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I started my trip to visit Eve at 8:30. Took over an hour for the bus to Hollywood & Vine. Took the red line for a few stops to catch the connection to the 244 which runs down Ventura Blvd.

It dropped me off in front of a Winchell's on Reseda about forty minutes later. The sign of cronuts caught my attention so I went in. They were out of cronuts, of course. I bought two donuts from their limited selection.

I walked to Eve's along Clark.

I got there during Eve's exercise class and got roped into joining in. The class is held on the ground floor in what in the Army we would have called the day room. After the class was over, I presented her with Jingles.

We went to Dennys. I was hoping to recreate our usual December outing where I'd give her the stuffing and cranberry sauce from the Turkey Dinner, but they were out of Turkey. We went to Ralph's afterwards, since Eve needed stamps. To get there, we went around the block.

Next, we went to Good Will.

Westfield Topanga was our last destination. Eve got to experience a shopping mall during the Christmas season. We used the wheelchair. I showed her the amazing truffles at Lolli and Pops and I gave her a narrated tour of the Lego store.

We took the scenic route back to her place.

I left in a hurry to try to catch a particular bus, but must have just missed it. Going back, I took the 244 to the Orange line to the red line back to Hollywood & Vine. The Pantages was beautiful with its lit Christmas trees.

From Sep 2010
>I haven't disposed of any of my over thirteen thousand dead tree books, but I'm
>increasingly reluctant to pick up one of them to read. I've thought about scanning
>and OCRing some of my favorites for my personal use. I'd prefer it if the authors
>would just get their backlist up to save me the inconvenience and allow me to pay
>them a royalty.

Well, October 2011 I bought a stack paper cutter and started buying used duplicates
of the books I wanted to reread that are either unavailable or have the same digital
cost as the DTB version. I've since moved on to books I haven't ever read
before, dismantling my only copy.

The idea of stripping a paperback used to make me cringe, but I've gotten
pretty good at chopping the spines off of books. I started cutting almost
too much, but I know what I'm doing now. (October vs. January).

This is a picture of the spines of the books I've scanned so far.

I'm extremely nearsighted, but I can read a page of a pdf-ed book on my kindle
without my glasses easily. If I decide I want a mobi/prc version, the pdfs are
OCR-ready for me to proofread and format. If the author beats me to it and self-
publishes, I'll probably buy their version if it's not priced too much more than
a used book for the convenience factor.

I've read 110 of the 200 books I've scanned to date and have a pile of over one
hundred books ready for the cutter. I may be legacy publishing's worst nightmare.

Oh, I've also acquired over 500 kindle books from Amazon in that same time period.
294 were free, but the others ranged in price from ninety-nine cents to nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.

I used up all my good karma yesterday. The morning started out with a thunderstorm and it rained off and on all day. Still hot, too.

I was going to take the local bus into the airport to catch the express, but it passed me. I walked back and caught the hotel shuttle instead. It rained while the bus was driving to Providence, but it was only a few drops by the time we got there. Two blocks before I got to the historical society library, the sky opened up. I was soaked. The library is well-air-conditioned to keep the documents safe so they advise everybody to bring a sweater. Mine got wet so I hung it up to dry while the rest of me was also drying.

I avoided anything paper and looked through newspaper fiche. The early 1900s Providence Journal wasn't gossipy enough to have the kinds of things I was hoping for and the one issue of a Johnston paper they had was of a socialist tract from 1898 called the Beacon. No luck.

After a few hours I was dry enough and cold enough to grab my sweater. I looked through the cemetery database for information the internet-published version doesn't have. There were a few nuggets of data, but none in the direct line.

Then I browsed through the published (both professional and amateur) family genealogies. I didn't find a Fenner match, but I did find a source for Harlan's wife's, Emma Randall, mom's last name. Then I checked in the death index, because it was an online death record that originally got me her first name, and got a different last name for the same person. And then it was closing time. I'm worse off than when I started.

I also looked through the Warwick city directories to find a listing for William, Margaret & family. No luck. (Hm.. maybe check for Margaret's parents, they were living next door in the 1900 census)

I'm going back tomorrow. I found out in the last few minutes that, even though they disallow portable scanners, they now have a camera day-pass for society members and I joined before I came.

I just checked the weather. It's supposed to be dry tomorrow, but check out what's hitting me now: http://www.wunderground.com/radar/mixedcomposite.asp?region=a5&size=2x&ID=BOX19

Goals for tomorrow:
Photograph the pages of the Randall book I'm interested in.
Compare the photo requests for Pocasset Cemetery to the database to find lot numbers so I can take pictures of the stones near our family plot.
The death index for Marcena Randall nee ?(Groton/Goodman) is a tertiary source, try to locate at least the secondary source to hopefully clarify.
See if there are Johnston city directories for Harlan & Simeon.
See if the 1926 paper microfiche has a clearer version of Harlan's obit.
Whatever occurs to me.

Current Mood: disappointed

This is the house my grandfather's grandfather, Harlan, was born in.

When they built the new grammar school in the seventies, one of the proposed uses for the land that the old school was built on was a park. The park never happened; most of the building was torn down and the remnants are being used for the Gloucester Light Infantry storage. The land was originally donated by Harlan's father.

I met the woman who drew up the poster. Edna Kent is the town historian. She let me stash my stuff at her house while I hiked up the hill to take pictures.

The adults of the family that live in the house weren't home, but I talked to the daughter as she was leaving. She mentioned her grandmother, who was at home in her house next door, used to live there. I knocked, introduced myself, and asked if it was okay to take pictures of all sides of the house. She agreed and I got started. She came out to talk to me after I took one or two pictures. She told me they didn't stop calling it Page Hill until she was a little girl. Harlan's mom sold the land after the death of her husband around 1850. A Page hasn't lived there in one hundred and sixty years. I would have talked to her longer (I wish I had a tape recorder with me), but I had to catch the last bus back to Providence.

It was .61 miles one way from Edna's house on Dorr Drive according to maps.yahoo. The farm was called "Page Hill" and the house was at the top. I just googled a topographical map. Remember, the closer the lines, the steeper the hill. Page Hill is the second dot to the left of the "S" in Spring.

Edna also looked in her files after meeting me earlier in the day. (I did the trek up the hill after Town Hall closed.) She found a "provenance" of the house the current owners had done in her files. I'm returning to Chepachet (pronounced "Cha-PATCH-it") on Monday to get copies (she doesn't have a scanner, and I didn't have the wand scanner with me, so we're meeting at the library (which was closed today). She doesn't have email or a scanner of her own.

I had a REALLY good day. (Oh, I also found the probate records for Harlan's dad's death; he died intestate, so the heirs went to probate court more than usual. I have 13 pages of 1842 handwriting to decipher.)

Current Mood: elated
Current Location: Rhode Island

comment at JA Konrath's blog.

@ Anonymous at 1:07 PM

This is an excerpt of the Kindlenation Summer 2010 survey run by Stephen Windwalker.

As a male of relentlessly advancing years and Cherokee and Scots-Irish lineage, I find myself mildly interested in the profile and demographics of Kindle owners. If you would like to share a little information, I'd be interested. I won't share individual information with anyone else, but I may aggregate it and write in general terms about who we are as citizens of Kindle Nation. (Please choose all that apply to you.)

Number Response Answer
of Ratio
Responses

1189 61.8% I am a female.
710 36.9% I am a male.
18 <1% I am under 25 years of age.
773 40.2% I am between 25 and 54 years of age.
1126 58.5% I am 55 years of age or older.

====

@ Bob Mayer at 5:54 PM

Sign up with http://www.facebook.com/BacklistEbooks

I'm a reader that checks out their page for re-publishers. It's another source of information for us.

====

I don't know if it's a coincidence of timing, but Penguin used to discount their "midlist" kindle Mystery titles by $1 from the paperback price. Since Random House made the Agency five the Agency Six, the Penguin kindle titles are at parity with their paperback prices. I've stopped buying them. I preordered a few April titles and still got the discount, but people who waited are being charged the extra dollar. The readers that feel the same way I do about being gouged are searching for indie cozies.

Robin
April 18 (Happy Tax Day!)

I am a kindle consumer and have been since January 2008. I am not a writer and have no interest in ever being a writer, so this is just from a reader's point of view.

If an ebook is from a "big six" publisher and is priced equal to or greater than the dtb (dead tree book) version, I will not buy it unless there is a compelling (to ME) reason to. And yes, I do compare the prices. I've been known to open a new tab and search on the "book" department if the comparison box isn't set up yet. If the price is not acceptable and I think I may want to read the book some day, I'll add the book to price watch at kindleiq. (Oh, I advise any author planning to reduce his/her prices to enter their own books there beforehand; they'll show up on the "recently reduced" list.) Also, take a look at what kindle-owners consider prices that they're unwilling to pay. It should be no surprise that the most watched book is Follett's Fall of Giants. $19.99?

KindleIQ is a godsend to those hit by the windowing affect. By the time the publisher drops the price, the ebook is off the consumer's radar. Whoops, went off on a tangent.

I usually cut small press publishers some slack in pricing because I am aware they lack economy of scale.

Self-published backlist that I can tell is self-published, I'm willing to pay $2.99 without even debating it, if the book is in one of my preferred genres and there are no horrible errors in the description. I've commented before I'd rather pay $2.99 than $1.99, since I'm aware of the royalty structure. I tend not to bother with samples unless I suspect the book is in topaz format. Topaz is evil. It slows down the reading process and takes up too much room on my kindle.

As the price goes up, I have to think about my degree of interest in the book more. That's when I look at reviews. If the reviews mention formatting problems, it's a "no sale". If the price goes above six dollars, and I know it's self-pubbed, I begin to feel gouged, unless the book's an epic length.

I am a total convert to kindle. If your book is not available as either non-drmed mobi or on the kindle platform, it may as well not be published as far as I'm concerned. (Unless it's in color or all pictures, that is, and I'm reading books like that on my kindle for PC.)

I haven't disposed of any of my over thirteen thousand dead tree books, but I'm increasingly reluctant to pick up one of them to read. I've thought about scanning and OCRing some of my favorites for my personal use. I'd prefer it if the authors would just get their backlist up to save me the inconvenience and allow me to pay them a royalty.

Does anyone know who has the rights to Ellery Queen's (Dannay & Lee) books?

I was expecting better of SF&F publishers, but other than Baen, they've been pretty feeble in the market. Tor started out with the freebies, but the followthrough has been so bad. Their books are either unavailable or overpriced.

New authors' self-pubbed titles: Joe's mantra of "cover, description & price" comes into play here. This is where a loss-leader of ninety-nine cents can halp, but if the cover and description are really good, I don't have too much resistance to the $2.99 price. If you have a series, please put the series order in the description. Make the first in the series your lowest priced book. If I read it and like it, I will be willing to pay more for the next in the series.

Robin
ebook pricing
Edited to fix html error (it did finally post at above site).

My sister and I went to visit our great-grandparents and great-aunts and uncles today.

The cemetery they're buried in closed in 2006. Luckily for my genealogy purposes, some volunteers have been uploading the data from the records they've been able to acquire to findagrave.com. A co-worker was having difficulty uploading a photograph, so I logged in a couple weeks ago and tested the site using a family name and one of my brick walls came tumbling down. My great-grandpa William had been entered since the last time I looked for him, as well as his wife, and four of their children.

The court has ordered visitation days (a whole four hours) every two weeks or so and the timing was such that I only had to wait a week and a half to go.

The family lot has twelve graves, eleven of which are filled. Only five had markers. Only two of those five are direct relations. I am assuming that the family couldn't afford the markers in the twenties and thirties.

It looks like six of the twelve plots were purchased by the spouse of one of my great-aunts and he allowed the burial of his wife's deceased siblings and mother at the time of his late wife's interment in the early twenties. William and another sister were added in the late thirties. Only his wife, my great-aunt, has a marker. My sister was worried about the dust's affect on my eyes after she noticed one was considerably bloodshot at breakfast (allergies, she thinks), so she did the lion's share of unearthing the marker that was covered with a five inch layer of dirt and dead weeds.

Some time after the original purchase, his wife's brother (my great-uncle) and spouse bought the other six sites. Upon his death, the lots were hers and later, her father (no marker), her second husband and she were also buried there. The most recent interment is my great-uncle's daughter's husband. The empty plot is next to his. His stone gave me enough information to be able to identify my dad's first cousin (I hadn't had her marriage data before), her two children, and six grandchildren.

We did clean up the entire lot, raking away the worst of the overgrown weeds and bagging them, and cleaning all the markers. We also cleared the weeds from some of the neighboring markers to be able to identify each of our family graves. Within our lot, the graves are aligned foot to foot, so my great-grandmother is across from her son at one end and my first cousin once-removed's late husband is across from my great-aunt at the other end. This puts the markers of the next lots over within inches of our lot's markers or where markers would be if they existed.

Current Mood: accomplished

Robin said...

@Richard S Wheeler,

I'm not interested in your fiction (not my genre), but your memoir sounds interesting. Do you have the e-rights? I would have bought it five minutes ago if it had been available on kindle and reasonably priced.

@Anne Marie

I'll try to remember to look up your indie-pubbed book again after the product description posts. Right now I can't tell whether it's something I'd like or not. The cover's pretty, but not informative enough on its own.

I am what was termed an "intense reader" by someone in these comments. I bought 143 books on line from b&n in 2007, and over 50 others at brick & mortar stores that year. I regret delaying ordering my kindle as long as I did (I dithered for a day or two, which put me on the waiting list) since it took me five weeks to get it, but get it I did, on January 10, 2008 and I haven't looked back.

Unless it's a book by an author of whom I'm a fan, I will only buy ebooks and only if the ebook is less than the DTB. I paid $15 this week for the e-ARC of Bujold's Cryoburn from Baen. I am a fan of LMB. I have refused to buy Ender's Game because it's priced the same as the paperback at $5.99. I already have the paperback... and the hardcover. Ebooks don't have to support the printing, shipping, storage, and returns of paperbacks, and I expect to have at least part of that savings passed on to me as the consumer. If I thought it was going to the author, I'd probably go ahead and pay that price.

Concerning price points, I'm just as likely to one-click a $2.99 book as a ninety-nine cent book, if I think I'll enjoy the book. Knowing the royalty structure, I'd prefer the author getting 70% (less delivery charges) of $2.99 than 35% of $1.

I don't shop by the bestseller lists. I sort my genres by publication date, and check out the last thirty days. This is where the covers come in handy. I scroll through the "also bought" lists of my new purchases. I click on authors' names to see if they have backlist I've missed because they've been listed by their original publication date. I search names of the composers of blogposts that let it be known they've got kindle content. I found JL Wilson that way after she posted on this blog back in May. I bought one book at a $5.70 price point, and after reading it and loving it, went back and bought six others. I check out what other people found interesting enough to pricewatch on kindleiq.com. I check my amazon rec list. I use mysteria for non-kindled books and wonder why publishers are kindlizing some authors and not others. There are series I bought in 2007 that I haven't picked up since, because the publisher hasn't e-published the latest titles, at all. Those series numbers are dropping, not because of lack of interest, but because they refuse to publish in the format I want to buy.

Robin
librarything catalog

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/08/beginning-of-end.html

I think this (reading speed) might be a large part of the divide.

When I was a child, I was limited to the library and ten books at a time. I could finish those ten books in less than one week and not have anything to read until my next library visit. So, I re-read my favorites.

Then I discovered the paperback racks. No check-out limits, no due dates. But the selection was mostly romance and men's adventure. I branched out into new genres out of desperation. I even read the Mack Bolan books. I don't like much violence, so they weren't my true cup of tea.

When I began earning a living, I started buying books. And keeping them. And re-reading them. I'd go back and re-read all the books in a series when the new volume came out. My book holdings exceeded my personal living space long ago. I've paid rent on one of my storage rooms since 1982.

I just finished reading the new Meg Langslow book and am wanting to go back and re-read them all, but not all are on kindle. I boxed up the paperbacks years ago, and they're in my storage room which is miles away and closed on Sundays. I can't get to them until Friday when I'll have energy and time to shift boxes. I probably won't do it, but I will buy and re-read them when they are kindlized (for a reasonable price). For this series, same as the paperback price is reasonable, because I factor not having to shift boxes into the cost.

I factored not having to rent another storage room into the cost of the kindle. The original K1 at the original price was worth it. And the refurbished K2us with collections was positively cheap!

Robin
librarything catalog

Current Mood: contemplative

>Really interesting listing. What exactly should be a fair price?

From previous discussions, the criteria fall in different places for different people.

Since this was MY list, I'll give you my reasoning.

I am a re-reader. I have been reading since I was four years old and there are some series that I re-read every other year or so. I have been known to buy a book in hardcover and then rebuy it when it is issued in paperback because the paperback is lighter. I read while I walk. I read fast. I used to carry a backpack in which I kept the book I was currently reading, the next book I was planning to read, and perhaps two others in case I finished that one as well. Since I physically received my kindle in January of 2008, I have read fewer than twenty DTBs (dead tree books, printed on paper) and stopped carrying the backpack. The kindle is just that much more convenient. The only DTBs I have purchased are comic strip compilations, graphic novels, or those I purchased for an author's signing. I have also bought the kindle version of the books I bought to be signed. I read the kindle version.

I will NOT pay full mass market paperback price for an ebook that is currently being sold as a mass market paperback. There are no printing, storage, shipping or returns costs for an ebook, so the publisher has no reason to recoup those costs. If they are making a profit on the mm pb, the ebook profits are gravy, after recouping the one-time conversion charges. I've converted large documents into mobibook format using Joshua Tallent's book. It's not that hard, especially if you're starting with a fairly clean electronic version of the manuscript.

If the book has been published in hardcover and is a recent release, the anchor price for me is the DISCOUNTED hardcover price, not full cover price.

I bought "The Clinton Tapes" the week it came out, paying $19.25. It did eventually fall to $9.99, but I had finished reading it by then. The list price was $35, but at the time I bought my copy, the HC was selling for $21 or so. I treated the extra cost as a premium for my impatience.

I feel the publisher is being greedy, if the publisher is putting up an author's backlist at full current paperback price. These are books that a lot of people would be getting at a used bookstore, garage sale or at a library's paperback swap rack, none of which would garner any royalties for the publisher or author. The W.E.B. Griffin Brotherhood of War series and Corps series were twenty percent below the mmpb price. I purchased and reread the nineteen books in these series during June 2008. I had these books as hardcovers on a bookcase in my bedroom, readily at hand. Jove and Amazon got $121.41 from me for books I already owned. That's the right way to handle backlist.

Macmillan's handling backlist by reprinting fifty year old books as trade paperbacks for books that are in their perhaps 115th printing and expecting readers to be willing to pay that price for an electronic version. That's the wrong way to handle backlist.

Of the decisions I made yesterday, I would have bought the $7.99 titles at $1.00 off, the $5.99 titles at $5.29, I would have paid $6.39 for the books originally published in the forties and fifties, $9.99 for the Zelvin since the sequel is already out (I might have paid the $10.99 if it hadn't been), and the Ariely at $8.35 with the hardcover currently available for $9.35.

Robin
librarything catalog
I have over 2500 books still to add, most of which are ebooks.

Current Mood: contemplative

> Is there a way to print a list of my books on kindle? Or at least the ones
from Amazon?

Sign in to Amazon.

Click on "my account" in the upper right hand corner.

About two-thirds down the page, there's a header "digital content". To the right of that, there's a header "your media library". Click on "your collection".

There's a drop-down menu under "View". Click on "kindle items" or "kindle books" if you don't want to include your magazines, blogs or newspapers.

Sort by title, date acquired or creator at the top right hand side. Unfortunately, it sorts by first name.

If you click on "print", it creates a page that includes covers. If this is what you want, send it to your printer. Otherwise, cancel out the print job.

To have a simple list of author and book, you have to do a little more work.

While in the page, hit control-A, then control-C. Open your notepad, then hit control-V. This strips out non-text from the list. Delete the stuff you don't want to print using "replace".

I tried to just copy and paste the thin list, but you have to scroll down a page at a time and wait for the system to load each screen. I currently have 1885 kindle books purchased from Amazon.

Robin

Current Mood: geeky

Today is payday. I went shopping at Amazon.

Here is a list of the kindle books I did NOT buy today by publisher, then author, title, kindle price, paper price, notes and year of copyright. The books without a paper price are those that would have been repurchases of books I have previously paid for in hardcover, paperback or both and was NOT willing to spend yet another $9.89 or more on a digital repurchase. The cover price of some of my original purchases ranged from $1.95 to $5.99. Most of these books were on my Amazon recommendations list and I clicked on the item page and decided NOT to buy. One was on the kindle front page; I clicked and decided not to buy it based on the price.

Harper Collins
Ariely, Dan Predictably Irrational $9.99 $9.35 (June 2009)
Chase, Loretta Lord of Scoundrels $6.99 $6.99 (1995)
Chase, Loretta Not Quite a Lady $6.99 $6.99 (2007)
Chase, Loretta Don't Tempt Me $6.99 $6.99 (2009)
Chase, Loretta Your Scandalous Ways $6.99 $6.99 (2008)

Macmillan
Asimov, Isaac The End of Eternity $11.99 (would be repurchase) (1955)
Asimov, Isaac The Stars, Like Dust $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1950)
Asimov, Isaac The Currents of Space $10.99 (would be repurchase) (1952)
Asimov, Isaac Pebble in the Sky $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1950)
Beck, Jessica Glazed Murder $7.99 $7.99 (I have never read this author) (April 2010)
Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game $5.99 $5.99 (would be repurchase) (1985)
Card, Orson Scott Ender's Shadow $5.99 $5.99 (would be repurchase) (1999)
Card, Orson Scott Speaker for the Dead $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (1986)
Card, Orson Scott Shadow of the Giant $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (2005)
Card, Orson Scott Shadow of the Hegemon $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (2001)
Card, Orson Scott Xenocide $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (1991)
Card, Orson Scott Children of the Mind $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (1996)
Card, Orson Scott Heartfire $7.99 $7.99 (would be repurchase) (1998)
Card, Orson Scott Songmaster $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1979)
Heinlein, Robert A Space Cadet $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1948,75)
Zelvin, Elizabeth Death Will Get You Sober $10.99 $23.95 (I have never read this author)(April 2008)

Bantam
Stout, Rex Where There's a Will $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1940)
Stout, Rex The League of Frightened Men $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1935)
Stout, Rex Before Midnight $9.89 (would be repurchase) (1955)
Stout, Rex The Father Hunt $9.89 (would be repurchase) (1968)
Stout, Rex Might as Well be Dead $9.89 (would be repurchase) (1956)
Stout, Rex The Final Deduction $9.99 (would be repurchase) (1961)

I just entered these prices in a spreadsheet: the publishers are asking $247.42 for books I would have gladly purchased at $185.50. I judged the price I would have paid willingly by the books I actually bought. Only ONE of these books was originally published this year and that one is definitely a midlist book. A good majority of the others have been reprinted many times and earned out their advances decades ago.

Here is a list of books I did buy during the last two weeks, since May 27th (Penguin books came back to Amazon on the 29th) by publisher, title, author, price paid, paper price and any notes (an x in front means I have also read the book in the past two weeks).:

Macmillan
Dorsai Spirit (omnibus) Dickson, Gordon R $9.99 $20.99 (repurchase-preorder)
Murder With Peacocks Andrews, Donna $7.99 $7.99 (clutch to bosom repurchase-anomaly)

Penguin
Magic Strikes Andrews, Ilona $6.99 $7.99
x Death Threads Casey, Elizabeth Lynn $5.99 $6.99
x Miss Wonderful Chase, Loretta $6.99 $7.99
x Mr. Impossible Chase, Loretta $6.99 $7.99
Lord Perfect Chase, Loretta $6.99 $7.99 (3rd in the trilogy; currently reading)
Tressed to Kill Dare, Lila $6.99 $7.99
x Lead-Pipe Cinch Evans, Christy $5.99 $6.99
Longshot Francis, Dick $6.99 $7.60
Silks Francis, Dick & Felix $7.99 $9.99 (kindle price is up to $8.99 today)
x Monster in Miniature Grace, Margaret $6.99 $7.99
French Polished Murder Hyatt, Elise $5.99 $6.99
Grace Under Pressure Hyzy, Julie $6.99 $7.99
Reel Murder: A Talk Radio Mystery Kennedy, Mary $5.99 $6.99
Murder on the Eightfold Path Killian, Diana $6.99 $7.99
A Timely Vision Lavene, Joyce & Jim $6.99 $7.99
Death in Show McCoy, Judi $5.99 $6.99
The Cat, The Professor and the Poison Sweeney, Leann $5.99 $6.99

Bantam (Random House, sold by Amazon)
I, Robot Asimov, Isaac $6.29 $7.99 (Spectra is Bantam)
Foundation Asimov, Isaac $6.39 $7.99
Foundation and Empire Asimov, Isaac $6.39 $7.99
Second Foundation Asimov, Isaac $6.39 $7.99
The White Road Flewelling, Lynn $6.39 $7.99
Three Doors to Death Stout, Rex $5.09 $7.99
Prisoner's Base Stout, Rex $6.39 $7.99
Three at Wolfe's Door Stout, Rex $6.39 $7.99
The Golden Spiders Stout, Rex $5.20 $6.50
The Doorbell Rang Stout, Rex $6.29 $7.99
Three Witnesses Stout, Rex $5.59 $6.99

Dell (sold by Amazon)
Ceremony Parker, Robert B. $6.39 $7.99

Simon & Schuster
Iron Lake Krueger, William Kent $7.99 $7.99 (1999-mmp) $10.20 (2009-tp)
This was a judgment call; since the lowest paperback price was for an edition published eleven years ago, I compared it to the trade paperback issued last year instead. I have never read this author, but the series was recommended to me.

Sourcebooks (Amazon)
Frederica Heyer, Georgette $6.99 $10.04

Wild Rose Press (Amazon)
x PhDs, Pornography and Premeditated Murder Wilson, JL $6.25 $12.99
This author commented on J.A. Konrath's blog in May. I looked at her kindle listings, bought one book to check her out, read it, loved it, and have now purchased and read seven of her books.

Krill Press (Amazon)
The Well Meaning Killer Walker, Miranda Phillips $3.99 $16.95

Self-published (Amazon)
A Small Fortune Braun, Audrey $2.99 $9.32

There are only two books that have the same price as the paper edition and those two I've annotated why I was willing to pay that price. Every other book was less than the paperback.

I have spent $223.22 on kindle books at Amazon over the past two weeks. I still have over $200 in my "willing to spend until next payday" pot. That $185.50 is money that Harper Collins, MacMillan and Bantam have literally left on the table.

This list of Penguin books is why I thought Penguin might have been paying attention. The bestsellers everyone else was waiting for weren't on my radar. I think the midlisters and bestsellers have different marketers at Penguin.

Robin

Current Mood: frustrated

And in retaliation of not being supplied the e-book versions of Penguin's latest hardcovers, Amazon slashes prices on new releases.

I read the comments for this WSJ article and had to comment myself.

Comment follows:

Speaking from an Amazon kindle customer's perspective, Amazon cut the hardcover prices as an apology to the people who preordered the ebooks and had their orders canceled on them. It's just good customer relations.

Of course, there are those of us whose homes are already full of DTBs (dead tree books) that have no interest in purchasing more now that we've converted to digital personal libraries. Some of us also have no interest in buying full paper cover price for a digital file. We know there are no printing, storage, shipping or return reserve costs associated with ebooks. Ebooks for previously published titles are found money once the conversion costs have been recouped. The smart publishers put their authors' backlists on kindle at a decent discount from the start to encourage repurchase. Of the 1,854 ebooks I have purchased that I've classified in this way, 633 are books that I have in hardcover, paperback or both.

Those publishers (such as Macmillan) that waited until the agency model went into affect before they made authors' backlist available, at the same price as the non-discounted paper book cover price, have earned my enmity/rage/scorn/ire/bafflement. It's not going to make the DTB more attractive; I already have it. I want to be able to read the text of the book on my kindle. I want to be able to increase the font as the daylight fades. I want to be able to start the next book in a series the minute I finish the first without having to figure out what bookshelf it's on or what box it's in.

All they are doing with their current pricing model is leaving money on the table. I was made aware of a book I was waiting for had arrived on kindle. I searched for it - saw the price was ten cents lower than the paperback, debated myself, and hit the buy button. I had somehow gone to the international page and was redirected to the US page where the book was the same price as the paperback. I have three copies of this title already: trade paper, mass market paperback and an anniversary reissue. I decided to pass. At a ten percent discount I would have bought it. There are at least twenty of this author's titles I am not going to buy with this pricing model.

Robin Page

Postscript: One of the things I forgot to mention in the comment was that not all of the DTBs were purchased new, therefore the author and publisher didn't get a dime from me. Every kindle purchase earns a royalty. Another of the reasons for my replacing my favorite books is to make sure I'm supporting the authors I like while freeing up display space on my bookshelves.

As a kindle owner, I discovered Karen's books when Erma Bombeck came up in conversation November 6th. I plugged Bombeck into kindle search and "Lies I Told My Children" popped up. No books by Erma, though. The description was interesting, and I was willing to risk $1.49. (Referring back to one author's upset at being referred to as an "impulse buy", this is the true meaning.)

I read the essays, enjoyed them and bought a few more of Karen's books.

Robin

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/04/interview-with-karen-mcquestion.html

Cyberbooks by Ben Bova is available as an ebook from Baen in the omnibus "Laugh Lines" which also includes Starcrossed as well as some short stories.

ebook link

book details

Most Baen books don't turn up on kindle, but they are sold in all the major formats without drm at their own websites for reasonable prices. Once you've purchased the book, you can download it in any and all formats. They also maintain a library of free books which include first books of series.

Robin
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/04/publishers-ebooks-epic-fail.html

Most of my notes have nothing to do with the book I'm reading. I use my clip file as a kind of diary. If I buy something somewhere that doesn't give me a receipt, like some fast food restaurants, I add a note of 141 to the page I'm reading to remind myself I spent $1.41 for a burger. Or "bus" as I pay my fare. The date-time stamp lets me fill in my Quicken information later. The kindle.amazon.com site doesn't sort by "most recent" and the date-time stamp doesn't carry over. I did check it out when it first showed up. And of course, the site only shows amazon books. "My clippings.txt" picks up notes and highlights from all your files.

Also, I have 967 books on my kindle page as of this moment, I find it's easier to find highlighted passages in "my clippings.txt".

YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary, for acronym newbies).

114 pages. Mostly on my SD card.

657 books purchased from amazon, $.01 to $18.67, 110 amazon freebies, and 173 books from other sources. I also have magazines, which do group, and lots of personal documents.

Keeping the metadata clean and sorting by author lets me find everything easily. I dislike the azw1 extension 'cause I can't use mobi2mobi on them.

I've been replacing books, which I kept on my apartment's shelves for rereading, with kindle versions. I am using the shelf space for things other than books. I freed up an entire shelf when the Lackey books were released. The only DTBs I've been buying are comic strip compilations and graphic novels.

If a book doesn't have an ebook version, I add it to my public wishlist, hit the "tell the publisher" button, and wait for Mysteria to notify me.

I did buy the latest Diana Wynne Jones in DTB version last year. It was kindlized before I got around to reading it.

I don't like having to turn pages now.

I celebrated by watching a Warner Brothers movie. I went to the 9:30 am showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. No spoilers. I liked it, but was not blown away.

I browsed through Hallmark afterward, and found some HP ornaments and a Star Trek ornament that I want. I had taken my gold crown card out of my wallet a couple years ago when they semi-abandoned the HP franchise, so I decided to wait to get them.

I did my grocery shopping while I was already out. I picked up the Potter issue of Movie Magic on impulse (I would have got a discount if I'd waited 'til I got to Barnes and Noble).

De-cluttering (or shifting variety of clutter) project progress:
I bought 13 kindle books today; five titles were re-buys of books I can take off my shelves and box, and eight were books I haven't read.

Current Location: Home

Finally, finally, finally made it to my parents' house to collect the family history pages of the family bible.

My dad downsized his tv/vcr setup by replacing the full-sized tvs with baby-sized monitors, so it was easy to clear the top of the hope chest enough to actually empty it. I grabbed everything: holiday cards, me and my siblings' school-made projects and photographs.

I now have a death date for my great-grandmother (dad's dad's mom), but whoever updated the page didn't know when her husband died. But it did have the dates for marriages for my great-grandparents and birth dates for all of their children. I have marriage dates and spouses for most of the children. They didn't record dad's dad's first marriage (the one that resulted in dad), but his second marriage is listed. The bible had changed hands by that time.

My dad and I paged through his scrapbook from his time in the Navy. He bought the book in Okinawa when he was stationed there. My aunt had a pandigital photolink scanner sent to me to test for her, so I was scanning pictures as he took them out and they were returned to the book right away. The scanner has a limit of four inches, so I did have to ask to borrow a few larger photographs to scan at home.

The bible dates from 1888, at least that's the marriage recorded on the MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE HEIRLOOM MEMORIAL page. It's in terrible shape. The binding is completely detached, and several signatures have dissolved threads. To preserve the family history pages, my dad removed them and put them in plastic sleeves. They are like jigsaw puzzles and a few pieces at the edges are missing. Fortunately, the only information that was lost was the final digit of a few birth years. I can and have filled in that data from other sources.

Another prize was a photograph of my dad's mother with her parents and five of her siblings. My first cousin once-removed, who acted as my dad's foster mother after my grandfather's death, had had the picture copied and she annotated the back with names, birth dates, death dates and added the names of two other siblings. One had died at eighteen months, she had "ate green grapes".

The youngest child on the far right was born in 1913, so I think the picture was taken in the early nineteen-twenties.

I started trying to organize the other contents of the hope chest and have my mom do some picture identification, but it was too hard to organize and identify at the same time.

I brought everything but the bible (about eight inches thick) and dad's scrapbook home with me.

Current Mood: elated
Current Location: Home

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First day of Hanukkah
Agency pricing has sent me back to paper, but not the way the publishers would like
Second Day in Rhode Island
First Day in Rhode Island
JAK entry again
jakonrath entry that google wouldn't post
Grand View Memorial Park
Comment made on jakonrath.blogspot,com
On re-reading (kindlekorner post)
Reaction to June 10th post (kindlekorner)
How to create a list of kindle books purchased from Amazon (kindlekorner)
Empirical data for publishers (long, contains lists) (kindlekorner post)
WSJ article response (kindlekorner)
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Comment made on jakonrath.blogspot,com
Kindle's "My Clippings" (kindlekorner)
How many pages on your Kindle? (kindlekorner)
[kindlekorner] Do you still buy hardcopies of books when you own a Kindle?
Happy 54th Birthday, Disneyland!
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First day of Hanukkah

Agency pricing has sent me back to paper, but not the way the publishers would like

Second Day in Rhode Island

First Day in Rhode Island

JAK entry again

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Grand View Memorial Park

Comment made on jakonrath.blogspot,com

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Reaction to June 10th post (kindlekorner)

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WSJ article response (kindlekorner)

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Kindle's "My Clippings" (kindlekorner)

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[kindlekorner] Do you still buy hardcopies of books when you own a Kindle?

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