The following message from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introducing a third generation of Kindle was posted on Amazon.com’s home page  today. PC World described the device as “the most enticing Kindle yet.” Click here for PC World’s review.

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Dear Customers, I believe in the transformative power of reading—the ability of an author to transport you to new worlds, introduce you to new people, and even alter your perspective. Reading is important. Reading is why we build Kindles. Reading is why millions of people use Kindles.

Today, we’re excited to introduce a new, third generation of Kindle. We kept everything readers love about Kindle and made it even better.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Books in 60 Seconds: Think of a book and start reading it in 60 seconds. Kindle uses the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones. But unlike cell phones, there are no monthly bills and no annual contracts
• All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen: 50% better contrast than any other e-reader
• Read Even in Bright Sunlight: No glare
• New Sleek Design: 21% smaller body with same 6” size reading area
• 15% Lighter: Only 8.7 ounces, read comfortably for hours with just one hand
• Battery Life of One Month: A single charge lasts up to one month
• Double the Storage: Carry up to 3,500 books wherever you go
• Buy Once, Read Everywhere: Read your Kindle books on all your devices
• Worry-Free Archive: Delete with abandon. We automatically keep an archival copy of your Kindle books—re-download for free, anytime
• Global 3G Wireless: At home or abroad, wireless works in over 100 countries
• Built-In Wi-Fi: In addition to the 3G wireless, you can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots

This latest generation Kindle is $189—you can pre-order now, and it will ship on August 27.

That’s half the news. We’re also excited to introduce a new Kindle family member—Kindle with Wi-Fi only. Kindle Wi-Fi is only $139. Kindle Wi-Fi is identical to our new $189 Kindle, except it doesn’t have our go-anywhere 3G wireless. If you’re going to use your Kindle primarily in locations where you have access to a Wi-Fi hotspot–like at home–then Kindle Wi-Fi is a good choice. At $139, we expect many people will buy multiple Kindles for the home and family.

You can pre-order the $139 Kindle Wi-Fi now, and it will ship on August 27.

Both new generation Kindles have access to the same Kindle Store with the largest selection of books people want to read—over 630,000 titles including 109 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers, plus top newspapers and magazines. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 80 of the New York Times Best Sellers. Our vision is to have every book, ever written, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds.

Readers have made Kindle the #1 bestselling, most-gifted, most-wished-for product on Amazon for two years running. Kindle also has the most five-star reviews of any product on Amazon. We’re excited and energized by this reception. We hope you enjoy our most advanced Kindles yet.

Thank you for being a customer.

(signed) Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO

This is the text of an Authors Guild release posted on July 26 2010. For background see Will Random House Chicken Out Again?

We don’t know the details of the Odyssey-Amazon agreement, but we can make some informed guesses. The agreement is most likely under the agency model, with Amazon paying Odyssey 70% of the retail price of the books. Wylie and Odyssey are together taking a typical agent’s commission as compensation: 10 or 15% of the 70% received from Amazon. In round figures, this means that the author receives 60 to 63% of the retail price of the book.

For comparison, a typical contract with a traditional publisher pays e-book royalties of 25% of net proceeds. If the e-book is sold under the agency model, the author’s share is 25% of 70%, or 17.5% of the retail price of the book. After the agent’s commission, the author receives roughly 15 to 16% of the retail price of the book.

For a $9.99 book under the Odyssey-Amazon agreement, the author would receive royalties of $5.94 to $6.29 per book, net of all commissions. For a $9.99 e-book under a typical contract with a traditional publisher sold under the agency model, the author would receive royalties of $1.49 to $1.57, net of all commissions. The difference is about $4.50 per unit, a 300% increase in author income.

Can you be sued for posting a bad review? It not only happened in England, but triggered a delicious scandal as well, one involving a distinguished historian, his barrister wife, a couple of historian rivals, Josef Stalin and amazon.co.uk.

In the eye of the storm is historian Orlando Figes, who anonymously posted on amazon hatchet jobs on two books by historians working in the same academic discipline as Figes, modern Russian history.

He described one book as ”dense” and ”pretentious” and ”the sort of book that makes you wonder why it was ever published”. The other book he termed “awful.”  He did however heap praise on one book, The Whisperers: Private life in Stalin’s Russia. The author of The Whisperers was…himself.

As the identity of the hatchet-wielder began to focus on Figes, his wife – a barrister and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge – initially claimed that she herself had written the reviews. As the spotlight shifted to Figes himself he started rattling the sword of litigation at the press and academic colleagues to scare them off the trail. The ploy did not work. Now he is not only dining on humble pie but will pay damages and costs to the author victims of his nasty reviews.

The question nags: what exactly did Figes do that was wrong? He was nasty, mean-spirited, petty, jealous, truculent and craven (he blamed his conduct on depression caused by “immersion in Stalin’s crimes while researching his book,” said one report). Now, we are not lawyers – solicitors as they call them in England – but as ugly as Figes’ transgressions are, none of them is illegal as far as we know.  Indeed, if all the malicious anonymous reviewers were sued for libel our court system would break under the weight of ligitation.

Obviously the laws in UK are different from America’s. We know this to be true in the matter of “libel tourism” about which we have written here. (See Can’t Sue for Libel in US?  Take Your Beef to Britain, Libel Capital of the World.) The issue seems to be anonymous malice (is there a lawyer in the house to help us out?) The charges can be inferred by the apologies he made to the authors and pledges that Figes made to the court: “He also gave an undertaking not to repeat the allegations, not to post pseudonymous reviews of their works, and not to use fraud, subterfuge or unlawful means to attack or damage [the authors] in their professional capacity.”

Whatever law was invoked, Figes was required to pay damages plus legal costs.

In the absence of a solid legal opinion we can only draw this moral from the shabby case of Orlando Figes: If you’re going to be malicious, do it under your real name.

For further details read Orlando Figes agrees to pay damages over negative Amazon reviews and The TLS, Orlando Figes and the law

Richard Curtis

Whatever the common impression may be, literary agents take no pleasure whatever in rejecting books. Nor does our skin get thicker the longer we do it. Nathan Bransford, an agent, author and blogger expresses his distaste articulately:

“Every day I have to pass on the life’s work of cancer survivors and abuse victims and war heroes and many more people who spent hours upon hours of their life writing a novel in the faint hope that it would someday find publication. I don’t enjoy sending these rejection letters, and I never forget that on the other end of the letter there’s a person out there whose day I’m probably ruining and whose dreams I’m chipping away at.”

Until the digital era most of those rejected authors would have put their books in a drawer.  Or perhaps a few who could afford it arranged for a vanity press to publish them for many thousands of dollars. That all changed with the advent of digital technology. Today those rejectees are able to produce handsome e-book and print on demand editions for next to nothing. And agent Bransford says that should be music to the ears of every agent. Why?

For one thing, it eases our conscience, shifting the crushing burden of judgment from the shoulders of the few – agents, editor, critics and other so-called gatekeepers – to the larger public. But it’s even bigger than that, for this new way of evaluating literary quality symptomizes the emerging paradigm of proleterianism replacing the elitist value system that has dominated literature for centuries.  Bransford describes the process as “The Print Funnel.”

“What’s changing” he writes, “is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up. Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a trickle of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?”

Okay, maybe no harm.  But what about good? Do we care what the masses think are good books? Will their opinion influence us?

Before you answer, take your trusty Zagat restaurant guide down from the shelf.  On whose recommendation do you decide where you’re going to dine? The fact is, Zagat’s restaurant reviewers are your anonymous next-door neighbors. They are anybodies; they are nobodies.  But when they give a restaurant’s food, service and ambiance a high rating, you say “Let’s go!

Still looking down your nose at the masses? Perhaps a visit to Amazon.com will change your mind. Amazon boasts a cadre of reviewers who regularly cover specific genres. If you read enough coverage by the same reviewer you may conclude that this person’s judgment is reliable and enlightening and may actually motivate you to buy a book. (See Do Amazon Reviews Count?)

Amazon.com reviews are Bransford’s inverted funnel at work. We think he’s onto something.  Read The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence (And Why This is a Good Thing) and judge for yourself.

Richard Curtis

Qu'est-ce que c'est? C'est Amazon Patent No. 7,748,634 B1

Okay, e-reader mavens, it’s time to play Name That Device. Here’s a description of a popular one:

A handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; an electronic paper display disposed in the housing and having a first surface area; and a liquid crystal display (LCD) disposed in the housing proximate the electronic paper display, the LCD having a second surface area that is smaller than the first surface area of the electronic paper display.

Sounds like Barnes & Noble’s Nook, right?

Wrong. It’s a description of a patent applied for by Amazon in 2006, a patent that Amazon never published – until now. And the United States Patent and Trademark Office has just granted the patent to Amazon!

Nilay Patel writing in Engadget calls the revelation “Juicy.”  It could be a lot more than that if Amazon decides to file an infringement claim against B&N.

Patel reminds us that “Barnes & Noble is already involved in a trade secret dispute over the Nook with Spring Design, which claims that B&N saw its Alex reader under NDA [Non-Disclosure Agreement] and then copied it for the Nook.” That case is still pending. (See Who is Alex and Why Is He Suing the Nook People?)

B&N’s patent attorneys are going to have their hands full in the coming months.

Richard Curtis

Amazon has announced that it will pay a 70% royalty to content providers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to upload e-books.

Up to now the Kindle  royalty has been pegged at approximately 50% of the publisher’s list price, but Amazon may be responding to the pressure generated by its major rivals Apple and Google, which have publicly stated royalties of 70% and 63% respectively. The move also appears to be tied to speculation that Amazon is withdrawing support for its wholly owned e-book platform Mobipocket (see Is Mobi a Dying Whale?). For years Mobi has served as the go-to place for publishers to upload files destined for the Kindle, but with the Kindle DTP program Amazon is clearly going in another direction.

Royalty? 70%.  But…of What?

At first glance the new 70% royalty would appear to be a no-brainer for  publishers and authors, 70% being more than 50%, right?  Well… not so fast.

For one thing, you are prohibited from charging more than $9.99 for your e-book. Commitment to Kindle’s DTP price structure will preclude content providers – such as the five major publishers that signed agreements with Apple – from selling their e-books on the iPad at Apple’s suggested retail prices of $12.99 to $14.99.

For another thing, the 70% royalty is calculated not on the publisher’s list price but on the actual price charged by Amazon.  If your book’s list price is $9.99 and Amazon charges customers $9.99, then yes, you’ll make out well with a royalty of $6.99.  However, if Amazon offers your book at $4.99 your 70% royalty will be $3.49. And the deeper that Amazon discounts the book’s price the lower your royalty goes.

How deeply could Amazon discount your book?  If there were a price war the list price could go very low indeed.  Could there be an e-book price war? Recently Barnes & Noble discounted the list prices of many books to as low as $3.21.  If Amazon matched that price, your 70% royalty would be $2.25. And with new retailers coming into the business, the prospects for price-cutting are not insignificant.

Playing It Safe with 35% of List Price

If you don’t have the stomach for that kind of roller coaster ride or have better things to do than track your book’s list price on the Kindle Store daily – and if you’re a publisher you could be tracking hundreds or thousands of them – Amazon offers you an alternative: a straight and unvarying 35% royalty based on the list price of your book.  For a $9.99 book that means a $3.50 royalty. No matter how low the Kindle price for your book goes, you’ll still get that $3.50.

Playing the Royalty Game

For gamblers who like playing the ends against the middle, Kindle permits content providers to switch from the 70% net royalty to the 35% list price royalty, something you might want to do if your books are caught in a price war. The new royalty will kick in within 48 hours from the time you issue the command, according to Amazon’s pricing page. How easy it will be for large publishers to switch over from one mode to another, we can’t say. If it means manually clicking on hundreds and hundreds of titles, that will be a problem. If e-book prices go back up again you can switch back to 70%, and switch back and forth as often as you want. On the other hand, if you want to speculate in futures it might be easier to day-trade pork bellies.

Another thing you need to know is that the 70% royalty applies only to US sales.  Royalties for non-US sales such as the UK are calculated at 35% of list price with no other option.

Mega-Bite Out of Your Royalties

But there’s more:  Amazon will now charge content providers for delivering e-books to customers, a little like airlines charging fliers for luggage. The charge is fifteen cents per megabyte but no less than one penny. We at E-Reads have measured the file size of our e-books and determined that a typical book is about 2 megabytes: a large one might be 3 MB. That translates to $.30 and $.45 respectively and it comes off the top. On a $9.99 title sold at 70% discount, that’s a levy of somewhere between 3% and 4 1/2% for a book of average length.  But if the list price is heavily discounted, as in the example above where your royalty is $2.25, Amazon’s bite on your pay check will be roughly between 7% and 11%.

We’re not aware of other retailers charging for delivery of content, but the prospect of Amazon’s rivals picking up on the practice should be of concern to all content providers.

There are some other significant restrictions and conditions which you can – and should – read here.

If you’re a gambler who likes action and want to play the odds, the new Kindle royalty structure is your game.  If you’re an author or publisher, you could make out very well if list prices stay high. But you could also take a bath if there’s a price war.  You may decide to opt for the safe, straight 35% of list price. But bear in mind that that’s 30% less than the 50% that Amazon was paying you before The Great Change. If you add the delivery charge the net proceeds to you are even smaller.

To read Amazon’s announcement in its entirety, click here.

Richard Curtis

Pricing Page

1. Royalty Options. Subject to the limitations set forth in this Pricing Page, for each Digital Book, you may choose, in accordance with our then-current procedures, either the 35% Royalty Option or the 70% Royalty Option, each described below.

a. 35% Royalty Option.

i. The Royalty for the Digital Book will be equal to 35% of the applicable List Price for the Digital Book.

ii. For any Digital Book for which you select the 35% Royalty Option, at all times that the Digital Book is available for sale through the Program, you must adjust the List Price as required to ensure that the List Price, plus any applicable VAT, does not exceed the lowest of: (a) the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book; (b) the lowest price at which you list or offer any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; and (c) any maximum List Price we provide from time to time in the Program Policies.

b. 70% Royalty Option.

i. The 70% Royalty Option is only applicable to sales to United States customers, so if you choose this option, the Royalty on sales to non-United States customers will be as provided under the 35% Royalty Option.

ii. The Royalty will be equal to 70% of the amount equal to the applicable List Price for the Digital Book less the Delivery Costs (as defined below) for the Digital Book. But if we sell the Digital Book at a price below the List Price to match the price at which a third party sells any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book or to match the price at which we sell any physical edition of the Digital Book, the Royalty will be equal to 70% of the amount equal to the price at which we sell the Digital Book less the Delivery Costs for the Digital Book. Our determinations regarding price-matching are final and non-reviewable. If you object to our price-matching determination with regard to one of your books, your sole and exclusive remedy is to switch your Royalty option for future sales of the Digital Book to the 35% Royalty Option as described below.

iii. The Delivery Costs for a Digital Book will be equal to $0.15 multiplied by our determination of the number of megabytes your Digital Book file contains, once uploaded by you and converted by us into our then-current Digital Book format. One megabyte equals 1024 kilobytes. One kilobyte equals 1024 bytes. We will round file sizes up to the nearest kilobyte. The minimum Delivery Cost for a Digital Book will be $0.01 regardless of file size.

iv. Example: If your book has a file size of 0.400 megabytes and a List Price of $8.99, the Delivery Cost will be $0.06 (0.400 MB x $0.15 = $0.06), and your Royalty will be $6.25 (($8.99 – $0.06) x 70% = $6.25).

v. For any Digital Book for which you select the 70% Royalty Option, at all times that the Digital Book is available for sale through the Program, you must adjust the List Price as required to ensure that the List Price does not exceed the lowest of: (a) the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any digital edition of the Digital Book; (b) the lowest price at which you list or offer any digital edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; (c) 20% below the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any physical edition of the Digital Book; (d) 20% below the lowest price at which you list or offer any physical edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; and (e) any maximum List Price we provide from time to time in the Program Policies.

vi. The 70% Royalty Option is not available for Digital Books that consist primarily of public domain content, and by selecting the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book, you confirm that it does not consist primarily of public domain content. If you select the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book that we determine consists primarily of public domain content, we will be entitled to change the Digital Book to the 35% Royalty Option retroactively and to pay you Royalties and adjust your previously reported or paid Royalties based on the 35% Royalty Option.

vii. If you select the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book, you must make it available to us for distribution in each territory for which you have appropriate distribution rights, and you must comply with any other restrictions or requirements we may provide from time to time for the 70% Royalty Option in the Program Policies.

viii. If at any time your Digital Book does not meet the requirements for the 70% Royalty Option, the Royalty for the Digital Book will be as provided in the 35% Royalty Option.

ix. Any new feature incorporated into the Program will apply to all Digital Books distributed under the 70% Option even if we make the feature optional for other Digital Books.

2. Changing your Royalty Option. You may change your choice of Royalty option for future sales of a Digital Book at any time through our then-current procedures. It may take up to 48 hours for your change to be effective.

3. List Price Requirements. To be accepted in the Program, your Digital Book’s List Price must meet the List Price requirements.

SEATTLE, Jun 30, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that the 70 percent royalty option that enables authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell is now available. For each book sold from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Android phones, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of the list price, net of delivery costs.

Delivery costs are based on file size, and pricing is set at $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. This new option, first announced in January 2010, will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.

In addition to the 70 percent royalty option, Amazon also announced improvements in DTP such as a more intuitive “Bookshelf” feature and a simplified two-step process for publishing. These features make it more convenient for authors and publishers to publish using DTP.

“We’re excited about the launch of the 70 percent royalty option and user experience enhancements in DTP because they enable authors and publishers to conveniently offer more content to Kindle customers and to make more money from the books they sell,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.

DTP authors and publishers are now able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:

* The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99.
* The list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest list price for the physical book.
* The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights.
* The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
* Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices.

The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books). The 70 percent royalty option is currently only available for books sold to United States customers.

DTP is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com or e-mail dtp-support@amazon.com.

Kindle is in stock and available for immediate shipment today at http://www.amazon.com/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.deb,www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and www.amazon.cn. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc.

Oops. We meant Mobi, not Moby

Mobipocket is a cross-platform e-book format developed by a French team at the dawn of the e-book revolution.  It was the earliest attempt to make a one-size-fits-all program and for years the most successful.  Then Amazon acquired it and reversed its polarity, turning it from a universal format to an exclusive closed system. That system became the Kindle. E-book publishers wanting to convert files for the Kindle use a variant of Mobi called eBookBase.

According to Diesel founders Scott Redford and Kelley Allen. you can kiss your eBookBase goodbye. “Last month,” they report on the Diesel website, ” eBookBase informed their client base that they had no current or future intentions of renewing their contracts with the Agency Five (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster) and that they were pulling all A5 books off our site.”

Redford and Allen have looked at some other examples of a fading MobiPocket presence and wonder Are We Witnessing the Slow, Agonizing Death of Mobipocket?

It makes sense to us. A whole new suite of tools has burgeoned since the program was introduced and it just may be that the time has come to deep-six Mobi. Au revoir, cher ami!

Richard Curtis

Nook for $149.00. Next: $99.00? And why stop there?

The back page of today’s (June 22 2010) New York Times news section carries a full page ad for Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book reader. The price is $149.00 for a Wi-Fi only version.  But the price of the original model introduced a year ago also dropped from $259.00 to $199.00 according to the Times’s Brad Stone. In response Amazon cut its undercut its rival, dropping the Kindle price to $189.00.

Is this the start of a price war or an adjustment that has bottomed out?  And why are prices dropping in response to the success of Apple’s iPad selling at almost three times the cost of its Amazon and B&N rivals?  Read In Price War, E-Readers Go Below $200 for some insights.

Stone quotes B&N’s CEO William J. Lynch as predicting that within a year the cost of a device will drop below $100.00, the fabled threshold below which appliances become as commonplace as pencils.  But why would prices stop there?  We have long urged the industry to consider adopting the so-called Gillette Razor model: give the device away and charge for the content. (See King Gillette and the Kindle)

A free e-reader?  As of today, we’re only $149.00 away.

Richard Curtis