Stephen King's UR releases early

Just in time for Valentine's Day, but definitely not a Valentine's type of book (see the earlier post for the Harlequin freebies for that), UR by Stephen King, has released early and is now available. My copy was waiting when I awoke my Kindle today and I suspect I'll have read thru it before the night is over (it is just a novella, after all).

Since his first novel was published in 1974, Stephen King has stretched the boundaries of the storyteller as a writer who constantly redefines his readers' experience by working in various genres and formats . Whether in an epic horror novel, like THE STAND, a serial-novel like THE GREEN MILE, or a novella like SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, King is able to deliver a reading experience like no one else can. As quickly as a spider spins its web, King reminds us why he's the master of the novella - a format which, up until now that is, one might have thought is fast disappearing. In his new novella, UR, King is at his unsettling best as he examines the future of the written word - for better or worse. Following a nasty break-up, lovelorn college English instructor Wesley Smith can't seem to get his ex-girlfriend's parting shot out of his head: "Why can't you just read off the computer like the rest of us?" Egged on by her question and piqued by a student's suggestion, Wesley places an order for Amazon.com's Kindle eReader. The [pink?] device that arrives in a box stamped with the smile logo -via one-day delivery that he hadn't requested - unlocks a literary world that even the most avid of book lovers could never imagine. But once the door is open, there are those things that one hopes we'll never read or live through. Firm, gripping, and deftly written by a craftsman at the top of his game, this is King at his crisp, clear, page-turning best. Download and read UR only on Kindle.

If you haven't ordered your copy, why are you still here? No really, go order the book, then come back.....

Update on Harlequin 16 Free Ebooks

All sixteen of the Harlequin free titles are now available for the Kindle (only 12 days after most other stores had them up). The entire list is posted on my previous blog entry: Free Ebook on Kindle: Harlequin 16

Free Ebook from Oprah

In The Truth About Cheating, M. Gary Neuman explores why men stray and what you can do to prevent it.

The Kindle edition is $13.07, but between now and 7 p.m. PST Thursday, February 12, 2009, you can download a free copy of this book from Oprah's website.

To read this on the Kindle, save the PDF file, then email it to your @kindle.com address for Whispernet delivery, or to your @free.kindle.com address to receive the converted file in email, then transfer the Amazon book to your Kindle using the USB card. This is a good method for those in spotty Whispernet coverage, overseas, or still waiting for their shiny new Kindle 2 to be delivered.

Synopsis:

Few events cause as much turmoil in a marriage as infidelity. It can shatter trust and breed insecurity and resentment from which some relationships never recover. People who think it won't happen to them are hit that much harder when it does. Why are men unfaithful? Can infidelity be prevented? Can a wife single-handedly ensure that her husband won't stray? What do men say they're getting from their mistresses that they're missing at home? Do a man's friends have anything to do with his willingness to cheat?

While there are books that have explored the feelings and experiences of wives whose husbands have been unfaithful, the question of why men cheat and whether it is because of sexual dissatisfaction, emotional dissatisfaction, or something else has remained largely unexamined. At last, The Truth About Cheating presents many fascinating and provocative answers. In this book, experienced family counselor Gary Neuman shares the revealing and surprising findings of a cutting-edge research study in which he interviewed and studied close to 100 men from 48 states who have physically cheated on their wives. In this book, Neuman shares many shocking discoveries, including the prominent role of emotional dissatisfaction in motivating husbands who stray and how small a role sexual dissatisfaction plays.

Drawing on dramatic case stories of the author's own work with clients, The Truth About Cheating includes proactive strategies and action steps for married women that will help them prevent infidelity, and create a faithful and rewarding marriage.

Kindle Exclusive: Frommer Guides

Frommer's City Set: 12 Full-sized City Guides in One Kindle Book , exclusively available on the Kindle. Preorder now for $39.99 (list $49.99), this is another exclusive that will be released the same day as the Kindle 2 (see here for two more).

Product Description
Frommer’s expert travel information is now available on the Kindle. Frommer’s CitySet—the world’s biggest travel guide--contains the complete contents of 12 bestselling Frommer’s city guides, including detailed maps, opinionated reviews, insider tips from expert authors, and everything else you’ve come to expect from Frommer’s print guides. City guides included are Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, New York City, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Tokyo, Washington, D.C. If you were to purchase the contents of the Frommer’s CitySet in print form, the stack of books would weigh 8 ½ pounds and fill up 3,809 pages. Now all this information can be accessed on your 10.2-ounce Kindle.

Kindle 2 - What's New

What's New
Text to Speech
If you really get turned on by those heavily computerized voices of early text-to-speech efforts on the PC, you'll feel right at home with the voice used for reading aloud on the Kindle. This won't be any competition for true audiobooks, but will allow those with limited sight or who are driving to have any of their content read to them, including magazines and blogs.

Three "Folders"
You don't get any control over your folders, but there are now three "folders" available when viewing the Home page: Books, Periodicals and Personal Content. Books is only books from Amazon, Periodicals includes newspapers, magazines and blogs. Personal Content gets everything else.


What's Missing

Protective Leather Cover
Whether to make it easier for third party sellers or just to stop the complaints by a vocal few who oppose the use of leather, the new Kindle ships with no protective cover. All the videos show it being carried and used naked (and precariously perched on fingertips when being read, which seems to be a recipe for a disastrous spill to the ground). If you want the leather cover, you'll pay an extra $30 (which is perhaps the source of the original rumors of a $30 upgrade fee for those who were waiting on a Kindle 1) or shell out over $100 on a Cole Haan cover. M-Edge is showing the K2 cover on their web site (two designs), but with mockups of a real K2 next to them and they are not yet available in the Amazon store (which may mean they aren't really available yet at all).

No Content Manager
There is no longer an SD card and you delete items from the Home page (using the Delete key, introduced on Kindle 1 with the 1.2 firmware) or while reading the book/periodical (also in firmware 1.2, click on menu while the book is open), so there is no longer any need for a Content Manager screen. Instead, all your current content is displayed on the Home page and any that you've bought from Amazon and don't have currently installed is accessed from the menu item View Archived Items.

No SD Card support
Amazon has decided that 1.4GB is more than enough for anyone and if you are talking only books, that may be true (although I've seen Topaz books at over 1 MB, most are much smaller). But if you want background music or to have audiobooks on board, you are going to find yourself very limited. It's no unusual for a single audiobook to surpass the 1GB mark and even with average sized books you'll find you can't load up for that entire long vacation. Instead, you'll need to carry them on another storage device and find a way to transfer them while away from home.

No Replaceable battery
Hopefully the new battery is much more reliable than the previous model, but the inability replace a battery in the field means that many people will find their use of the Kindle to be more limited. Many carry an extra battery with them "just in case" or charge them up when power is available (travelers, those on a cruise or stationed overseas, for example) and that will no longer be an option.

What's "Just Different"

Content Management
Not particularly better or worse, managing your content is now done using the Home Screen

Buttons
The most obvious change is the physical format of the buttons, which are now smaller and instead of having a full travel (that could be blocked if desired), they have a smaller depressable travel. The Home button has moved off of the keyboard and onto a larger key on the edge, the Delete key has been relabeled (it used to be an arrow and was and still is a backspace key most of the time), the keyboard has no space in the middle (it looks more normal to those used to computers, but isn't quite as thumb friendly as before).

Form Factor
Another obvious change is the thickness of the Kindle, which is now thinner than an iPhone. However, all the electronics had to be fitted in somewhere, so the width and height were both increased, resulting in a much larger border around the screen and a much less purse and pocket friendly size.

Charging
No longer does the Kindle come with a USB cable and a separate charger, as charging is now done via the USB port. Possibly more convenient for some, this change (and the larger battery) mean that the charging time has increased from an hour or two up to 4 hours. Moving to a USB charging system will also prove problematic for those who have laptops that don't provide charging power (this is pretty standard on many laptops). Instead, you'll need to use the AC charging dock with the USB cable. So, you may find yourself with one less wire, but having to move the USB cable back and forth between the charger and the laptop. Those who can charge via the computer, however, will have the convenience of leaving the USB cable in place and charging the Kindle while it is connected. However, most computers (or PS3's or WII's, if you want to use your game station as a charger) don't provide any power when turned off or in standby/hibernate, so you may find that you have to leave the ocmputer on more often or resort to the charging dock as well.

What's Should Have Been Added

User-Defined Folders or Tags
Never present on Kindle 1 (although some did figure out how to get them to work, by changing the metadata on their books), this is by far the most asked for feature by current Kindle owners, even those that don't have SD cards installed. Still not there with Kindle 2, instead there is a very weak folder support that lets you limit what is shown on the home page (see above).

Password Protection
Make it optional, sure, but nearly every Kindle owner would like to be able to add password protection to their Kindle, either only for purchases or to turn it on period (this is especially true for those who view company confidential documents or just don't want anyone peering underneath that plain white slipcover to see what they are reading.

Parental Controls
Parents are buying Kindles for their kids, but the kids then have unlimited access to the web, not just Wikipedia, as well as the entire bookstore and the parent's bookshelves. For some kids, especially older ones, this may work out well, but the parents of younger kids have strongly called for the ability to lock out web access and require a password for bookstore or archived content access.

EPUB and/or PDF support
The Sony has surged ahead here (even if their support is somewhat minimal on PDF, just due to PDF's limitations), even if only from a PR standpoint. EPUB books are becoming more and more available, both for free downloads and library loans (see below), and are starting to show up in third party bookstores. Those without DRM should be readable on a Kindle, but aren't. Instead, you are forced to convert them to the MOBI format on your own, guaranteeing that the average Kindler won't be able to read them.

Library Support
Yes, you can get Audible books for the Kindle and the MP3 Overdrive format has worked with it so far, but if you want to check out mobi formatted library books, you are still out of luck (hey, the press announcement was in a LIBRARY, so why not announce you supported them?). You may still be able to use a script to extract your PID (we'll all know in a few weeks, once they start shipping), then register that with the library or you may not. Those who have tried this have had good luck and the books expire at the end of the loan period, so there isn't any technical reason why this should not work (other than it would cut into Kindle Book sales).