10:11 – I briefly considered joining Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program yesterday, but I decided it’s not worth the hassle. Like the Kindle Lending Library that allows any Prime member to “borrow” one book per month without additional charge, Amazon has intentionally made Kindle Unlimited as difficult as possible to use. They obviously want to discourage anyone from borrowing books under either program. Otherwise, whenever you search Amazon’s books there’d be checkboxes to refine the search by selecting “Show only Kindle Unlimited titles” and “Show only Kindle Lending Library titles”. But it doesn’t work that way. You have to choose a specific book and then figure out if it’s available under one or the other program, both, or neither. Amazon makes both programs such a hassle to use that I’m not going to bother using KLL and I sure won’t pay them $10/month for KU.
Or perhaps I’ll sign up for their free 30-day Kindle Unlimited trial to explore further. I’m not optimistic. The main issue is that KU doesn’t include titles from the Big Five (formerly the Big Six) publishers, and many of the books Barbara wants are from those publishers. The other issue is that Amazon keeps track by communicating with your Kindle(s) behind the scenes. The authors get paid if you get a book under either program and read at least the first 10% of the book. That means that Amazon is watching what we do, and I don’t like that. In fact, I’m going to disable WiFi access on both Barbara’s and my mono Kindles, leaving only her Fire able to access Amazon and vice versa. Not that disabling WiFi access on our mono Kindles loses us anything. Every time I try to connect with one of them, the Kindle crashes and I have to do a hard reset, losing everything that was on the Kindle.
You are not the only one to wonder how to find Prime listings on Amazon.
http://lifehacker.com/5985336/heres-how-to-see-all-the-books-you-can-borrow-for-free-on-your-kindle-from-your-browser
Amazon does not make its features easy, considering how they market them. One part shouts, “look, free stuff!” and the other says, “Wanna buy some beans?”
Thanks. I’ll play around a bit and see if I can get anything useful.
And this should search only Kindle Unlimited books…
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9069934011&tag=eflyus-20
Dr. Bob,
If you do try KU, could you report back if you can get a book, put it in Calibre, deDRM if DRM’d, and save for later. Can Amazon track if you do that?
Unless if you already know if you can do this. Same with KLL. I’ve never tried.
Unless if you already know if you can do this. Same with KLL.
Why would you want to do this?
That’s one of the things I want to test. I used to download free ebooks twice, once for Barbara’s Kindle and once for mine, into separate directories. Then I got her a Kindle Fire, so we ended up with three Kindles. So I started downloading everything just once, for my Kindle, and then dropping it into Calibre to strip off the DRM. I’m happy to pay for stuff, but they really need to stop making it such a pain in the ass. When it’s easier to pay zero and have no DRM than it is to pay for a book and have it come with DRM, something is seriously out of whack.
The next time they have the basic mono Kindles on sale, I may pick up a couple of them as spares. I think the last time they had them on sale they were something like $50 each. Actually, I was kind of expecting Amazon to give them away last Christmas on the King Gillette model, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see that happen this coming Christmas.
If I was going to get a Kindle, which I wont because I love dead trees, I would get the paper-white model. My son has one and it is beautiful:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Glare-Free-Touchscreen-Display-Wi-Fi/dp/B00KDRPW76/
I love my kindles and wouldn’t give them up.
Initially I kept reading paper books because I was in the habit of collecting signed first editions by my favorite authors. And I had a good relationship with a SFF bookstore in Cali and I trusted their recommendations.
BUT kindle books are cheaper. And have adjustable text size. And some of them are backlit. And they all are lighter than the sorts of hardbacks I was reading. I quickly got to the point where I didn’t notice hitting the next page button, just as I didn’t notice turning the page with paper books.
So now I have an original kindle, with the cellular whispernet wireless delivery. I also have a fire, which has become my primary reading platform, mainly due to the backlight. I also use the app on my phone. My wife uses the app on her Ipad. At any given time I usually have at least one other kindle in the house as backup, although I typically give them away, rather than use them myself. I buy them at surplus auctions (airport lost and found) and estate sales. I usually pay about $20. I’m always picking up power warts, so I just pair it with one of those and put them to the side.
They all have their uses. I read the fire at home and in bed. I read the original outside, on vacation, on airplanes, or anywhere there is bright ambient light. I read on my phone while standing in line or while waiting for someone. The sync between devices works pretty well, so I don’t spend a whole lot of time paging around. I was playing a word game with family on my fire, but the producers pulled the game recently. It was a great way to maintain a little ‘contact’ with family.
WRT DRM, I haven’t played with calibre. I get most of my reading these days from Baen, and it is DRM free. It is also cheaper than Amazon, even on the same titles. I use Baen’s “email to my kindle” function to get the books on my device.
I tried Kobo to support my favorite bricks and mortar bookstore, by buying ebooks thru their portal. What a heap of dung. I’d rather buy the books elsewhere and send the store a buck a book at the end of the year just for the recommendations.
I find that I read a whole lot more because the kindle is so portable and light.
Yep, I miss the tactile experience of reading a paper book. I still do read them sometimes, especially on airplanes. You need to have something to read until they allow electronic usage. But I need a bright light to read paper, and even then, many editions have text too small for me to read when I’m tired.
BTW, kindles are available on ebay if you want to try it out. You could buy one, and sell it on if you didn’t like it.
nick
On some prepper forums there are folks who have loaded a spare kindle or 2 with 100’s of reference works and pdf’s. I know they won’t last forever, but with care they can last a long time, and it sure is light and compact.
I have my iPhone and Fire loaded like that with reference stuff and .pdf’s. But I find myself still mostly reading via dead tree materials. Hard to change from 57-58 years of practice. Also have the Fire synced on the 8.1 Winblows box.
Just dropped Mrs. OFD off at the airport for flight to Dulles in Mordor and then the 4.5-hour flight to Denver, where she has this week’s assignment. Still exhausted from last week in NYC and not very happy but they claim they had no one else to do it. We were really looking forward to her having two weeks off straight; and if I was bringing in enough revenue she wouldn’t have to do this grind all year. So I’m working on it as fast as I can, in between major hassles like with the IRS.
Back to the web dev, IT security and other stuff tomorrow, full-time all week. Might hit 70 here tomorrow but I’ll just be able to take short breaks to stack firewood or sumthin.
You need to have something to read until they allow electronic usage.
All the airlines that I have flown recently allow electronic devices during all phases of aircraft operation as long as the radios are turned off (airplane mode). On my last long trip in December to Germany and Norway, prior to that was a journey to Spokane, I never turned any of my devices off. I did turn off my phone to save battery power as I was not going to making a call. My iPad was on almost the entire time watching movies from the time I was settled in my seat until the plane was at the arrival gate.
My wife, son, daughter, and I have all have original Kindles. They have a knack for finding free books, it is like a sixth sense and I can’t repeat it.
When the first generation Kindle Paperwhite came (2012) out I got one for my wife, it was sent back in less than a week. Most of the first generation Paperwhites had a page skipping problem that was in most cases unrecoverable. I started a forum post and the threads are still active. (http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdPage=1&cdThread=Tx3HTKWDOODCVJ7)
When the second generation Paperwhite came out in Fall 2014 I got her the new one to try. There is still an intermittent page skipping problem, but she has learned how to work around and recover. She reads a lot at night and would not give up this Paperwhite for anything. So, son and daughter got Paperwhites for Christmas and are very pleased. I get by with my original Kindle and the Kindle programs on my PC and Android.
This Kindle blog, “A Kindle World blog” (http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/) is the only Kindle blog I still follow. He used to post daily but now just a couple of times a week. Take a look and you might find something useful.
A couple of comments:
The Steven Konkoly Perseid Collapse kindle ebooks are on sale at 99 cents each.
When searching for KU or KOLL books search for Prime books. That is usually a search choice.
@Ray,
I know they were moving that direction, but haven’t flown recently. I have over 750K lifetime miles, but after leaving my road job, I pretty much stopped flying except for family trips. I’d drive for those too if the distance was less.
I used to fly 2 or more times a week, for years on end. It is a very isolating lifestyle.
@OFD, hopefully MrsOFD will get a break soon. It is very wearing to be in what I used to call “show mode” all the time. I’m sure she could use a break.
Well, I got a break. We didn’t get the rain that was forecast at my house, so I got another raised bed planted. I’m trying the suggested layout with a 1 ft garden approach. We’ll see how it goes. I’m too old and fat to push the wheelbarrow around and bend over all day. I need to start stretching and some actual exercise.
nick
Learning that HILLARY! has officially declared her candidacy brought to mind this number by Johnny Cash: Wrinkled Crinkled Wadded Dollar Bill
Any would-be tunesmiths reading this care to attempt a parody song along the lines of Wrinkled Crinkled Saggy Old Hag Hil’? 🙂
“@OFD, hopefully MrsOFD will get a break soon. It is very wearing to be in what I used to call “show mode” all the time. I’m sure she could use a break.”
Thanks. That’s exactly the situation; after the actual air travel and terminals and cab rides and accommodation-checking-in and trying to sleep in same, she is “ON” from 7 in the morning until, often, 7 at night, for those five days. It does a number on her by the time she finally gets home, and needs at least 2-3 days to decompress, which doesn’t happen on these back-to-backs. It’s killing me, too, to see it, and I gotta get some regular revenue here so she can cut back.
Mac Wise did that tune, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaEA8fucD8Q
The coming reign of Field Marshal Rodham does not lend itself very well to semi-jocular C&W ditties.
More like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO1pn6D-t4M
I have an original kindle, but also read on a table, on my phone and sometimes on a PC. I just let Amazon sync all of the devices – this works fine. The one problem I wish they would consider is organization: I would like to organize the books by genre, author and series *once*, and have them filed accordingly on all of my devices.
I played with Calibre a couple of years ago, but at that time Amazon had updated their DRM and Calibre couldn’t deal with it. Apparently that is no longer a problem, so I suppose I should give it another try. But the only benefit I could see is if Calibre would solve the organization problem, which I somehow doubt.