Here’s a cool new use for the Kindle: the distribution of movie and TV scripts. To promote the new Edie Falco series “Nurse Jackie”, Showtime has put the script for the pilot episode on the Kindle store as a free download. That’s right, free! I can see this becoming a niche reading category for fans of TV shows and movies, and a great way for studios to use the Kindle to distribute content in a new format that doesn’t compete with the main product they’re trying to sell.

You can grab a copy for your Kindle or iPhone/iPod Touch here.

The New York Times has an interesting article today about a screenwriter who self-published a short story on the Amazon Kindle store. “The Variant” is a spy-thriller that John August first tested out with a small group assembled from his Twitter followers, then slightly revised, formatted for the Kindle, and is now selling for 99 cents.

He’s found modest success with the release, I’m assuming at least in part because he has 6,000 Twitter followers and is a known screenwriter with big-league movie credits to his name. But I’m sure it’s also because the story is entertaining and well-written. (I haven’t read it yet.)

As of Friday, “The Variant” was ranked No. 69 on Amazon’s list of most popular Kindle offerings, right behind “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult.

“I’ve made about enough to buy four Kindles,” said Mr. August.

I love this idea of accomplished, professional writers self-publishing at will, on a personal schedule independent of the sales cycles of the book industry. The manuscript moves directly from the writer to the reader. While I’m sure it won’t always be the best way to distribute new works, I think it’s fascinating and exciting to see it happening now in isolated instances like this.

Download a sample of “The Variant” to your Kindle or iPhone on the official Amazon page.

So why is there so much doom and gloom, instead of excitement, from so many in the industry? The problem is one of economics, yes, but I think the real problem is a lack of imagination. Too many professionals–publishers, agents, authors, technologists, journalists, economic types (but maybe not real economists)–see ebooks and epublishing as building off of the current publishing model. Instead, they should be thinking of epublishing as disruptive. To put it another way (and to borrow/misuse terms from biology), epublishing is not the next stage in a gradual evolutionary path for the industry; instead, it’s an example of punctuated evolution–that is, the industry has been in stasis for a long time, changing little, and now is beginning to undergo a dramatic mutation to a form that’s more suitable to the new market environment. Publishing in the future will look so different as to seem like a new species, I predict.

Framing the topic like this raises a question: what will make it so dramatically different, then? How is epublishing really that different from physical publishing? If it’s truly disruptive, it had better possess some unique characteristics that have never before been seen in publishing.

That’s where I come in! As a hypothetical Future Published Author, I take a keen interest in trying to come up with new schemes to publish and sell books, so I think I can help provide some of that imaginative power for the FUD crowd that sees the future and only sees death.
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Roy Blount, Jr., president of the Authors Guild, has published an op-ed in the New York Times today that presents his organization’s argument against the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech (TTS) functionality. As you’ve probably heard by now, the Authors Guild is crying foul at the TTS capability of the new Kindle, saying it infringes on the audio rights of books, which authors negotiate separately from ebooks.

This isn’t the first time the Authors Guild has fought new technological advances. They only recently settled a lawsuit against Google to the tune of roughly US $125 million, alleging that by scanning copyrighted works from library collections, Google was violating copyright. It’s unfortunate that Google settled instead of going to trial, as the case would have likely been decided in Google’s favor and would have helped preserve fair use rights for the public.

And now, emboldened perhaps by the windfall of cash Google handed them, the guild is going after another online behemoth: Amazon. Though they’ve filed no lawsuit yet, I’m suspicious of their current saber-rattling in the media; they said they were just taking a look at the TTS functions, but today’s op-ed sounds like a pretty neatly wrapped argument that will lead to another class action lawsuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Some combination of Christmas shopping, the bad economy, and a strong desire to procrastinate has got me trawling the Amazon Kindle store for bargains lately. Here’s a list of titles I found today selling for $5 or less–as well as three more that I thought were worth highlighting, even though they edge up to the six dollar mark.

Remember, these prices can change at any time, so don’t blame me if you click through and discover Amazon (or is it the publisher?) has raised the price.

• The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure ($1.95)
  Nights in Rodanthe ($3.75)
• Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons ($3.91)
• Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! ($3.15)
• Into Thin Air ($3.75)
• The Other Boleyn Girl ($3.79)
• The Notebook ($3.99)
• Life of Pi ($4.08)
• Middlesex ($4.17)
• Beautiful Boy ($4.80)
• The Kite Runner ($4.81)
• John Adams ($4.95)
• The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? ($4.95)
• How Doctors Think ($5.45)
• The Uncommon Reader ($5.85)
• The World Is Flat (Updated and Expanded) ($6.00)

Also, be sure to check out Bees (and Books) on The Knob for occasional news on free and cheap Kindle books. I think “Karen in TN” tends to watch the Amazon Kindle blog more regularly than I do, and she highlights any bargains she finds.