Tag: Kindle

Amazon Goes to Denmark

Guest post
by Per Holbo

[This is a translation of an article that originally appeared in Danish on the blog HolboHistorier. The original article can be found here. The translated article is reproduced here with the author’s permission.]

Despite Amazon fighting to keep it under wraps the Danish media caught on. The mastodon in eBooks is coming to Scandinavia.

This is good news to anyone desiring a boost of eBooks in our region. For years, we´ve seen eBooks becoming steadily more popular each day, but here in Denmark, virtually nothing has happened.

The main reason I can think of, is accessibility. eBooks must be easy to get in as few steps as possible and if there´s one provider of eBooks, who has managed to almost make this a form of art, it´s Amazon.

The only Danish actor even remotely trying to accomplish a reasonable accessibility, is Riidr. However, they don´t even come close to Amazon in any given parameter. Amazon changes everything.

May 23rd, Politiken and May 24th, Berlingske Tidende, revealed Amazon’s plans to start investing in Scandinavia. As usual everything is quite hush-hush and we can´t know for sure, what they´re up to. Amazon’s spokesperson in London, Suzi Van der Mark, stated that no official announcement had been made about what their plans are – or are not – regarding Scandinavia. Continue reading “Amazon Goes to Denmark”

Of Apple, E-books, and Game-changers

The Apple e-book price-fixing trial finally got underway in U.S. federal court in Manhattan last week. Five of the six original defendants – the Big Five publishers – agreed to settle with the government, leaving Apple as the sole defendant at trial.

I’m tempted to insert a pun here about the U.S. Justice Department making like William Tell and aiming the arrow of the law straight at Apple. But I’m restraining myself because this is serious business. Continue reading “Of Apple, E-books, and Game-changers”

Building an Active Table of Contents

A discussion started here Tuesday on K.S. Brooks’ post about common formatting mistakes in print books about whether a novel needs a table of contents. I like a healthy discussion, but I like facts better. So I did a web search to try to find out whether Amazon requires a ToC in every Kindle book.

The answer is no.* The KDP Publishing Guide mentions ToCs in two places. It says here that an active ToC is recommended, and here it says that an active ToC is “highly recommended.” In neither spot does it say that a ToC is required. Even Amazon’s official Kindle Publishing Guidelines pdf (which gets very granular – CSS, anyone?) uses the word “recommended,” not “required,” when talking about ToCs. Continue reading “Building an Active Table of Contents”

Tools of the Trade

Guest post
by Dick Waters

This is something I found very handy, and some writers might not know about it.

I write my novels in my office, which is mostly during the daytime. With many other distractions, it may have been days since I last wrote manuscript content. So, I have to refer to my spreadsheet outline to get an overview of what I wrote the last time. Inevitably, that is not enough and I have to read the last few chapters to get a better sense of chapter content etc. Continue reading “Tools of the Trade”