Amazon unveils Kindle Textbook Creator to help educators turn course materials … – The Next Web

Today, Amazon announced it's releasing a new initiative that will make it easier for teachers and educators to get their materials onto Kindle products and apps.

Called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) EDU, it's designed to help publish, prepare and promote educational content for students across Amazon's own reading products, as well as apps for mobile devices and desktop. Educators can easily turn PDFs of textbooks and course materials into ebooks, for instance.

Books made using the Kindle Textbook Creator include nifty features such as multi-color highlighting, a notebook to keep track of passages and images and flashcards to keep track of important concepts from each chapter.

If you're an educator, you can get started with the beta version of the tool today.

➤ Amazon Launches Kindle Textbook Creator [Amazon] | KDP EDU

Amazon unveils Kindle Textbook Creator to help educators turn course materials … – The Next Web

Today, Amazon announced it's releasing a new initiative that will make it easier for teachers and educators to get their materials onto Kindle products and apps.

Called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) EDU, it's designed to help publish, prepare and promote educational content for students across Amazon's own reading products, as well as apps for mobile devices and desktop. Educators can easily turn PDFs of textbooks and course materials into ebooks, for instance.

Books made using the Kindle Textbook Creator include nifty features such as multi-color highlighting, a notebook to keep track of passages and images and flashcards to keep track of important concepts from each chapter.

If you're an educator, you can get started with the beta version of the tool today.

➤ Amazon Launches Kindle Textbook Creator [Amazon] | KDP EDU

Amazon Launches Kindle Textbook Creator – Business Wire (press release)

SEATTLE – ( BUSINESS WIRE ) – (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon.com KDP Schools Announced today, a new segment of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) designed to help educators and authors Easily prepare, publish, Promote and eTextbooks and other educational content for students to access on a broad range of devices, including tablets Fire, iPad, iPhone, Android smartphones and tablets, Mac, and PC. Educators and authors can use the public beta of Amazon’s new Kindle Textbook Creator tool Easily turn to PDFs of Their textbooks and course materials into Kindle books. Once the book is ready, authors can upload it to KDP in just the last few simple steps to Reach students worldwide. Get started today at kdp.amazon.com/edu.

“Kindle Textbook Creator Makes it easy for anyone to take in PDF and create a richly featured and widely available eTextbook” Chuck said Kronbach, Director, Kindle Direct Publishing. “We look forward to Seeing how authors use the new tool and getting theire feedback to guide you in adding more features to KDP EDU over time.”

Books created with Kindle Textbook Creator offer features for students and other readers That ENHANCE the learning experience, including:

• Multi-Color Highlighting -Highlight and categorize key concepts for easy reference.
• Notebook -Capture key passages, and bookmark images and Them Automatically add to the notebook. Students can add notes and Their Own Them Easily access from one location.
• Flashcards -Create flashcards and study important terms, concepts, and definitions Each chapter in with a simple, easy-to-use interface.
• Dictionary -Find information for Difficult Wikipedia definitions and terms to Improve retention.
• Buy Once, Read Everywhere – Read eTextbooks where students use the most popular devices, including tablets Fire, iPad, iPhone, Android tablets and smartphones, Mac, and PC.

“I’m in love with Kindle Textbook Creator! It’s a great solution for the I Had issues with converting many of my math-intensive print books to Kindle format, “said Chris McMullen, author of Full Color Illustrations of the Fourth Dimension . “Often Educational content includes many equations, graphs, and tables. Kindle Textbook Creator made it easy for me to convert the print version of my geometry book to Kindle readers and reache the even more. “

With KDP, authors can earn royalties of up to 70%, while keeping theire rights and Maintaining Control of Their content. They can also choose to enroll in KDP Select books for theire additional royalty Unlimited opportunities like Kindle and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and access to marketing tools like Kindle Free Book Countdown Deals and Promotions.

To learn more Through KDP about publishing textbooks, or to download Kindle Textbook Creator, visit kdp.amazon.com/edu.

About Amazon

Opened on Amazon.com the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession Rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, Commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle Fire phone, Fire tablets, TV and Fire are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

Amazon launches Kindle textbook tool to compete with iBooks Author – Gigaom

We often think of digital textbooks as being read on iPads, and Apple rolled out iBooks Author, which lets users create textbooks and other interactive ebooks, in 2012. But Amazon, not surprisingly, wants in on the self-published textbook action, and on Thursday launched Kindle Textbook Creator, a beta tool that lets users convert graphics-heavy PDFs into ebooks.

Authors can also add highlighting, flashcards and some other features to the books. Textbook Creator is available for free download on Mac or Windows here.

The tool is only available in English and, according to the FAQ, "textbooks and other content created using Kindle Textbook Creator can only be sold via the Amazon Kindle Store as outlined in Amazon's Software End User License Agreement." Apple's similar rule caused a lot of consternation when iBooks Author launched.

One thing I'm wondering about here is the revenue split. Right now, Amazon KDP gives authors 70 percent of each sale of ebooks priced between $ 2.99 and $ 9.99. For books priced higher or lower than that, the author just gets a 30 percent cut — and that's been the subject of debate recently. It seems as if this revenue structure could especially create problems for textbook authors of textbooks, which often cost more than $ 9.99; plus, Apple gives authors a 70 percent split on all books sold through iBooks, no matter what they cost.

Amazon confirmed to me that "the normal KDP royalty structure applies" in this situation but said it is looking for author feedback as well.

Kindle VP Russ Grandinetti suggested at the Digital Book World conference last week that Amazon might consider changing its revenue split for certain types of books, including educational titles: "I think there's a good argument to be made about whether we should make models for different categories," he said.

Les Cochran’s book hits Kindle best seller list – Youngstown Vindicator

Published: Wed, January 21, 2015 @ 12:02 a.m.

Staff report

SAN CARLOS PARK, FLA.

Former Youngstown State University President Les Cochran's book cracked the Kindle Best Seller List.

"I got goose bumps as I read the announcement that 'Signature Affair,' my first novel, had made Kindle's Top 100 Best Seller list," Cochran said in a news release. "I had no idea that we were even close."

After ranking 16,600 out of more than a million books on Amazon.com's Kindle list, the 2013 book dropped in recent months.

The publisher suggested the Kindle price be reduced from $ 5.99 to 99 cents.

"He said, 'You won't make any money, but you'll expand the reader list for "Costly Affair,"' which was recently released," Cochran said. "That made sense to me, so we did it. I knew we'd sell a few more books. But I had no idea it'd take off like it did."

"Signature Affair" is the first book in Cochran's trilogy. "Costly Affair" and "Presidential Affair" round out the group. Cochran says the books are fiction, not memoir.

Cochran served as YSU president from 1992 to 2000. He and his wife, Lin, live in San Carlos Park, Fla.

Amazon Kindle Fire 7” HDX vs. Amazon Kindle Fire 7” HD Comparison: Price … – Latin Post

First Posted: Jan 16, 2015 05:45 PM EST

Here’s our breakdown of how the Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX stacks up against the Amazon Kindle 7″ HD. 

Pros and Cons of the Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX: 

First off, the Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX has a higher resolution display with better pixel density. It also has a powerful quad-core processor. Double the amount of RAM, an extra 64GB model, and a later Android version also give it additional advantages. Furthermore, it’s lighter compared to the Kindle 7-inch HD.

The Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX doesn’t really have any con that may put it behind its predecessor, save for perhaps the price. The only real questions is: just how much better is it?

Pros and Cons of the Amazon Kindle 7″ HD:

The Amazon Kindle 7″ HD doesn’t seem to have any features that could give it an edge over the Kindle HDX. It matches the Kindle HDX with the same camera, but lags behind in all other features. It has half the RAM as the HDX and weighs almost 95g more. Even the same-sized display is not as vivid. The 7″ HD doesn’t have any GSM feature, which puts it far behind its successor.

Specs:

The Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX has a 7-inch IPS LCD display with 1200×1920-pixel resolution at 323ppi. It weighs 303/311g and measures 9mm in thickness. It runs on customized Android Jelly Bean and a 2.2-GHz quad-core Krait 400 CPU. Other features include 2GB RAM, 1.3-MP single camera and storage configuration of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB.

The Amazon Kindle 7″ HD has a 7-inch IPS LCD display with 800×1280-pixel resolution at 216ppi. It is powered by custom Android 4.0 and runs on a 1.2-GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor. It weighs 395g and measures 10.3mm in thickness. Other features include 1GB RAM, a 1.3-MP camera, and availability in 16GB and 32GB storage capacities.

Talking Points:

The Amazon Kindle 7″ HDX was announced in September 2013 and released in October the same year. Amazon later released a new 8.9-inch larger Wi-Fi model in November. The latest upgrade was released in September 2014 with an even faster CPU and GPU. 

The Kindle Fire HD was unveiled as either a 7-inch or a 8.9-inch tablet in September 2012. The Fire 7″ HD was released in September 2013 with a more powerful CPU and customized Android OS.

Prices:

The Kindle Fire 7″ HDX 16GB model starts at a price of $ 179 on Amazon. The Fire 7″ HD starts at a price of $ 114 on Amazon.

Conclusion:

The Amazon Kindle Fire 7″ HDX is clearly the better device among the two. It has two times the RAM and almost two times as powerful a CPU as in the 7″ HD. Besides, it has a 64GB model, which is absent in the HD. Thus, the Kindle Fire 7″ HDX is the easier choice among the two tablets.

© 2015 Latin Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

How St Albans oral surgeon penned a Kindle hit during his daily commute – Herts Advertiser

06:05 17 January 2015

Madeleine Burton

Surgeon Bikram Bal is cutting his teeth on a new career that saw him scoot up the Kindle Books chart soon after Christmas.

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Through Your Eyes cover

Bikram, who lives in St Albans, released his debut novel, Through Your Eyes, in the Amazon Kindle store over the festive period.

And almost immediately it entered the top 40 most popular paid Kindle Books in three genres.

Bikram, 45, a father of two who works full-time for the NHS as an oral surgeon in London and St Albans, is currently finishing his second book and has started on his third.

He taps out his novels on his tablet while he is commuting.

It was a dream on a Sunday morning in August which led Bikram to embark on a writing career. He explained: "It was a little bizarre to wake up with the entire story in my head and it only took just under three weeks to get most of the storyline down."

Set in London, the book is about a man obsessed with movies who is forever in search of adventure although he is a coward at heart.

He has a surreal encounter with a beautiful woman but ends up hurtling through a mind-bending nightmare through time that he could never have imagined in the wildest movies of his imagination – and he is playing the lead role.

The book has garnered glowing reviews on Kindle including praise for it as a 'spectacular debut' and a 'gripping read'.

Bikram said: "It's taken me 45 years to get round to writing a book and then, just like buses, three come along at the same time. I can honestly say, I love writing."

His new career got a boost when he was invited as a guest author to a book club event being held at Hare and Hounds pub in St Albans next month.

Through Your Eyes, by B.J.S Bal, is available to download from the Kindle store at www.amazon.co.uk for 99p.

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A new initiative putting the spotlight on business expertise and knowledge in St Albans was launched last week.

Surgeon Bikram Bal is cutting his teeth on a new career that saw him scoot up the Kindle Books chart soon after Christmas.

The first step has been taken to streamline Freedom of Information (FoI) requests which are costing St Albans council thousands of pounds to process.

A man in his 60s was this morning (Friday) found dead at the McDonald's car park in London Colney