Kindle Chat

What does it cost to make a Kindle book?

Chris — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:42:17 +0000

As we’ve often noted, publishers are not big fans of the Amazon Kindle. Amazon’s strident efforts to keep the standard price of a Kindle Book at $9.99 has ruffled a lot of feathers amongst the big publishers, who are reluctant to do away with the existing print dichotomy, where they get to sell hardcover books at $30 a pop for four months until they release an affordable paperback version of average shmoes like you and me. Publishers claim they need that hardcover money to cover their expenses, while e-Reader users have long assumed the lack of printing and distribution costs should make up the difference.

A recent article out of the New York Times sought to illuminate the costs involved in producing a book so we could see which side is closer to the truth. The difference in the take for publishers after distribution and before costs from a hardcover to an eBook is only about $4, but that is made up almost entirely by the difference in printing, storing, shipping, and marketing the hardcover edition. Indeed, eBooks leave publishers with around $5 when all is said and done, where print leaves them with just $4. Oddly enough, eBook seem to somehow result in a lower cut for the author, as they only haul in $2-3 on an eBook but come out with nearly $4 on the hardcover edition.

So what does that really leave publishers to complain about? The next in their list of complaints is that if eBooks start to become too big a share of the market (they’re at less than five percent right now), publishers will have to spread the costs of the print version over fewer copies, making them more expensive per book to get to stores. And those stores will suffer as well, because once people start moving to eReaders in larger numbers, the big box book store is going to go the way of the dodo. I like getting coffee and relaxing with a book at Borders as much as anybody, but I’m not going to be too broken up if their numbers are culled a bit.

If anything, seeing the numbers broken down like this, it becomes apparent that the easiest part of a book’s production cost to remove is the part going to the publisher. Nobody wants to lower the share of the profits going to the author, and the marketing, editing, and typesetting are fixed costs that you can’t get rid of if you want a mainstream success. The money that is there waiting to be reclaimed is that being collected by the owners and shareholders of the major corporations with their tentacles wrapped around the publishing industry.

What’s to stop popular authors from skipping the whole step of talking to the publisher and instead publish independently, or at the very least, talk directly to Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble themselves? All it would take is a big mainstream name like Stephen King to do this before the whole publishing edifice comes crashing down.

And perhaps that’s exactly why the publishers are so keen on keeping the cost of eBooks high. The higher the prices go, the slower the transition to eBooks happens. The slower the transition happens, the more time they have to squeeze a penny out of the system. In short, I’m not falling for it, and neither should you.

Kindle Return Policy Exceeds Expectations

Chris — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:34:51 +0000

One of the unfortunate truisms of modern consumer electronics is that they rarely, if ever, have a shelf life of more than a few years. Whether this comes about just because of the rough and tumble way that most people treat their expensive toys, or whether it represents a scheme of planned obsolescence on the part of manufacturers, most people hold domain over a veritable graveyard of broken gadgets.

We’re only a few years into this whole Kindle experiment at this point, so for the most part, we haven’t really figured out what the shelf life of your average Kindle or Kindle 2 is yet. There are some disconcerting signs, like people reporting fading e-Ink after months of using the Kindle in direct exposure to the sun, and the probability that the Kindle’s non-replaceable lithium-ion battery will eventually cease to hold a charge, but for the most part we’re still in the early part of the products’ life cycle.

So when an e-buddy of mine reported that his Kindle was busted, I was curious to see what Amazon’s customer service response would be.

Upon taking his Kindle 2 out of his bag one day, he found that only about a quarter of the screen was operational, and what it did display was totally garbled. He called Amazon’s dedicated Kindle hotline (1-866-321-8851 for those of you in the U.S.) and was immediately put on the line with a representative. He explained the situation and within five minutes, Amazon was overnighting a brand spanking new Kindle his way, along with a prepaid UPS label and shipping instructions to send back the broken one. No muss, no fuss.

In my experience, a lot of companies will ask that you send them the defective product first so that they can either fix the one you send or, at the very least, verify that your claim of a broken product is legitimate. Evidently, Amazon has taken the decidedly more consumer-friendly approach of assuming that their customers are being honest. Or in the words of my Kindlebro, “I like it when companies trust their customers. I didn’t have to prove that I wasn’t using it as a doorstop or something. I said that it broke during normal use just chilling in my bag and in its case, they believed me and took care of it faster and with a better outcome than I hoped.”

Upon receiving a replacement Kindle, all you have to do is go to your Amazon account page, hit “Manage Your Kindle” under the Digital Content header, and deregister the old Kindle. Then register the new one, change your current subscriptions to your new Kindle, and the rest of your content should download via 3G automatically. It could scarcely be a simpler process.

Of course, my friend’s Kindle was still under the included one-year manufacturer’s warranty. I’ll be curious to see moving forward what kind of policy Amazon adopts when these kind of things happen out of warranty. Here’s hoping they can keep up this level of service.

If you have any Kindle customer service stories of your own, either good or bad, feel free to let us know in the comments!

Kindle for Blackberry Extends Amazon’s Mobile Efforts

Chris — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:34:27 +0000

Being a Kindle aficionado is about more than merely owning a Kindle, whether it’s the Kindle, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, or a Kindle Touch that you’ve managed to smuggle back in time. While Amazon’s e-Reader becomes a fast friend and frequent companion for those lucky enough to own one, the experience extends beyond the bounds of the device. There is of course the Kindle for PC application, for which I’ve only recently found applicable uses, but that’s not where it ends.

The slightly more interesting application, however, comes on cell phones. There’s been a Kindle app in the iPhone app store for months now (something I suspect might receive a second look with the announcement of the iPad), but Amazon has announced that a free Kindle app for the BlackBerry is now available for all customers based in the U.S. Or at least the ones who own the following models:

Bold 9000
Bold 9700
Curve 8520
Curve 8900
Storm 9530
Storm 9550
Tour 9630

Simply type “amazon.com/kindlebb” into your browser on your BlackBerry, and the program will download. After that, it’s simply a matter of putting in your Amazon account information, and you’ll have unlimited access to all of the books, newspapers, magazines, and notes that are connected with your Amazon account. Even those who don’t yet own a Kindle can use the application, which makes it a good bet for those who aren’t sold on the whole e-Reader concept yet, or who just like the look of $9.99 new releases instead of paying $29.99 for a cumbersome hardcover edition.

I am somewhat dubious about the prospect of reading a book on a BlackBerry screen, to be honest. The iPhone app seemed like something of a stretch to my bespectacled eyes, but the BlackBerry Curve and Bold have even less screen real estate to work with, and they’re all backlit. This is why e-Readers are replete with e-Ink technology to begin with! It’s just hard to see on these bright little screens.

Still, as unwieldy as the practical applications of Kindle apps for cell phones are, I find myself curiously upset that they haven’t yet come out in support of Google’s Android operating system. My poor Droid Eris will be relegated to the uncultured morass of turret defense games and the mobile version of the New York Times, at least for the time being. For those BlackBerry owners out there, enjoy!

Amazon to Reward Good Customers with Free Kindles?

Jared — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:41:37 +0000

Even if you’re as dubious as I am about the new Apple iPad competing seriously with the Kindle for the e-Reader spotlight, there’s little questioning that their share of the market stands to fall off a bit in the coming months and years. The sheer number of new devices available now is bound to dilute their dominance, especially when people start trying to make the apples to oranges comparison of a catch-all tablet PC with a dedicated e-Reader.

Amazon is a big company full of smart folks though, so they’re not going to take this lying down. Probably the most obvious response is the “If you can’t beat em, join em” tactic. The rumors of a new Kindle Touch seem to imply that they’re steering in that direction, at least in part. Releasing a new, premium Kindle with a bunch of fancy bells and whistles just makes sense. After all, it was our No. 1 Kindle prediction for 2010.

There is another angle to it that hasn’t been explored, and that’s offering a lower-budget version of the Kindle to get people hooked on buying eBooks. According to reports by TechCrunch, however, Amazon is prepared to take it even farther than that. Apparently, long-time Amazon customers and bibliophiles started getting promotional emails back in January, just before Apple’s big flop of an event, offering them a money-back guarantee for those who ordered a new Kindle 2 and didn’t like it. If they purchased the device and reported that they weren’t satisfied, Amazon was prepared to let them keep the Kindle for free.

While it seemed like a good one-off deal at the time meant to sway people who might be intrigued by the iPad, TechCrunch is now citing a source that says free Kindles could be the way of the future. The report says that they’re trying to find a way to cut costs to the point where they can offer a free Kindle to every Amazon Prime subscriber.

For those not in the know, Amazon Prime is a subscription service offered by Amazon where you pay a yearly fee of $79 and in exchange get free two-day shipping for the whole year as well as overnight shipping for the heavily-discounted price of $3.99. It’s a brilliant sell, because once you have that free two-day shipping going, it becomes difficult to buy products online anywhere else. Consequently, Amazon Prime subscribers become some of their most loyal customers. Give these people a few Kindles, the thinking goes, and they’re bound to happily spend away, more than making up for the cost of the device in word-of-mouth advertising and the sheer volume of books purchased.

Of course, this all hinges on Amazon being able to reduce their costs to the point where they’re not taking huge losses by giving Kindles away. I suspect, and this is purely conjecture at this point, that this is going to come to fruition at the same time as the launch of the rumored Kindle Touch. Amazon can start handing out the Kindle 2 for free to Amazon Prime subscribers and avoid cannibalizing their own market share by releasing a fancier touch-enabled Kindle to fill its place in the premium-priced niche. Everybody wins, from the budget-conscious to the gadget freaks.

The question remains: should you hold off buying a Kindle now so you can get in on this sweet deal? I don’t think we’re quite at that point yet. This is still all shrouded in rumor, and the earliest something like this is liable to happen is the holiday season at the end of the year. The degree to which the Kindle can improve your reading habits today more than justifies the cost. And would you really deny yourself that satisfaction? I wouldn’t either.

Learn more about Amazon Prime »

Kindle Touch is Closer Than You Think

Chris — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:45:47 +0000

Despite the fact that Apple’s iPad has been met with near-universal criticism since it was announced at the end of January, it would seem that Apple has still managed to at least change the dialogue in the e-Reader sphere and cast doubt on the viability of Amazon’s current stable of readers. The iPad might not be able to multitask, or display flash, or have any use at all out in the sun, but it’s raised the expectations amongst those who would prefer to see e-Readers move to full-color touch screen displays.

The prospect of an Amazon e-Reader with such a display is actually much closer than I think many of us were led to believe. The New York Times recently reported that Amazon has acquired a small New York-based startup by the name of Touchco, whose specialty it seems is developing touch screens that are significantly cheaper than the ones used by Apple. No sooner was the company purchased than they were rolled into Amazon’s Kindle division and disappeared from sight.

Interestingly, Prime View International (PVI), which currently produces the Kindle displays, has come out and said that they too will be releasing technology for a color multi-touch display this year that will feature support for animation. It’s unclear at this point whether Amazon intends to implement ideas from both companies or whether PVI is going to get the boot in favor of Touchco.

It’s no secret that Amazon has been active about trying to figure out ways to eat Apple’s lunch. They’ve already enlisted developers to start coming up with games for their platform, which makes much more sense if they’re developing a color touchscreen display than with the Kindle’s currently unwieldy e-Ink technology. And we’ve been talking about the possibility of a Kindle App store since last December.

The problem as I see it is that Amazon can’t hit Apple where it hurts without compromising the integrity of their current e-Reader technology. Try going outside with your Kindle and an iPhone with the Kindle app and tell me which one is easier to read with all that ambient glare. The Times reporter was saying that Touchco’s technology is intended for use with LCD technology, but that’s not a direction Amazon can go without sacrificing both readability and battery life.

Of course, this is a distinction that so-called “experts” and industry analysts seem to miss in this equation. For somebody just looking at this scenario from the point of Amazon’s stock price, going after the same market as an industry-leader is the only aggressive move one can make. But as people who actually read books on our e-Readers, an increasingly novel concept, the future seems much murkier.

Color displays and touch screens could greatly improve the vibrance and intuitive user interface of the Kindle, but they’re just not necessary for reading. We can just hope that Amazon doesn’t lose sight of that in the coming months, and we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on any future mentions of a Kindle Touch.

Is Amazon compromising your right to privacy?

Chris — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:59:36 +0000

It always used to baffle me when people would vehemently oppose the government’s ability to look up records of books you’d taken out at the local library. What could they possibly glean from such mundane information, I worried, and how could reading anything you find at your local library be used to implicate you? It’s not as though they have diagrams on how to build pipe bombs sitting right next to the children’s section, right?

As I’ve grown older, however, and our world has grown increasingly digital, I’ve started to notice the ways in which these minor infringements of our privacy can have detrimental side effects. As a general rule, I still don’t much worry about the government knowing that I’m actually reading indulgent fantasy novels, even though I tell everybody who asks that I’m working on Tolstoy. (If they were going to rat me out, I imagine they’d have done it by now.) No, my concern is more than that this information can find its way into the hands of advertisers, who, recognizing me as a member of that illustrious 18-35 middle class male demographic, will pursue me to the ends of the earth hawking products that I don’t need. In-Kindle ads sound far-fetched now, but there are some warning signs that it’s coming.

That’s why I was a bit distressed when a friend forwarded along a link to the E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. By combing through the privacy policies of the market’s major e-Readers, they’ve come up with a helpful side by side comparison for those of us nursing nascent tin foil hats. It’s worrying to note that, from a privacy perspective, Amazon fails on nearly every one of their criteria. Everything from the books you search for to the pages you viewed to how long you viewed them is recorded and attached to your Amazon profile, and are thus accessible to law enforcement, civil courts, and within Amazon itself. What’s worse, they don’t give you the option to opt out of these tracking systems or delete them from your profile. Once they’re there, you’re stuck.

Of course, any reasonable person has to acknowledge that most of this tracking is done in the name of consumer convenience, not the out-stretched arm of Big Brother. How else are you supposed to re-download titles you’ve bought unless Amazon keeps a record of them? And how else are they supposed to recommend you new titles without knowing which ones you’re currently engaged in?

And while people like me don’t have much concern for our privacy because we’re not subject to terribly much scrutiny, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who would rather remain anonymous for legitimate reasons. What if you’re a Chinese ex-pat concerned about whether your old government is tracking your dissident reading habits? Or a candidate for political office worried that reading socialist literature out of curiosity could cost her an election? These are valid concerns.

I think the middle ground for Amazon is aggregating this data in a way in which consumer privacy is preserved while also providing the necessary information for their algorithms in a quasi-anonymous way. Making explicit their commitment to preserving the privacy of their customers would also be a significant step. Amazon has already shown a willingness to push back against subpoenas, but you really have to dig to find this kind of information.

Of course, there’s always the option of just going to the old-fashioned book store and buying something in print with case. But where’s the fun in that?

Amazon Earnings Report- State of the Kindle Address

Chris — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:32:04 +0000

What better time of year to address the state of the Kindle than in the wake of the President’s State of the Union address? Amazon recently announced their earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2009, and the results were overwhelmingly positive. Is that success sustainable?

According to their statements, fourth-quarter profits were up 71 percent over this period last year. While much of that growth comes as a result of Amazon’s aggressive retail practices, it’s hard to overlook the influence that the Kindle has had on their bottom line. They have reported six Kindle books sold for every 10 print books during that period, indicating that the content attach rate is starting to work its way up to a critical mass. What’s more, gadget blog TechCrunch is citing a source close to Amazon that pegs the current number of Kindle’s sold worldwide at 3 million, as of December. Not a bad number when you consider they were only expected to sell 2.5 million by the end of 2010!

But while the state of the Kindle is stronger than it has ever been, the announcement of Apple’s iPad on Wednesday is a reminder that the e-Reader market is a constantly changing beast, and the current state of affairs should not be taken for granted. Of course, this is not an Apple blog, so if you want a full rundown on all that the iPad has to offer, check out Gizmodo or any one of the myriad of sites that have full coverage.

The aspect of the iPad that does interest me is, of course, the iBooks application that represents Apple’s first foray into the word of eBooks. Their presentation was slick, as has become customary for Apple, but I’m as dubious about the prospect of reading books on the device as I was when it was still being referred to as the iSlate. Reading on a backlit device with extremely limited battery power and no defense against glare just does not sound like an attractive prospect to me, touch screen or no.

Whether the device is ideal for reading eBooks doesn’t seem to have fazed the publishers who have already signed on to publish books on the platform. Apple is much more flexible with their pricing structure, and early indications peg their normal price point between $12.99 and $14.99, a not insignificant jump up from Amazon’s $9.99 standard. We’ve reported in past months how unhappy publishers are with Amazon’s discount model, and it appears that Apple is positioning themselves as a competitive outlet for those frustrations. The New York Times is even reporting that Amazon has pulled all books by Macmillan, one of the publishers who have officially thrown their lot in with Apple, from their site over these pricing disputes. Could it be the beginning of a trend?

Strong consumer enthusiasm for the Kindle is going to be their biggest buffer against the impending iBooks threat. Even if they’re unhappy with their chunk of the profits, it’s going to be difficult for more publishers to turn their backs on 3 million dedicated literophiles who snap up books at a much greater rate than the general population. What’s more, an increase in competition historically has downward pressure on the price of goods, so I highly doubt Apple’s effort to assuage publishers is going to influence Amazon’s pricing structure in a significant way.

The state of the Kindle is strong. We can never be totally sure what the future holds (though we do have an idea), but it seems as good a time as any to be Kindle owner. Why not jump on the bandwagon?

A Student’s Guide to Kindle Notes & Marks

Chris — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:34:35 +0000

One of the most underrated features of Amazon’s Kindle is the ability to highlight passages of text to save for later. If you’ve never done it before, just use the five-way joystick up or down when on a given page of a book and click it in at the beginning of your passage, scroll to the end of the text you want, and click it again. You can even type out your own notes and commentary by just tapping on the keyboard after highlighting the text and hitting “Save note.”

Where in the olden days you’d have to underline passages that caught your fancy (or highlight them, if you were particularly sophisticated and appropriately equipped), the Kindle catalogs your notes in a way that’s much easier to access after the fact than photocopying pages or (heaven forbid) copying out passages by hand. For full-time students or just studious readers, this can be in invaluable tool if you learn how to use it correctly.

You can access your notes and marks from the Kindle itself, but if you plug it in to your computer, they’re all available in a simple text file that you can then copy and paste into Microsoft Word and work with. With your Kindle plugged in, go to “My Computer” on your desktop and double-click on the Kindle in the list of devices. Go into the “Documents” folder and locate the file called “My Clippings.txt.” The notes are then sorted by the book they belong to and the date they were taken.

Honestly, though? If I were a student, I would probably find that barely sorted text file scarcely navigable, especially for the purpose of studying certain important passages. Luckily, there is another way! I originally derided the Kindle for PC application, because to me it seemed to defeat the whole point of buying the e-Reader to begin with. In the context of notes and marks, however, it’s a godsend.

If you’ve installed the Kindle for PC application, just double-click the book you want to look at, click the “Show Notes & Marks” button in the top right corner of the menu, and you’ll get a column on the right side of the screen showing all of your highlighted passages and notes in chronological order. When you click on an individual highlight or note, it pulls up that page in the text and highlights the words in their original context. Your notes appear as blue icons on the page that can be selected with a click. If I had a complaint, it’s that you can’t directly copy text out of the application, but I suppose that’s to be expected as an anti-piracy measure.

This is really one of those features that you never knew you needed until you use it. Once you start scribbling notes on your books, it’s hard to stop! If Amazon was smart, they’d expand on this feature in their pursuit of the student market. Perhaps, as seems to be the case with Kindle games, all it will take is a little competitive push from Apple. We’ll see.

Amazon Enlists Developers for Kindle Games

Chris — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:26:53 +0000

With the January 27th debut of Apple’s long-rumored tablet PC right around the corner, I think some people are starting to look back at Amazon’s Kindle and wonder… What’s so special about that? It’s just an e-Reader! Of course, for those of us who purchased our Kindles just for the pleasure of reading books, that seems like a nonsensical statement, but it’s a question that’s asked nonetheless.

We’ve talked in the past about the potential of a Kindle App store, where one might be able to expand the functionality of one’s Kindle in a similar way that Apple does with the App store for the iPhone. As fanciful as that seemed at the time, recent reports have signaled that this may soon become a reality. Amazon announced on Friday that they’ve shipped a Kindle software development kit (SDK) to developers, so they can begin programming for the device.

Interesting as that is, it pales in comparison to the announcement that they’re partnering up with EA Mobile to develop games for the Kindle. That’s right, the same mega-corporation that has brought video gamers titles like Madden and The Sims is developing new content for your lowly book-reading Kindle. Of course, we have to temper any expectations with the knowledge that there are a limited number of things that a developer, extraordinarily creative or not, can do with the Kindle’s grayscale screen and leisurely refresh rate. Still, who wouldn’t like some solitaire?

Some gaming sites have reached out to developers to try and get any idea of what kind of games one can expect to see as a consequence of this. An interview with one such developer confirmed our suspicions. That is, these Kindle games will likely fall under the category of puzzles and simplistic card games – the kind of fair that can still succeed within the confines of the Kindle hardware. Other, more elaborate, bits of media incorporating actual book content may be feasible as well, though perhaps further down the road.

It also remains to be seen how Amazon plans to capitalize on these new developments. Whether they’ll be content to just add them for free to bolster the Kindle’s feature list, or whether they plan to sell them a la carte remains to be seen. So when Apple finally decides to drop their new consumer gadget bomb on us all not long from now, remember that Amazon’s still fighting to entertain us as well!

Bible Reading on the Kindle Revisited

Chris — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:07:41 +0000

One of our most popular posts here at KindleChat is an old one we did over two years ago on the state of the Bible on Amazon’s e-Reader. As it turns out, there are loads of people out there who see their Kindle as a way to keep in close contact with scripture on top of their favorite classics and best-sellers. Things have changed for the better since then, so we thought we’d give you a long-overdue update!

What has always made Bible-reading on the Kindle particularly prickly is that most people don’t approach it like a Dan Patterson best-seller. One doesn’t read it straight through – you need to jump quickly to a particular verse when it comes up in a sermon or in a reading, and most people seem to find the table of contents method most versions employ to be overly cumbersome for that task. So how have things changed? Let’s look at some of the most popular versions available and see.

Holy Bible, New International Version – $6.99

The top version of the Bible on Amazon, at least as it concerns sales, is the New International Version. I won’t get into the specifics of the translation, because that’s a whole different argument, but it handles navigation with a linked Table of Contents system. You select the book of your choice from the table of contents, then the chapter, then the verse. You can then go back to the table of contents either by clicking one of the linked chapter or verse numbers, or just hitting back button. This is still a good deal too slow for my taste, and the inability to search for a specific chapter or verse from any page slows things down. Very little thought seems to have been put into this one, and it’s a bit of a joke that it actually costs more than other superior versions. Is there any surprise that it’s only got 3.5/5 stars? I’d skip it.

ESV Study Bible – $9.99

This is the nerd’s version of the Bible, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. The ESV Study Bible goes beyond the text to give you all the history and context for fully understanding those same old passages. It’s got 20,000 notes sprinkled within the text itself, easily accessible by links. It’s also got scores of articles, charts, maps, and specially-formatted illustrations to really stimulate your imagination. Unfortunately, like the NIV, it uses the Table of Contents as its principal form of navigation. I still think it’s the most useful version, all told, but it could make better use of the Kindle itself.

King James Bible – $4.99

A labor of love, this version of the King James Bible makes use of what its authors call Direct Verse Jump navigation. By utilizing their easy shorthand, you can jump straight to a verse by typing it into the search field. Looking up the ubiquitous John 3:16? Type in jn.3.16, hit enter, and boom, you’re there in just one click! They’ve even gone so far as to include a version that’s text-to-speech friendly. By removing the verse numbers, it sidesteps the problem where the text-to-speech would break up the text by throwing in numbers as well. I’ve always thought the KJV was a little vanilla for my taste, but you can’t beat the job they’ve done making this Kindle-friendly.

NET Bible First Edition – $4.99

Done by the same guy that did the aforementioned King James Bible, this version takes the NET version of the good book, which features more than 60,000 footnotes straight from the translators themselves, and utilizes the Direct Verse Jump feature for navigation. For those who are interested in getting as close as possible to the original translation, this is the definitive version. Every version should have Direct Verse Jump!

King James Bible – FREE

Just because there are versions of the Bible you can buy doesn’t mean you HAVE to. Project Gutenberg, for instance, provides a perfectly passable version of the King James Bible. Unfortunately, the price you pay for going with their version is an almost total lack of formatting or indexing. A KindleChat commenter by the name of Thomas posted a link to a free version of the KJV that does actually feature indexing, so perhaps that will serve as a helpful halfway point for the budget-conscious.

Got a version you love that we don’t mention here? Found an especially easy way to read the scripture on your Kindle? Let us know in the comments!