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BookGorilla: A Fantastic, FREE New Resource For Finding Ebook Bargains & Freebies

Posted May 21, 2013 By Mom

I just wrote this post for the Kindle Fire on Kindle Nation Daily site, and I’m reprinting it here in full with that site’s permission because I’ve been a subscriber to this service myself since it first began, and I can personally vouch for it: it’s real, it works, and it’s totally on the up-and-up.

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BG-ICONBargain and free Kindle books are great, but it can be a pain trying to find them. You have to wade through so many books in genres you don’t care about, then work your way past all the ‘junk’ books you’ve never heard of and don’t care about. Maybe half an hour later, when you finally come across a book or two that interest you at a good price, you can’t help thinking all the time and effort you’ve spent are making the books you’ve found anything BUT a bargain.

Imagine if, instead of going through this searching drudgery, you could receive a single daily email featuring the best deals on Kindle books, books that are either completely free or at deeply discounted bargain prices, presented in a clear and informative list that’s completely personalized, and limited to the types of books YOU choose to include. Imagine you could even specify how many books should be included in your personalized listings. And what if that fantasy list wasn’t stuffed full of books you’ve never heard of, but included bestsellers by authors you know and love, with a few indie books by emerging authors of real distinction (and great reviews!) sprinkled in?

You don’t have to imagine it, because it’s no fantasy. You can go to BookGorilla right now, sign up and confirm for free, and you’ll receive your first BookGorilla email filled with ebook bargains and freebies tailored to your specific tastes tomorrow morning! An email like this:

BookGorillaSample0513

Can you really get bestsellers for prices ranging from free to $2 – $4 with BookGorilla? Absolutely. Here are just some of the authors who’ve already been featured in BookGorilla‘s first few weeks of existence:

  • Some of the greats of contemporary fiction including Jodi Picoult, John Irving, Alice Sebold, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Walker, Neil Gaiman, Anita Shreve, Barbara Kingsolver and Kate Atkinson.

  • Bestselling suspense authors including Janet Evanovich, Elisabeth Naughton, Dennis Lehane, David Baldacci, Lee Child, Kathy Reichs, Robert Crais, Jayne Ann Krentz, James Rollins, Faye Kellerman, James Lee Burke, Marcia Clark, PD James, Jeffery Deaver, Carl Hiaasen, Lisa Jackson, Lisa Scottoline, Noel Hynd and Colleen Hoover.

  • Top-shelf horror writers including Robert Crais, Stephen King, John Saul, and J.A. Konrath.

  • Bestselling motivational authors from Anthony Robbins to Thich Nhat Hanh.

  • Religious novelists from Terri Blackstock to Samantha Jillian Bayarr.

  • Bestselling romance novelists including Kathleen Brooks, Susan Mallery, Johanna Lindsey, and Julie Garwood.

  • Compelling entertainment memoirs by Sidney Poitier, Cybill Shepherd, and Greg Allman.

  • Must-read nonfiction books by Garry Wills, Dan Ariely, and Ann Rule.

  • Enduring classics by late greats from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Kurt Vonnegut Jr., from Charles Bukowski to Philip K. Dick, from Shakespeare to Arthur Conan Doyle and L. Frank Baum.

  • Stars of sci fi, historical and other genres including Anne McCaffrey, Helen Bryan, Susan Vreeland.

Of course there are a lot of different genres and categories listed there, but you decide which ones to include in your personalized bargain list. When you sign up you get to choose your personal reading preferences from the most detailed list of genres and categories anywhere. You also get to decide whether you want to see 12, 25, or 50 books in each email. (Over 86% of BookGorilla subscribers choose 25 or 50, because no matter how many you select, you’ll only get one email a day.)

Enough said? All you have to do is sign up and confirm to see for yourself how great this new, totally FREE service is. There’s no risk and no commitment; BookGorilla holds your email address and information in the strictest confidence, guarantees not to send you spam, and will never sell or provide your email address to anyone. You can also update your preferences, or even unsubscribe, at any time.

And tell your friends. Because friends don’t let friends miss out on BookGorilla ebook bargains! Click here to tweet it.

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What Are Amazon Coins?

Posted May 20, 2013 By Mom

Amazon Coins: use them to get a 4-10% discount on app and in-app purchases, or keep some on account for younger family members to use.

If you own a Kindle Fire, you may have recently received an email from Amazon stating that you’ve been awarded 500 Amazon Coins. And since the email didn’t provide any details about these coins other than to say you can use them for certain app and in-app purchases, you may have clicked through on one of the links in the email. When you saw that the link took you to a page to buy more Amazon coins you probably thought to yourself, “Well that’s not very helpful at all,” and that was pretty much the end of your little Amazon Coins adventure.

Don’t fret: as always, the Digital Media Mom is on the case!

 

What Are Amazon Coins?

Amazon Coins are a form of digital currency, or money, you can only use to buy Amazon digital content. Right now you can only use them in Amazon’s App Store or for in-app purchases, but it’s possible that if Amazon Coins become popular with customers Amazon may roll them out to other departments as well.

 

What Can You Do With Amazon Coins?

As of this writing, you can use them to buy certain apps in the Amazon App Store, or for in-app purchases (e.g., game upgrades, etc.).

 

What’s The Benefit Of Using Amazon Coins Instead Of Regular Money?

Amazon Coins have a value of basically 1 coin = 1 United States cent. So 500 coins are worth $5 toward App Store and in-app purchases. However, when you buy Amazon Coins, you pay less than their value. Depending on how many you buy at once, you are getting them for 4 – 10% off  the price of their actual value. So while you get the full purchasing value of however many coins you buy, you’re paying less for them than they’re actually worth. For example, you can buy $5 worth of Amazon Coins for $4.80; you will then be able to buy a full $5 worth of app content, but you only paid $4.80 for it.

The value of the discount increases as you buy more coins: you can get $5 worth of coins for $4.80 (4% discount), $10 worth of coins for $9.50 (5% discount),  $25 worth of coins for $23 (8% discount), $50 worth of coins for $45 (10% discount) and $100 worth of coins for $90 (10% discount).

Amazon Coins never expire, and anytime you have some on your Amazon account an option to “Spend Amazon Coins” shows up as one of your payment options for any content you’re allowed to buy with Amazon Coins. However, the purchase price that’s listed is the price BEFORE tax so if tax will be applied in your state you need to mentally calculate and include that additional cost (see Is Virtual Money Like This Ever A Good Buy, below).

 

What Are The Limitations Of Amazon Coins?

Here’s where things may get a little sticky.

While Amazon states that “thousands” of apps and in-app purchases are now eligible for purchase with Amazon Coins, not every app or in-app purchase is eligible for purchase with Amazon Coins. However, I’m sure Amazon will be doing its best to bring all app developers and vendors on board with the program, so the range of available Amazon Coin purchases is likely to keep increasing as time goes on.

Also, when you make a purchase with Amazon Coins, you must make the entire purchase with Coins—you can’t use up your coins, then indicate a different payment method if the value of your Coins isn’t enough to cover the full purchase price (including any applicable sales tax). For example, imagine you have 500 Coins and want to purchase a $4.99 app; if the transaction will also charge you sales tax (this may vary from state to state), you won’t have enough Coins to buy the app.

 

Is Virtual Money Like This Ever A Good Buy?

It depends. If you know you buy a lot of apps and in-app content, Amazon Coins can save you some money provided you are very careful about how you spend them. Your goal with any virtual money system like this is to ensure you use up the maximum amount possible, because any “change” left in your account that’s too little to make any purchases will ultimately go to waste.

For example, let’s say I buy $10 worth of Coins (1000 coins) for $9.50. Then I buy a $1.99 app; for me, the tax on that purchase would be an additional 17 cents (again, since this varies from state to state your figures may vary), so my total number of Amazon Coins spent would be 216 (199 for the app plus 17 for the tax). That means I can buy a maximum of four $1.99 apps with my Coins, for a total of 864 Amazon Coins. That would leave me with 136 Coins. If I buy another app for 99 cents, the tax adds an additional 7 cents to the price, so I’d spend 106 Coins total. That leaves me with just 30 Coins, or 30 cents worth of buying power, and there’s nothing you can buy in the app store or through in-app upgrades that costs only 30 cents.

If I never spend those last 30 coins I’m actually only getting 970 Coins worth of value for my purchase of 1000 Coins, but since I only paid $9.50 for them, using the Coins still saved me a little money. Not much money, since I only got an extra 20 cents worth of purchasing power, but it’s still more value than the cost of the Coins.

 

Where Can I Get More Information About Amazon Coins?

Click here to view Amazon’s Terms and Conditions page for Amazon Coins.

 

 

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Kindle and Kindle Fire Content Sync Issues

Posted May 17, 2013 By Mom

If you’re reading a doorstop-sized tome like this one and frequently switching between devices as you read, you’re gonna want to keep the devices synced up because otherwise, you’ll be spending a LOT of time trying to find the place where you left off each time you open the book on a different device.

I recently got a question on Facebook regarding content synchronization between devices. It seemed that since the most recent Kindle update, this lady’s Kindle books had not been synchronizing properly so that the ‘last page read’ was correct when she opened the same ebook in the Kindle Reader app on her Galaxy III Android phone. This was most likely a wifi availability issue; I gave her a detailed explanation of how content synchronization works between devices, and figured I should share that information here, too.

 

How Synchronization Across Devices Works For Amazon Content

Synchronization of Amazon content can keep all your various devices up to date on where you left off in an ebook, streaming video, streaming MP3 album, audiobook or game app. However, the way this works doesn’t seem to be understood by many people who use Amazon devices and/or apps.

Each time you exit an ebook, video, MP3 album, audiobook, game app, etc., whether you were using the content on a Kindle / Kindle Fire or on some other device via one of Amazon’s apps (e.g., Cloud Player app, Kindle Reader app, Instant Video app, etc. that can be used on Apple and Android devices, computers and other devices), your ‘placeholder’ information is sent via wifi or cell signal to the home base, on Amazon’s servers. The next time you access that same content, whether on the same device as last time or on a different device, Amazon sends the placeholder information to your current device so that you can pick up where you left off.

But placeholder information can only be sent to and from Amazon when the device you’re using has a wifi or cell connection.

 

A Real Life Example

I keep my Kindle Fire in airplane mode at all times other than when I actually need to download something, because airplane mode switches off wifi and conserves battery power.

I started reading a new ebook yesterday on my Fire; when I closed the book, my ‘last page read’ wasn’t sent to home base on Amazon’s servers because my Fire’s wifi was turned off. If I were to download and open the same book in the Kindle Reader app on my iPad right now, I know the book will open on page one, as if I’d never begun reading it at all, because Amazon never got the ‘last page read’ data from my Fire and therefore couldn’t send it to my iPad. If the home base at Amazon doesn’t have that information, Amazon can’t possibly update any of my other devices with the correct ‘last page read’.

If you own both the Kindle book and the Audible audiobook edition of American Gods, the Whispersync for Voice feature will allow you to switch back and forth between the Kindle book and the audiobook without ever losing your place—but only if a wifi connection is available to pass placeholder information back and forth from Amazon.

 

To Stay In Sync, BOTH Devices Need To Be Connected To Amazon

Imagine I’d already downloaded the ebook to both my Fire and my iPad a few days ago, then began reading it on my Fire yesterday, with my Fire’s wifi turned on. When I closed the book, the ‘last page read’ data would’ve been sent to home base at Amazon. Now imagine that I open the same book in the Kindle Reader app on my iPad, but that my iPad’s wifi is NOT turned on. Home base at Amazon may have the most recent ‘last page read’ data for the book, but so long as my iPad’s wifi is off, Amazon has no way of sending that information to the Kindle Reader app on my iPad.

 

Keeping Your Stuff In Sync While Still Conserving Battery Power

Since I generally limit my content use to my Fire, the syncing issue is more or less a NON-issue for me. But if you tend to switch from device to device and need to keep them all synched up, you can sync your content manually to keep things up to date across devices without wasting battery life.

With this method, you can still keep your device’s wifi off to conserve battery power. When you’re done with a given session of reading, watching a video or so forth, turn wifi back on and do a manual sync.

On your Kindle or Kindle Fire, you can do this from the main menu. On a Fire, use a downward swipe near the top of your carousel screen to open the main menu, where you can access both wifi and sync functions. On a monochrome Kindle, use the appropriate button or tap near the top of your screen to open the menu and access wifi and sync functions. When the sync is complete, turn wifi off again.

On other devices, open the device’s “settings” panel to turn wifi back on, then open the app menu for the app you’re currently using (e.g., Kindle Reader app, Cloud Player app, etc.) to access the manual sync function for that specific app.

One caveat: manual sync is never as fast or reliable as the automatic kind, so you may want to have all affected devices turned on and connected to wifi when you do your manual sync. That way, you can verify the placeholder information has been updated on the second (or third, or fourth, etc.) device before you turn off wifi on the first one.

 

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Kindle and Kindle Fire Ebook Reading Tips – Dictionary, Font Size

Posted May 16, 2013 By Mom

I’ve got a pretty durned good vocabulary, but there are some historical and foreign terms in this book that stymied even ME. Thank goodness for that super-convenient, instant gratification Kindle dictionary!

The Neglected Kindle Book Dictionary

Yesterday, while reading a Kindle book (Rest in Pieces – it’s quite good) on my Fire, I found myself using the Kindle dictionary function for the first time ever.

I’ve owned Kindles since the very first, black and white model came out lo those many years ago, and yet I have never ONCE taken advantage of this incredibly useful feature. What an idiot I’ve been.

Every Kindle and Kindle Fire model comes pre-loaded with a dictionary, and that dictionary is accessible from within any Kindle book you read. All you have to do is long-tap, or press and hold, on the word you want defined, and a handy little pop-up appears with the full dictionary entry for that word.

See, even though it’s part of my job to be an expert on the Kindle and Kindle Fire, and even though I knew all about the dictionary, I never used it before yesterday. I think it was because my old, print-book habits were just too deeply ingrained. If you’re like me, you’re used to the following routine when you come to an unfamiliar word in a book (ebook or hard copy):

“Hmmm…what does that mean?” Not wanting to bother hunting around for an actual, hard copy dictionary, and not even wanting to bother logging on to Dictionary.com or some other site for clarification, you decide to figure it out from context. And a lot of the time, you’re right. But you’re only right in a very general, fuzzy sort of way that hasn’t really expanded your knowledge at all.

Next time, do the long tap. If you’re an avid reader, it can change your life.

Another terrific book that’s made even MORE enjoyable when you enlarge the font and use the Kindle dictionary.

 

Forget Reading Glasses: Enlarge The Font!

THIS feature, on the other hand, is one I’ve used regularly. But it’s come to my attention that many Kindle and Fire owners DON’T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT! Oh, you poor little lambs! You have no idea what you’ve been missing.

If you’re over the age of about 35, or have spent years taxing your eyeballs by pointing them at a computer screen or tiny smartphone screen for years on end, it’s a safe bet you’re finding it increasingly difficult and annoying to read normal-sized text. Whether you’re still living in proud denial that refuses to accept the inevitability of reading glasses, or have wholeheartedly embraced them, never fear: you can change the text on your Kindle or Fire screen display to a larger size anytime you want.

Ditch the eyestrain and make your Kindle book reading experience as pleasant as possible by enlarging the font. With a Kindle book open onscreen, just tap near the top of the screen to open the Kindle book menu. One of the buttons you’ll find there shows a letter “A” in two different sizes. Tap on that button to change the font size, or even change the font (typeface) itself!

Note that this feature only works with text ebooks, not comics or graphic novels.

And don’t worry, nobody needs to know about your aging eyes. It’ll be our little secret!

 

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Your Ebook Formatting Questions Answered

Posted May 15, 2013 By Mom

Heavily formatted books like the ‘Dummies’ series will have all the same content in ebook form as they do in print, but they may not have all the same formatting, like sidebars, inset boxes of highlighted text, and so on.

Ebooks have a lot going for them, but obviously, they’re not the same as print books. Here are some common questions and answers about them.

Q. Why isn’t the ebook version formatting the same as the print book?

A. Most fancy or complex print book formatting cannot be preserved in an ebook.

With the exception of most novels, which are just paragraphs of text and some chapter headings, you won’t find an ebook with formatting identical to its print book counterpart. And even in the case of novels, the font (typeface) won’t generally be the same, either. There are several reasons for this.

1) Ebooks are created essentially the same way web pages are, and therefore ebooks can only include the same fonts and types of formatting and content you would find in a web page. There’s virtually no limit to the number and variety of fonts and text sizes one can use in a print book, but there’s definitely a limited selection of web-friendly fonts, line spacing, bulleted list options and so on.

2) Graphics, tables, charts and the like can’t be presented in an ebook the same way they would be in a print book. First, the ereader screen is generally smaller than a standard, 6×9″ trade paperback and ebook formatters must take this into account when laying out ebook content. Second, since the ereader device usually allows the person using it to re-size the text, change the screen orientation by rotating their device from portrait to landscape position, or even choose a different font, in most cases it’s impossible for the book formatter to ensure images will appear in the exact same locations, surrounded by the exact same text, as in the print book.

I say “in most cases” because there is one way around this: format every page of the ebook as an image, which removes the user’s ability to change text size or font face. But doing this introduces new challenges, and since ebook readers tend to think of their text control as one of the major benefits of using an ereader, most ebook publishers don’t do this.

300 is a Kindle graphic novel that features Kindle Panel View.

 

Q. What is Kindle Panel View?

A. Kindle Panel View is a feature intended to make comic books and graphic novels more easily readable in ebook format.

You “turn on” Kindle Panel View in a comic book or graphic novel that has this feature by tapping on the first “panel” on a given page. Doing so will zoom in on that specific panel, enlarging it and making it easier to read. From there, the usual swiping motions you’d use to turn “pages” in an ebook will move back and forth between individual panels instead of entire pages. You can exit Panel View anytime by tapping on a panel.

You can tell if a given comic book or graphic novel has Kindle Panel View by looking at its product page on Amazon. Those with Kindle Panel View will be labeled as such immediately beneath the block that lists all available formats and pricing for the book.

Illustrations are vitally important in how-to books like this one.

 

Q. Is there some way to enlarge images in ebooks?

A. It depends on the ebook and the device you’re using to read it, but generally, yes.

Ebook publishers and ereader device makers know illustrated ebooks will never catch on if the images are too small to see, so most of them have their ebooks and devices set up such that double-tapping on any image will enlarge it. I can’t guarantee this will work on EVERY image in EVERY ebook on EVERY ereader, but it works most of the time so it’s definitely worth trying if you’re struggling to view small images.

 

A Kindle book with Real Page Numbers.

 

Q. What’s the deal with “Real Page Numbers” in ebooks?

A. Real Page Numbers is a feature that publishers can choose to include in the ebook versions of books that are also available in print; it ensures that the page numbers displayed on the ebook’s “pages” will exactly match those of the print book.

This is a very useful feature in textbooks, reference books and other nonfiction books where students and teachers, or co-workers, need to be able to refer to specific passages on specific pages, regardless of whether they’re using the ebook or print book edition. It can also be useful for book clubs, who might have the same need.

With an ebook that has Real Page Numbers, changing the text size, font, or screen orientation does not alter the page numbers, which are “hard coded” to stay attached to a certain section of content—a section of content that exactly matches the corresponding page in the print edition of the book. So if you enlarge the text on page 62 of your ebook with Real Page Numbers, instead of pushing all the text that no longer fits on the page to a new page and giving that page a new ‘number’, the ereader simply maintains the page number of ’62′ on each screen-full of text until you’ve reached the end of the text that corresponds to the end of page 62 in the print book.

You can tell if a given Kindle book has Real Page Numbers by looking at its Amazon product page. The Real Page Numbers designation will appear just above the block where all available formats and pricing for the book are listed.

 

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