Len and I discussed the KindleBoards site and our community of Kindle owners.  We shared our reactions on the displays of eReaders at CES, and speculated on future directions for the industry in general, and Kindle in particular.

This is the second time KindleBoards has been featured on the Kindle Chronicles; you may recall Len’s conversation with Leslie from last year. Len’s podcast is published each Friday and is a treasure trove of Kindle tips, news, and analysis – it’s available from iTunes Store and Zune Marketplace.

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M-Edge gave us our first look at its new Guardian case – a waterproof, floatable case. The Guardian case is really well-designed. The Kindle sits on a cradle of cross-braces, leaving air pockets beneath the Kindle – which accounts for the case’s ability to float even when loaded with the Kindle.

Four latches are used to securely close the hinged case. The latches are made of heavy-duty plastic and seem more than adequate in terms of sturdiness. In fact, the whole case has the feel that it’s made to take abuse.

The ingenious part of the Guardian is the flexible covering over the keyboard and controls. This is a “transparent polycarbonate” according to the M-Edge product engineer that I spoke with today. It lets you actually use your Kindle’s controls while it’s protected in the case. You can access all buttons and keys, except for the on/off switch. The 5-way controller is also usable in the case, although maneuvering it through the covering takes a little practice.

The cushioning, rugged plastic, and waterproof seals make this a heavy case compared to the other covers and sleeves in the M-Edge product line. That heft is worthwhile if you’re looking for peace of mind with your Kindle at the beach, the pool, the spa, or the bathtub. Hats off to M-Edge for applying creative and thoughtful design into this innovative eReader products.

Release date for the Guardian case for Kindle is set for spring 2010; pricing has not yet been announced. For more pictures and impressions, read here.

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Editor’s note: today we welcome guest blogger Edward Patterson, who has started a worthy service in honor of our troops.

Operation eBook Drop has astounded me. If anyone would have told me that after three months nearly 290 authors would be participating offering a huge library to the troops, I’d have said — go away!

Here’s the genesis for the program, which was never conceived as such. While in the Amazon discussion groups, I was following the posts of a soldier who was stationed in Iraq. He was helping another customer through the steps to download eBooks through a router to their Kindle. On impulse, I offered this soldier (Joe Terry) a copy of my thirteen published works, if he wanted them. He did and, through our correspondence, I learned just how important reading is to the troops. I should have known this, because I’m an Army veteran (1966-67) — the lonely hours away from home and overseas are real. Wow, I could have killed for a Kindle then.

Operation eBook Drop started on the cuff and replicates that initial gift. I created an Amazon thread to ask if any other deployed troops had Kindles and wanted my books. There were a few nibbles. I then surveyed Indie authors that hung out on Kindleboards.com. The survey results were positive, but soon I had twenty authors asking to donate their books — then thirty — then . . . well, the word went out across the Internet. Within a week, I had an email from Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords.com. Smashwords is a premier on-line eBook distributor, converting Indie books into various eBook formats. Smashwords is also global. Mark Coker decided that Smashwords would back the project, opening up their author network to come aboard. This facilitated eBook delivery, because a link to the page on Smashwords and a 100%-Off Discount code. The long of the short of it, after a month we had over 60 authors participating and the troops were lining up also.

Operation eBook Drop is still off the cuff, and that’s the key to its success. There’s no central site, communication blog or layers of organization. It simply replicates my interaction with Joe Terry. I maintain a list of troops and authors. When a new author opts in, I email them the troop list and they’re responsible for sending the links and code(s), their own welcome email and, in turn, receive feedback directly from the troops. The troops get what they love most — access to a reading library in a shower of emails. I didn’t want to hog the good feelings, so each author has communication responsibility. They blog, post, network, and even go into print.

The program is only twelve weeks old and we have 290 participating authors, 7 publishing site in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and over 70 Troop points of light, including families preparing Kindles for their sons and daughters. We’ve adopted a submarine, the eBook Marine Special Forces program, troops in Iraq, Korea, Afghanistan, Japan, Kuwait, Djibouti, Gitmo and at sea (including the Nimitz). I’m astounded by the success, but why should I be? Independent authors brim with generosity. They know struggle and make their own decisions when it comes to their books and who gets them. They’re in control. Personally, I’m stand in awe of them and urge readers to support them by buying their books. It’s my estimate that the Indie authors of Operation eBook Drop have made available 20,160 copies of eBooks to the troops on the program (and that’s a low estimate as some of the authors have multiple titles and offer them all). The troops choose what they want to read and use the coupons as they see fit, downloading eBooks and porting them to their eReading device.

As for the troops — what can I say? Their sacrifice for our freedom is a better gift than any book I could write. However, because of that freedom, I can author my books as they assure my freedom of speech and the air I breathe. It’s a small donation to fill in their hours away from home and, perhaps in those hours I can provoke a smile or a tear or an escape. Small price to pay for heroism. I salute these brave men and women and hope that no one ever forgets their contribution and sacrifice.

Here are some links for further information on Operation eBook Drop:

For information on joining (authors, deployed troops or their families): http://blog.smashwords.com/2009/09/smashwords-supports-operation-ebook.html

For information on Operation eBook Drop authors: http://tinyurl.com/ygk8u5o

For the Operation eBook Drop Kindleboards forum: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,13352.0.html

And come join the Operation eBook Drop Fan club at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Operation-EBook-Drop/172002003420

Edward C. Patterson

Right now, all of your downloaded eBooks are presented on your Kindle’s home page. They can be sorted in three ways: by most recently accessed, by title, or by author. This works fine if your home page only sports a few pages of books, but many Kindle owners have dozens or even hundreds of books downloaded to their Kindle.

(The current 6″ Kindle reader can hold 1,500 books; the larger Kindle DX can hold 3,500 books.)

Judging from our Kindle user forums, the most requested Kindle feature by far is for “folders” – i.e. some type of filing system to help organize those ever-growing libraries of downloaded eBooks. Kindle owners are taking encouragement about this from today’s post on the Kindle facebook page:

“Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team“.

Note that Amazon’s facebook author (man, I want that job!) avoids using the word “folders”. I think it’s more likely Amazon will introduce a system where eBooks can be tagged, and thus sifted and sorted into different views based on user-assigned tags.

What do you think? Are folders the answer? Tagging? Some other feature? Discuss it with other Kindle owners.

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As far as we know – and we track Kindle e-books pretty closely – this is the first time that an indie author has ‘made it’ with a bona fide New York book deal, after self-publishing his work on the Kindle Store.

We’re proud to call Boyd one of our KindleBoards members and resident authors. Our Reading With the Author series recently featured a book club for The Ark and drew over 2,000 pageviews.

Boyd is characteristically gracious about the support he’s had in our forums: “Thanks so much for everyone who has been so enthusiastic about my novels. I can honestly say that the readers on Kindleboards were a big factor in spreading the word and getting me noticed by my publisher.”

His novels are no longer available through the Kindle Store, but we hope that they will be again when the Simon & Schuster versions are released. Big congratulations, Boyd!

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Judging from the response in our forums, this brings the price down to an level of attractiveness for a lot of new Kindle buyers – not to mention a few people looking for an excuse to buy a second Kindle!

And if you purchased your Kindle 2 within the past 30 days, call Amazon customer service – in a few seconds you can get a $60 credit refunded to your credit card. Dozens of our forum members have done this in the past few hours, and – in usual fashion – found Customer Service to be courteous and responsive in crediting those sixty clams.

Thanks, Amazon! This has put a lot of people in a very good mood today!

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Initial impressions of the DX seem to be positive. The screen is bright and clear, with good contrast. One member took hers out into the sun and did not report any problems with fading, as was seen on so many of the Kindle2s. (I couldn’t test mine since the great State of Maine has been under a blanket of rain for the past three days!) Personally, I think the auto-rotate feature is very cool. While I was eating lunch, I turned it upside down so the buttons were on the left, allowing me to use my left hand to change the page and continue using my fork with my right hand.

Weight: the DX weighs 18 oz and my Kindle2 in its Oberon cover weighs 20 oz. Interestingly, the DX “feels” heavier. I think it has to do with the center of gravity, especially if you hold it near the bottom. Of course, the perfect solution was sitting right on my desk: an old, metal copy holder for papers (which I never use anymore). The DX fits like a glove. It also fits very nicely in the Peeramid pillow.

We have lots of mini-reviews and first impressions posts at KindleBoards. Some of the more popular include Kindle DX: Your Mini-Reviews, It’s Almost Here, Time for the DX to Ship, and First Person to Receive a Kindle DX. There are also three reviews, with comments, posted in the Reviews Forum, which can be found here.

Shipping emails for the Kindle DX were sent from Amazon this week, to the intense interest of all who ordered the latest Kindle reader – including me.

I chose SuperSaver shipping, and my projected arrival date is June 22 to June 26. Others who arranged for overnight shipping are seeing arrival dates as early as June 11.

I’m hoping that Amazon delights us again with their shipping. My Kindle 2 came in a full week earlier than its projected arrival date. I would love to see my DX a little earlier!

If you haven’t witnessed the DX in use, play the above video from mobileread – it shows an extended demo of the Kindle DX from the Amazon press announcement of a few weeks ago.

The Kindle DX can be ordered through Amazon and is being shipped next week on a first-come, first-served basis.

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She wrote to the publishers listed in Amazon’s May 6th press release, and one of those publishers leaked the news to her. No word yet on which textbooks will be offered, or at what prices.

Kindle DX is available now for pre-order and starts shipping this week. The DX is targeted to college students, business people, and others who can benefit from its larger 9.7-inch screen, auto-rotating display, PDF support, and 4GB storage capacity.

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Today was national Kindle & Koffee meet-up day, with Kindle owners appearing in Starbucks or other coffee houses around the country at 10:00am local time.

KindleWidow and I showed up at the Bellingham Starbucks at Holly & Railroad, along with our daughters. We enjoyed some coffee (cocoa for the girls – it was a cool spring morning in the northwest) and some Starbucks breakfast sandwiches.

And, had a nice conversation with a barista and with another customer about Kindle. We brought my Kindle 2 as well as KindleWidow’s Kindle 1, and a handful of covers as well.

Other meet-ups were slightly more active, with one group reporting a half-dozen Kindle owners converging on a Starbucks in Pennsylvania. All in all, a nice way to spend a Saturday morning. Thanks again to Kathy S for getting this organized – the first-evah National Kindle & Koffee Day!

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