Will "Fallout 101" Change the Face of Publishing?

Members of the Kindle community have been encouraging Amazon to think creatively about how the capabilities of the popular e-reader can introduce new publishing models.

Amazon has launched an experiment in the form of distributing Andrew Macauley's science fiction project Fallout 101 that shows the company may have some interest in shaking up the status quo in the publishing world. While the overall plot is tried and true sci-fi―a man is revived in a laboratory on a futuristic world and must figure out where he came from and what's going on―there are some unique features of the project that make it stand out.

The work is being distributed in serial form, with users getting a couple chapters a week. In addition to the novel, subscribers receive essays from the author on various elements of writing the book (how he creates characters, for example) and the Amazon description promises that readers will periodically receive short stories that are not part of the novel but relate to the plot, characters, and setting of the work.

I've been reading Fallout 101 for a couple weeks now and have been enjoying it. The world that that Macauley has created is engaging―the characters are interesting, the action well plotted and there's just the right dash of cool futuristic gadgetry. The essays on character and plot development are a little less interesting to me personally, but I like that the project includes pieces that help to understand and develop a relationship with the author. One recent note indicated that the author would be posting less content on a given week than usual because he was helping his mother move. You don't get that with a Grisham novel!

While the project shows the potential for exploring new and different publishing models, there are some flaws. First, Fallout 101 uses the Kindle's blog delivery capability and displays installments in reverse chronological order, with the most recent installments at the top of the table of contents. This works well for blogs, but not so well for a novel. A late-comer to the Fallout 101 party would need to go to the end of the article list and return to the table of contents after each chapter to select the next chapter above the previous one. This process disrupts the flow of reading unnecessarily.

What hampers calling Fallout 101 a breakthrough experiment in e-book publishing is the fact the entire project is available for free at www.fallout101.com. Kindle subscribers, then, are paying for the convenience of re-distributing the content to the device, not for the content itself.

It does strike me as odd that Amazon is trying to fit the proverbial square peg in a round hole. There must be a more engaging way to present the content than using the blog reading interface. And why not commission a serial project from a capable author and make the content exclusive to the Kindle, or at least make the content exclusive while the book is being serialized? Amazon may argue that it is attempting to keep the price low, which is admirable, but this early adopter would happily pay a few times the current price of .99 cents a month for exclusive content.

What do you think? Does Fallout 101 represent an evolution in the publishing model, or is Fallout an experiment that falls short?

Posted by Kindleville contributor Tyler Steben, author of the Reading Bytes blog.

The Kindle: Remarkable but ot for the reasons you think

Gut reaction to the Kindle? Do you remember?

When I started using the Kindle for the first time, my imagination went into overdrive: this was the end of books, the end of magazines, the end of libraries, the end of paper. Paper!

So, maybe my intuitions aren't spot on, perhaps I have a tendency to exaggerate, but the Kindle does bring visions of Adolf Huxley's A Brave New World to the forefront of your mind.

The intriguing and noteworthy aspect of the Kindle, however, is not necessarily the physical gadget created by Amazon, but rather the E-Ink technology behind it. The Cambridge, MA company is responsible for developing the 'electronic paper' technology used not only in the Amazon Kindle, but also in the Sony e-reader. In the coming years, I think that this is the technology to watch out for: just think of the implications of such invention, particularly when they are able to master the 'paper' part of 'electronic paper.'

While librarians probably don't have to start looking for a new profession just yet, perhaps the days of 20 pound text books are coming to a close.

Where do you see this technology going?

Posted by Kindleville contributor Andrea Nadosy, founder and CEO of bobarra.

The New Voices of Kindleville

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how I was searching for a curator for Kindleville. My interest in the Kindle has been fading and I was hoping I could convince someone to step in and feed the Kindleville blog with posts of their own.

I'm happy to say that several people expressed an interest, but two in particular impressed me as a great fit for this blog. Their names are Andrea Nadosy and Tyler Steben. Here's a bit of background on both of them:

Andrea Nadosy is the founder and CEO of bobarra, a company specializing in stylish yet functional Kindle covers and checkpoint friendly laptop bags. Born and raised in New York City, Andrea graduated from Harvard College in 2003 with a degree in biological anthropology. She then spent a year living and studying in Paris before returning stateside for stints working in the non-profit world and studying at Columbia's School of Urban Planning. In 2006, Andrea made her way back to Harvard, this time for business school. It was at HBS where she discovered not only her love for the Kindle, but also for entrepreneurship; she launched bobarra soon after graduating.

She currently reads and resides in San Francisco where she enjoys hiking, baking and has a profound appreciation for iced-tea spoons.

Tyler Steben been involved with digital publishing for 18 years. His early career was in an academic institution where a large online project he created was acquired by a major university press. He then worked for one of Pearson's higher ed imprints in New York City as a member of the digital publishing team and established media brands and products that are still in existence today. In 1999 Tyler was recruited to be a founding manager at XanEdu, a company that does digital custom publishing for the higher ed market. He's had the good fortune to collaborate with a range of successful authors, ranging from Henry Louis Gates to leading textbook authors to musician Thomas Dolby. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and son. Tyler also recently launched another blog called Reading Bytes.

When I talked with Andrea and Tyler they both struck me as extremely passionate about the Kindle and that's the key attribute I was looking for. I went in search of one writer and found two. Actually, I won't completely disappear from Kindleville. I'll still write a post now and then, but Andrea and Tyler will be the primary voices going forward.

P.S. -- Tomorrow we'll be hearing the big announcement from Amazon...the worst kept secret in years, Kindle 2.0. I'm heading to O'Reilly's Tools of Change (TOC) conference in New York tomorrow morning, but I plan to keep an eye on the Amazon news. I'll be Twittering both the TOC conference and the Amazon announcement(s). You can follow my tweets here, but if you're interested in hearing about TOC from other attendees, be sure to follow the #toc hashtag in Twitter.

Kindle 2.0 Pictures Popping Up

There it is. What do you think? I feel it's a very sleek, attractive upgrade from Kindle 1.0, but I'm less concerned about look-and-feel and more interested in the Kindle platform itself.

As I just mentioned in an email reply to one of my blog readers, "Will Amazon open up this platform? Will they abandon DRM? Will they offer an upgrade deal for existing owners?"

As far as I'm concerned, the answers to these questions are much more important than whether Kindle 2.0 is thinner than Kindle 1.0 or if they finally fixed the placement of the next/prev page buttons.

Btw, perhaps I'm in the minority but I'm pleased with the news that Amazon plans to make their Kindle content available on cell phones. On the one hand, I hope it's a sign that they are about to open things up a bit. More importantly, if they're going to offer the entire lineup of Kindle content for my iPhone, well, I can just focus on upgrading one device (iPhone) and not two (iPhone+Kindle).

500,000 Strong?

Here's an article with yet another estimate of the number of Kindles in use today. The conclusion is that Amazon sold approximately 500,000 units in 2008 and that sales of the Kindle have provided Sprint with some lift to their business.

It would be interesting to know whether Sprint is comfortable with their cut of the deal and the amount of bandwidth the typical Kindle owner requires. The original relationship was built under download/purchase assumptions that may have shifted over time. I use my Kindle to retrieve all sorts of free content from services like Kindlefeeder, for example. I've also sent countless DOC and PDF files to my Kindle email account to have Amazon convert and load them wirelessly on my device. I might be in the minority, but if not, it's possible that there's a lot more use of Sprint's network than was originally envisioned.

Will Amazon Advance the Ball with Kindle 2.0?

I guess it's appropriate to ask a question with a football metaphor as I count down the hours till my Steelers play in the Super Bowl. Word is out that Amazon is announcing Kindle 2.0 in NY on 2/9 and I wonder how significant this new version will be. Will Amazon advance the ball with this next generation Kindle?

I'm past the look-and-feel issues. Yeah, the buttons are awkward and the device looks like it came from Coleco in the 1980's. It's not an elegant product and it probably never will be. But rather than fixing the clunkiness I hope they work on two more important issues:

Openness -- This is a big one and has several facets. The Kindle is mostly a closed system that needs opened to maximize future success. Sure, I can email a PDF to my kindle.com account and Amazon will convert it and wirelessly load it to my device, but what about other content formats? EPUB, anyone? The second area of openness has to do with the developer platform. Why in the world won't Amazon open that up to create a Kindle App Store model, similar to the iPhone one? Part of what makes the iPhone experience so enjoyable is the large and growing number of interesting apps for it. You could argue the Kindle doesn't lend itself to as many fun and engaging apps as the iPhone. I disagree. There are loads of apps no one envisioned for the iPhone till the platform was opened and the apps were developed. The same type of innovation would happen on the Kindle...if Amazon would let it.

Innovative Content Models -- $9.99 books are great and Amazon's obviously selling quite a few of them, but what about book clubs, all-you-can-eat and other content pricing models? If I can sign up for an e-content subscription/access model like Safari or Books24x7 on my computer why doesn't Amazon offer something similar for the Kindle?

Please, Amazon, don't just make Kindle 2.0 a modest evolution of Kindle 1.0 where you fix the button placement and not much more. You've had more than a year to study the market, see what customers like/want and make 2.0 irresistable. Don't drop the ball with some lame revision.

P.S. -- I should also mention that it would be unbelievably shortsighted if Amazon were to release Kindle 2.0 without an attractive upgrade option for Kindle 1.0 owners. Current owners were the risk-takers who invested hundreds of dollars for a funny looking limited functionality device. I hope Amazon rewards all these early adopters with a deep discount on version 2.0. I'll probably remain on the sidelines for Kindle 2.0, saving my money for the next iPhone upgrade; others are likely to do the same if Amazon doesn't make it worth their while.

Kindle 2.0?...

The Silicon Alley Insider says February 9th will be the big announcement day. If this is indeed the launch of Kindle 2.0 I wonder if they'll swap backorders on the current model for the new one. I'm also curious to see if they'll offer some sort of upgrade deal for current owners. I'll remain on the sidelines for that though as I'm focusing more on my iPhone these days.