NEWSDAY TUESDAY

I am guessing if you own an e-book reader, then you know about the price-fixing settlement reached last week on September 6th.  But there was more to all this than meets the eye.  I am not an expert on any of the legalities.  But as I was browsing through some library news, a few things caught my eye.

The first is - apparently with the new Kindle Fire there is a feature called Whispersync.  This allows you to switch back and forth between the audiobook version and the e-book version.  Of course, this also means that you have to pay for the audiobook version and the e-book version.  Apparently, Amazon has been trying to get this off the ground for quite some time but since e-book and audiobooks are two different creatures, they could not get the rights to do that.  You have always had the option to have a book read to you by the Kindle computer like voice but now you can actually have the professionally read (and often dramatized) audiobook version.  IF you pay for it, of course.  And, apparently, there may even be a version that will let you listen and read at the same time.  Remember those books you had when you were a kid?  They would "ding" when it was time to turn the page.  That sort of thing - Exciting stuff for reluctant readers and/or auditory learners!  

There is also apparently a Kindle Serials subscription where you can get serialized books.  Think Mr. King's "The Green Mile" only a' la Kindle.  For those too young to remember, when Stephen originally published  "The Green Mile" in 1996, it was in six small paperbacks published over a series of six months.  It was quite thrilling to wait for the next installment to appear, especially since there were several of us reading the book and speculating on what would happen next!  I am not sure how this will do - though I can say that books in series are very, very popular with the YA crowd.  

And now we wait to see if Amazon drastically cuts prices on their e-books.  Just in time for the holidays!  

If you want to read a bit more on all of this, you can read Hats off to Amazon by Mike Shatzkin, since it was the inspiration and source of much of this information.  He actually knows what he is talking about.  :-)