Author of Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Every Day Interview starts at 18:16 and ends at 42:30 “I wanted to demystify the music itself, and I wanted to humanize the people who created it, because I think we often think about classical composers being these dead, white European guys invariably from Germany and Austria somewhere in the 18th century maybe with a frock coat, maybe with a powdered wig, definitely on some kind of pedestal occupying a lofty, elevated space that has no bearing...
Feb 09, 2019•49 min
Author of This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See Interview starts at 13:06 and ends at 45:08 “I have a bunch of regrets about how Amazon is steering the boat these days. One of the things I think they dropped the ball on is they’ve had a hundred opportunities to make Kindle a social platform, and they have dropped it. And they shouldn’t, because that is a really useful transformation--to be able to say ‘Where are the other thousand people who highlighted this? How can I have...
Feb 02, 2019•46 min
Author of M essy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives Interview starts at 15:43 and ends at 43:50 “You can be super clever and have all your tricks, but fundamentally everything in your life is crowding out something else in your life. At some point you have to choose, and the choice should be thoughtful.” News “The Prime Challenges for Amazon’s New Delivery Robot” by Matt Simon and Arielle Pardes Gear at Wired - January 23, 2019 “Meet Scout: Field testing a new delivery system with Ama...
Jan 26, 2019•46 min
Project Manager for MobiScribe reader/writer by TeamUC Interview starts at 18:37 and ends at 41:06 “It’s basically going to be like a Kindle that you can write on. If you’ve ever had your work documents on the Kindle it must be frustrating, because you feel like you can’t write on your work documents even though you have it in a meeting. So now we have PDF annotation integrated into the device as well as a separate note-taking software.” Comments Open Road Integrated Media list of eBooks , by ca...
Jan 19, 2019•45 min
Author of Typeset in the Future: Typography and Design in Science Fiction Movies Interview starts at 18:51and ends at 43:30 “So much of this stuff that, when we watch 2001 today, makes it feel fresh, makes it still feel futuristic was way ahead of its time at the time that the movie was created." News “The ‘Future Book’ is Here, But It’s Not What We Expected” by Craig Mod at Wired - December 20, 2018 Amazon Showroom - TechCrunch story Amazon Key for Garage - Verge story Echo Auto is shipping - T...
Jan 12, 2019•45 min
Chief Marketing Officer at Open Road Integrated Media Interview starts at 9:51 and ends at 38:35 “I do think we’re unusual in that we consistently continue to market these books day in and day out for many years. I think that’s the benefit we bring to our partners in the Open Road Ignition program, that we are taking those eBooks that they don’t have time or resources to market in an ongoing way and doing it on their behalf.” News “Amazon, to Win in Booming Rural India, Reinvents Itself” by Eric...
Jan 05, 2019•45 min
Forbes contributor & co-founder of Omni Talk blog Interview starts at 7:33 and ends at 41:04 “2018 was a watershed year in terms of how things transpired. This to me was really the year you saw Amazon try to become a physical retailer.” News Amazon holiday press release - December 26, 2018 Sphero Mini Blue : The App-Controlled Robot Ball Tech Tip Calibre Recomendo Fakespot Fakespot Chrome extension Interview with Chris Walton Omni Talk blog “Amazon’s New Mall of America Installation is Absol...
Dec 29, 2018•45 min
Creator of Calibre Interview starts at 9:53 and ends at 43:03 “So the first and most important thing that is different between a Calibre library and your Kindle collection is that you actually own the books in your Calibre library, whereas you stream them from Amazon for your Kindle collection. ” News Bradley Metrock on Barnes & Noble Will Amazon buy Target? Jefferson Graham’s Talking Tech podcast (look for episode dated December 18, 2018) Amazon Treasure Truck Rocketbook Everlast Smart Reus...
Dec 22, 2018•47 min
TV news anchor and author of the Traveler series Interview starts at 10:21 and ends at 41:59 “Writing is a muscle, I think. If you don’t use it you lose that. Because I write every day both creatively and for my job, I think that’s part of what helps me to write as much as I do as quickly as I do. I write under deadline, so creating my own self-imposed deadlines is pretty easy. It’s just instead of having a time deadline I have a word-count deadline or a date. I think doing one every day actuall...
Dec 14, 2018•45 min
Author of We Miss All the Great Parties Interview starts at 2:12 and ends at 35:59 “I had this traditionalist view that I wanted to hold the paper book and feel the turning of the page. I was absolutely wrong in my assumptions. Reading on an eReader felt like reading. It was still this sort of cuddly, warm, meditative, reflective experience. I could sit and read for hours on it. It fit in my jacket pocket, and I could take it with me, and I found that I was reading more when I had my digital rea...
Dec 07, 2018•45 min
Host of the Kindle Chronicles News “Amazon gets into the blockchain with Quantum Ledger Database & Managed Blockchain” by Sara Perez at TechCrunch - November 28, 2018 Bitcoin Price Plummets CoinBase (my app of choice for buying Bitcoin) “Apple Music to launchy on Amazon Echo speakers” by Tim Bradsha at The Financial Times - November 29, 2018 “Introducing medical language processing with Amazon Comprehend Medical” by Dr. Taha A. Kass-Hout and Dr. Matt Wood at the AWS blog - November 27, 2018 ...
Dec 01, 2018•45 min
Vice Principal and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Interview starts at 2:28 and ends at 38:32 “Nobody can see the future, but what we can see from the past is that it unfolds according to certain properties. What [Virginia Postrel, author of The Future and Its Enemies ] wrote that was so compelling was that the best properties to help that unfold in the best way are properties of experimentation, of testing, of openness, of collaboration, of letting people try what people do in an enviro...
Nov 22, 2018•45 min
Amazon Books Senior Editor Interview starts at 12:44 and ends at 39:11 “We often talk about accessibility. We start there. We talk about quality of writing. The story is important, obviously. Maybe the thing that gets you over the line is your visceral reaction to the book. How much are you willing to argue for it? You win some, and you lose some. Ultimately I think we come up with a great list. Every book on the Top 20 is a great book.” News Amazon’s announcement of HQ2 Jeff Bezos tells employe...
Nov 17, 2018•45 min
Author of the Breakthrough series Interview starts at 9:36 and ends at 40:28 News Amazon to split HQ2 between two cities ( Wall Street Journal ) Amazon announces free shipping with no minimum purchase for the holidays My video of a dunk test for the all-new Kindle Paperwhite plus Darlene’s comments Interview with Michael C. Grumley Breakthrough series by Michael C. Grumley: Breakthrough , Leap , Catalyst , and Ripple Words with Friends “Could we speak the language of dolphins?” TED2013 talk by D...
Nov 10, 2018•45 min
Vice President, Macmillan Podcasts & QDT Interview starts at 9:43 and ends at 40:01 “We can think of podcasting as an entry point to audiobooks. They are less of a commitment, they are free, they can actually give you great insights into book discovery. Podcasts can move at a more rapid pace.” News Jeff Bezos in Cambridge! Black Friday deals Harlequin makes an eReader platform change 4-Star Amazon store coming to Denver Tech Tip Live Ballot on Alexa Interview with Kathy Doyle Macmillan Podca...
Nov 02, 2018•45 min
Site Reliability Engineering Lead at Shopify Interview starts at 10:07 and ends at 43:36 “If someone were to come around with some hardware that was even 50 percent worse than the Kindle but was opened up for easy highlight consumption, making it easier to see what highlights my friends have done, and all these sorts of things--I would switch in a heartbeat. ” News “Amazon Kindle versus iPhone XS Max: choosing the best e-book reader” at AppleInsider - October 24, 2018 “Jeff Bezos wants us all to...
Oct 26, 2018•45 min
Joerg Tewes, Head of Kindle Product Management, and Kevin Keith, VP Amazon Devices New Paperwhite at Amazon.com Kevin Keith , VP-Amazon Devices Joerg Tewes , Head of Product Management for Kindle Press Release on new Paperwhite - October 16, 2018 Click here to check for software updates for your Kindle or Fire device Next Week’s Guest Simon Hørup Eskildsen , author of “How I Read” Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version is "Ra-M...
Oct 19, 2018•45 min
Host of Evil Genius Chronicles Interview starts at 10:55 and ends at 40:51 “Really and truly [with a DIY book scanning device] I’m moving my hoarding from physical hoarding to digital hoarding. But I’m in favor of that maneuver. The bits and bytes are cheaper to store, and they take up a lot less room, and I’m okay with that.” News Data Guy’s presentation slides at Digital Book World “Alexa, launch Fortnite” at Amazon’s Dayone blog - October 11, 2018 “Xbox One bundles at Amazon will come with a ...
Oct 13, 2018•45 min
David Peach , TKC Reporter-at-Large Links Mentioned in this Episode Digital Book World 2018 Alexa Developer website The Dog Feeder Skill for Alexa Digital Book World Hall of Fame inducts Marie Dutton Brown and Len Edgerly Novel Effect skill for Alex Audioburst Libsyn Macmillan podcasts Readercoin Veronica and the Volcano by Geoffrey Cook OverDrive Next Week’s Guest Dave Slusher of The Evil Genius Chronicles podcast Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, ...
Oct 05, 2018•45 min
CEO of Open Road Integrated Media Interview starts at 3:32 and ends at 27:40 “Industry-wide, if you took all eBooks, it looks like it’s going down maybe 7 to 10 percent. If you look at the very top booksellers it looks like it’s down 30 percent.” New Alexa Products The Verge’s Dan Seifert’s first impression (video) of Alexa-powered AmazonBasics Microwave “In Defense of Amazon’s Alexa Microwave” by Jeffrey Van Camp at Wired - September 23, 2018 Dan Seifert’s first impressions of new Echo Show and...
Sep 28, 2018•45 min
Author of the Joe Dillard and Darren Street series Scott Pratt author page at Amazon.com Jeff Bezos on the David Rubenstein Show - taped September 13, 2018 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 Public Transit Recording" CD. Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads! Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the aud...
Sep 21, 2018•50 min
Director of Deaf Ministries for Baptist International Outreach Interview starts at 12:12 and ends at 40:04 “If I’m getting a book that I’m independently loading on [to a Fire tablet] I tend to do it in the Google Play books and not the Kindle app, mainly because it’s easier to put it on there. ” News “U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002-2017” (PDF) - report by the National Endowment for the Arts “NEA Study Finds Small Dip in Adult Reading” by Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekl...
Sep 14, 2018•45 min
Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group Interview starts at 5:19 and ends at 36:00 “With respect to blockchain, there’s an opportunity to--I wouldn’t necessarily say disrupt--but to create an alternative to the closed ecosystems that Amazon has with Kindle and that other online platforms have and to provide peer-to-peer trading as well as easier e-commerce networks for publishers. It might be a pipe dream, and it might be that Amazon beats us to the punch and creates something that w...
Sep 08, 2018•45 min
CEO of Publica Interview starts at 7:05 and ends at 42:10 “So a book token in our eReader app is going to be used as part of the cryptographic protection of the book to authorize you to read it by proving that you bought it. There’s another token that we made called the Pebble (PBL). It’s a ticker on exchanges, and if you want to go looking for what the Pebble is doing in the world you would look for the PBL ticker. It’s a token, but it only works as money. It’s not specific to a single book.” N...
Sep 01, 2018•45 min
Editorial Director at Thomas & Mercer Interview starts at 16:49 and ends at 43:56 “It’s interesting to think about readers around the world being able to find these books about a chemistry teacher turned homicide detective in Seattle, Washington. And I think that’s the global power of stories. Great stories are something that appeals to everyone. Figuring out the best ways that we can make it that anyone who wants to can pick up these books is really something we’re working toward.” News Goo...
Aug 24, 2018•45 min
Author of the Tracy Crosswhite and David Sloane mysteries Interview starts at 1:30 and ends at 35:00 “I’d say the primary difference between Thomas & Mercer and my experience with Big 5 publishing is that Thomas & Mercer never stops selling my books. When I’m with a Big 5 publisher, my book would come out and there would be publicity leading up to the book’s release and then there would be publicity for about three weeks after the book’s release.” Robert Dugoni website Robert Dugoni’s au...
Aug 18, 2018•45 min
Partnerships Manager for the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator at Boston Children’s Hospital Interview starts at 7:44 and ends at 28:24 “One of the barriers with voice in general is you don’t know what’s out there. You don’t really know like you do with a phone what app options you have, so it’s a little bit harder for people to find new things. Amazon in general is pretty concerned about that, because they don’t just want people to use it for their three basic cases, being an alarm, mus...
Aug 11, 2018•45 min
Jim Jones, right, Associate Professor of Management at University of Nebraska at Omaha Interview starts at 9:03 and ends at 40:50 “In the classroom, I really do strongly feel that attention is so critical to actual understanding that the more that you can remove the electronic connection and the focus on inputting electronically or--even worse sometimes I think, is passively taking pictures of the screen--the better.” News Is Amazon working on another phone? https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp...
Aug 04, 2018•45 min
Links to items mentioned in this 10th Anniversary episode First episode of The Kindle Chronicles (TKC 1) with Baratunde Thurston on July 26, 2008 My interviews with Jeff Bezos in 2012 and 2016 Transcript of my 2012 Bezos interview (via Kindle Nation Daily ) Kindle Oasis Interview with Russ Grandinetti , VP Kindle Content, in 2010 TKC 338 with Andy Weir , author of The Martian - January 23, 2015 The Martian (movie) at Prime Video Artemis by Andy Weir TKC 287 with Hugh Howey - January 31, 2014 TKC...
Jul 27, 2018•45 min
Author of Departure , The Extinction Files and The Origin Mystery Interview starts at 13:07 and ends at 43:36 “I feel very lucky about the timing. The Kindle had just come out. I would go home from work and read my Kindle every night, and I thought, ‘There’s got to be a bunch of people like me that are doing this that I could write a story for.’ And that’s kinda what I got to.” News “Amazon reportedly had a 300-person conference call to deal with Prime Day glitches” by Rachel Sandler at Business...
Jul 21, 2018•45 min
