hackoff.com

November 26, 2007

Kindle – Free Internet Browsing for Just $400

Both myblog, Fractals of Change, and my novel hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble are available for Kindle, Amazon’s new e-book reader. These two reasons are enough for me to buy one even at the $400 pre-Christmas price; but there’s a third reason that might convince even non-authors: free Internet browsing.

You have to pay to subscribe to FOC ($.99/month) or to buy hackoff.com ($4.76) on Kindle in Kindle format although both are free on the web and even through the Kindle browser (see below). Fred Wilson hates this but it doesn’t bother me because the connectivity is free (once you buy the device). Usually you pay connect to the Internet and get the content free. This is another choice for readers.

In a New York Times article this morning, Saul Hansell quotes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: “If you go back in time, the landscape is littered with the bodies of dead e-book readers.” Presumably Jeff means the devices and not the people who used them.

Obviously, Amazon means to succeed with this device despite the fact that other e-book devices have hardly taken the world by storm. It is different in at least one important way from its predecessors: it comes with a free wireless Internet connection via Sprint EVDO service (which Amazon calls Whispernet). Clearly, this connectivity is meant to make the device easy to use and written material easy to purchase. For comparison, an unlimited EVDO plan from Sprint costs $60/month but you don’t have to have an account with Sprint to use EVDO.

You can do more than just buy e-books or order from Amazon over this connection. Kindle includes a web browser. Unlimited use of this browser over Whispernet is free. Note: This isn’t absolutely clear from the Kindle documentation so I called Kindle support. “Yes,” the CSR said, “free,” and “yes, unlimited.”

From an author’s point of view, the inclusion of a browser is a breakthrough. My blog as well as the online editions of hackoff.com and The Interpreter’s Tale all include links which I think added to the stories but get lost in the paper editions. People already read blogs online, both because of timeliness and links. I’ll start reading books online when they are richer than paper books – that means links that work!

This isn’t full Internet access. There is limited e-mail available through which you can receive attachments which Amazon converts to Kindle format at $.10 for each conversion (or free if you email them to your non-Kindle email account). Other people you authorize (remember, you’re paying for the conversion) can also send you attachments. But this isn’t a Blackberry; you can’t do your regular email through it; you can only do email in the browser.

Other than downloading Kindle-compatible content and products from Audible.com, it doesn’t appear that you can do any other kinds of file transfer over the Internet connection. You can use the included USB cable, however, to transfer photos and music from your PC directly.

Even the browser isn’t fully featured. According to the User’s Guide: “Your Kindle comes with an Experimental application called Basic Web which is a Web browser that is optimized to read text-centric Web sites. It supports JavaScript, SSL and cookies but does not support media plug-ins (Flash, Shockwave, etc.) or Java applets.” That means no YouTube on your Kindle. Note: TechCrunch says that Kindle DOESN’T support JavaScript. I’m assuming they mean Java since web access these days is almost useless without JavaScript but don’t have a device so can’t be sure.

Depending on Sprint EVDO has its plusses and minuses: there is no searching for a hotspot as there would have been with WiFi and no worry about signing on to a WiFi service. On the other hand, Sprint EVDO isn’t everywhere in the US and is hardly anywhere outside the US. Amazon marketing says: “With Whispernet, you can be anywhere, think of a book, and get it in one minute. Similarly, your content automatically comes to you, wherever you are. Newspaper subscriptions are delivered wirelessly each morning. Most magazines arrive before they hit newsstands.” I buy the one minute; but “anywhere” is quite a stretch.

My bet, WiFi will be added soon. If people are going to use the live links, it won’t be satisfying to download where you have EVDO connectivity and then read offline. But WiFi is becoming pervasive in homes and hotels and’ll soon be in planes (I hope).

Maybe Kindle is the wave of the future for free web access. See this post.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 01:47 PM

August 08, 2007

BookTour.com

BookTour.com debuted recently as a web solution to a real world problem: book tours don’t work well (in fact, hardly work at all) except for very famous authors who probably don’t need them anyway. Appropriately, one of BookTour.com’s founders is Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine and author of the Long Tail book and blog. Although his own book is at the head of the power curve, Chris understands the needs of the rest of us out on the long tail of the curve and the opportunities in serving those needs – that’s what his book and blog are all about.

From the about page of BookTour.com: “For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences. For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.”

Full disclosure: I was a pre-release author on BookTour.com and have a vested interest in seeing it succeed in its promotional aspirations.

Back in my father’s day, publishers arranged book tours for their authors. They didn’t do a great job of this except for their stars. Later authors turned to their own publicists to help with tours (I did that). Independent publicists seem to be able to get bookings but not to be able to drive enough local publicity or get the book stores to do enough promotion to draw crowds. If you have friends or relatives in a town, you can get turnout; if not, not. I sat in a coffee shop attached to a bookstore in Connecticut for an hour and a half making conversation with a very nice lady from the store and looking sadly at the pile of hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble stacked nicely waiting to be signed. In my home town of Stowe, on the other hand, there was a very nice turnout at the library (Mary promoted that one).

Book tours can’t be justified by the number of books you sell while you’re there although selling signed books is an incidental benefit and helps cover the expenses. The purpose of book tours is to create buzz about your book a city at a time; ideally a stop in a city involves a couple of appearances and readings as well as some newspaper publicity and a stop at a couple of radio and/or TV stations. A single appearance at a single book store in a large town is likely wasted effort.

Since each author’s schedule appears on BookTour.com, readers can find out who’s coming when to their town; libraries and other venues can ask to be added when they know the author is going to be nearby; and we authors can fill our dance card and all those empty seats in front of the lectern. You can go to my page on the site (where you’ll find that I’m not currently touring) and invite me to come talk to your group or at your store. I won’t be able to honor all invitations but chances are I can come to some.

A nice new feature on BookTour allows you to automagically add all the authors whose books you've bought on Amazon to the list of authors whose nearby appearances you;d like to know about. However, only those authors currently signed up with BookTour.com get put on the list. You can delete any authors from this list whose books you didn't like and whom you don't want to listen to.

Computers, communication, and eventually the Internet created the long tail – the opportunity for niche products and non-hits to be available to those who want them; Chris Anderson calls this the endless shelf because there is no limit to shelf space in a virtual store while brick and mortar stores have to remove slow sellers from their finite shelves. What’s not so clear is how consumers find out about the niche products or even those that are not immediate hits; if it succeeds, BookTour.com’ll be part of the answer. It will succeed, ironically, if it becomes a hit and is THE marketplace where readers find touring authors and vice versa.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 04:26 PM

June 03, 2007

My novel hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble is now available as an e-book from a number of online retailers affiliated with MobiPocket which is owned by Amazon. This edition is suitable for downloading to book-reader devices, PDAs, and of course, computers.

hackoff.com was first released as a blook: a book serialized in the form of a blog. It’s still available for free viewing, subscribing to the serialization, downloading (as PDFs), or even podcast listening at www.hackoff.com. For those who like physical books which go to the beach (it is a mystery, after all), the hardcover edition is available from Amazon or by order from bookstores.

So why would you want to pay $5.95 to download what you could otherwise get for free? If you’re happy with the blook edition or want the hardcover (also not free), you probably don’t want to buy the download. However, if you read on a PDA or a bookreader, this may be the edition for you. The technology supplied by MobiPocket means that the book formats itself for whatever device you read it on. Seems to work as far as I’ve been able to tell from the device emulators supplied to authors by MobiPocket.

For those who do download, please tell me what the experience is like from buying through reading.

Note to authors: You set the suggested selling price for your e-book. Commissions are 50% of that suggested price (retailers can discount but can’t discount your royalty). You get an additional 10% if the referral for the sale is by link from your website (there’s a link in the right sidebar of Fractals of Change). Another way to use the service is to sell your e-book directly from your own site, which I’m not doing.. If you do that, you pay them a 10% fee for the formatting an digital rights management (DRM). BTW, DRM is mandatory or they won’t distribute.

MobiPocket sells through a large number of online retailers. Unlike Amazon Shorts, they have a strong international presence and can sell where VAT collection is required. No exclusivity is required; they are just another outlet.

If your book is a single Word file, PDF, or HTML document, conversion to ebook format with the free tools supplied by MobiPocket should be fairly easy. If you have fifteen big Word files too big for Word to combine without crashing, life is much more difficult. As usual Word, is somewhat problematic for conversion anyway. I had to go through every converted chapter page by page and look for anomalies; some I needed to correct by hacking the html. Yuk. But probably could have corrected in Word IF I’d had only one document.

Check your illustrations as well. JPEGs and GIFs should be scaled reasonably small because they’ll get scaled more to fit the various devices.

Support through the MobiPocket support forum is quite good. You can see the thread of help I got here.

New arrivals get highlighted. There are email promotions to readers; haven’t figured out how to get into them yet, though. Guess I’ll ask in the forum.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 11:35 AM

May 20, 2007

New Work by Me Now Available

The Interpreter's Tale

Cover_2 The pickpockets of Barcelona are justly famed for their ability to extract whatever they want from anywhere; why are they suddenly stealing cheap cellphones in preference to laden purses? What does this have to do with Gaudi's fantastic unfinished cathedral, with mega-yachts, with the long-ago Caliphate, and modern-day terrorists? Interpol and their super-hacker consultant Dom Montain would like to know; so would the Romanian-born police interpreter Maria whose tale this is. If you read my novel hackoff.com, you already know Dom. Whether you read hackoff.com or not, I think you'll enjoy meeting Maria.

"The Interpreter's Tale" is a long short story. It was just released today as an Amazon Short. You can buy it from Amazon for reading, printing, or downloading as a PDF for just 49 cents, the price of all Amazon Shorts.

Below is a teaser from the story. However, I'm NOT planning to run the whole thing as blog posts this time. It'll cost you $.49 to find out how it ends.

*********

Barcelona, not Madrid, was the leader’s first choice for an attack on Spain. It is well-known that he hates Barcelona, considers it the well-spring of Muslim humiliation which began with the Reconquista in 722AD, continued with the Crusades, and led to the current unsatisfactory state of the world.

Usually the leader’s first choice is what happens. But last time Allah did not will it so. The local cell in Barcelona was incompetent; that in Madrid excellent. As the leader feared, the Basques were first given credit for the attack; but this myth was soon dispelled. Spain, as he said it would, recognized their power and elected politicians committed to withdrawal from Iraq.

One does not question the decisions of the leader, even if one is respected enough to be in The Cave (The location of The Cave is always changing. Sometimes it in Afghanistan, sometimes in Pakistan; but it is always The Cave). If one is very respected, one may ask to be informed by what wisdom the leader has made his decision. One has asked to be enlightened of the wisdom by which a further attack on Spain is planned after the success of the operation in Madrid and the quick capitulation of the Spanish, Allah be praised.

“The Spanish are still infidels,” the leader reminds them. “They have troops in Afghanistan even though these troops are cowards who are prohibited by protocols from actually fighting. Their culture remains degenerate. They respect neither the Prophet nor those who worship him. There must be a clear lesson that partial capitulation will never be accepted nor will it be proof against our power.

“Allah willing,” he continues, “ a new time has come. The Caliphate will be restored. This time it will not succumb to the bickering and rivalries and impieties which led to the downfall of the old Caliphate. The world will be united in the one true faith as the Prophet tells us that it must be. It is our honor to be the means to this end. A new lesson is needed and, Allah willing, shall be delivered.” He turns in a way which indicates that this discussion is ended.

But then he turns back. “Certain mistakes were made in the last operation,” he says. “Our men were prepared to be martyrs but they did not have to be. Worse yet, some were captured before they could be martyred. Allah did not make them strong enough and the infidels learned much more than they should have. These mistakes must not be repeated.”

“What are those mistakes that we may avoid them in the next operation?”

“Those who have a need to know already do know. There is no need to spread the knowledge further.” He turns away again and this time the conversation really is over.

**************

The rest of the story is here.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 10:37 AM

January 26, 2007

Book Tour – South Burlington, VT and Hanover, NH

Two weeks from tomorrow on Saturday, February 10, I’ll be at the Borders Express (formerly Waldenbooks) in University Mall, 55 Dorset Street, South Burlington, VT from noon to two.

On Saturday, March 24, I’ll be at the Dartmouth Bookstore, 33 South Main Street, Hanover, NH at 7PM.

At both places I’ll be reading from hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble, signing copies, and glad to talk about the book, my blog Fractals of Change, or anything else you like. Hope to see you at one of these places if you live here or are visiting for the now great skiing.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 10:34 AM

August 29, 2006

Book Reading in Philadelphia

I will be reading from hackoff.com and signing copies at Robin's Bookstore, 108 South 13th Street in Philadephia at 7PM on September 20th. Robin's is Philadelphia's oldest independent bookstore and well worth a visit in its own right. If you are anywhere near, please come join us.

Readers of Fractals of Change who'd like to talk about the blog instead of the book are very welcome as well.

My father, Bernard Evslin, is from Philadelphia and his plays were first put on at the Hedgerow Theater nearby. I'm looking forward to seeing family as well as meeting readers.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 02:03 PM

June 18, 2006

Book Tour

Just Books in Greenwich, Connecticut is sponsoring a get-together for me at Arcadia Coffee on Wednesday, June 28 at 7:30 PM. Arcadia Coffee is at 28 Arcadia Road in Old Greenwich. If you are going to be nearby, I’d like to meet you. No reservations are required and it’s free.

I’ll sign books, of course, and talk about and read from hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble; but I’d also enjoy meeting and talking to readers of Fractals of Change about any of the many subjects I’ve wandered though in this blog as well as life inside the Internet bubble. Arguments and suggestions welcome.

BTW, Arcadia Coffee and Just Books have an impressive series of events scheduled. If you live in Greenwich you probably already know that.

Hope to see you there.

Posted by Tom Evslin at 10:58 AM

May 01, 2006

The Voice of AOL and Me

I heard David Lawrence’s voice twice the other day. The first time was when I was trying to help my mother get AOL on her Mac working with her new broadband connection. David is the voice of AOL; not the “you’ve got mail” voice but the other one: the voice you hear when you call AOL tech support. More on that below.

The second time I heard David’s voice was late at night east coast time while parked in a rest area on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. We had an interview scheduled for his syndicated radio show and I ended up doing it on my cellphone from the parking lot. I knew the interviewer’s voice sounded familiar but couldn’t figure out why.

The interview took all the non-commercial time in an hour of air time. Funny that I should have a better and more in depth interview about the book I wrote about life (and death) as a CEO than I ever did when I was CEO of a public company. In hackoff.com, fictional CEO Larry Lazard does several interviews, all of them superficial and mostly off-topic.

My father, the writer, would probably say that an hour interview for me as an author as opposed to the four or five minutes I usually got as a CEO is the proper proportion. David Lawrence is a better interviewer than most and also knows his topic. Besides being host of a mainly technical radio show, he is also the editor and narrator of the 10 Quick Step series of ebooks and audio books – many of which are on geeky subjects, an actor, and a voice-over professional. A blogger, too, of course.

Cost you a quarter if you want to hear the whole interview. David gave me permission to put up a couple of short clips free. In this one he asks me what hackoff.com is about and in this one he asks me why, given that I’m somewhat known among geeky Internet CEOs, I felt I had to publicize my book by making it available free on the web.

Back to my mother’s Mac. See, it’s old so it can’t have System X put on it. So it can’t run Safari. And the AOL browser will only say “you need to update your browser.” Explorer version 5 which is on it can display some sites and not others – others include my blog Fractals of Change which I think my mother wants to read. And Microsoft is no longer providing browser downloads for the Mac.

After I got through talking to David Lawrence, the voice of AOL, I did get through to tech support in relatively little time. The robot would only interpret browser problem as a connectivity issue – not the problem – but finally got through to a real person. Got disconnected once in the handoff from the default Windows-savvy tech to the Mac-savvy tech but by then knew how to get through the robot pretty quickly.

Very sympathetic pers

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