Monday, February 07, 2011

kindling a new wave in mission?

Interesting news just out that Amazon are launching Kindle singles. I love the tag line –

Compelling Ideas Expressed at Their Natural Length.

The current book has a certain genre – it needs to be so many words to be taken seriously and to make economic sense. Yet quite a few books I read are simply puffed and padded to meet the genre. Much better surely to let the idea dictate the size, rather than the various expectations.

They are talking about prices of less than a dollar and seem to be suggesting that anyone can submit a piece for inclusion as a Kindle Single.

So the Kindle single concept opens up the market for a different type of writing, the short story, the pithy essay, the developing case study, the storytelling of local mission in local communities, the short course – and thus some new possibilities for sparking mission thinking, reflecting, storytelling.

(Hat tip mighty (:) ) skinny Kiwi). For other commentary see Wired and Tech news.

PS What I don’t like about Kindle is the way that it is so linked to one seller. Why can’t we have open source e-reader? Wouldn’t that be a good investment for a number of sellers to pool R & D over?

PSS What would also be really useful is if Kindle allowed books to be unbundled. I sit here preparing distance material. Often I want folk to read not the whole book, but one or two chapters. It makes no sense to pay for the whole but I’d love to pay for a chapter plus distribution rights that I could then distribute to students.

Posted by steve at 05:51 PM

1 Comment

  1. Kindle Singles look very interesting.I agree that too many books have padding and repeat themselves to merely fill content.

    I think they don’t want to open source it cos the real money is in the books not the device. Especially with Kindle being the market leader they have no desire to let competitors get access to their client base. I am yet to meet anyone who has bought and Kindle and regretted it.

    Of course you can always get an IPAD and then download apps for various readers. My issue with this is that the IPAD is not designed to be read from, it is backlit which means it is much harder on the eyes. Plus the hassle of having different apps does not really appeal.

    The nook has a feature that enables you to lend books to others with the same device. It is dependant on the publisher allowing this function and while the book is on loan it is not able to be read on your device. However it would be good if that s concept could be expanded to include chapters and distribution rights.

    Comment by Aaron — February 8, 2011 @ 5:24 am

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