Self-publishing author Will Entrekin has written a very interesting blog post about his participation in Amazon’s “Kindle Select” program, in which his books are made available exclusively on Amazon and are part of the Amazon Prime Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. In the first part, he talks about why he made the decision to go exclusive with Amazon. It boiled down to having greater comfort developing for Amazon’s platform, and liking the kind of control Amazon gave him over the presentation of his book that he didn’t feel he could get with Barnes & Noble. (And also, he never...

We might have made a big deal out of the FTC’s guidelines for review blogs back when the commission imposed them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t necessary. The New York Times reports that one vendor gamed Amazon’s review system by offering customers full refunds if they posted reviews of its products—including a case for the Kindle e-reader. While it didn’t specifically demand 5-star reviews, there was a strong five-star subtext in the offer letter. By the time VIP Deals ended its rebate on Amazon.com late last month, its leather case for the Kindle Fire was...

On CNet, Scott Stein writes about why a $79 Kindle has replaced his iPad as his e-book-reading device of choice. The reasons aren’t really new, and indeed have popped up any time anyone has ever compared e-ink devices to tablets for reading: eyestrain-reducing e-ink screens, less potential for distraction, longer battery life, and less potential for being stolen (and less of a loss if it is). It’s going to be interesting to see what happens as screen display technology gets better and lets tablets steal some of the screen-readability and battery life benefits of e-readers. Will dedicated e-readers...

Forbes reports that the Kindle Fire may be “more profitable than expected” despite being (allegedly) sold at a loss. A market research company polled 216 Kindle Fire owners and determined that the average Kindle Fire owner will purchase $136 in digital goods over the lifetime of the device, giving it a cumulative operating margin of over 20%. Of course, as Nate Hoffelder points out at eBookNewser, this is just an estimate. And for that matter, 216 Kindle Fire owners is a remarkably small sample size considering just how many of them Amazon is estimated to have sold. ...

I’ve reported on the confluence of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and e-books before, but Read Write Web has a story about a new startup, Coliloquy, that is going to produce new branching-story e-books for the Kindle format. But this startup is about more than just letting people pick the story they want to by flipping to page whatever. The article suggests that the e-books will return feedback on what choices readers make so that the publishers and authors can create a better-tailored product. Coliloquy enables episodic content unlike anything previously available on the...

Business Insider reports on Amazon’s new HTML5 iPad web app store, Accessible from the “Kindle Store” section of Amazon’s website (if you’re browsing from Mobile Safari on the iPad), tapping the bookmark icon and choosing “Add to Home Screen” adds a slick-looking “Kindle Store” icon to your launcher that you can tap on to open the store in Mobile Safari. Choosing a sample or buying a book offers the choice of sending it to the Kindle iPad app or opening it in the web-based reader. This is, of course, Amazon’s end run around Apple’s restrictions on in-app purchases—a way...

I haven’t posted much over the last few days, partly because of some trying times my family is going through right now. On New Year’s Eve, my Mom was in a farm equipment accident and ended up having her right arm amputated a few inches below the shoulder. It’s been hitting the family pretty hard, but we’ve had a lot of support from friends and family. It may take some time, but sooner or later we’ll be all right—or at least as all right as we can be under the circumstances. We’re all trying to think of ways that...

Is Amazon going to stay in the hardware business, or is it going to farm production of its tablets out to other Android device makers? CNet carries some speculation on the matter. Pointing out that the Fire’s explosive sales debut (compared to HP’s TouchPad fizzle) proves that devices need compelling content services in order to sell, and that Amazon is (allegedly) selling the Kindle Fire at cost as a way to boost those services, the CNet article quotes analysts who think Amazon will entice tablet makers into partnerships. Richard Windsor, global technology specialist for Nomura Securities, had this to...

On Posterous, blogger Diego Basch writes about how the Amazon Kindle has changed his reading habits. It’s an interesting testimonial on how e-readers can change the way we interact with our books. As a result of having plenty of unread books on his Kindle, Basch now finds he doesn’t watch TV anymore—there isn’t ever a time when he no “next” book to keep him from watching something on the tube. He also finds that he goes through books a lot faster than he used to because he can also read them on the Kindle app on his computer or...

With about a zillion people getting Kindles for Christmas, they’re going to be wanting something to read, and not necessarily for a lot of money, either. I spotted a couple of articles highlighting some of the best works available to read for free on Kindles. One of them offers an intriguing theory on why Amazon’s quality control may be so random. The UK blog PC Pro lists a number of these works, split about evenly between public-domain works and newer titles. I’m not sure whether all of them are available in the US version of the store, international rights...

The Wall Street Journal reports that M-Edge, a manufacturer of protective cases for Amazon’s Kindle (who we’ve already mentioned a number of times on TeleRead), has filed suit against Amazon for unfair competition, patent infringement, and a raft of other offenses. M-Edge’s complaint claims that, two months after signing a 3-year contract for 15% royalties on the cases, Amazon turned around and tried to pressure M-Edge into signing a contract for 32% royalties instead, and threatened it with delisting from the site when it refused. Since Amazon represents 90% of the company’s revenue, it was unable to hold...

Author Richard F. Miniter has an article about the revolution in home-schooling that e-readers make possible. His idea is that children can be kept home, away from the faux-egalitarian, inaccurate-propaganda-laden classroom and taught to educate themselves on their own by reading a book a day and writing an essay on it. He brings up the example of a special-education foster child he’d cared for who was essentially unable to read, but who ended up testing at or above his grade level a year later after a course of home-schooling that consisted of daily reading with help on words he...