 “Amazon Unveils Online Education Service for Educators” by Natasha Singer at The New York Times - June 27, 2016 “Amazon Inspire Removes Some Content Over Copyright Issues” by Natasha Singer at The New York Times - June 29, 2016 “Good News at The Washington Post” by Christopher Payne at New York Magazine - June 28, 2016 Amazon Dash Buttons press release - June 28, 2016 Amazon Prime Day - July 12, 2016   Tech Tip Page Flip, the reimagined Kindle navigation tool   Interview with my father and my grandson Click here to order a Kindle cover with a photo The Boxcar Children Mysteries by Gertrude Chandler Warner – various prices for Kindle Books by Will James Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton Minecraft Books by Horatio Alger   Next Week’s Guest Mike Torres, Amazon’s director of product management for the Kindle, who will talk about Page Flip.   Music for my podcast is from an

Co-Founder, Chairman and Executive Publisher of Open Road Integrated Media   Interview starts at 15:17 and ends at 44:11 I do not think that the world of print survived and now will thrive at the expense of eBooks. I think eBooks will coexist with print, which I think is the best of all possible worlds. And I think that at the right price the revenue that one can receive from eBooks will be pretty substantial.   News “Smaller, lighter $80 Kindle unveiled with rounder edges—plus new Export Notes software update” by Len Edgerly at TeleRead - June 22, 2016 All-New Kindle in white or black with or without special offers (the link includes my Amazon Associates code and will provide a commission to support the podcast if you use it—thanks!) “Apple E-book Refunds to Begin June 21” by Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly - June 20, 2016 “Himalayan delivery by bike for Amazon man” at Hemmel Today - June 17, 2016   Tech Tip What’s Your Kindle Worth?   Interview with Jane Friedman “Slavin Named CEO of Open R

Director of Business Development at BookBub   Interview starts at 5:64 and ends at 16:18   BookBub definitely got off the ground with self-published authors. They’re often the first people in the industry to experiment with a new marketing channel, and they were much more comfortable discounting their books four years ago than a lot of traditional publishers were. Over the course of the past four years we’ve started working with all the major publishers, and we’ve gotten to the point where it’s fifty-fifty. We’ve actually maintained that breakdown for a while now, and we’re very comfortable with it.   News “Amazon’s Third Bookstore Will Be in Portland” by Leena Rao at Fortune - June 15, 2016   Interviews at BookExpo America   Katie Donelan, Director of Business Development at BookBub (5:64 to 16:18)      “Introducing BookBub New Release Alerts” at BookBub blog - January 4, 2016      BookGorilla   David Hemphill, publisher of Coralstone Press (16:54 to 24:26)      The Good Dog by Todd Kessler, illustrated b

Co-Founder and CEO of Shelfie.com   Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05 We needed to find a metaphor, an analogy for the playlist or the inbound link when it came to books. What we found is that bookshelves are an incredibly good signal.   News 1999 Jeff Bezos speech at Association of American Publishers meeting (YouTube) “Watch Jeff Bezos Lay Out His Grand Vision for Amazon’s Future Dominance in This 1999 Video” by Jason del Rey at Recode - November 22, 2015   Tech Tip Software version 5.1.4 updates for Fire HD 8, Fire HD 10 and Fire “New Fire OS 5.1.4 Update Adds eBooks to SD Card and ‘On Deck’” at The eBook Reader - May 25, 2016 “Amazon Fire updates to Fire OS 5.1.4 - many changes?” by Paul St John Mackintosh at TeleRead - June 5, 2016   Interview with Peter Hudson Shelfie  My interview with Peter Hudson in December, 2014 The Fireman and The Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Shelfie by Bitlit Crunchbase listing “BitLit Helps You Get E-Book Versions of the Physical Books You Already Own” by

CEO of Tapas Media   Interview starts at 19:22 and ends at 43:40   I believe that for publishing, even though Kindle is capturing a lot of the mobile market, I think there are still innovations to be made. In terms of marketplace players out there who have fundamentally thought about the whole thing from mobile specifically, I don’t think there’s a lot yet.    News Walt Mossberg interviews Jeff Bezos at Recode’s Code Conference 2016 (full video and a separate audio link) - May 31, 2016 “Amazon’s $290 e-reader misfire: A hands-on review of the new Kindle Oasis” by Michael Hiltzik at The Los Angeles Times - May 31, 2016 Fire HD 10 tablet - now available in Silver Aluminum and 64 GB models   Interview with Chang Kim Tapastic Tapas Media Crunchbase listing Tapas App on iOS and Android Candy Crush Clash of Clans Game of War   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 Persepc