Light My Kindle

Over on the Mobile Read forums, a user is offering a Kindle publishing special for all NaNoWriMo writers (to read more about National Novel Writing Month, click here).

The poster, named Joshua, is a professional eBook developer specializing in formatting. His website, KindleFormmating.com is offering a special price for NaNoWritMo writers. They will format your novel for publishing on the Kindle for only $40. It looks like his usual price is $40 per hour plus a $50 flat rate for an index linked to page locations.

You can visit the Mobile Read Forums to view his post, or visit his NaNoWriMo page for more details.

Crunch Gear reports that Target will now be selling the Sony E-reader and various accessories. This is a big step for Sony, since some consumers may hesitate to buy the Kindle, a product they can’t see and hold before pulling out the credit card. If Target’s smart about their promotion, they’ll have a demo version available for customers to play with in-store, just like video games, digital cameras and other gadgets.

We all know the Kindle isn’t the only e-reader in the game, but this new reader from Plastic Logic could be a big draw for the morning commuters. It’s designed specifically for newspapers, having a screen two-and-a-half times the size of the Kindle’s screen. To top it of, it’s flexible, like your morning newspaper.

Boing Boing has more details and a picture of the new device. It could attract the morning commuters who prefer to read The Boston Globe over, say, a Stephen King novel on their Kindle.

There’s no word on price yet, but I would assume it would be competitive for the Kindle and the Sony e-reader. Would you prefer a bigger screen and a flexible display to the book-ish design of the Kindle?

The Kindle isn’t the only e-reader in the game. There’s the Sony Reader, of course, and the aptly named iLiad. Some tech users are heralding the iPhone as a fabulous e-reader. In particular, Salon.com has called it “the best and worst e-book reader ever.”

In their post, (which coincidentally features Stephen King’s On Writing on the iPhone screen - On Writing was my first Kindle book) they go over the reasons why the iPhone is an excellent e-reader (backlight, one do-all device) and why it’s a horrible e-reader (no way to browse books directly from the app). One concession they do make towards the Kindle is,

Unlike Palm or BlackBerry or Nokia smart phones, the iPhone’s screen is comparatively gargantuan. No, not as large as the Kindle’s with its nice wide margins that add to the illusion of actual ink on paper, but wonderfully white and bright with beautiful contrast.

Personally, I like that the Kindle doesn’t have a backlight. I stare at my computer enough during the course of a day, so when I’m reading for pleasure I don’t want a bright light shining in my eyes. What about you, fellow Kindle owners? Do you like or dislike the lack of a backlight on the Kindle?

Visit Salon.com for the full review.

The Kindle Daily blog (which appears to only be available through the built-in Kindle store on the Kindle) announced that Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels are now available on the Kindle. All of them.

As someone who has never read the Bond novels, and only got into the Bond movies with the introduction of Daniel Craig as 007, I think this is very exciting. Now I’ll be able to read all of the novels conveniently on the Kindle.

Get your James Bond Kindle Editions today.

Looking for a specific e-book and can’t find it on Amazon’s Kindle store? You can now use eBdb.net to find what you’re looking for. It searches across multiple e-book sites to bring you results.

CNet News reports that you can get three free Stephen King novels for your Kindle for jumping through only a few hoops. Carrie, The Shining, and Night Shift are all available on Fictionwise, and you can get them for free by depositing money into a Micropay account. Once the money is in your account, buy those three books (or only one or two of them), and the money will be automatically refunded. Of course, the catch is that you then need to use that money to buy other e-books on Fictionwise, or you lose it.

As someone who has filled my Kindle with a high percentage of Stephen King books, this is a very tempting offer. Judging from the Fictionwise site, this is a promotion they run often, with different authors and genres, so you should check back occasionally to see if they feature your favorite author.

The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating article about the claim that e-books, and therefore e-book readers such as the Kindle and the Sony e-reader, are greener than traditional paper books. According to studies cited by the article, each paper book “releases 8.85 pounds of carbon dioxide.”

However, very little is known about the environmental effect of e-books and e-readers. Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative, explains that in order to figure out the eco-friendliness of e-books, one would have to study the lifecycle of the e-readers. The lifecycle analysis would need to cover the amount of energy needed to power the e-reader, what goes into the production process, and if the product is recyclable.

Click here to read the full article.

Lifehack.org, one of my favorite websites, posted a great beginner’s guide to e-books that came at a perfect time for me. Since the Kindle introduced me to e-books, I’ve only just begun to learn that I can get them other places than the Kindle Store.

Of course Amazon is first on the list, but is followed by a list of other e-book stores and places to get public domain (aka FREE) e-books.

For Kindle owners, the Kindle store will probably remain the easiest place to get a book, especially if you’re purchasing it directly from your Kindle, but it’s nice to know there are other options out there.