Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Interview starts at 9:06 and ends at 43:24 “I think Amazon feels pretty confident that they could attack any business they want, and the incumbents will spend four or five years resisting before they realize that they have no choice. Whereas a little proactive customer obsession on the part of any of those companies could probably make it so that Amazon decides to go elsewhere.” News “Kindle will evolve new forms of online literature: Sa...
Dec 16, 2017•45 min
Esmeralda and Richard deTrafford of Geraldton, Australia Interview starts at 16:35 and ends at 40:26 “I don’t see any Amazon drones being launched here [in Australia], and I’m sure CASA [Civil Aviation Safety Authority] would have something to say about that. They're coming up with rules for drones and some of that stuff. So I don’t see that happening here any time soon.” News “Australian retailers rally as Amazon gets cool reception” by Byron Kaye at Reuters - December 4, 2017 “Amazon Australia...
Dec 09, 2017•45 min
CEO of Score Publishing, producer of Digital Book World 2018 Interview starts at 15:44 and ends at 43:43 “The Echo Show is an incredible glimpse into the future, because the future is going to be words come out of your mouth, and that’s how you engage the computer rather than typing on a QWERTY keyboard or moving a mouse.” News “Amid Takeover Talk, Barnes & Noble Posts $30 million Q2 Loss, Stock Sheds 10%” by Jonathan Ponciano at Forbes - November 30, 2017 “B&N Has Disappointing Second Q...
Dec 02, 2017•45 min
Editorial Director, AmazonCrossing Interview starts at 18:00 and ends at 43:42 “One of the magical things about publishing is that when you get together with other people who work in this industry and immediately we share a common bond, this passion for bringing books to readers. It’s not unique. It is really wonderful to stand in a room full of people who are putting everything on the line toward that effort every day and who are excited to hear about the work that we’re doing to bring more div...
Nov 25, 2017•45 min
Amazon Senior Vice President Interview starts at 20:45 and ends at 43.37 “It was the first time we were building a device, so we had a lot to learn. After that the team and as a company we got better each time. So our second Kindle was developed more quickly, and now as you know that team is launching Kindles and Fire TVs and Fire tablets and Echos and more every year.” News Amazon Key “Amazon will start delivering packages into the homes of Prime members” by Jason Del Rey at Recode - October 25...
Nov 18, 2017•45 min
Author of I Wore My Blackest Hair Interview starts at 12:34 and ends at 39:39 “I’m not sure about the future of Amazon [Publishing] in the literary world at large. I do think that for my book it’s been really interesting working with them and being able to answer those questions [about audience] and also to challenge myself more about how do I see this book existing in the world and what kind of spaces do I want it to enter and what kind of people do I want it to encounter. I think that working ...
Nov 11, 2017•45 min
Author of The Quantum Spy Interview starts at 12:12 and ends at 34:00 “Jeff Bezos has been a great owner for The Post. He invested in our business. He has generally stayed away and let the editors and our publisher, Fred Ryan, run the business. He intervenes only occasionally. The first meeting he had when he came to The Post , he said, ‘I don’t know what’s going to work, but I want to lengthen the runway, so you have more time to experiment and take off.’ And we have begun to take off. We’re no...
Nov 04, 2017•45 min
Kindle Creative Director Seth Micarelli , left, and Mike Torres , Kindle director of product management and design Amazon announces all-new Kindle app (press release) - October 24, 2017 All-New Kindle Oasis Kindle Select , Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Next Week’s Guest David Ignatius , Washington Post columnist and author of The Quantum Spy: A Thriller , available for pre-order with delivery November ...
Oct 28, 2017•45 min
Author of A Beautiful Work in Progress Interview starts at 18:20 and ends at 43:17 “Whatever kind of mindset they’re stuck in about whether it’s weight loss or about whether or not you should be out there running in your big body, because maybe you’re going to hurt your knees or your back. You don’t know. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. You do your run, I do my run. And then we’ll all be happy.” News “As Amazon’s deadline for HQ2 bids closes, speculation on winner heats up” by Matt Day at T...
Oct 21, 2017•45 min
Arthur van Rest, left, GM Kindle Device & Accessories at Amazon, and Hany Ghali, Senior Product Manager, Kindle at Amazon Lab126 Interviews Arthur van Rest and Hany Ghali at product demo October 5, 2017 in New York City: Starts at 7:22 and ends at 9:48 Hany Ghali phone/skype interview from Sunnyvale, California, on October 10, 2017: Starts at 20:26 and ends at 41:06 To purchase an all-new Kindle Oasis, please consider starting at The Kindle Chronicles home page and clicking on the Amazon ad ...
Oct 11, 2017•45 min
Author of Point and Shoot Nature Photography Interview starts at 10:55 and ends at 40:30 “Each of us sees the beauty around us and the meaning and the pathos and the feeling that happens around us. And the more we share it one person to another, the more we realize we’re really all the same. We really share an experience of life on the earth that is not just mine or yours but that belongs to us all.” News “Europe has ordered Amazon to pay nearly $300 million in back taxes” by Jason Del Rey and T...
Oct 07, 2017•45 min
VP & Executive Editor at the Harper Division of HarperCollins Interview starts at 21:54 and ends at 44:14 “I think publishers have some ideas about how Amazon feels about books, and I think Amazon has ideas about how little publishers about the business of books. And I think that they’re both wrong.” News “Introducing the Next Generation of Echo” - Amazon press release September 27, 2017 All-new Echo - $100 Echo Plus - $150 Echo Spot - $130 Echo Connect - $35 All-new Fire TV - $70 Echo Butto...
Sep 29, 2017•45 min
CEO of The Jillian Group Interview starts at 12:16 and ends at 35:00 “When you build relationships for the sake of relationships, amazing things can happen. Your soil becomes so rich that what can grow and harvest is well beyond what you ever could have planted if you had known.” News Amazon press release announcing all-new Fire HD 10 - September 19, 2017 “Amazon is working on smart glasses to house Alexa AI, says FT” by Natasha Lomas at TechCrunch - September 20, 2017 “Why Alexa is on track to ...
Sep 23, 2017•45 min
Vice President, Amazon Books stores Interview starts at 10:48 and ends at 42:54 “We would like people who want physical books to walk out with a book, but if you walk out of our store, and you found three things to put on your wish list and two books that you want to buy for your Kindle, then we’re very, very happy.” Intro Agents of Change conference in Portland, Maine September 15, 2017 hosted by Rich Brooks , founder of Flyte New Media News “Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You...
Sep 15, 2017•45 min
Executive Editor at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group Interview starts at13:18 and ends at 42:00 “Books these days as they are produced are pretty nice little objects. And then there are so many different ways that can work. You can read a book on your phone--a ton of people read books on their phones. They read them on the web, they read them on an eReader of choice--they can read E Ink, they can read on something like a tablet with the iPad. None of that process seems messed up to me. Ther...
Sep 09, 2017•45 min
Author of George & Lizzie Interview starts at 14:30 and ends at 44:06 “Because of their childhoods I think they approach the world in such different ways--George the pathological optimist and Lizzie the person who knows the glass is totally empty and that you’re just imagining any water. I don’t know what keeps any two people together in a marriage, and I’ve been married 51 years!” News “‘Cortana, Open Alexa,’ Amazon Says. And Microsoft Agrees.” by Nick Wingfield at The New York Times - Augu...
Sep 02, 2017•45 min
Links Wyoming Eclipse Festival Vertical Horizons , co-founded by Howard Wishnow Celestron EclipSmart binoculars NASA’s Eclipse web site My 360 video of the eclipse - Part 1 and Part 2 Next Week’s Guest Nancy Pearl , author of George & Lizzie , her debut novel scheduled for release on September 5, 2017 Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Pu...
Aug 26, 2017•45 min
Co-founder and CEO of ComiXology Interview starts at 9:40 and ends at 38:47 “When we made the business plan 10 years ago--it’s hard to remember this, but iPhones didn’t exist. None of us had any idea we were going to be heading into this world of carrying big pieces of glass around in our pockets or in our bags that would be so amazing for image-based reading.” News “L.L. Bean Beats Amazon.com, Once Again, For Best Customer Service” by Pam Goodfellow at Forbes - August 3, 2017 “Amazon Echo multi...
Aug 18, 2017•45 min
Amazon’s former Director of Author and Publishing Relations Interview starts at 0:22 and ends at 44:20 “I do think that there is an incredible level of smart, energetic, ambitious people at Amazon working in books. That’s an incredible asset. I’m optimistic that Amazon will continue to be able to hold its own. I also see great opportunity for others. I have a very optimistic view of the future of storytelling. I think it’s a great time to be a storyteller. You just have to be smart about the dif...
Aug 11, 2017•45 min
Author of The Sky Below Interview starts at 14:15 and ends at 41:36 “My goal with this book is to show people that it’s important to have high, lofty dreams, but it’s even more important to then have the vision and the resolve to make them come true.” News “Is Amazon getting too big?” by Steven Pearlstein at The Washington Post - July 28, 2017 “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” by Lina M. Khan at the Yale Law Journal - January, 2017 “Amazon’s Jobs Fair Sends Clear Message: Now Hiring Thousands” by Noa...
Aug 05, 2017•45 min
Author of The Deepest Grave (Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series Book 6) Interview starts at 12:26 and ends at 42:13 “The Big 5 publishers do have a model of ‘We will buy your book for life plus 70 years. In other words, I will get my books back about the time Bernie Madoff gets out of jail.” News Amazon earnings release - July 27, 2017 Earnings coverage by Recode and Publishers Weekly Inside Edge Amazon Video original series in India “This is Amazon’s Next Big Target” by CNBC - July 26, 2017 ...
Jul 29, 2017•45 min
Founder of StandardEbooks.org Interview starts at 11:43 and ends at 40:40 “One of the criteria for the books that we accept is that we very specifically don’t want to become a dumping ground for everything public domain. I think Project Gutenberg suffers from that to some extent. They are more of an archival website at this point. Anything and everything that was produced before 1923 gets on there, and a lot of stuff just wasn’t good. A lot of stuff didn’t survive for a reason.” News “Amazon lau...
Jul 22, 2017•45 min
New co-owner of Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver Interview starts at 19:56 and ends at 43:00 “Bookstores have evolved over the years to become very much experiential retailing, and we’re no different.” News “Amazon Prime Day breaks record; sales grew by more than 60 percent” by Lauren Thomas at CNBC - July 12, 2017 (includes video of analyst Jan Kniffen) Amazon press release on Prime Day - July 12, 2017 Furbo Dog Camera Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine Tech Tip Libby by OverDrive CloudLibrary ...
Jul 14, 2017•45 min
Author of All our Waves Are Water: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment and the Perfect Ride Interview starts at 9:50 and ends at 35:52 “All memoirs build a container that’s something of a lie. (You can never say it all.) But this book gets a little closer to the truth in that surfing and Zen are just big characters among many.” (Photo by Peter Dawson) News Camino Island by John Grisham “Amazon bookstores to participate in Prime Day for the first time” by Tonya Garcia at MarketWatch - July 5, 2017 Pri...
Jul 08, 2017•45 min
Author of The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future Interview starts at 18:40 and ends at 43:00 “All the visions that most people have of the future are all dystopian, and they’re afraid. They’re worried. And yet the reality, the scientific evidence is that we are much better off today. Any of your listeners are 10 times better off than 10 or 20 years ago. ” News “Early data suggests Amazon’s Echo Show could be a hit with consumers” by Jonathan Camhi at...
Jul 01, 2017•45 min
Reader’s Advisory Librarian at Seattle Public Library Interview starts at 12:20 and ends at 37:05 “The Seattle Library has seen an exponential growth in our e-book usage, which like elsewhere is not cutting into our print usage. It’s additive, which is really interesting to say. Same with audiobooks. These new formats just seem to bring new people into reading and literature, so that’s all to the good.” (Photo by John Lok, The Seattle Times ) News “New findings suggest it might be better to read...
Jun 24, 2017•45 min
Executive Editor and Co-founder of Book Riot Interview starts at 10:10 and ends at 43:25 “If publishers woke up tomorrow and sanely priced e-books, I think it would be different in degree not in kind. I don’t think we’d see 10x growth in e-books’ market share. Maybe there would be 5, 10 percent [growth in] market share. I don’t know.” News “Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion” by Nick Turner at Bloomberg - June 16, 2071 Press Release announcing Whole Foods acquisition - June 16, 2017...
Jun 16, 2017•45 min
Co-founder and chief publishing officer of Unbound Interview starts at 8:56 and ends at 42:25 “It’s not so much the elephant in the room. We are the room inside the elephant , if you look at the size that Amazon is growing as an online retailer. That kind of troubles me, because I feel a little bit like when publishing does get round to direct-to-consumer it will already be too late. ” News “Amazon Will Be the Fifth Largest Bookstore Chain” by Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly - June 1, 2017 Amaz...
Jun 08, 2017•45 min
Inventor of the Hashtag Interview starts at 12:30 and ends at 44:11 “Your pocket is now your garage, right. If one time you used to buy a car to sort of have in the garage to be like, ‘Wow. Look at this. I’m just going to go out and look at my baby.’ I think that in a similar way Apple thinks very similarly about computer products. And Amazon, meanwhile, is striking a much more ordinary context, like ‘Don’t think too hard about technology.’ But it should be there to enable your life to be easier...
Jun 02, 2017•45 min
Author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky Interview starts at 3:32 and ends at 42:21 “Not only does the guy [Pino Lella] deserve to be noted for what he did, his story is the story of faith, and the ability to endure, and the ability to go on, and the ability to the best and the worst of life in life . And yet still understand that it’s a miracle every day. ” News Amazon Fresh delivery in Denver Tech Tips “Amazon’s Alexa Calling is Like a Jetsons Version of the Home Phone” by David Pogue (includes video) ...
May 26, 2017•45 min
