How to write for the Amazon Kindle

When the Sony Digital Book Reader arm of the consumer electronics giant announced the introduction of three new digital book readers to their stable, nestled in there was the yet to be released Daily the flagship of their Edition range, the companies first attempt at a truly portable eBook reader.

It has taken them a couple of years to get their act together but at long last Sony Corp have realized the potential, and the massive market, of the wireless reading device. The soon to be released Daily, a wireless model that slots into their Edition range as the flagship model,should hit the stores in early December and retail about $100 more than the Kindle 2 at approximately $399. Saying that, don’t be surprise to see it come in at a figure closer to the Kindle’s $299, given what’s been going on recently and the fact that price would have been decided on when the Kindle was retailing for $349.

Sony PRS-950SC Daily Edition Reader (Silver)

It will utilize the AT&T 3G wireless network to connect to the online Sony-eBook-store and other comparable book-shops to download magazines, newspapers, electronic books and other printed media. This will be similar to the Kindle that uses the Sprint wireless network but unlike the Kindle the Daily will support file formats such as ePub, which is used by many online or e-libraries for electronic versions of popular titles they lend out, that will allow you to read not only eBooks they sell. This sends out the message, to buyers of these digital book readers, saying yes they would like them to buy from the Sony-eBook-store but if they choose to buy elsewhere then that’s fine and the Sony Digital Book Reader will allow them to do that. This openness is a far cry from past attitudes where companies have tried to tie purchasers of their models to having to buy their books too.

A big part of the Kindle’s appeal has always been the ability to ‘buy on the fly’. In my eyes, it seems to me Sony have finally realized that to get on terms with Kindle sales they have to offer a comparable numbers of titles, so readers have a real choice. It was probably impractical to extend their own offering to anywhere near the reported 350k titles Amazon hold in digital format so they have achieved this by firstly including the most popular file format for eBook freebies, the Adobe PDF, and then allowing downloads from many of the independent booksellers like Powells.com and Waterstones.co.uk. Just with the inclusion of PDF support they have enabled readers access to Google Library’s 1M plus free titles..neat eh.

With the release of the Touch Screen, Wireless Daily Edition along with their other Edition models, the Reader and the Touch, they have covered all bases and got themselves right back in the game. Sony have extended their potential customer base. Yes Kindle do offer a touch screen enabled, wireless model with a large screen, the clumsy, desktop calculator like DX, but this retails well above the expected Daily price and supports far less file formats. It seems the DX will be confined to a business application only, namely 1:1 A4 document, plan or drawing reading, in the very near future.

Another handy feature on this Sony digital book reader is the ability to access, wirelessly, the nascent electronic book services at your local library. With a library card, you can tap in your Zip code with the touch screen keyboard and this Portable eBook Reader will connect you to your chosen branch. At the time of writing, there are no plans by Sony to charge directly for their wireless service or any definite list on exactly which newspapers or periodicals will be available to download. Nor will users be able to access the web like they can with both the Kindle models or change text to speech, which if you have heard the results of that on a Kindle is no great loss.

What the release of this Sony digital book reader does to the digital book readers market is to be seen, but it will at last give the Kindle some stiff competition in the portable eBook reader sector, which they have dominated for so long. As they say; watch this space.

Sony Daily Edition Features:

1. Lovely metal body with good tactile feel. Included cover (leather?) is good quality.
2. Stylus is handy when using the touch screen, to keep greasy hands off.
3. Good pdf reader – although it had problems in zoom mode.
4. Portrait and landscape orientations, plus 2 page view in landscape.
5. Screen, and reading experience is better than computer screen, with little eye fatigue. Not quite as good as a book though, maybe because of the lower contrast between text and background.
6. Extensible storage using SD card.
7. Lots of features like note taking on books, search, dictionary, a collection of memos, a collection for b&w pictures, an audio player.

Sony PRS-950SC Daily Edition Reader (Silver)

The eBook reader is more eco-friendly than most people realize. In fact, when we talk about green gadgets, few are in the same league as ebook readers. To environmentalists, these marvels are made in heaven – yes, just go and ask the trees. To top it off, the benefits are intrinsically endless too. Every time an ebook is opted over the traditional hard-print, some degree of the forests is spared.

Up until not too distant into the past, we could only mitigate the loss of trees to books by resorting to recycled paper. Not anymore, we can now do away with it altogether by switching to ebooks. Although this form of reading have been around for years, it wasn’t until after the portable ebook reader came onto the scene that this option could make a feasible impact. Of late, titles for the portable book reader have reached hundreds of thousands.

Bestsellers are known to top the million-mark routinely in traditional ‘dead tree’ copies. Chunks of forest would have been expended to manufacture their paper which in itself adds to greenhouse pollution and books do emit 4 times more global warming gas than e-readers. Studies (Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden) have concluded that “Reading the physical version of the NY Times for a year uses 7,300 MJ of energy and emits 700 kg of CO2. Reading it on a Kindle (ebook reader) uses 100 MJ of energy and emits 10 kg of CO2.”

The portable reader is also a boon in various other indirect ways not least of which is energy. When avid readers scour the town in search of that bestseller new release amid the all too familiar stock-out, petrol is wasted from all the driving around, while the car exhausts contaminate the air at that. By design, ebooks are downloaded online thus supplanting the cumbersome transportation, storage and distribution of physical books in the process. Theoretically, they can never go out-of-stock either.

As a standard practice, books are also generally indented in contingent quantities so as to avoid missed sales and upset customers. Stock return is a norm in the industry so why not? No wonder up to a third of books are returned and end up in some landfill. Periodicals like newspapers and magazines, with this inherently recurring attritional wastage, are exponentially worse. One solution to that comes in the form of the Kindle Portable eBook Reader from Amazon. This portable reader supports e-newspapers and magazines. In fact, its entire supply chain process is paperless. That’s one for the trees!

There are many traditional industries that have undergone the digital revolution, from the the record player to the iPod, from the wireless to the DAB digital radio and everything in between. Another industry that is going through a serious change is the publishing industry. The internet has changed publishing for ever and portable ebook readers such as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony PRS-700 have made it possible for people to carry thousands of books with them, accessible at their fingertips.

The portable ebook reader is redefining the way that we see digital print. The electronic ink (e-ink) displays that are used in these devices make it possible for people to read from them for long periods of time without the side effects of eye strain from the backlit LCD screens used on laptops and desktop monitors. To the human eye, the e-Ink screens look almost the same as real paper and the resolution of the ebook readers has become better too, allowing for intricate images and crisp text to be shown to the reader.

In the same way that iTunes and the iPod have changed the way people buy music, the Amazon Kindle Store and the Sony eBook Store have both enabled the reader to access books almost immediately. No more queuing at the local book store or waiting for a delivery! Just choose a book and download it to the eBook reader. The Kindle also allows you to download the first chapter of each book for free and this can all be done over a wireless connection too – so if you are on the bus and fancy some Stephen King, you can get it straight away.

The physical design of the eBook reader has evolved too. Some of the earlier devices were too heavy, thick and cumbersome, with small backlit screens and poor battery life. The digital book readers of today are lightweight, easy to use and designed to appeal to the paperback reader, not the gadget freak. Amazon have gone a long way to ensure that the latest Kindle is minimal enough that it allows the reader to disappear into the story, rather than be constantly reminded that they are using a digital device.

With the possibility that Apple are going to release a tablet style device that will also display digital content and eBooks, it is likely that these readers will go from strength to strength. They are quick, simple to use, subtle and empower the reader to achieve more than ever before. The age of the portable eBook reader is here, now!

A portable ebook reader is not only handy for the avid reader going on vacation or for the train to work. No more having to lug two, three, five books with you, you can now take up to 3500 books with you all in one little handy device! They are also ideal for people who suffer from arthritis in the hands or wrists, who love to read. If you suffer you know that trying to hold a book can be cumbersome. A Kindle or similar product can just sit on your lap, because of its light weight it makes it easier to move around for better positioning. Another group who will see tremendous value in a portable ebook reader is the College or University Student. Many of their textbooks can be downloaded whic means no more having to carrying three, four or even five heavy textbooks to class and the cost of a textbook for an ebook reader is less expensive than a “traditional” textbook is.

There are a few types of portable ebook readers to choose from. Sony has their version and Amazon has their Kindle. If you are a reader, or are planning on purchasing an either of these or similar products for a student, as you go through your buying decision process, you will appreciate the benefits and features each brings to the table

1. Display - look for a portable ebook reader where there is a large display for reading. Also think in terms of environments, reading in the sunlight, make sure there is an anti-glare screen

2. Battery Life - the battery life are comparable but keep it in mind and check

3. Coverage - some portable ebook readers are wireless which is great because you can buy books on the run if you run out. Others you can download books but you need an internet connection to do it. There is nothing wrong with either way, depends on you and what you would like.

4. Size of the Library - we’re talking in terms of how many books you can download to one of these devices.

5. Types of Content - are you interested in downloading books only? Maybe you would like to read the paper, or some pdf that you need to look over on the way to work. If you read books, magazines, newspapers or have documents for work or school, then you want a reader that can handle many different formats.

6. Access to Content - There isn’t much point in buying a reader if there isn’t a wide variety to choose from in terms of new book releases, newspapers available and magazine subscriptions. Each product is typically supported by a library and you want to make sure they have a wide variety to choose from that meets your needs and interests.

7. The Reader - in terms of the product itself, you want one that has the ability to adjust the text size. Give you the ability to read in portrait and in landscape (it’s a great feature for reading charts, etc). There is an ability to make annotations or notes in the “margins.” This is idea for students who have a textbook and are following along in class. You could write notes or things to remember that the instructor said that you need to remember.

These are just a few things you will want to take into consideration when you are looking for a portable ebook reader that is going to meet your needs and fit within your lifestyle!

Many people have asked questions about the Amazon Kindle portable ebook Readers? It maybe a bit hard to explain as well because this is such a magnificent and advanced product, suitable for all walks of lifestyles and reading levels. E-books are great and many people love the Kindle product, it makes reading fun, practical, keeps us organized and I truly think the Amazon Kindle is definitely a device worth having. The main details for portable ebook Readers are:

==> Pleasant screen. Most importantly is the screen to read from, it has easy to look at print and formatting and can save approximately 1,500 books on 2GB of memory. The screen is also unlike many computer monitors which may tire your eyes easily, the Kindle portable ebook readers do not do that. It is more like reading from a conventional paper.

==> More compact. The Kindle is slim and more compact than most paperback books, it is only 1/3 of an inch thick and allows reading of favorite newspapers, magazines, and blogs all on one lightweight and very cool device, which makes searching for content and publication much easier. Another great thing with the portable ebook readers, is it’s ability to add notes to the bottom of the page while reading.. Excellent for school and study for all ages.

==> Right Size buttons. The Kindle has large side buttons as-well, to move text up and down with a screen that is easy to look at, the portable ebook readers have a very sleek design all white in color and is extremely user-friendly straight out of the box. The compact and user-friendly kindle also allows for screen view changes from a portrait to landscape, and guarantees a flawless viewing experience. Another fantastic feature is the unique electronic ink display for an amazingly sharp and clear view no matter what the lighting. The images are extremely pure and there is never a glare.

==> Search for books. There are no other portable ebook readers with a full qwerty keyboard the Kindle is not required to be connected to a computer to download e-Books. It also makes searching for selected words or phrases within a book easy and effortless to do without pages to turn over or hold down.

==> Take digital notes. While reading your book, with the Kindle portable ebook readers, entire books can be downloaded in as little as sixty seconds. There are tones of great e-Books for download as-well. Buying conventional books uses paper.. killing trees, and has high production costs for machines, ink and maintenance. The full processes, time effort and of course money that goes into making paper, is enormous.

==> Long battery life. Without turning the battery on, you can keep reading the portable ebook readers for a week before having to recharge and it and only takes about 2 hours. There are no extra fees for the 3g coverage. 3g is defined as 3rd generation speedy wireless technology.

Having 3gig of the network in over 100 countries means searching and shopping for new publications on the Kindle is very easy. After the portable ebook readers test, the top results were because its fast speed and easy to use dictionary included, the last page read is also automatically saved, so there is no more trying to remember the last page number when a bookmark falls out or gets miss placed. Portable ebook readers makes our life and leisure time that bit more easy.