

Introducing Kindle Singles - wensing
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_132950_18514490_pe_btn/?node=2486013011

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stcredzero
To paraphrase Alan Kay: "The eBook revolution hasn't happened yet." A
particular medium carries practical limitations with it. When new media are
introduced, people carry on with the outmoded practical limitations of the old
medium.

This happened with vinyl and CDs. Even though artists were no longer limited
to two 23 minute sides, many of them carried on in that pattern. (In part to
support users of the old media technology.)

This is a good "rock" to look under: examine what the practical limitations of
current media are that don't apply to new media.

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Jun8
IDEABOLT: It is well-known that the media constrains the creator, but (as
Hofstadter so eloquently explains in _Le Ton Beau De Marot_ ) constraints lea
to innovation.

AFAIK, currently we have the following new media transformations/revolutions
going on (in order of how far they are in the transformation):

1\. Music: The old N songs bundles in one container is gone. Note that the
replacement of LPs with CDs didn't bring in the revolution, it was just
repackaging. MP3 players did it.

2\. News: N news items bundled in a paper is getting replaced by news readers
that mix and match

3\. Book publishing: Natural constraints of having N words in a book (after
all, it's hard to publish a book with 20-30 pages, although this seems to be
the natural length of many business books)

4\. TV: The constraint of watching live has been broken (thanks to DVRs) but
programs are still relatively arbitrarily grouped by channels.

In most cases, a new device brings about the major change (MP3 player, iPad,
Kindle, DVR). The last frontier, I think is TV, where arbitrary sets of
programs are combined into channels which are in turn bundled into sets (i.e.
you can't only subscribe to a list of channels you select).

Companies that aim to transform one of these fields should understand that
they need to be in the business of _producing_ at least some of the content in
that field, they can't just be bit pushers and rehashers. That's why, Amazon
should publish books and have short story competitions for Kindle Singlets and
Google (and Apple) should buy a TV station or at least a production company.

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bioh42_2
_Companies that aim to transform one of these fields should understand that
they need to be in the business of producing at least some of the content in
that field, they can't just be bit pushers and rehashers._

Indeed, but as it has happened with Sony, the publishing arm of the company
can hobble the device producing arm.

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shrikant
I'm not sure what " _natural length_ " is, but my workflow for something like
this on my Kindle 3 is pretty simple:

1\. Subscribe to feeds from longform.org, longreads.com and
givemesomethingtoread.com

2\. Open interesting articles and save for reading later in Instapaper

3\. Set up Instapaper to deliver wirelessly to Kindle

Bam! Instant periodic 'short story' subscription service.

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elithrar
Thankyou for introducing me to longform.org & longreads.com - both are
excellent!

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larrik
This should give quite a shot of adrenaline to the short story market.
Especially for someone like me who never reads magazines.

I wonder if they'll move away from such a heavily curated model at some point.

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Jun8
Excellent idea! Read the introductions of any of the past 20 years _Best
American Short Stories_ books and they always ask the question "Is the short
story dead" and lament the decrease in the number of magazines that
exclusively publish short fiction. I think there was an experiment in the UK
where people could buy single stories printed in map-like format at tube
stations.

Editors don't like short stories because you have to have a lot, e.g. at least
5-6, to publish as a decent book, and coming up with that many good short
stories is not within everybody's capability (same thing with having to have
~10 songs for a CD). This new medium may just be the thing to spur story
writers.

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yequalsx
As I see it the problem with the search (Google) is finding trusted sources.
Newspapers are dying. We have corporate garbage for news in the U.S. Over the
past 4 years I've restricted my news sources to some bloggers. A number of
them experts in various areas.

I think this product could be a replacement for newspapers. Instead of an
article about today's events one gets a nice technical overview of, say, the
events in Tunisia written by an expert. This could fill the medium between
full blown research paper and dumbed down news broadcasts.

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liamk
In my opinion the Economist provides some good in depth overviews of events,
such as those currently taking place in Tunisia.

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jessriedel
Agreed. Wouldn't it be nice if there was an Economist-"briefing"-style
overview on dozens/hundreds of topics instantly available on the kindle? Like
something between the Wikipedia article and a book?

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jonhendry
BBC News website has generally done a pretty good job of that.

Dunno how long that'll last with the slash-and-burn situation there lately.

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jaysonelliot
I guess Amazon has found a way to charge $3 for a short story.

Why not buy a copy of Analog Magazine, or McSweeney's, or any other good
periodical with quality fiction, and get several short stories for the same
price?

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noahc
I think you're missing the point. These are more than short stories:

1\. They fall somewhere between a blog post and book. If you have 50 - 100
pages to write on something you either have to turn it into 50 blog posts or
300 page book. The focus here is on length appropriate works.

3\. These are non-fiction (at least most of them) works that tend to be by
amateur experts. What that means is that they are amateur writers writing on
topics they are experts in. This allows my dad to write an Amazon Kindle
Single on Vietnam or Economic Development and publish it. This is a huge win
for amateur experts!

3\. This is just the start, and I expect we'll see a lot of people moving in
this direction, particularly people with huge followings. Imagine if someone
with 100,000+ reach can sell 5,000 of these every 2 or 3 months.

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jseliger
_3\. These are non-fiction (at least most of them) works that tend to be by
amateur experts. What that means is that they are amateur writers writing on
topics they are experts in. This allows my dad to write an Amazon Kindle
Single on Vietnam or Economic Development and publish it. This is a huge win
for amateur experts!_

Sometimes they're also for non-amateur experts publishing something that
doesn't slot easily into the classic article / book item. I'm thinking here of
Tyler Cowen's _The Great Stagnation_, which I just wrote about:
[http://jseliger.com/2011/01/26/the-great-stagnation-how-
amer...](http://jseliger.com/2011/01/26/the-great-stagnation-how-america-ate-
all-the-low-hanging-fruit-of-modern-historygot-sick-and-will-eventually-feel-
better-tyler-cowen/) primarily because the material is interesting and useful
and partially because it's useful.

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marketer
I though this was a dating site! It wouldn't be a terrible idea for one..

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kazuya
Singles meet and exchange their Kindles to know each other... or just use the
lending feature?

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tcskeptic
Other than the size liste in KB, is there anyway to estimate the length of
these items prior to purchasing them? I can't see one. (I know "pages" may be
an antiquated way of looking at things now that we can dynamically reflow
layout, but I would like an idea of what I am getting into before I purchase
something.)

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cyen
At the bottom of the Product Description, it has pagecount in parentheses
(e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004K1F9KG/ref=docs-os-
doi_...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004K1F9KG/ref=docs-os-doi_0) says
(34 pages))

~~~
tcskeptic
Thanks, I missed that totally.

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marknutter
I don't get it, could someone give a better explanation than Amazon did?

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Entlin
Explanation 1: Imagine writing a lengthy blog post, article or something
similar - and actually getting paid for it. That's what Amazon is trying here.
By coming from a different angle, "books", where we have a traditional
readiness to pay, Amazon is trying to create a pay-per-article business model.

Explanation 2: a Book needs to have a certain minimum length (80 pages or so).
A magazine article has a certain maximum length (20 pages or so). Inbetween,
there wasn't a market for selling something, so far. That's what Amazon is
trying.

Explanation 3: Most business books actually have a few good core ideas, plus a
lot of fluff. The fluff is to get at a minimum length and be at a position
where you can actually sell "a thing" (book). It's so widespread that several
companies like getabstract started selling just the core stuff. With the core
stuff, Amazon gets nothing. This is a ploy by Amazon to get some of this
business.

~~~
marknutter
Wow, totally didn't get that from the link. Thank you very much, makes a lot
of sense now and seems pretty smart too!

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larrik
When I read the headline, my first thought is that they've come full circle,
and are releasing Kindles with a single book on them. I had to check and make
sure it wasn't April 1st yet.

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dualboot
I also thought perhaps April had come early. I thought a Kindle Single was
just a tongue-in-cheek name for a book.

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swombat
So how do we submit stuff to be published there?

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brianwillis
I love this idea. Just reading about this brought to mind half a dozen books
I've read that would undoubtedly be better and more accessible if they were
shorter. Until now, those books stood no chance of getting published.

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joelrunyon
I'm still waiting for someone to allow me to to "scan" my books into a digital
format like I can "rip" my cds to an mp3. Once that happens, I'll be 100%
digital.

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brianwillis
[http://www.amazon.com/Plustek-91N-BBM31-A-Book-
Scanner/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Plustek-91N-BBM31-A-Book-
Scanner/dp/B000VQWE48)

~~~
joelrunyon
I was hoping for something similar to delicious library -
<http://www.delicious-monster.com/> \- where you scan the bar code and you
have access to it in your library :). (yes, there are tons of ways to abuse
this, but it'd still be nice)

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makmanalp
This reminds me of the penguin great ideas series:
[http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/greatideas...](http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/greatideas/index.html)

