Inoue Genan Inseki
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:19 am
I said I would still make announcements. A new e-book, the first in the GoGoD Vintage series, has just appeared in the Kindle market place. It is a little frippery on Inoue Genan Inseki.
It is a frippery because it is short and has already appeared on the GoGoD CD, and because I did it simply to learn about the procedures for creating and publishing such books, especially the interface with Amazon and handling their pricing, DRM and minimum requirements procedures. I'm still low on the learning curve. In particular, if anyone is kind enough to buy, I'd like to know if it works on tablets and smartphones as Kindle claims. It was meant to be minimum price, but the regulations about VAT confused me, so I'm not sure if that worked out as planned.
The link is http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005WDEFNS.
This is all preparation for a substantive work, a long biography of Shuei. I don't think go diagrams work all that well on the Kindle, so that book will be nearly all text.
To pick up on a related theme of Robert Jasiek's in another thread, personally I think even text looks clunky on the Kindle, but against that I've used my Kindle rather more than I expected, as reading is so easy you soon forget the ugly part. And of course carrying it while holidaying or commuting in place of a dozen heavy books is a godsend. Diagrams will display, of course, but getting text and diagram together rationally can never be guaranteed, and I agree with Robert that this is the most important feature. I'm also inclined to agree with him (if I understood him correctly) about the ability to play out variations dynamically on a tablet being much less significant, even overrated. For instructional material, a static display which forces you to visualise the moves in your head seems to me pedagogically at least as useful, and maybe more so. I'm aware of a story this week that suggests brains are already changing because of the internet, but I still expect the dynamic feature will become a bit of a nine-day wonder like the Wii exercise suite or the rowing machine that now sits in the garage. In any case, I'm personally not looking to move in that direction and will concentrate mainly on text for the time being.
It is a frippery because it is short and has already appeared on the GoGoD CD, and because I did it simply to learn about the procedures for creating and publishing such books, especially the interface with Amazon and handling their pricing, DRM and minimum requirements procedures. I'm still low on the learning curve. In particular, if anyone is kind enough to buy, I'd like to know if it works on tablets and smartphones as Kindle claims. It was meant to be minimum price, but the regulations about VAT confused me, so I'm not sure if that worked out as planned.
The link is http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005WDEFNS.
This is all preparation for a substantive work, a long biography of Shuei. I don't think go diagrams work all that well on the Kindle, so that book will be nearly all text.
To pick up on a related theme of Robert Jasiek's in another thread, personally I think even text looks clunky on the Kindle, but against that I've used my Kindle rather more than I expected, as reading is so easy you soon forget the ugly part. And of course carrying it while holidaying or commuting in place of a dozen heavy books is a godsend. Diagrams will display, of course, but getting text and diagram together rationally can never be guaranteed, and I agree with Robert that this is the most important feature. I'm also inclined to agree with him (if I understood him correctly) about the ability to play out variations dynamically on a tablet being much less significant, even overrated. For instructional material, a static display which forces you to visualise the moves in your head seems to me pedagogically at least as useful, and maybe more so. I'm aware of a story this week that suggests brains are already changing because of the internet, but I still expect the dynamic feature will become a bit of a nine-day wonder like the Wii exercise suite or the rowing machine that now sits in the garage. In any case, I'm personally not looking to move in that direction and will concentrate mainly on text for the time being.
If you sort out the meaning of the Amazon pricing scheme, I would love to know what you find out. FYI, my copy cost me $3.49 via the U.S. kindle store. I believe it is due to living in Japan (their Asia region). I frequently see an additional $2 added onto the price of books that I buy. Since it is by no means all of the books that I buy, I assume that it is somewhere in the settings per book. I will be interested to know whether you get your cut of the higher price. For your info, the transaction went through at 8:17 AM Oct. 21 Japan time, which I believe was 00:17 U.K. time. If they give you that detailed a statement, have a look!
