Amazon Kindle

Amazon’s slogan for Kindle stands ‘Buy once, read anywhere’ and it stays true to the lines. Even without a Kindle, one can download multiple books from Amazon read them anywhere. These apps sync well with the Kindle and you can read them on the go.

BBC iPlayer

The iPlayer has for long been a famous player which has incredible mobile experience but which needs a web browser. But these apps change it all! The iPlayer provides a superb and stable experience with great UI and navigation features. The iPlayer allows watching live TV and is Wi-fi only.

Spotify

The best mobile music app which gives you unlimited access to an incredibly huge library of music! The music belongs to different genres too. You can save playlists in offline mode and play them when you have a bad internet reception via 3G or Wi-fi.

Sky+

This is a superb app which can help you record TV programs so that you can watch the programs later when you want to! Futuristic app for TV lovers!

Remote

This app gives you a demo of what apps can do by accessing remotely your computer’s iTunes library. Sit where you are and play or create new playlists through this app!

Jamie’s Recipes

Jamie’s recipes is a free app which is chargeable only if you need more recipes. This is a dream app for a gourmet and a kitchen whizz. This mobile venture teaches the recipes to the users easily and succinctly with text, pictures and voice. Each individual recipe pack after the first one costs £1.79 each.

Malcolm Tucker – the Missing iPhone

This app is a cool one which teaches multimedia lessons creatively and shows how books can be used with mobile handsets.

RBS Six Nations

This is an ideal official sports app which will help you keep yourself updated with the latest scores (real-time). It also brings in live text commentary and video highlights of the game. There are some interesting statistics related to the game too.

Arsenal

Fan of the Arsenal club? All premiership clubs have their own apps and nowadays they connect with their fans through the apps. Updated team news, stats, and commentary can be seen via the app in real time. There is everything including post-match interviews which a die-hard fan could need.

TuneIn Radio

There are tens and thousands of radio stations for access through this incredible TuneIn Radio app anywhere in the world. This app makes for a seamless browsing experience and listening through it is superb!

You mention “Kate Spade” and visions of designer handbags instantly come to mind; however, she has broadened her horizons once again to now include designer style Kindle Covers. No more “nerdy”, plain, unattractive covers for Amazons newest generation e-reader. Now it’s style all the way with the Kate Spade Kindle Covers.

This isn’t the first time Kate has expanded her horizons. Starting out designing handbags based on the simple fact that she couldn’t find what SHE wanted when she shopped, she took her designing abilities long strides since those beginning days and has created quite the designer empire. While her newest product line may be the versatile Kindle covers, she has everything from handbags to jewelry, perfumes to bedding and everything in between. But she doesn’t do it alone…from the very beginning she’s held tight to her man and he’s played an important part in her life as both business and life partner.

So who is Kate Spade? Here are 10 Fun Facts

Kate Spade was born Christmas eve in 1962 as Katherine Noel Brosnahan in Kansas City, MO.

Kate Spade has been in business with her husband, Andy Spade, since January of 1993 when she decided to design sleek, utilitarian handbags she had been searching for to buy for herself for years.

Kate’s brother-in-law is the one and only comedian, David Spade – hmmm, wonder if THAT’S why her handbags are often spotted on the David Spade comedy series “Just Shoot Me”?

Kate was a former accessories editor/senior editor of accessories at Mademoiselle Magazine from 1986 to 1991.

The Kate Spade Company prides itself with “utility, wit and playful sophistication” as hallmarks of their style and creates handbags, stationery, home products, shoes, perfume and more (including the newest Kindle 6″ covers)!

Kate’s husband is the main man in charge of the “Men’s Line” of complimentary items. The men’s line is called ‘Jack Spade’ – a fictional name and compliments many of the items available in her line.

In 2007 the company was acquired by design powerhouse Liz Claiborne, becoming an American Icon with a strong backing of an established company; while using their core values and exclusive styles

Kate Spade Kindle Covers are designed with a touch of “playful sophistication” in mind… focusing, as always on color and design they also honor some of the great classics like “The Great Gatsby” and “Great Expectations”. But what makes them truly unique is the fact that they are built for protection of your Newest Generation 6″ style Kindle with knapsack like features, a strong locking mechanism that holds the Kindle in snug without fear of dropping out and includes a storage pocket. The covers are much like the rest of her line of goods, completely usable, sturdy and serve a purpose while looking designer fantastic!

She has a strong voice for women and her company has taken part in an organization called ‘Women for Women International’. The organization speaks out and helps organize women in need from many countries such as Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Rwanda and more to encompass women’s talents with the abilities of large corporations such as Kate Spade NYC to create a better life for women in these countries. By utilizing their talents and employing them in their countries, they can sustain a livelihood. In the end Kate Spade NYC provides a market for the goods and talents of the women in countries with deplorable conditions.

The couple had a daughter in 2005, Frances Beatrix Spade which is the apple of their eye. I wonder if she will be the inspiration of a new “Children’s Line” to compliment the already beloved Kate Spade styles?

You’ve just gone through the work and the excitement of completing your first book or e-book and you are ready to showcase it to the world. Now, you have to get the word out and try to get some buyers for it. This by the way, is just as strenuous if not even more so than writing the book in the first place. You will realize soon enough that you have to dig deep within yourself to market what you have created to others to make the sales. One author I know when once asked how his books managed to sell so well said. “It’s easy. Write it, put it in a place where people can buy it, and then promote the heck out of it for about 3 years.”

In this article I don’t plan to discuss the myriad of things you can do outside of the Internet to promote your creation such as book signings, getting a table at trade fairs to showcase your book and give away autographed copies, trying to get retailers to sell it (if you’ve created a bound version of it), etc. The tips provided below are written to help you get maximum publicity for your book or e-book online.

Let’s start with building your online selling strategy. Where will you put your book to sell it?

The most popular choice on the Internet is Amazon. This is a very good first step for many books, particularly e-books. Amazon owns Kindle Books, the defacto leader in E-Book marketing and distribution. The whole world has heard of Kindle and there are literally millions of Kindle Readers out there that people can use to read your e-book not to mention that Kindle book reading software is available for computers, tablets and even mobile devices – so it is very easy to distribute and make your creation accessible to others. Amazon also owns “Create Space”, a second entity that can turn your E-book into a bound book that can also be sold on Amazon-Kindle and through distributors globally. If you want to “pay-market” your book through Amazon? You can do that as well through building one of their economically priced advertising campaigns.

Going through this process also gets you an ASIN number for your book or an ISBN number for your book if you wish to go that route (needed for selling hard-copy books through Create Space but not for e-books just sold on Amazon-Kindle). You can enroll your book as well into the Kindle KDP Select program which is like an online library that people pay a monthly subscription to and you can get additional royalty payments for your book from here – based on number of pages read. You can also get promotional banners from Amazon that you can put on your website or blogsite and even send in e-mails to people to further promote your book.

Bottom line is that starting out, Amazon – Kindle has a lot to offer a new self-publisher. You can literally get your book out there in under a week and start making money from it if people purchase it.

But you will need to do further work to get your book to actually sell and start earning you revenues. Your book will get onto Amazon OK, but it has to be seen and desired in order for you to make sales. There are books that have sat there for years without any sales at all so don’t think your done once you get your book published and onto the site. You have to help the sales happen by promoting it. So below is a list of things you should also be doing yourself online to get people to your Amazon purchased page to buy your book.

• Be sure you build out your Author profiles on Amazon Central and on book review sites such as “Good Reads”. On Good Reads, also be sure to get your book into their “Listopia” program – so learn how to do that. Find other similar Author sites and get your name out there as well.
• Consider getting out an online press release on your book as well. Make sure it has back links to where people can view and purchase your book. Take a look at “Reddit” as one possible site for this.
• Promote your book on different social media platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.
• Consider building a YouTube channel and creating a promotional video for your book with linkbacks to where your book can be purchased.
• Create your own “Author” blog-site to further promote your book. Traverse the Internet to get linkbacks to your site or book through guest posting, article writing, etc.
• Get an automated e-mail marketing and autoresponder system in place and use it to help promote your book – build your e-mail subscriber lists!
• Consider getting a podcast series going on iTunes where you can have “podcast discussions” about the content of your book. FYI – Once you get some of these built, stick an image of your book in front of them and upload these to your YouTube channel as well as “Video Podcasts”.
• Keep posting and guest posting and getting yourself out there with people. The more people that know about you and your book, the better your sales will be. Build relationship bridges with other authors (EzineArticles and Good Reads are good places to do this), with book reviewers, people knowledgeable in your “book space”, etc. Get known out there.
• Build a Facebook business page for your book and put your author “Good Reads” button onto your Facebook pages that can bring people back to your Author page at GoodReads. Promote your book on Facebook using the “Boost Post” feature – this is a very economical marketing platform with great targeting capabilities.
• Be sure to get on Google+ and build out your profile there. Then, search for and join several communities relating to your topic area and also relating to other authors – become a positive content contributor to these communities.

In summary, if you can get through all the above steps for promoting your book online, you will be well on your way of starting to build the base needed to start earning revenues for your book. Best of luck to you in your writing career.

Amazon E-book Publishing will bring you to heights you have never imagined. The question is – do you want to be on top of your game? If your answer to this is “Yes” then start exploring Amazon e-book publishing. The first step you must do is to write your book, polish and finish it. Once you get your piece done, visit the Amazon site and publish your book.

Writing a book will require five simple steps:

1.) Getting Ideas. This is the first step in writing a book. The ideas or the topic you should choose are those you are interested in or those that will benefit your market.

2.) Making an Outline. This will serve as your guide in writing so this must be organized and specific. For this you need to use a simple MATRIX.

3.) Writing a Draft. When you write your draft, just let your ideas flow. Keep on writing. Do not stop at every sentence and edit. You will have all the time to edit later.

4.) Editing. This requires time. This is the chance to look for errors and improve your piece. You can actually hire publishers but if you are capable of editing your write-up then you can do so.

5.) Title and Cover. The first two things that a reader will notice are the title and cover. Make this catch their attention. Make this complete and concise.

Publishing your book is your final way to selling your book. Amazon E-book publishing is one of the most used circulation sites today. For the most part, it recommends the Kindle App.

How do you get your publishing done with Kindle?

1.) Create your own Amazon account. The details that you should fill out will be specified once you have opened Amazon.

2.) Create your own Kindle account. Once you have made your Amazon account, search for the Kindle store and apply for an account. This is easy; you just have to fill out some personal data. Your store or bank account will be asked in this page.

3.) Kindle Direct Publishing. This is where you upload your book. So go ahead and log in. Take note of the formatting and the lay out acceptable to kindle.

4.) Two Phases. The uploading process is divided into two parts: The Book Basics and the Price and Rights. All you have to do is to fill out the needed details so you finish and upload your material.

The Amazon E-book Publishing is a rapidly trending site today. This has been so because thousands of reviews and feedback have shown that lives became better by using this site. The best option for publishing at Amazon is the kindle device. It sells millions of books each year.

Be the next star. Be the next world’s top author. Publish your own book now.

eBook publishing can appear to be complex, even black magic, that only the most tech-savvy prople would attempt. However, getting your eBook published is actually more straightforward then you might think.

The key is to get your book out to as many online sellers as possible (why leave any stone unturned?) and in as many different formats as possible.

The most popular e-reading device is the Amazon Kindle, followed closely by Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch (iBook), Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony Reader, and Kobo:

The most common format is ePub (iPad, Nook, Kobo) followed closely by MOBI (Kindle), LRF (Sony) and PDF (most devices accept PDF documents).

• Amazon: Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is Amazon’s e-book publishing platform, which pays 70% royalties to authors for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (outside this range, the rate drops to 35%). Stay away from KDP Select; even though this adds your book to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library scheme, you are forced to make your book exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days. The Kindle supports Portable Document Format (PDF), Amazon’s proprietary Kindle Format (AZW), and Mobipocket (MOBI); you can convert your eBook from Word format using free software tools such as Mobipocket eBook Creator or Calibre.
• Apple: Apple’s iBookstore for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch accepts the industry standard ePub format for digital publications as well as PDF. Apple requires you have an ISBN number for your eBook if you are charging for it (free books are easier to get on the iBookstore).
• Barnes & Noble: Barnes & Noble’s PubIt platform also accepts the ePub digital publishing format as well as PDF for their Nook reader. They have set the royalty rate for authors at 65% of the sale price for titles priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (outside this range, the rate drops to 40%). B&N has set 99 cents as the lowest allowable price and $199.99 as the highest. You will need to have a US bank account to publish to B&N.
• Sony: Sony also require that your eBook has an ISBN. The Sony Reader supports both ePub and PDF formats. You can’t publish direct to Sony, unfortunately – you must go through an aggregator like Smashwords or Author Solutions, which means that your royalties drop to 60%.
• Kobo: Kobo Writing Life allows authors to publish their eBooks in ePub format. You will need to get an ISBN number for your eBook. You will receive 70% royalties for eBooks priced between $1.99 to $12.99 – outside that range, the royalties drop to 45%.
• Aggregators: Another choice is to use an “aggregator”, which is a company that takes care of converting your book into the correct format for the respective devices and pushing the eBook out to one or more of the above distributors (for a small fee, of course). Look at companies like Smashwords (arguably one of the best), Lulu, eBookIt, Bookbaby, Booktango, amongst others. Smashwords have their own online book store, and will also push your book out to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, the Diesel eBook Store and a few smaller stores (they don’t push to Amazon yet). They pay 60% of the sale price to the author, keeping 10% for themselves.

There are a small number of dominant online eBook distributors, and with a little dedication you should be able to publish your eBook to them all.

Is Amazon KDP the newest millionaire's nook? Reports have shown that 30% of today's millionaires are authors of Kindle. This news has made many curious individuals try their luck at the site. Amazon KDP or Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the fastest and easiest way to sell books to Kindle subscribers over the world. Not only will this offer easy access to your readers but it will also give publishers and authors control over their masterpiece and publish them.

You can self-publish your books through Amazon KDP. It's a free, fast and easy registration. All you have to do is to go their site and sign up.

What is Amazon KDP?

This is an app which will allow you to self-publish your book. Publishing in this site takes less than five minutes and within 24 hours, your book will be available worldwide. With this, you can keep control of your rights and choose a price for your book. More so, you can make improvements of your material any time you want.

How can you publish?

The first step in publishing is to complete your account profile and then have a book that follows the required format. Kindle also offers a simplified guide for your building your book at their Simplified Guide available at the site.

The second step is to log in to your account and click on bookshelf. You click on the new Title Checklist and then go to create a new title.

The third step is for you to finish Your book , the rights and the pricing.

The fourth step is to click on publish . After doing so, work on the following: Title Information, Upload and Preview Book Content, Confirm Publishing Rights and enter price and Royalty Information.

The fifth step that you have to do is to click on the check box to verify if you have completed all the details and rights required for publishing. Click on Save and Publish and your book will be submitted to Kindle store.

If you wish to make changes of your book, you can do so. The changes will appear at amazon after 48 hours.

Amazon KDP is the way to go for self-publishing. So take your chance, write your quality book now and be the next millionaire.

It is also best to review your feedback and reviews after you have published your first book. In this way, you will be able to improve and be better on your next volume.

What Christmas Gifts for Men are the MOST Popular this Year?

According to AskMen.com, the following Christmas Gifts for Men 2010, are argued to be the Top 3 Hippest Gadgets and most in demand products selling this year, predicting them to be top the rankings in online sales over the coming months.

Electronic Products:

The three most popular electronic gadgets for men this year will potentially be the Kindle DX, Bushnell’s LCD Digital Camera Binoculars and the Panasonic Portable DVD player.

For a quick over view, let’s see what they essentially have to offer.

1 – The Kindle DX

The Kindle DX is selling like hot cakes and Amazon is taking no shame about blatantly promoting it on their website along with all other Kindles.

The Kindle DX is argued to be the DADDY of Kindle’s range of portable reading devices.

Pro’s:

Perfect for reading large documents like newspapers, magazines, pdf’s etc. This is its strength. It’s size.

Could potentially dictate how students conduct there studies as the all round benefits that can be had for educational purposes are outstanding.

Con’s:

Only black and white; no memory card slot so unable to increase size and the fact that everything’s grouped together in the menu is frustrating. Future upgrades should definitely fix this as the ability to not file pdf’s, images, word docs etc into their own specific department is annoying.

2 – Bushnell’s LCD Digital Camera

Not quite sure why these top men’s websites are including this as user reviews aren’t particularly that favourable.

Anyhow, in terms of a gadget, it’s a pretty sweet piece of kit, allowing you to not just bird watch or zoom in to sports matches but film them at the same time.

Pro’s:

The optics of the binoculars are described by some people who have purchased this on Amazon as absolutely amazing. Potentially worth the price they paid for it alone.

Additionally it’s also slim and very portable.

You can also add extra memory (which is a given now of course), but you will need it as internal memory is only 16mb – at high resolution when filming that won’t last more than 90 seconds.

Con’s:

Only 2.1 Mega Pixel. You would have to set it to high resolution to get quality from it.

Parts of the camera are argued to be quite light weight.

If your eyes are set narrowly apart this is not for you. Due to the camera and the LCD in the middle you may not be able sink your eyes into the eye-cups so no good for kids either.

3 – Panasonic LA-95 Portable DVD player

This is perfect for keeping the kids quiet on long journeys or yourself occupied on those long haul flights or back-packing bus journeys.

Pro’s:

It’s size. The LA95 is an upgrade of the LV-75 and packs a powerful punch for visual and audio quality.

The Battery will last a good 2.5 for film and much more if it’s just audio etc.

Con’s:

The price. Bit steep at around $400. The LV-75 is still argued to be an engineering marvel and is somewhat cheaper if a little smaller. The pixel count for both is the same, so you essentially get the same quality.

There are many ways to get quality free ebooks, it's just a matter of finding the right places. So here's a strategy for finding the best websites for you. Firstly try the Kindle store which has the largest free ebooks selection. You go to Amazon and then go to the kindle store. Type in free books in the search box and you should get a choice of three options. Choose the free kindle book option and then choose the free kindle book list and you will get a list of all the free titles that are available. The kindle store has a wide range of titles some are new and some are not as new. They do have fiction as well as non fiction from best selling authors so there's definitely plenty of books to read. You can read those free books even if you don't have a kindle by downloading the free kindle app for your pc if your curious about ebooks and would like to give it a try this is the best place to start because it's completely free. One note of caution though it won't give you the experience of reading on a ereader device like the kindle but it will help you become familiar with them. You can do the same with Barnes & Noble by going to their website and downloading their free app. Then click ebooks and go to the left sidebar under Customer Favorites and click free ebooks.

There's also literally millions of free ebooks available that are part of the public domain with expired copyrights. They're mostly classics from famous authors and if that's what your looking for you will have enough books to keep you busy for the rest of your life. If you're a student this will be extremely valuable for you because you can conduct research from many different sources without having to lug tons of books around with you. The best place to start with would be project Gutenberg because they have the biggest selection available. You can search by title or by author and you have a choice of what type of format you wish to read them in. For the kindle you simply choose the kindle format and if you choose to read on your PC you can select html and read it in your web browser. For the nook and most other reading devices that support the epub format you have to choose the epub format. If your having trouble with this particular format you can use a software to change it over to pdf format which is supported by most devices (the only kindle that supports pdf's is the kindle DX). You can Google free ebooks and the first five websites to come up are usually the best places to go like Free-ebooks.net and getfreeebooks.com to name a few.

There are dozens of other websites that offer free ebooks that are classics the majority of them are in the pdf format so they should work well with most devices. If you are using any of the Apple devices such as the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch you have by far the largest selection. You have access to the free ebooks from the ibookstore and you have access to the free ebooks from the kindle store through the free kindle app for the iPad and iPhone. The same goes for the free ebooks from Barnes & Noble through their free apps for the nook as well as the free app for borders gives you access to their free ebooks for the kobo ereader.

Well in short whichever device you own there's plenty of free ebooks available to keep you busy for a long time. So just sit back kick off your shoes and start reading.

Many readers and authors would laugh if I announced, “My book has broken into the Top 80,000 best-selling books at Amazon.com.” Yet that’s what I did. I also updated that announcement three weeks later when my book fell to 278,000 and then broke into the Top 10,000. You see, my ranking began at 950,000 – and I like progress.

Read on if you care to learn why these rankings matter for indie fiction and non-fiction authors, as well as business people who know they have a book (or article) in them but are too busy to take the leap.

The Amazon Kindle Select program fueled my rise (and fall and then rise). As a member I am allowed five giveaway days every three months. This promotion tool allows an author of articles and books to get some much-needed attention – if the author does some simple promotion.

You may wonder, why give away a book for free? Free is the new windfall. By sharing your article or book for free, you have the potential to achieve significant downloads. If you do this well, the Amazon system will be very pleased and begin improving your book ranking – even though no actual sales have occurred. Yet sales eventually will occur. More on that later.

In June of 2012, my first free day netted 209 downloads. I was thrilled because a writing colleague had told me that even 100 downloads can be significant.

In July of 2012 my second free day netted 5,376 downloads. I was stunned. My ranking soared from about 275,000 to as low as 9,950. How did it happen? I’ll tell you. But first…

Think about it. You are a new author, or you have a new business or acting or singing career and you need a boost. You create a Kindle Select article – a fairly short piece – or short book. It must be…

• fun to read
• informative
• biographical and/or insightful.

But it can also include contact info and promotions for your product, service or expertise. How do 5,376 new fans sound?

HOW TO MANAGE A FREE DAY W/ KINDLE SELECT

As of July 3, 2012 my Amazon ranking for my new title is about 17,000. I guarantee my rank will continue to drop, until I can generate more sales and promote another free day. And yet for a couple days I was ranked in the Top 100 in three categories.

If you can get Amazon to pay attention – “Attention must be paid,” said the wife of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s classic play “Death of a Salesman” – you will be rewarded.

When I planned my second free day, I knew I would need help. This is how I got it.

First, I found a list of blogs that announce free Kindle books. Some are free, others charge a small fee.

My Twitter following was only about 500, so I hired Book Tweeting Service. For a modest fee, three days before my free Kindle Select day they began to Tweet promos that I wrote – with their help – that included links to Amazon, of course, and hashtags, such as #FREE #BOOK and #Kindle, etc.

I also purchased a “free alert” from Orangeberry Virtual Book Tours. They Tweeted my message all day long. Dedication is worth paying for.

I re-tweeted (RT) all the above Tweets as I saw them, and added replies and thank yous with my link.

I remained engaged online from 7 AM to 10 PM on the free day, with breaks, of course, and created new tweets as needed, which BTS and Orangeberry kindly RT’d.

Also, since I could tell I was doing fairly well in the United Kingdom, as their 24-hour free day was coming to a close, I featured tweets that reminded those readers to “get it quick.” Afterwards, I concentrated only on the United States.

How much did all the help cost? $180.98. In the hours following the free day, a trickle of sales — readers who missed the free day? — quickly returned $54. More sales will follow, so the outlay is a no-brainer.

MORE TIPS FOR KINDLE EBOOK RANK

Since I created the short links for my Tweets at bit.ly, that site’s statistics told me which link was most popular. Naturally, I kept pushing that link.

Also, the music theme of my book provided an obvious audience. So before the free Kindle Select day, I grew my Twitter account by engaging that niche and a couple others. In short, authors must define their audience – and then engage them.

By the way, throughout the day I met some wonderful people who showed an interest in my project, so I was more than happy to RT their announcements and ideas. A sense of community and sharing developed, and it was very nice. I don’t care to compete with other writers. It is better to encourage them.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to inform book lovers of their options. For example, I wrote blog posts that revealed a Kindle device is not needed to get a free copy of a Kindle ebook: Just download free Kindle software. In the posts, I advised readers to Google “Free Kindle” for apps and other information. And I provided links for PC and Mac users. Make it easy.

But what about sales? Some authors merely post their book and it takes off. Why? I don’t know. Karma? Or maybe their book falls into a very clear genre. Millions of others get nowhere, and this is particularly true of non-genre fiction. Suffice it to say, if you want your beautiful book or article to get some attention, you must get in front of it and promote! Don’t be shy.

Kindle Select free days – if well managed – can get you some attention. As you improve your rank, Amazon begins including your title in simple promotions with other titles. This adds fuel to the fire. But…

As I said before, my rank will drop until I find new ways of engaging my readers and audience. The ups and downs are like an ocean tide: forward movement, retreat; forward movement… and so on. In other words, marketing never stops.

But that’s okay, because wishing and hoping rarely works. And it is exciting to your book rise and shine.

The oldest digital library, Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971. The first digitized work created by Project Gutenberg, was the Declaration Of Independence. Project Gutenberg is still going strong today with over 100,000 titles and 30,000 available for free.

Digitized books were great, but they had to be read on a computer. Then in 1998 the first portable eBook readers were introduced. The soft book reader and the Rocket eBook were the pioneers in portable eBook reading.

Gemstar purchased the rights to both of these eBook readers and even promoted their version on Oprah. But with limited book selection, clashing formats, and high prices even Oprah was unable to usher in the dawn of the earliest eBook readers.

In 1999 Franklin introduced the eBookman which also had a PDA function and could play and record sounds.

Philips also created an eBook reader which pioneered the use of e ink electronic paper. In 2006 Sony introduced their first eBook reader, the Sony Reader which featured e ink. Sony also has it's own eBook store.

With a sophisticated portable device and available eBooks, portable eBook readers are starting to catch on and becoming a viable option. The following year in 2007 Amazon launched the Kindle in the US.

What made the Kindle revolutionary was that it had built in wireless called whispernet, and was backed by the large eBook selection of the Amazon store. Plus, with click of a button you could purchase and download an eBook in 60 seconds. Because your Amazon Kindle was linked to your Amazon account, you did not have to mess with payments and credit cards.

Another nice feature of the Kindle is that you can download the beginning of any kindle eBook free of charge. So there is no excuse, for purchasing a book, you don't actually want to read.

In October of 2008, the Kindle got a bit of a kick in the pants, when Jeff Bezos appeared on Oprah, with the Kindle. Oprah claimed the Kindle was her new favorite gadget and kindles were given to the audience.

After the Oprah show, the Kindle was sold out, and remained out of stock, and on back order until the introduction of the Kindle 2 in 2009. The Kindle 2 was an improvement on the first Kindle, it was a little more stylish looking, and had more vivid text and better storage and battery capacity.

Months later Amazon introduced the Kindle DX which is similar to the Kindle 2. The DX is larger, and has a better resolution, increased memory and battery capacity, and it can read native PDF files. Also, the screen can rotate from portrait to landscape view, which makes viewing charts and graphics easier.

Rumor has it, that the new large screen Kindle, will lead the way into the textbook market for the Kindle. Imagine saving money on textbooks, carrying everything around in one lightweight device, and no more long bookstore lines.

IRex also makes a large screen digital reader, it costs about 400 $ more than the Kindle DX and it has a touch screen you can mark up with a digital pen.

Where there is a market there is competition. As digital readers evolve they will become more ubiquitous, think iPod. Currently, most eBook readers are still for early adopters. Although, there have been some informal studies showing that the Kindle demographic is an older crowd.

This could be because older folks like to read more, or they have more time and disposable income. Some even speculate it's because of the adjustable text size on the Kindle. No glasses no problem.

Whatever the reason may be, as available books and functionality increase, while at the same time prices drop, a tipping point will be reached. And having an eBook reader will be as common as having an iPod or a cell phone.