Amazon CEO apologizes over deleted Kindle books

by @scottmarlowe 7/26/2009 9:11:00 PM

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, has released a formal apology for his company's act of deleting illegal copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from people's Kindle devices.

I don't want to turn this blog into a news service, but this at least brings some closure to my previous post.

It does not appear the works were restored, though the money paid for them was refunded at the time of deletion.

Here is the full text of the apology:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painful... [More]

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Categories: Kindle | eBooks

Amazon's Kindle in the News: Remote Deletion

by @scottmarlowe 7/17/2009 10:06:00 PM

Amazon's Kindle digital book reader is in the news. No surprise there. But in a moment of ultimate irony, Amazon has taken the egregious step of remotely deleting works by none other than George Orwell. One of the books… why, 1984, of course.

Is Jeff Bezos, in fact, Big Brother?

David Pogue says,

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once ... [More]

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Categories: Kindle | eBooks

Micro-book Review: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

by @scottmarlowe 7/12/2009 9:25:00 PM

A micro-book review, like micro-blogging, is a review containing as few words as possible. In the spirit of Twitter, mine will be 140 characters or less (not including this intro).

Pratt's bizarre Old West meets comic heroine, with the real world at stake. Entertaining, but I wanted more Rangergirl, less Marzi.

... [More]

How much do you make selling through Amazon's Kindle store?

by @scottmarlowe 7/3/2009 8:25:00 PM

I recently uploaded my first fantasy novel to Amazon's Kindle Store. You can still download it here for free, but the idea behind making it available on Amazon's site is (1) to hopefully gain more exposure and (2) maybe make a buck or two in the process. I'd like to take a moment to look at the latter of those reasons by asking the following question: How much, really, can one make selling an e-book in the Kindle store?

First, there's what Amazon calls the "Suggested Retail Price", or SRP. This is set by the author at the time the e-book is uploaded:

The price you charge can range from a minimum of ... [More]