Launch of Kindle Singles includes never before released content from
popular writers such as Ian Ayres and Jodi Picoult, as well as the
first-ever written works published by TED
SEATTLE, Jan 26, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
(NASDAQ:AMZN)-- Before the advent of digital reading, writers often had
to choose between making their work short enough for a magazine article
or long enough to deliver the "heft" required for book marketing and
distribution. Three months ago, Amazon made a call to serious writers,
thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and
publishers to join Kindle in making a new kind of content available to
readers--Kindle Singles. Typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words, each
Kindle Single is intended to allow a single killer idea -- well
researched, well argued and well illustrated -- to be expressed at its
natural length. Today, Amazon is introducing the first set of Kindle
Singles to the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlesingles).
"The response to our announcement of Singles has been great," said Russ
Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "This first set of
Singles was selected by our team of editors, and includes works by Rich
Cohen, Darin Strauss, Ian Ayres, and the first-ever books published by
TED. We think customers will be riveted by these stories that can take
them to a Swedish bank heist or to the Mexican border town of Juarez, or
to consider a new way to think about happiness."
The new Kindle Singles section of the Kindle Store is now available at www.amazon.com/kindlesingles.
Available to both Kindle device and app users, and priced between $0.99
and $4.99, the first set of Kindle Singles include original reporting,
essays, memoirs and fiction. Amazon plans to frequently launch many more
Kindle Singles over time.
The first set of Kindle Singles includes:
-
"Lifted" by Evan Ratliff (34 pages, $1.99): The thieves had a
handpicked crew, a stolen helicopter, a cache of explosives, and a
plan to rob a $150 million cash repository. The Stockholm police had a
tip-off. Wired and New Yorker writer Evan Ratliff recounts the inside
story of an audacious 2009 bank heist, and the race to solve it. This
is an inaugural title from publisher The Atavist.
-
"The Happiness Manifesto" by Nic Marks (40 pages, $2.99): Modern
research proves the ancient wisdom that "money can't buy you
happiness." But then why do our governments see their main task as
simply growing GDP? Marks, founder of the London-based Centre for
Well-Being, sets out an ingenious new way of defining national
goals--and in the process reveals five ways people can nurture their
own happiness. One of the inaugural TEDBooks.
-
"Piano Demon" by Brendan I. Koerner (37 pages, $1.99): At age six,
Teddy Weatherford was working in a Virginia coal mine. Two decades
later, he was the jazz king of Asia. Koerner, a Wired contributing
editor and author of "Now The Hell Will Start," tells how a piano
legend in a sharkskin suit lived the American Dream by leaving it
behind.
-
"Leaving Home" by Jodi Picoult (43 pages, $2.99): The deep pains and
powerful pleasures of parenting: those are the extremes explored here
by the extraordinary novelist Jodi Picoult. In three short pieces that
display her wide emotional range, Picoult weaves together stories of
love and loss with heartbreaking simplicity.
-
"The Dead Women of Juarez" by Robert Andrew Powell (31 pages, $1.99):
It sounded like one of the great murder mysteries of our time: who was
killing the women of Juarez? Journalist Robert Andrew Powell went to
the Mexican border town to investigate, and separates fact from myth
in a saga that eerily echoes the plot of Roberto Bolaño's epic novel
"2666".
-
"Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks" by Sebastian Rotella/ProPublica (38
pages, $.99): The U.S. investigation of the 2008 terrorist attack on
Mumbai provides a detailed picture of the ties between Pakistan's
intelligence service and a leading militant group. The latest
reporting from ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative
newsroom.
-
"The $500 Diet" by Ian Ayres (39 pages, $2.99): When Yale law
professor Ayres vowed to drop his weight from 205 pounds to 180
pounds, he put his money where his mouth was -- literally. It was
either lose the weight, or pay the price. A look into Ayres'
weight-loss method through simple financial incentive.
-
"Darkstar" by Christopher R. Howard (44 pages, $2.99): A
pre-apocalyptic love story. Sailor, a homeless Irish teenager who's
haunted by a diabolical voice, seeks to reunite with a soulmate he
hasn't seen since boyhood, as a cosmic event threatens to extinguish
life on Earth. Howard's fiction has appeared in McSweeney's, and his
first novel, "Tea of Ulaanbaatar," comes out this May.
-
"Homo Evolutis" by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans (58 pages, $2.99):
Enriquez and Gullans--two eminent authors, researchers, and
entrepreneurs--explore a world where humans increasingly shape their
environment, their own selves and other species. They envision a
future in which humankind becomes a new species -- one which directly
and deliberately controls its own evolution and that of many other
species. One of the inaugural TEDBooks.
"Kindles Singles has given me the freedom to write a piece that doesn't
need to be cut for a magazine article or expanded for a book," said
Ayres. "It lets me more quickly and directly speak to the reader
unhindered by page numbers or ad space. And I love the reach of the
Kindle platform. Nowadays just about anyone can read a Kindle book on
their phone or their laptop, or, of course, just on a Kindle."
Like all Kindle books, these books are "Buy Once, Read
Everywhere"--Kindle customers can purchase these books and read them on
the $139 third-generation Kindle device with new high-contrast Pearl
e-Ink, on iPads, iPod touches, iPhones, Macs, PCs, BlackBerrys, Windows
Phones and Android-based devices. Amazon's Whispersync technology syncs
your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off. In
addition, with the Kindle Worry-Free Archive, Kindle Singles will be
automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon where
they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
The call remains open for serious writers, thinkers, scientists,
business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to submit works
for Kindle Singles. To be considered for Kindle Singles, interested
parties should contact kindle-singles@amazon.com.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. Kindle, Kindle 3G and Kindle DX are the revolutionary
portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers,
blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink
display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle 3G and Kindle DX
utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so
users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1
bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
and www.amazon.it.
As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption,
inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
www.amazon.com/pr
