Co-founder of Tor Labs Interview starts at 16:53 and ends at 40:00 “This story is 14 episodes, and it is about security chief Dakota Prentiss and Matt Salem, who are both ex-military, working at a secret military base that happens to have a flying saucer, an alien, and a mysterious thing called the harp. No one really knows quite what it does. They instantly fall in love with one another, but the hitch is that when you sign up for this gig there is an absolute, ironclad no-fraternization policy....
May 19, 2017•45 min
Digital and Archival Publishing Manager for The Associated Press Interview starts at 12:51 and ends at 40:01 “I really try to get people to understand that every little basic functionality within e-books that Amazon keeps introducing--whether it’s their X-ray feature or Kindle Lending Library or whatever it might be within the e-book world or within the connection with the social-media platform Goodreads--these are all enhancements to your reading experience.” News Introducing Echo Show “Amazon’...
May 13, 2017•45 min
Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Interview starts at 11:17 and ends at 36:16 “I don’t think they [Amazon] really expect the fashion angle to be a big driver of these [Echo Look] devices. They needed a pretext. They needed a reason to put a camera in your home, to see how comfortable you are with that idea, to test whether or not there’s a big social outcry about putting cameras in people’s homes, whether they can start connecting what they see with what they know... Eve...
May 06, 2017•45 min
Author of The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life and Joie de Vivre Interview starts at 13:00 and ends at 41:17 “This is also my philosophy of life: I talk about a turtle. A turtle stays in one place--it’s safe. Nothing can happen. It carries its house on its back. If that turtle wants to move, it has to take a risk. It has to stick its neck out. And I like that image of the turtle.” Intro Echo Dot (2nd Generation) Ask My Buddy skill for Alexa News Amazon’s first-quarter earnings release - Apri...
Apr 29, 2017•45 min
Author of Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World Interview starts at 10:33 and ends at 41:35 “Education increasingly wants to measure finite, little bites of stuff, and the digital technology that we are using in our education--and we do have print--is tailored to these quick wins as opposed to a deeper level of learning.” Intro My new VR setup: Samsung Galaxy Edge S8 with new Samsung Gear VR + controller News “Amazon continues to grow lead over Google as starting point for onlin...
Apr 22, 2017•45 min
Painter, art critic and historian Interview starts at 15:00 and ends at 41:14 “I remember your talking on one of your programs about Jeff Bezos’s insisting on a one-second [Alexa] response when his staff said, “We can get this down to three seconds,” and he said, “That’s not good enough.” That makes a huge difference. It shouldn’t--we’re so impatient, I’m so impatient. But the fact that it is more more conversational and that I don’t have to wait and think about the fact that this is a machine p...
Apr 15, 2017•45 min
Creator of I Love My Kindle and The Measured Circle Interview starts at 6:14 and ends at 43:10 “It would also be able to know what your preferences are--that’s one of the biggest things about what we’ll see eventually with Virtual Reality. So for myself as a vegetarian, I could walk down that virtual aisle and have things that were for vegetarians maybe have a green outline on them, so that I could tell what was what.” News “Amazon exec steps in as CEO Jeff Bezos’s new ‘shadow’” by Rachel Lerman...
Apr 08, 2017•45 min
Author of “Jerry (from accounting)” Interview starts at 14:56 and ends at 45:09 "I love what Amazon is doing in terms of giving access to a platform in a kind of populist way. I think that is incredibly helpful. I think the distribution is amazing. It creates new readers. I love the $2 price point for a novella. I think that’s definitely expanding who can have access to the writing and quality writing. Historically speaking the Big Five were very focused on content and less on how the distributi...
Apr 01, 2017•46 min
Co-founder of Ask My Buddy Interview starts at 18:45 and ends at 41:25 "In terms of users or penetration, I would say that Google Home probably represents about less than 10 percent on our network. [Alexa has the rest.] That’s just time out there, the commercials. They’re just more widely known. Also, I would say the reduction in price, coming out with the Dot for 49 bucks--that was an end all. There were millions that went out. I would say that the price point developed a stronger user base for...
Mar 25, 2017•45 min
David Measer of RPA Advertising and Lisa Pecot-Hebert of USC Interview starts at 25:08 and ends at 49:15 I expected the smaller cities in the U.S. to be places where eventually trends made their way there and that they’d be listening to music that I listened to 10 years ago, or wearing fashion that was old. And it wasn’t like that at all. These places, cities that I couldn’t even identify on a map before I went--Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Fargo, North Dakota; Moorehead, Minnesota; Omaha, Nebrask...
Mar 18, 2017•52 min
Author of Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert Interview starts at 10:27 and ends at 41:38 “Billie Jean King is very aware of my Ripper book, and we talked about it when I began all this investigation in 2001, because Billie Jean had been a friend of mine for many years. We talked about this, and she said, ‘You need to talk to the people at Amazon about this, because this is a really unusual project.’” (Photo Credit: Ecclesine) News Author Earnings report for February 2017 “Amazon could ham...
Mar 10, 2017•45 min
Author of The Kutherian Gambit series Interview starts at 10:15 and ends at 43:51 "When I originally put out Book 1 I had no idea if anyone cared about my stories. I didn’t want to invest a lot of time, money, and effort if nobody wanted to read it." News “Site of Amazon’s Cloud glitch made it especially disruptive” by Angel Gonzalez at The Seattle Times - February 28, 2017 “The embarrassing reason behind Amazon’s huge cloud computing outage this week” by Brian Fung at The Washington Post - Marc...
Mar 04, 2017•45 min
Author of Four Seasons of Reno Hart and Creator of The Author Biz podcast Interview starts at 10:33 and ends at 42:30 "The power of Amazon Publishing--if you’ve written a good book and the people at Amazon support the book--there are so many levers and knobs that they can turn to put it in front of the people who will like it. It is astonishing. There’s nothing like it." News Amazon discount to celebrate Harris Poll ranking - press release on February 22, 2017 “With Amazon Books, Jeff Bezos Is S...
Feb 25, 2017•45 min
Technology Reporter at Observer.com Interview starts at 10:30 and ends at 42:19 "That’s why I call this whole printed book thing fetishism. What’s more important? Is literature and writing important or is this object more important? I think literature is more important, and writing is important. I don’t really care how people read it. I just really want to push back on this idea that there’s something sad that we’ve lost because print books are fading, when what I care about is not print or firs...
Feb 17, 2017•45 min
Historian at the Sanibel Public Library Interview starts at 3:01 and ends at 34:30 [On Anne Morrow Lindbergh:] “Going up and learning how to fly--I mean, in that era was pretty impressive. I’m kind of struck by the fact that a lot of times when we look back and say ‘Gee, in the 50s it was kind of daring of a woman to do that.” It may have been as a wide generality, but there have always been daring women. You can go back to Cleopatra, and there’s plenty of them around.” News “Amazon hunts for Lo...
Feb 10, 2017•45 min
President of The Future of Publishing Interview starts at 8:19 and ends at 44:04 "I’m convinced that if you want to retain your job in publishing moving forward, unless you’re demonstrably technology adept, you’re going to lose your job. Yeah, there’s room for 100 amazing editors who can’t even use a computer, but that’s not the run-of-the-mill worker in publishing today. They need to be imbued with a knowledge of technology." News Amazon’s earnings (Forbes) - February 2, 2017 Amazon press relea...
Feb 03, 2017•45 min
Co-Authors of Evelyn’s Lighthouse Interview starts at 14:58 and ends at 44:35 Patience: "It was really meant to inspire other younger girls or the readers to read more, because I’ve always loved reading, and Evelyn loves reading. We really hope that it causes others to want to read just as much as Evelyn does." News Author Earnings Book stats presented at Digital Book World “Despite What You Heard, The E-Book Market Never Stopped Growing” by Brady Dale at Obvserver.com Amazon movie nominated for...
Jan 27, 2017•45 min
Our supper aboard the Silver Meteor en route to Kissimmee, Florida News “How Netflix Lost Big to Amazon in India” by Abhishek Madhaven at Backchannel - January 12, 2017 Tech Tip “Is Amazon’s Newest 5% Credit Card Worth the Hype?” by Nick Clements at Forbes - January 13, 2017 Interview with Kindle Owner Robert Millonig (Starts at 17:51 and ends at 27:35) The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauf Next Week’s Guests Mark Roberts and Patience Clevenger, co-authors of...
Jan 20, 2017•45 min
CEO of Open Road Integrated Media Interview starts at 14:22 and ends at 41:41 Links for Interview with Paul Slavin : Open Road Integrated Media website Paul Slavin’s 2016 year-end letter to employees Early Bird Books newsletter BookBub BookGorilla Upstairs at the White House by J. B. West Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll Selected Poems of Ezra Pound Next Week’s Show I...
Jan 13, 2017•45 min
Author of Books for Living Interview starts at 19:07 and ends at 43:15 "One of the reasons I come back to Lin Yutang is a marvelous story he tells, in 1937, about being in the most famous tea house in China. And the tourists there are so busy taking photographs of themselves drinking tea that they don’t enjoy the tea. And I thought to myself, ‘We blame too much on the machines.’ Constant connectivity is our fault. It’s not the fault of the little items we hold in our hands. And it’s been a probl...
Jan 07, 2017•45 min
My Wife Darlene, Claire and a new quilt Interview starts at 12:28 and ends at44:58 "What’s great about Audible is you still get to hear a story. You’re not reading it, but you’re still getting a story . And for me sometimes when I get stuck on stuff in my studio, it’s just keeping me in the room long enough to get past it. And Audible does that." News “Alexa Devices Top Amazon Best-Seller List This Holiday - Millions of Alexa Devices Sold Worldwide” - press release December 27, 2016 “Amazon Has...
Dec 31, 2016•45 min
Author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 32:05 “There’s often a false division between audiobook listeners and print book readers, because in my experience the two are almost always the same. They’re people like me who just love reading and want to do as much of it as possible, and audiobooks are a way to do that." News Jeff Bezos interviewed by Walter Isaacson at The Aspen Institute (YouTube) - October, 2016 “There’s a great new way to reuse your old...
Dec 24, 2016•45 min
Author of the Making Book blog Interview starts at 14:03 and ends at 44:31 "The idea that Barnes & Noble can make it by sort of becoming a small specialist, cozy bookstore is kind of delusional. It’s a big organization!" News Amazon Prime Air Jeff Bezos’s tweet announcing first Prime Air delivery - December 14, 2016 Jeremy Clarkson Prime Air video - November, 2015 Amazon White Papers on recommended drone access policy and revised air space model WSJ Tech News Briefing podcast on Prime Air M...
Dec 16, 2016•45 min
Senior Pastor of New Covenant Church, Indianapolis Interview starts at 7:20 and ends at 33:36 I think it’s a matter of accepting the change that God has provided with these tools, learning how to use the tools. For example, we could try to tell people, “Well, don’t go to the movies.” Well, they’re going to the movies. Teach them how to go to movies. With social media and all the rest, I believe we need to just focus on making it useful, making it fruitful, trying to remove distraction. In other...
Dec 10, 2016•45 min
Head of Cynthia Manson Literary Agency Interview starts at 14:30 and ends at 41:06 "The trick is that if you have an author that is struggling to find that audience, to find that readership--Alan [Russell] is a perfect example, because he always got wonderful reviews, is a fantastic writer, still has a great relationship with his former editor at St. Martins, but there was always a struggle to find that readership. Amazon [Publishing] was able to do that through their own algorithms and their o...
Dec 03, 2016•45 min
Senior Books Editor at Amazon.com Interview starts at 12:41 and ends at 43:35 "[ The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis] is one that I personally wanted to see as high on the list as possible. It’s a fictional story set in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s as if we’re living again in the Old West, so there’s vigilante justice, there are small pockets of people living in the wilderness. Searching for gold is kind of back in the day-to-day play, and people are heading north. This young girl, whose parents had ...
Nov 26, 2016•45 min
Deputy Editor, Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard Interview starts at 16:02 and ends at 40:51 "I think it’s become very clear that there’s going to be a devoted subset of people who do read on eReaders, and there’s going to be a lot more reading on phones." News “Amazon App for iPhone Now Has X-Ray Vision to See Inside Your Packages” by Andy Orin at Lifehacker - November 16, 2016 “Alexa, What Are Your Deals?” - Amazon press release on November 18, 2016 The Grand Tour one-day deal on Amazon Prime ...
Nov 19, 2016•45 min
Captain of Sea Dragon , Author of Loss at Sea: A Solo Circumnavigatio n Interview starts at 13:19 and ends at 36:18 "It’s less difficult than it will seem at times. There will be hard points, but as long as you can power through those or endure through those, you just have to keep going." News “Donald Trump threatens Amazon as payback for Washington Post articles he doesn’t like” by Matthew Yglesias at Vox - May 13, 2016 “The Donald, documented: The Washington Post open-sources much of its Trum...
Nov 12, 2016•45 min
Executive Team at Earplay Interview starts at 10:28 and ends at 44:37 Left to right: Dave Grossman, Chief Creative Officer; Bruno Batarelo, Chief Technology Officer; and Jonathan Myers, Chief Executive Officer News Charlie Rose interview of Jeff Bezos (video) - October 27, 2016 Interview with Jonathan Myers Earplay site Western Dramatic Literature: A Micro-Anthology by Jonathan Myers & Jennifer Bean Codename Cygnus Blackstone audiobooks Audible Codename Cygnus Kickstarter campaign " Virtual...
Nov 05, 2016•45 min
Author of The Jekyll Revelation published by Amazon Publishing’s 47North Imprint Interview starts at 10:00 and ends at 43:22 "I used to joke around that I could walk up to a table at any bookstore, and any book that wasn’t published by the major houses—I could smell it a mile away. There was something wrong about the typography. The cover was somehow cheap looking. I didn’t feel quite right. The margins weren’t right when you looked at the text inside, that sort of thing. They have corrected th...
Oct 29, 2016•45 min
