Light My Kindle

National Novel Writing Month occurs in November each year and inspires tens of thousands of people to write novels within thirty days. This is the tenth year of National Novel Writing Month.

According to the NaNoWriMo website (as it’s shortened to), National Novel Writing Month is,

a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

I think the introduction of the Kindle may help independent authors in getting their first books published. NaNoWriMo is a great kick in the pants to those of you thinking about publishing your first novel on the Kindle, or otherwise.

If you’d like to participate, you can sign up and track your progress at NaNoWriMo.com. Novel writing ends at midnight on November 30th, so start thinking about your novel now!

About a week ago I wrote about Oprah declaring the Kindle as her favorite gadget. I was interested to see how her choice would affect one of my favorite blogs, Living Oprah. In case you haven’t heard of it, Living Oprah is a project run by a woman who is following Oprah’s advice to the letter. Everything on her show, her website and in her magazine is fair game. If Oprah says to exercise five times a week, she’s doing it. If Oprah says to buy Celine Dion tickets, she’s doing it (and actually has).

LO (as she signs her posts) had a very interesting day the day Oprah announced the Kindle as her favorite gadget. You can read all about it on LivingOprah.com, but here’s an excerpt:

Oprah told us, “I just love it…” While she, of course, gave them to her audience (each already containing her newest Book Club pick), she told us at home to get one “if you can afford it.” I start to consider how I will broach the subject with my husband when he gets home from work.

LO received a call that her caller ID identified as “The Oprah Show” and was told that an employee was downstairs with a package for her.

I met a woman downstairs who had a wrapped package for me. It’s clearly the same package that Oprah’s audience all opened, containing a Kindle. I looked at this package and said, “I know what this is.” I thanked her and asked her to tell Oprah thank you. I think I also said something along the lines of, “Well this has turned into an odd morning.”

When I got back up to my apartment, I opened the package. There was a Oprah Winfrey notecard with the Kindle. It read:

Enjoy Robin(sic),

Wanted to save you a few dollars on this one!

Thanks for watching.

Oprah Winfrey (This was her actual signature.)

Go to on LivingOprah.com to read the rest of this fascinating post. You won’t believe what happened next.

I’ve been fascinated with the Living Oprah project for a couple of months now, despite not really being an Oprah fan myself. I read it daily, and definitely recommend it to anyone else.

Are there any Oprah fans out there that were influenced to buy a Kindle by her choosing it as her favorite gadget?

As mentioned before, Oprah chose the Kindle as her new favorite gadget. As a gift to potential Kindle customers, Oprah and Amazon have provided a $50 discount through November 1st. According to Engadget, if you enter the code OPRAHWINFREY at checkout, you’ll receive a $50 discount.

This is an excellent promotion for Amazon. Not only did Oprah tell her legions of fans that she loves the Kindle, but the $50 discount will seal the deal for hesitant buyers.

Another great question I received about the Kindle is, “Can you read it on the treadmill?” A lot of people like to read while walking on the treadmill, since it passes the time while exercising. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to do this because I get dizzy if I read while moving (in a car, for example).

Luckily, with the Kindle I have been able to read while walking on the treadmill. Since the Kindle is so light, I can hold it in front of me so I’m always looking forward (rather than down at the book holder). This prevents me from getting dizzy since my problem occurs when my eyes think my body’s going a different direction than it is (like when I look out the side window of a moving car).

Another huge help is the ability to change the font size. I change the font to a really large size so I can see it more clearly. This allows me to keep walking at a good pace, instead of slowing down so I can read but hurting my workout.

The Kindle also fits nicely in the book holders on most treadmills. And with the built-in music player, you can even listen to your favorite workout tunes while reading the latest best-seller and getting a good workout.

Send any questions you have about the Kindle to cj@lightmykindle.com.

I recently wrote a guest post for a great site called Ask MJ. The site is focused on answering readers’ questions, such as “What is an RSS feed?” and “How much does money weigh?”

My post is called “Should I buy a Kindle?” and went live a few days ago. Click here to check it out. And while you’re there, submit a question for MJ to answer - he’ll email you when he answers it on the site. As always, feel free to send any Kindle questions to me at cj@lightmykindle.com.

The best book I’ve read all year has been Scott Sigler’s Infected (which I reviewed). It was fast-paced, immensely entertaining, and extremely well-written. I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

Needless to say I was thrilled to see Sigler mentioned on Amazon’s Official Kindle Blog alongside Stephen King, my favorite author.

Check out the full post, which is actually about teaching children that authors can be role models too.

Amazon’s Official Kindle Blog has announced that Frommer’s travel guides are now available on the Kindle. This is fantastic news for travelers since the Kindle is lighter than most travel guides. Personally I’d like to test out the bookmarking and notes feature on a Frommer’s travel guide - I’d like to compare it to my usual method of sticking Post-Its on the pages featuring sites I’d like to visit.

The Amazon Kindle, Books and Amazon News Blog picked up a great story about how Oprah Winfrey loves the Kindle. This is huge news for Amazon, since Oprah’s followers tend to rely heavily on her recommendations. After all, that’s why the books chosen for Oprah’s Book Club sell so well, and why her Oprah’s Favorite Things List makes news every year.

It will definitely be interesting to see what this does to the Kindle’s mainstream sales. Oprah is scheduled to talk about the Kindle as her favorite gadget on tomorrow’s show. I’m especially looking forward to seeing what this means for the Living Oprah project (which, if you haven’t heard about it, is fascinating).

With baseball season winding down, I thought it only appropriate to feature a new book by a baseball player. Josh Hamilton, center fielder for the Texas Rangers, has written a book called Beyond Belief. The Amazon description reads,

Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the 1999 baseball draft. He was known not only for his gargantuan homeruns, his speed on the bases and his fielding talent but also for his caring and humble character. He was destined to be one of those rare “high-character ” superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors,-all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.

Hamilton most recently hit the most homeruns in a single round of the home run derby with 28. For baseball fans, and fans of true-life recovery stories, Beyond Belief Kindle Edition is available now.

Since I’m the only one of my friends and family that owns a Kindle, I often get questions from them about the device. I decided to share these questions with you since many of them are worthwhile questions that either aren’t answered in other places or aren’t addressed directly.

The first question I was asked about my Kindle is “Can you read it in the dark?” Well, yes and no. Without the aid of book light, such as the Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Light, you won’t be able to read the Kindle in the dark. This is because the Kindle, unlike most electronic devices, does not have a backlight. While some may see this as a drawback, I truly enjoy the Kindle’s lack of a backlight (which I have discussed before).

The backlight is what causes glare on your computer, what makes your eyes tired if you try to read long articles online, and what makes little kids’ eyes tired after playing hours of portable video games. The Kindle screen was specifically designed without a backlight to make the reading experience more like reading a book than reading off an electronic device.

So technically, no, you can’t read a Kindle in the dark without an outside light source. However, the Mighty Bright gets a four-and-a-half star review on Amazon, and high praise from Kindle owners.

If you have a question about the Kindle, feel free to email me at cj@lightmykindle.com.