Tag Archives: Amazon

I’ll Continue Using My First Generation Nook (Even Though I Don’t Want to)

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This post is going to be a lot of bitching and moaning.  Feel free to skip if you aren’t in the mood to hear me kvetch.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a rant about how the Nook Glowlight is a big step in the wrong direction, as least as far as my ereader needs are concerned.  Long story short, in spite of a much better battery life, the Glowlight limits how much of the internal memory can be used for files that aren’t Nookbooks, things like screensavers or, say, third party books.  Hint: not nearly enough.

GlowLight_imgI could only load about 2/3 of my third party books on it.  At the time, all of these would fit on the first generation Nook.  (I’ve since filled the device memory.)  The Glowlight (what Freudian slip is making me keep typing Blowlight?) does not allow for a memory card.  Time to switch  to a different brand of ereader.

The logical thing would be a Kindle, except that all of my third party books are in EPUB format.  Plus, none of the Kindles I looked at would allow the addition of a memory card. (I’m talking ereaders, not tablets.)

I did some research on Kobo, but they were a little pricey.  Then I noticed yesterday that they had the Aura on sale, which does allow the insertion of a memory card.  While I’m not willing to pay the full retail price, especially since I would rather have the Aura HD which is more expensive, I was willing to shell out the sale price.

So I set up a Kobo account and ordered one.  The transaction was declined.  I thought it was a security thing with my credit card, so I called to authorize the payment.  No, the payment went through.  After a day of emails and phone calls to Kobo that didn’t really go anywhere, I called the credit card company to cancel the payment.  Turns out that after I talked to them yesterday, the payment was automatically canceled.

I decided to give it one more try, and this evening I sent a new order in to Kobo.  During the checkout process, I realized what the problem was.  I had put my home address (i.e., the shipping address) in for the billing address.  I use a PO box for most of my mail, certainly for things like credit card bills.

Well, duh! No wonder the credit card transaction was declined.  The billing address I entered didn’t match the billing address on the credit card account.  Proof that you have to be smarter than what you’re working with.  Which, as least as far as yesterday is concerned, I wasn’t.

So I entered the correct information in the correct places.  I clicked the final SUBMIT button.

And the order didn’t go through.

Kobo refused to accept a PO box.  Not as a shipping address, because I put my home address for that.  As the billing address.  You know, the billing address that my credit card company declined yesterday because it wasn’t a PO box.

There is no number to call to make a direct order.  Which means I wont’ be buying a Kobo.  So there is no ereader that meets my needs that is available.

I will continue using my first generation Nook.  At least the battery dies.  (I suspect you can’t get batteries for the original Nook anymore.)  Or until someone comes up with an ereader that has a long battery life, will let me add a memory card, and actually is willing to take my order.

Until they do, I have a message to all B&N, Amazon, and Kobo: a pox on all your houses.

I’m Starting to Understand Why Barnes and Noble Is Hemorrhaging Money

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So my wife and I and have been going back and forth on whether she should get me a tablet for Christmas.  She got a Samsung a few months ago, and lately I’ve been playing Mah Jong on it.  The reason for this is simple.  I’m either too tired or there’s too much noise/distraction/interruption to try to read.  (The concentration with simple games and reading is different; that’s all I can say.)  I don’t want a tablet because I don’t want to read on a backlit screen.  I do enough of that either at work or on my phone if I’m reading to kill a few minutes while I’m waiting in line or something.  The game playing thing is usually a sign I need to get more rest and/or have less stress in my life.

GlowLight_imgI have a first generation Nook.  What decided me on that rather than a Kindle is that B&N is only a few minutes from my house, so if there’s a problem (which has happened), I can get help from a person fairly quickly.

For quite a while I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Nook Glowlight.  They’re light.  The screen refreshes faster.  They have a  touchscreen.  I can read in a dark room.  And most importantly, the battery has a much, much longer life.

I’ve gotten to where I don’t read on my Nook much because it takes too long to scroll through things or change between the nookbook folder and the Documents folder which has all the things I’ve sideloaded.  Yes, they are in separate folders on the original.  But mainly, I don’t use it as much as I used to because the battery life is so short.  I don’t like having to put it back on the charger so often.  Like before I’ve finished reading.  But, hey, waddaya expect?  It’s first generation technology. Continue reading →

Being Nibbled to Death by Ducks

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It’s been one of those weeks.  You know the kind.  Nothing really bad happens, but some many little things pop up that by the end of the day on Saturday you’re wondering why you didn’t accomplish what you thought you had sufficient time to complete.  It’s kind of like being nibbled to death by ducks.

WD-40Most of my disruptions were either work related or involved my son.  (I thought I had made it clear there was to be nothing further involving fire while I was at work.)  A wire in his braces popped loose, and instead of simply fixing it, the orthodontist went ahead and tightened everything.  This will save time later this month, but it cost most of an afternoon.  I finally figured out why one of the dogs was suddenly traumatized to the point of refusing to go outside. (Experiments to determine the flammability of WD-40 are expressly forbidden.  Which should have been obvious.)

Anyway, work was supposed to be quite slow this week.  As result I had intended to finish and post reviews of the latest issue of Weird Tales and the first installment of a new series by Joshua P. Simon, as well as finish a detective novel on my phone, Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz for for Black Gate, and a review for Amazing Stories.  Plus I had planned on commenting on Amazon’s announcement about pricing the other day.

The piece for Amazing Stories is done, uploaded, and should go live tomorrow.  I”ll start the BAF post for Black Gate either tonight or (more likely) tomorrow along with the review of the detective novel.  I’ll also try to the Simon novel and WT finished in the next couple of days.

Over Half of SF/F Ebooks Sold on Amazon are Indie Published

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Hugh Howey and someone known as Data Guy have been using Amazon rankings to get a glimpse of how indie published books and authors are doing compared to the Big [insert decreasing number here].

Their latest report came out today.  I’m not going to parse the whole thing.  You can read it for yourself here.  It contains some very interesting information on the effect DRM has on sales.  (Spoiler: it can really hurt sales.  Check the graph.)

What I am going to do is point out something that might be of interest to readers of this blog, and that’s the percentage of sf/f ebooks sold on Amazon that are indie published.  Continue reading →