Amazon's report of quarterly earnings last Thursday was  greeted widely as an indication that the company can't generate sufficient margins with Kindle devices and content. That interpretation has been reasonably straightforward, with strong echoes of sentiments that characterized critics' views of Amazon during its early pre-profitability years in late 1990s and into the 21st century: Despite rapid growth in Kindle hardware and content sales [the thinking goes], the combination of competition and Amazon's penchant for pursuing loss-leader strategies to capture market share have forced Kindle-associated margins so low that, as the Kindle portion of Amazon's overall business grows, it will lead...

The waves of change continue in the Kindlesphere. In the next few weeks we expect to see the launch of the Kindle Apps Store, the rollout of new accessibility features including what Amazon calls "audible menuing," big changes in royalties and publishing features for Kindle authors and publishers, and a completion of the rollout of version of 2.5 of the operating software for the latest generation Kindle and Kindle DX. Many of us are watching with great interest for the denouement of the negotiations/controversies/conflicts that's currently keeping new Penguin titles out of the Kindle Store and all Random House titles out...

It's been exactly a month since we last took a systematic look at the population of ebook price points in the Kindle Store, so it seems a good time for a fresh look after five weeks of experience with the agency model. under the agency model, we were told, some of the big publishers were colluding with Apple to take retail ebook pricing out of the hands of retailers such as the Kindle Store and replace Amazon's standard of $9.99 as a price for newly released ebooks with a 30% to 50% increase to price points between $12.99 and $14.99. The...

Originally posted at Kindle Nation Daily 3.18.2010 The new Kindle for Mac App, like earlier apps for the PC and other devices, allows you to download the latest edition of any Kindle edition blog to which you are a subscriber so that you can read it on your computer and keep it there as long as you like. This is a great way to save blog posts for future reference or research -- or simply, in the case of blogs other than this one, because of their great literary quality. It can also be useful if there is a blog post...

Originally posted at Kindle Nation Daily 3.17.2010 I've been a David Baldacci fan for over a decade, and I've easily read over half of the books he's published since his stunning 1996 debut with Absolute Power. From everything I've heard he's a decent guy -- among other things, in addition to spinning a great yarn, he's a national ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and he funds his own literacy foundation, the Wish You Well Foundation. I'd love to keep reading his books on my Kindle, and I probably will do so. Since I and many other Kindle Nation readers...

Stephen Windwalker has been interviewed by Len Edgerly on Len's Kindle Chronicles blog. Len always does an excellent interview and you should go and check it out every Friday. Hid blog, by the way, is always full of interesting information and is to be recommended, no matter who he is interviewing....

Just to prove to you, our readers, how unbiased I am, I'm publishing this news item. I, personally, consider baseball to be one of the most boring of all human pursuits, but evidently Stephen Windwalker, of Kindle Nation, does not. As a matter of fact he says: For people who share my addiction to a lovely slow-paced game with its own statistics and literature and economic craziness, all over New England and probably in many other communities around the world, the icy sludge of winter will begin to thaw, our skies will brighten, and our hearts will warm a...

Received an email from Allen Lau telling me that Wattpad will be available for the iPad when the iPad launches in March. _________________________ Received another email from Kindle Nation saying that Tuesday was their first anniversary. When the Nation started there were 1,031 recipients of the first issue of the newsletter. Over 10,000 now. ...