My husband, Evan Marshall, has fallen in love. Not with another woman. With his Kindle. We bought his/hers Kindles recently and Evan has already read several books on his. But I've only read
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a
doorstopper we blogged about here in August.
Earlier this month, Amazon.com announced Kindle Singles, its new imprint for shorter-length e-books on the Kindle platform, to be sold at the Kindle Store.
Kindle Singles will have a length somewhere between a novel and a short story. According to Amazon, the length will be "twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book." Accepted content will be available on all versions of the Kindle and all devices running the Kindle application software, including iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.
This is a wow—not for the shorter length, in spite of what has been written about that, but for the exclusivity. Amazon is not making its platform open to just anyone. According to Amazon, Kindle Singles will publish "serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians, and publishers."
Amazon will enhance its brand by releasing works of "10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) that lay out a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well illustrated—whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event."
We will see creative expansions of books—previews, sequels, works-in-progress, updates—with the front and back book covers no longer being the delimiting boundaries of the intellectual property. Expect more power devolving to the author.
What kinds of books will Kindle Singles publish? Well, no one can be certain, as it has published nothing yet. But here are some hypothetical possibilities:
- Instant Memoirs. Celebrities will write from earthquake-besieged and war-torn hot spots. Examples: My Haiti Diaries by Bill Clinton, Weeping For Sudan by Mia Farrow.
- Clandestine Locations. If Salman Rushdie were in hiding now, a prequel to his memoir coming in 2012 might be appropriate for Kindle Singles. Will authors on the run and in hiding publish from clandestine locations?
- Authors Under House Arrest and In Prison. Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (winner of the 1991 Nobel peace prize) and Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese dissident and winner of the 2010 Nobel peace prize.
- Other Nobel Prize Winners. Paul Krugman could publish time-sensitive expanded critiques—longer than his New York Times columns or blogs, shorter than his books. Other Nobel Prize winners could publish research results intended for a general audience.
- Interviews. Four years have passed since The New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright first published The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9-11. His Amazon Singles title would be along the lines of The Looming Tower Is Still Looming, consisting of edited transcripts of new interviews with his 500 sources.
- Viewpoints From Famous Thought Leaders. Bill and Melinda Gates would be authors of the Kindle Singles title Lessons from Technology for Charitable Enterprises.
- Prequels by Bestselling Authors. Bestselling authors will publish Kindle Singles to test the market, get buzz going, and get reader feedback the way cell phone fiction authors do now. Kindle e-books already offer small samples for download for free.
Will smash-hit Kindle Singles be picked up by traditional publishers and become big bestsellers? With The Oprah Winfrey Show coming to an end, will Kindle Singles become the new publishing kingmaker?
By the way, I'm still not comfortable pressing the page-turn buttons on my Kindle. Any suggestions?
To be considered for Kindle Singles, interested parties should contact digital-publications@amazon.com.
