A win for ebooks: Kindle 2 available for pre-order!

Music I'm listening to: my own whoops of joy

My kindle 2 will be here on Feb. 25. Squeeee!

The brand-spankin' kindle 2 will be $359 (same price as the kindle 1, which they're no longer selling) and available for sale on Feb. 24.

The k2:
- is the same width as k1, is half an inch longer, but only a third of an inch think
- has seven times the original amount of storage space and 25% more battery life
- features 16 shades of gray instead of the original 4 (though external rumor has it that within a year or so, color e-ink screens will be possible)
- has better annotations (you no longer have to select an entire line to highlight one word)
- will offer location syncing between devices (in other words, it hold your place even if you're reading the same book on more than one device--wish I had two kindles to enjoy that feature!)
- and will even read a book to you (text-to-speech).

They've done away with SD card storage and a user-replaceable battery, though. I guess they couldn't squeeze those into the super-thin shape. The SD card storage isn't an issue for me, since every book bought through Amazon is on a "permanent bookshelf" for you. You can always download it to your kindle again for free.

Also, Amazon has been hinting that they'll allow users of other devices, such as mobile phones, to make e-book purchases through Amazon. No word yet on whether they'll allow it for other dedicated e-readers (competitors of the kindle)--I hope they do--and there's no expected date for this yet.

I'm also sad, though not surprised, that Amazon's kindles aren't supporting the ePub format (which, with luck, will become the standard e-book format--one format capable of being read on many devices). Unfortunately, Amazon has an interest in NOT supporting ePub, since Am owns the competing Mobipocket format.

Also no word about whether the new kindle will have *folders* in which to organize all your books. The lack of folders was one of my peeves with the k1, as the only way to see all you had on the kindle was to look through a long list of every book on it--no organizing by genre, etc. I do hope they'll have this fixed on the k2, since it was one of the biggest user complaints. We shall see!

Anyway, go drool. It's what I've been doing this morning.

- Katey, eagerly awaiting Feb. 25

Happy February (mostly). And the E-book revolution?

Music I'm listening to: my hubby watching TV downstairs and snow melting from the roof. Which means snow is sticking to the mountains high above us. YAAAAAY! *Katey smiles at her skis*

Today, however, I'm battling a cold (ugh) and spending my Saturday working out how to make my latest manuscript bigger in both length and plot. I love Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel (and the workbook he wrote for it) and always find good ideas in there.

My break time is often spent trying to catch up with blogs in Google Reader, especially since I'm eager for the announcement of the new Amazon Kindle on Monday. Here's a juicy new post about ebooks and the future of publishing. I don't agree with all of it, but much of it seems spot-on. Change is on the way! Elgan: Here comes the e-book revolution

One of my fabulous clients, Jan Elvin, has written a terrific guest post for me about our work toward the sale of her debut book. The Box from Braunau: In Search of My Father's War will be published in hardcover this May. (Check it out!) I'll have her post up this week, providing I don't get buried under a pile of antihistamines and tissues.

And speaking of my fabulous clients, Leigh Brill sold her memoir about cerebral palsy and how her wonderful service dog, Slugger, forever changed her life. Leigh's book was originally scheduled to appear in stores just weeks from now (B&N still lists it that way), but the publisher elected to postpone until the fall of 2010 due to the overabundance of dog books on the market. Naturally, this was heart-wrenching for both of us, as no author wants such a delay. Meanwhile, we're hoping for more good news about Leigh's book down the road, and she's working on a fantastic series of children's books. (More to come as developments warrant.)

Readers, I hope you're healthy and happy--and writing!

Katey
Women-Ink.com