Ways bloggers get paid by Amazon

The Sony Reader is much much better insofar as an eBook device — the new ver. is much improved, and old (still good) is going for a song at Costco’s.

But the Tablets, well, big and heavy, battery-killers, unwieldy, expensive, not to mention MS abandonwared MS Reader, and everything eBookwise, like 3-4 years ago. Don’t pull that line. I believed the promises at the Tablet Launch, and was disappointed and letdown like so many others.

It’s a nice idea, but Amazon seems determined to nickel and dime you, with a feature-lacking device. Amazon hypes it up, caters to bloggers, and gets them all serious affli-link cozy, so it’s gonna have a total idiot-hype push, but then it’s gonna drop off faster than UMPC’s, once more people learn the details and specs.

If you want an real eBook device, get the Sony Reader, and although the Reader lacks in so many ways, it’s still the best on the market. Amazon’s eBook device is just an electronic perpetual revenue stream, not really even a decent gadget.

The design looks very primitive with lots of buttons and controls spread everywhere (Havent they learned anything from Apple?). A simple interface with a touch screen would have been much better. I like the concept of being able to buy books wirelessly though.

eBook Devices in a Nutshell

Amazon – High-priced feature-lacking generic device. Only getting traction as Amazon is sponsoring. Scoble (and Dawn, does she EVER think for herself?), and other paid-off supporters.

Reader – More the real electronic reading crowd. Gadgetheads, some more mainstream hook, thanks to Costco dumping, Fry’s Electronics displays and the Sony namesake.

Tablets – Microsoft MVPs, fan site nutters and other vampireish creatures-of-the-night of similar ilk. A promise, not kept.

Nuvomedia, Kolin, Hiebook, Easyread, Cybook Gen3, NUUT – Hard to get, specialty, off-the-boat build quality. Only the most eBook geek of geeks even knows of these.

Franklin eBookman, Hanlin, RCA REB 1100, Handera – Dead, yet never really having been alive.

Pocket PC, Palm, PDA’ers – In their own little universes. Just smile and nod, paying no attention to their tap-tap twiddlings.

Dawn nailed it.

“Finally, a tech toy that isn’t meant for techies!!!”

And wtf, Richard, do you even go to a beach?

Anyway, I blogged this, because I’m getting one, but only after waiting a week to watch the fanboys go nuts. I have a Sony Reader and the features that I wish it had, the Kindle has. So, yeah. Plus, it’s tied to a company that I believe can probably figure out selling books better than the other one. (Amazon vs. Sony)

Also, I’ll bring geek thunder any day of the week. I’m just not entirely retarded about the rest of the universe. Read: not us.

And please stop comparing this to laptops and phones, because it’s not. I hate that the Kindle can’t make margaritas YET ANOTHER DEVICE I NEED IN MY HOUSE ZOMG POOR ME. Seriously. Stop.

So yeah, anyone wanna buy my old Sony Reader? Comes with the Tipping Point installed. Heh.

Robert, I am surprised you are collecting 60 cents for your blog. I did not know you write this blog for making money. At some point you had a lengthy discussion here that you could make handsome ad money on your blog and donate it to some charity. You finally decided otherwise.

Ad proposal was better on two counts than this and you still did not go with that. In ad proposal your devoted readers were not paying you and the money you would collect from the advertisers would go with some good charity cause.

I am really surprised that you agreed to collect 60 cents per month per subscriber. Well, at least I am not contributing to your little piggy

If yah got a PRS-505, what you asking? If a PRS-500 don’t bother.

What features Amazon has that the Reader lacks? Amazon’s MobiPocket DRM over Sony’s DRM? Wheeeeee…

Amazon is doing an Apple, playing favorites, David Rothman will kill this, scorned as he is, and knowing all the stories.

@11 Why are you keeping every book you’ve ever owned? I see the sweetspot for this being storage for textbooks for schools and universities. (Could I electronically sell the book back, though? )

Beyond that, the experience of reading an actual book cannot be replaced with a device.

If Amazon doesn’t go .epub it’s dead anyways. And all the publishers are decrying, and Scoble is cheering, so it’s an obvious dead-end.

Bet on Scoble, lose your shirt. Or if play it in reverse, a winning strategy.

Dang. Way to slow on the draw, Robert – I Prime’d mine overnight the instant it hit their page.

Sorry!

Kamal: I didn’t know until today that I’d be getting anything for being on the device. Personally I don’t care either way. I doubt I’ll get more than a few bucks from it.

BUY YOUR BLOG? Are you telling me Amazon’s going to charge a fee to subscribe to an RSS feed?

That seems crazy to me. Frankly I’m surprised I haven’t seen an angry Scoble rant on the subject. Bloggers have been freely exchanging information with RSS for years and Amazon wants to profit from that?

Robert….

John: last I checked a hard cover book costs about $30 to buy at the store. So, at some point this thing starts paying for itself if you’re a heavy reader. Not to mention that I don’t have space at home for more books.

I can’t begin to count the number of ways you are off the mark. But I’ll try.

I purchase a hardcover book for $30 and I own it forever. My cost for a device that helps me read it? $0. Sure, if you compare it to the $10 for a digital copy you then set the breakeven point to be about $20 * 20 = $400, or 20 books. But now we’re talking about the real issue I have….

YOu say you don’t have space to store those 20 books? I’ll reply by asking – what happens to you when you misplace that $400 device? I guess you’re back to what happened when your Mac blue-screened…. unless you baked up those purchases you made, you are SOL.

I think I’ll stick to my physical library that you apparently have no room for.

Now we get to my honest issue with digital books. And, frankly, nothing about Kindle changes this one iota – my reading style. I like to dog-ear my pages. Love to turn back a few chapters in a novel to re-read something that I didn’t catch the first time. And when going through a textbook? I usually keep several bookmarks and write notes in the liner.

I still haven’t found a way to do this in any manner I like with an eBook.

Bottom line Robert? There’s a reason that Tablet PCs haven’t taken off yet. Pretty much the same reason why eBooks haven’t either. They haven’t hit the sweet spot of the non-technical masses. Which brings me to Dawn….

Finally, a tech toy that isn’t meant for techies!!!

She’s a third year law student and lugs A MOUNTAIN of heavy books to school, which is a 90 minute commute. With all those textbooks, it’s really hard for her to take casual reading material with her, too. This will be perfect!

First off Dawn, Merry Christmas to you and your daughter. Hopefully you aren’t offended over my non-PC wishes. I’m wording my wishes this way because you mentioned Christmas very specifically instead of saying “holidays”. If this was offensive, then I wish you and your daughter a Happy Holiday Season.

Please, let us all know how your daughter likes – or comes to learn the allbacks of your present to her. I hope she’ somewhat technically inclined… because that 50 button keyboard looks way more complicated than my style I have with physical books to turn pages and set bookmarks.

Now I know you aren’t buying this for her schoolbooks – and much of my dislike of eBooks are more geared for those. So let’s focus on “casual reading material” as you put it. And please, let’s also consider that non-techie crowd you believe this will totally appeal to.

First off, let’s hope her casual reading material is available. I hear-tell that books go out of print. I know this for a fact, as many of my favorite authors from the 1970s have paperbacks I own that I simply cannot replace.

Oh, you say Amazon does have those out-of=print books in eBook format? I’m pretty sure Google was doing something like that 2 years ago and was really getting flak over it.

But okay, she buys that latest hot novel by Dan Brown as an eBook and loves it. In fact, she wants to read more by him. Oh, damn. To do that she’s stuck with three choices…. (1) Buy yet another eBook at $10 each. (2) Buy the physical copy at a bookstore (or Amazon) for $10 paperback or $20 hardcopy. (3) Check out a copy from the library for free.

Remember Dawn, we’re talking non-techies here. My 86 year old mom who last Saturday needed my help to purchase more minutes for her cell phone online because she could figure out how to put in a promotion code – and STILL was confused because a Windows GMA (I think that’s right) popped up telling her that she needs to upgrade to the latest XP support pack.

I’m pretty sure my mom would laugh her butt off – or simply shut me down – if I tried to explain to her how GREAT this 50 button keyboard eBook player ($400 + $10 per book) is over her simply, uh, borrowing a book from the library.

how can I add my comic strip blog to Amazon’s list of blogs supported?

“Amazon – High-priced feature-lacking generic device. Only getting traction as Amazon is sponsoring. Scoble (and Dawn, does she EVER think for herself?), and other paid-off supporters.”

What the heck is that supposed to mean? I’ve never been paid off to say anything for anybody. And if you knew anything about me at all, you’d know that I always think for myself and am not afraid to say what I think, like the fact that you’re a boring, tiresome troll.

DaveD, if you think only techies can use keyboards, then I hope you’re not a techie yourself, because I can’t imagine who would be desperate enough to hire you, and I’d have to worry about your ability to buy food and find shelter.

As for $10 books…when you’ve been paying $200 to $300 for each textbook, $10 looks like a steal.

She’ll be able to carry several books at once, plus magazines and newspapers and blogs. She can search for passages, for names; she can look things up…

I only wish somebody was buying me one for Christmas.

@don Draper, in the Netherlands a school is currently testing this setup and they seem enthusiastic. Though the device they are using is more advanced (and expensive) then the Kindle (it also provides note taking and has a bigger screen)

I like the concept of the whispernet, but I wonder how they will handle international roaming (as that tends to get rather expensive). Luckily Robert will be able to test it when visiting France.

But how could they make it so ugly??? Geez. Just when it was ok to use your gadgets among normal (read: non-geeks) people. The iPod, iPhone, Sony-Ericsson, Nokia, even Zune.

But this?

I had a car track back in the 70s, made by cheap plastic. The Kindle looks like some spare part for that, something that is made to support the loop of the track or a start pad. Butt ugly.

Make it look nice, remove the lame format and I’ll consider it.

“If I had a Kindle I’d have to pay $9.99 for every book I read on it.”

Can we PLEASE get our facts straight? The $9.99 is not for EVERY book – the prices start way below that, I’m fairly certain they run higher too (yup: $1,079.96)

Oh and those $9.99 books have cover prices of over $20.

And until one has had one in one’s hands and actually used it it will be almost impossible to form a valid judgement – especially as it will probably work well for some and less well for others.

Me, I don’t even get to make a decision ‘cos I don’t live in the right place though I do read a LOT of books.

I’m guessing the RSS-fee bizarreness is a way to pay for the EVDO use, as I’m assuming the carriers that are hosting Whispernet aren’t giving away this bandwidth away for free. Still, things like this need to be explained for people who haven’t grown very accustomed something normally provided free of charge. Damn I hope google wins the 700 mhz auction …..

If only those feed-aggregator things that funnel all your favourite posts into a single feed would work, then one could essentially have all their favourite feeds provided for a reasonable connection fee.

Amazon trying to make money from this blog service, instead of a cost-recovery basis was a big PR mistake IMO. Too bad, this device (fugly or not) has such promise. We are ready for ebooks to gain serious marketshare.

Hi Robert, couple of questions here. How come you will have it tomorrow? Amazon says it’ll be available on the 29th, you have some special deal? If it is the latter… Could you find out if this thing works outside the US? can you download books with some sort of roaming? Can you download the books with a PC?

To transfer your own documents to Kindle, you need to use Amazon’s service, and pay for the document conversion.

The display doesn’t have colours. Who’s going to read a magazine in shades of gray?

And the design really is uninspiring.

Somehow the device looks like something from the beginning of the 90s… Like “Buy this for your kitchen – it holds thousands of recipes”…

Like you say … Amazon is Great !!!

2 Years from now inside Amazon…
“Hey – revenue from those kindle things has really died off… What can we do about it?”
“Launch a new version with little or no backward compatibility and start selling new books ONLY in the new format… Better yet! Sell the new version as a ‘slimline’ or ‘palm held’ and cut away the ability to read the old ones unless you upload them from an old kindle! People will have to buy a new one to read new books but they won’t be able to read old books unless they still have an old one!”
“Wow! Dude! You’re a genius!”

If anyone thinks this is unrealistic – go have a look at what it takes to play a PS1 game on a PSP… You have to own a PS3! Scary but true!

Alfredo: It’s available now on the Amazon Web site. I just ordered it by clicking on the link in this post.