Kevin Kaiser

First of all, if this post is a tad short please forgive me. I’ve got a nasty 2nd degree burn on my index finger and thumb, so typing is a bit of a challenge. Apparently, roasted marshmallow Peeps are as hot as lava right off the stick. Lesson learned at a friend’s house tonight as we were standing around the camp fire. So, note to self. Audio note, preferably. Wow, never realized how often I type the letters “T” and “R”. Ouch.

Now onto the business of eBooks and such. I’ll dive right in. Publishers big and small are jumping on this idea of “enhanced eBooks” as a way to endear readers to the digital medium. The line of thought goes something like this: People think ebooks are overpriced so if we embed “value added content” into an ebook such as video, live links to a website, or audio clips then people will be more apt to buy the ebook for, say,  $14.99 instead of $9.99. Give them more and they’ll pay more. Right?

Not necessarily. Continue Reading…

Last night was the monthly meeting of The Council of Four, an unsecret society of maniacal writers comprised of myself, Matt Bronleewe, Chris Well, and Eric Wilson. Generally, we work out elaborate world domination schemes on a giant whiteboard strapped to Matt with duct tape, which he holds steady while quoting Shakespeare and Poe (though not at the same time). True story. Sort of.

This meeting was a little different. For one evening we turned our attention away from world domination to the burning questions surrounding the purported magic abilities of one, the iPad. So I brought my new toy as well as my Kindle for an e-reader/mobile device smackdown. It was an interesting conversation, especially since we all have varying experience with sundry gadgets. One of us (me) owns a Kindle, iPhone, and iPad. One of us owns a Kindle and iPad. One of us has used a Kindle, but doesn’t own any. One of us has neither used nor owned any of the devices. It was a fun time.

We talked until nearly 1:00 this morning, though not all about the iPad. There was some Dr. Who thrown in there for good measure. But, I wanted to share a few of the thoughts that came out of it. There are too many for one post, so I’ll focus on two key questions in this one save the rest for additional posts. Continue Reading…