Kindle Format 8 Announced by Amazon - the Debut of KF8 and What it Means To You

Ebook publishing just got some big news: Amazon is changing the way it does things to allow for more graphic and image friendly e-books with its new Kindle Format 8.  If you are publishing for Kindle, does that mean a major re-do headache?  Apparently not. 

Right now, Format 8 will be introduced on Amazon Fire and as time passes, it will also be placed upon other Kindle products ... "the latest generation" of Kindle devices, according to the Amazon FAQ page. 

What happens to my Kindle - the one I bought a year ago?  I'm not sure right now.  

What about my Mobi files?  According to Amazon, all "currently supported content" will be okay, no need to panic about changing your stuff over to the new KF8.  However, Amazon is going to be giving instructions on how to do just that in its Kindle Publishing Guidelines (tho that's not online just yet). 

For more scoop, check out the Kindle Forums as well as TechCrunch (who points out that with KF8, Amazon products can be read on an iPad); and Webmonkey (who discusses the possibility that KF8 will allow ebooks to be placed on the web itself, since KF8's incorporattion of HTML5 essentially allows for ebooks to be built in the same way as a web page).

Kindle Daily Deal - I Check It Everyday but Do I Buy? Not So Much.

The Kindle Daily Deal is cool ... every day, Amazon offers a book at a rock-bottom price, if you're willing to read it on a Kindle.  Amazon tries to juggle the offerings, give everyone something they like. 

Maybe that's what is happening.  I'm checking the Kindle Daily Deal every morning.  But I'm not tempted to buy very often. 

I think I have purchased two Daily Deals so far - one was a biography of Bonhoeffer, the other I can't remember right now.  So I'm wondering what this means.

Is it because I'm not interested in buy most of what they are offering at the Daily Deal?  Or, is it because I'm only interested in buying certain things as an ebook because, after all, I'm really only buying a license and not the book itself?  Maybe a little of both.

Still, Kindle Daily Deal remains a fun thing to check every morning, before I do my daily crossword.  Maybe you'll like it too, if you haven't checked it out already, Dear Reader. 

books, ebooks, amazon, kindle

Librarians Fighting Back Against Big Budget Cuts

When I was very young, shortly after my father died, I remember my mother instituting a Friday night ritual.  She would pick me up after school, and we would go to the local branch of the public library.  I could check out as many books as I wanted! She would, too.  We would each roam the stacks, selecting carefully.  We might sit in the big chairs, too, and read awhile.  Afterwards, we would go Out To Eat.  Usually, to a small Mom and Pop Chinese Food Place that I still remember as being so exotic with its red and gold dragons and silk kimono wall hangings.  I could drink hot tea out of a little ceramic bowl, and I could bring one book into the restaurant with me.  Such a decision.

That little branch library was such a special place for me.  I was 7 years old, in a new city and a new school and with a mother who wasn't dealing all that well at all with the loss of her husband.  Books.  Books are one thing.  They are friends, sometimes lifelong companions.  Teachers, too.  But libraries.  Libraries are sanctuaries, treasure caves, shrines.  Libraries are important.  Important at all times, but especially these days.

I follow the news about budget cuts to public libraries with dread and fear and that small girl in me is afraid for her library.  For the libraries beloved by other folk, in other parts of the country.  What will happen?  Consider this: in Texas this summer, funding to state libraries was cut by 88% (yes, eighty-eight percent; that's no typo). 

So, it's very nice to learn about Librarians Fighting Back -- like those this week up in Chicago, where they not only signed a petition against budget cuts, but they also had a "Story Time" down at City Hall, where the librarians read books to the kids, right there on the threshold of the Mayor's Office.  Cool stuff.

books libraries economy

Revenge on ABC TV: Tracking How It Rehashes Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo

After reading the script from the TV pilot, offered as a promo by ABC TV on Amazon long before the TV series Revenge began, I already caught that the writers were rehashing one of my favorites: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

I'm not the only one who thinks so:  HitFlix agrees (and isn't impressed), and a blurb at E!Online calls Revenge "a modern reimagining" of the Dumas novel.

Over at Shnugi.com, they are monitoring Revenge as it plays out every Wednesday, tracking how the show follows along with the Count.  It's fun; check it out at their post, Characters from ABC’s Revenge compared to the Count of Monte Cristo.  In fact, knowing the Dumas' novel may help make Revenge a better show for those of us that know the book than for those who haven't read it.  (Or I suppose, seen one of the gazillion movie versions of it.)

I agree with Shnugi:  Emily Thorne is the revenge-seeking Count of Monte Cristo; however, now she's a girl, Amanda Clarke aka Emily.  That's not hard.  After that, it's still early -- and very fun to try and figure out how they're going to cram all that good stuff from the book into this miniseries.  Like how Edmond Dantes sought his own revenge, but here you have the victim of betrayal dead and his daughter planning vengeance.  (Sure, the book is better.)

For instance, is Shnugi right: is Emily Thorne going to be Benedetto?  Hmmmm.......

Meanwhile, if you want to read the book upon which Revenge is based, you can read the Count of Monte Cristo right now, for free.  It's available at Amazon, for example, as a freebie (there's lots more freebies and great deals there, by the way: check out my post over on my simplicity blog on that score, "Amazon's Top 100 Free EBooks - There are Some Great Bargains Here.")

National Novel Writing Month Begins on November 1, 2011: Will You Participate?

In less than 30 days, it will once again be National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo").  For all the official information, check out the homepage where things are provided like FAQs, Forums, Breaking News, etc. 

What's it all about?  Writing 50,000 words in 30 days time.  As a fiction novel.  Or, I suppose a non-fiction novel works just as well: the key is to get a novel done, first draft, start to finish within the time frame of November 1st to November 30th. 

You're not alone.  People all over the place take up the NaNoWriMo gauntlet each year.  There are local groups that get together to write at coffee shops, for example, supporting each other in getting that word count. 

In addition to the help provided at the official web site, there's also a Facebook page for National Novel Writing Month as well as a Twitter feed that's begun already as "sprints" during October, to prepare participants for the November word marathon.  Interested? Check it out at @NaNoWordSprints.

I haven't decided if I will participate this year.  Mulling it over. 

books, writing, nanowritmo

More Classics Being Made Revamped Into Scripts For Movies

After learning about The Count of Monte Cristo getting new life as a nighttime TV soap, and yet another version of Anna Karenina for the big screen (right after Jane Eyre), I surfed around today to see what other books are being turned into scripts for movies or television.

Here's what I found out:  BuzzSugar has a nice slideshow of 15 movies that are being made from books right now.

These include two more remakes of films already made from novels:

• Dashiel Hammett's The Thin Man (Johnny Depp in the shoes of William Powell)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio in the shoes of Robert Redford.

I'm praying now that no one has any big ideas about remaking Gone With the Wind.  Or Rebecca.  Or Double Indemnity.

I couldn't find a list of books being made into TV shows.  We already know about Bones and Castle, for example.  Surely there are more....

The Literary Character Test: I'm Scarlett O'Hara, Who Are You?

 This was fun.  I took the Literary Character Test (you can too, go here) and here's the result: 

Your result for The Literary Character Test ...

Scarlett O'Hara

Good, Epic, Straight Forward Thinker

You are basically good.  Overcoming selfish desires or cruel ways, you focus on doing the right thing, when possible, and acting in a way to benefit everyone.  You think like a champion.  Regardless of your skills, you strongly feel you can use them to their greatest ability.  Your persona is indomitable, you are a true believer.  You think straightforwardly.  You don’t feel you need to weigh too many options, neither do you feel the need to plan to far ahead, but instead take the simplest and straightest path toward your goals.
Proud to the point of haughty and determined to the point of recklessness, Scarlett O'Hara will not let anything stand in her way of taking care of those around her.  Her determination is a key to her character, and when it is set, no bonds of war, man, or even emotion can stop her.  As if to exemplify her resolve, her resolute mantra simply is "After all, tomorrow another day."

New Remake of "Anna Karenina" with Keira Knightley in the Lead. Yikes.

Greta Garbo as Anna (1948).

Yesterday, I was writing here about the Count of Monte Cristo being turned into the ABC drama series "Revenge," which starts airing this month -- and today, I read that there's going to be another remake of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, this time starring Keira Knightley.  

You remember her, she's the actress that played Elizabeth Bennet in a 2005 remake of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Jude Law is going to play Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin (Anna's husband) and Aaron Johnson is in the role of Count Vronsky (Anna's lover).  I checked IMDb, but so far there's no word on who is going to play Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin. 

My first thoughts:

I recently read Anna Karinina (see post here) and it's still pretty fresh in my mind.  Having read this movie news on Nikke Finke's blog, I'm not sure what to think.  I'm not overjoyed.

• I have no idea who Aaron Johnson is ... but he better be really something if Jude Law, of all people, is the guy that Anna dumps for him.  
• As I recall, you didn't get thru the first three chapters before you learned that Anna was much younger than her husband, and that he wasn't all that handsome.  I don't see how they are going to ugly-up Jude Law for this one. So, I'm puzzled by Law's casting. 
• Which brings me to the female lead:  I don't see Keira Knightley as Anna.  It's not working for me.  Maybe it's that Anna seemed older to me than Keira Knightley when the story began ... maybe in her early 30s?  I see Catherine Zeta-Jones here more than the star of the Pirates movie franchise. 
• One key character for me is Levin.   Who's getting to play Levin?  I'm scared to think about it.

I suppose I should be happy that Hollywood is going back to the classics for new material given the lack of movies I thought were worth my moola over the past few years.  Thing is, tho, with a classic there comes the reader's love of the story ... and it feels sorta personal.

We'll see, I guess. 

ABC Promotes New TV Show Revenge Thru Kindle, What Does This Do to EBooks? And Where's the Hat Tip to Dumas?

Right now, for free, you can download the script for the pilot episode of ABC TV's new series, "Revenge." Get the script, and you get a link to watch the pilot episode online, also at no cost to you.

Two things that I'm taking from this: 

1. New ways of using Kindle ebooks are popping up, and here's one: promotion of TV shows (and I assume movies in the future) through Kindle and its Top 100 Free list. Because that's where you'll get the exposure, right? What this does to Kindle, I'm not sure. What this does to ebook publishing, ditto. However, I must admit that I did download the script and I did read it. Afterwards, I thought it seemed familiar ... so I went surfing around, and sure enough, it was.

2. This story seems to be culled from one of my childhood favorites, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Change the protagonist to a young blonde female, move the story from France and Italy to the Hamptons, streamline some of the complicated plotting in the original and voila: a new, heavily promoted piece of entertainment that just might sell its products well considering that Dumas' original has proven itself so popular with so many for such a long time.

Go to the ABC site and you don't see anything referencing The Count of Monte Cristo. Read the reviews of the script over at Amazon.Com, and most of the reviewers perceive the new show as another nighttime soap, comparing it to the revamped Dallas that will be airing this fall.

However, if this new series is successful, then I think we will be seeing the e-book selections peppered with all sorts of things that are promotional in nature.  Lord help us all.  

Must Read: Joe Konrath's Take on The Impact of E-Books Upon the Quality of What You Can Find to Read

Once again, Joe Konrath has written something everyone (writers and readers, which I assume is almost everyone on the planet) should read, and here's how his latest greatest begins:

Some people believe the ease of self-publishing means that millions of wannabe writers will flood the market with their crummy ebooks, and the good authors will get lost in the morass, and then family values will go unprotected and the economy will collapse and the world will crash into the sun and puppies and kittens by the truckload will die horrible, screaming deaths.

Continue reading "The Tsunami of Crap," his July 5, 2011 post on his great blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing....