Sunday, September 07, 2008

10 Things I Love About My New Kindle

10. I was able to buy and read Pixie Warrior at long last;

9. It's easy to hold; less bulky than paperbacks, lighter than hardbacks;

8. I can adjust the size of the print;

7. I can upload manuscripts and read them just like I would read a book. This is a HUGE benefit to you who are sending me manuscripts;

6. I can take reading out of the office much more easily. No more losing pages in a good breeze at Coney Island!;

5. No more hauling manuscript pages! My Sherpa days are now truly over;

4. No more reading full manuscripts on the screen. My eyes are dancing with joy;

3. I can easily take all my clients manuscripts with me when ever I go to lunch with an editor. Want to see the first page? Want to see the blurbs? Here, read them on the Kindle;

2. I can download and read the first chapter of books at no cost. This is a super smart marketing move. (More on why at the Dead Guy blog);

and the thing I love most about my Kindle:

1. I always have a copy of Jane Kenyon's poem Happiness with me.

24 comments:

clindsay said...

YAY KINDLE!

Also, how cool is that screen outdoors in bright sunlight? I wish my laptop were that easy to read outdoors.

Oooh, I love Jane Kenyon. Do you know her poem "Let Evening Come"? One of my favorites.

Kelley said...

It is only right to always carry her poem with you.

ilyakogan said...

Welcome to the cult! :)

I'm three months in. Now if it's not on Kindle I don't buy it.

Margaret Yang said...

I'm wondering, are there any downsides to the Kindle? I remember agent Nathan mentioned some.

I'm happy for you, glad that you found a tool that helps you work better and that you like so much. That whole "Bringing clients' manuscripts to lunch" thing sounded really good.

Angelle Haney Gullett said...

I had suspected all of these benefits EXCEPT #3. That's a very cool upside, particularly in your line of work.

Please let us know how editors respond (I'm curious if you get more commitments or just more interest. Which is still a good thing.)

Julie Weathers said...

I am happy you got one and are so excited about it. This seems like the way to go for agents.

I'm curious about the readability. You said no more reading manuscripts on the screen. Is it that much different on the Kindle screen?

Sha'el, Princess of Pixies said...

I'm number 10!!! umm that IS a good thing, right?

I'm blushing. Thanks, Janet

Sandra Cormier said...

Yay for Sha'el! I'm thinking number 10 is pretty damn good.

Kindles don't work in Canada, I'm told. Darn phone companies.

Heidi Willis said...

Ahhh... but now will you have to join a gym to work out those arm muscles??

SWILUA said...

aw. yay for pixies and for happiness.

Bill Cameron said...

This is all well and good, but I wonder if you're ever going to get around to sharing your feelings about the Kindle.

Unknown said...

Those all sound great but got me wondering. Do you owe submitters a duty of care when in posession of unpublished manuscripts? Would there be any ramifications of losing a Kindle with that kind of stuff on it?

Janet Reid said...

Claire, no.
There's no implied or explicit expectation of confidentiality in a manuscript submission. We discard pages all the time, which is no different than discarding (unintentionally of course) a Kindle.

Given that the manuscript is uploaded from a word .doc that remains on my hard drive, any loss is momentary at best as well.

As to the idea a lost Kindle would give someone access to a manuscript they would then plagiarize...well, sure, I guess, but there's about the same liklihood of that as of me being selected Miss America.

Haste yee back ;-) said...

Janet,
Are you gonna read that thing when shootin' carp and gar with bow and arrow - at night?

Just sayin' ???

Haste yee back ;-)

Pamala Knight said...

I'm still on the fence. A woman on the train had her Sony reader out, so I quizzed her about the features. I have to say that I'm still leaning towards the Kindle, but the e-Reader has some good qualities too.

I'm glad to hear your take on the Kindle and hopefully I'll decide soon.

Unknown said...

Thanks for your reply Janet, the answer was genuinely interesting :)

Sha'el, Princess of Pixies said...

Dear Amazon.com,

It's come to my attention that you have no kindel enabled works by any goat-specied author. This is just baaaaad.

best,

Bill E. Goat

Spy Scribbler said...

I follow you on Twitter, and I'm just LOVING your twits about your Kindle!

I'm saving up for one. In fact, I made the decision to not buy books until I can afford a Kindle.

PS: So sorry about the hot water! I once didn't have hot water for a month. That's the worst!

Algai 'D' Aman said...

I'm on the fence with Kindle as well. One the one hand you have the nice large screen, on the other hand, it looks like it's been made for elderly people. Then you have the easy bookstore access . . and DRM. You get a free connection, but it's EVDO. It supports popular formats, but no PDFs.

I'd also like more storage and the ability to expand using my own storage medium (SD Card). I know you can store about 200 books, but I need more for my $360 ;)

Sha'el, Princess of Pixies said...

'spose I should point out that you don't need a kindle reader to read about cute pixies ... it's also mobipocket formated, pdf formated, and available in trade paper late in october.

Shameless! just ShameLESS!

Anonymous said...

Love the Kenyon poem! my favorite happiness poem is by Robert Hass:

http://www.poetryevolution.com/?p=88

Sha'el, Princess of Pixies said...

me again! surprised?

All this talk about kindle and such made me curious. I went off to Fictionwise.com. There are more ebook formats than I thought. I've never heard of some of these.

On the Pixie Warrior detail page it lists:

"Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [2.2 MB], eReader (PDB) [253 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [243 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [216 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [254 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [258 KB], hiebook (KML) [572 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [313 KB], iSilo (PDB) [200 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [249 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [311 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [330 KB]

So, off topic I suppose, but is there a push for some sort of cross compatibility?

What's the difference between a Sony Reader and a Kindle? I'm so confused now ...

Eric said...

Can you download Word documents back to your computer from your Kindle? I can see that as a bit of a possible problem, since Word documents can be manipulated.

So far the Kindle doesn't seem capable of downloading PDFs - which, I think, would be better in terms of security.

It's not a big problem, but potentially a bit of one.

The Swivet said...

Hey, I saw on your Twitter that you were having to charge the Kindle a lot. I think I remember Nathan B, saying that if you turn off the wireless when you don't need it that the charge lasts longer.

Worth a shot.

:-)