A Dance with Dragons available on Asia-Pac Kindle Store

I am happy to report that George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons, the 5th book in the A Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series was made available, for pre-order and on the first day of release last 12 July 2011, on Kindle's Asia-Pacific store. Good job, Amazon!

Is Kindle Book Lending available for Asia-Pac?

Nope! Here's Amazon's answer:

Is lending available internationally?

At this time, Kindle book lending can only be initiated by customers residing in the United States. If a loan is initiated to a customer outside the United States, the borrower may not be able to accept the loan if the title is not available in their country due to publisher geographical rights.

In these cases the borrower will be notified of this during the Loan redemption process, and the book reading and lending rights will return to the lender at the end of seven days from loan initiation. You can always check the status of a loan by viewing the book on the Manage Your Kindle page.

No goodies for Kindle Store Asia-Pac

Further to my earlier observations about the Kindle, here's a screen shot of the Kindle Store for Asia Pacific customers like me:

Note, on the other hand, the "Special Features" section in the left portion of the Kindle UK Store site, as well as the 12 Days of Kindle promo:

Finally, here's a screen shot of the Kindle Store for US customers. Note the 50% off EA Games promo at the top of the page:

If you scroll down further, there is also a "Special Features" section highlighting recommended books, NY Times bestsellers, top free e-books etc:

As they say in law, res ipsa loquitor!

Inquirer (Kindle edition)

For US$10.99 monthly, you can now get the Philippine Daily Inquirer on your Kindle. Cheaper than buying the paper daily at Php 20. Not too sure how much the monthly subscription goes, if you want the paper delivered to your doorstep everyday.

P.S.

According to the Inquirer (which responded via twitter), an annual subscription to the print edition costs about Php 6,584 or roughly Php 548.67 monthly. The Kindle edition comes out cheaper.

ManyBooks.net

For Kindle users in Asia-Pacific, here's how to get a hold of those classics without   paying the US$2.00 which Amazon charges.

The folks at ManyBooks.net give you the very same books (in their own words) "at the best price: free!"

Just pick a book, choose the Kindle format and download. To transfer to your Kindle, here's how Amazon says you should do it:


1. Plug the larger end of the USB cable into an available USB port or a powered USB hub connected to your computer.

2. Connect the other end of the USB cable to the micro-USB port on the bottom of your Kindle. Your Kindle will go into USB drive mode and appear in the same location you would normally find an external USB drive.

3. Use your computer's file browser to drag and drop files to and from Kindle making sure to drop files in the 'Documents' folder on Kindle.

4. When finished, use your computer's undock, eject, or unmount feature to remove your Kindle. 

What's in the box

Got my Kindle from the Amazon UK store so it came with a power adapter. According to Patrick (of  The Bookish Pinoy), even Kindles purchased from the US store likewise come with a power adapter and a USB 2.0 cable. This means, you can charge your Kindle either using the power adapter or the USB cable (via your laptop or desktop).

For those who buy the "international" version of the Kindle, note that you only get the USB 2.0 cable. You need to order the adapter separately.

The Amazon Kindle 3

I got a Kindle 3 (wifi only version) last Christmas. 


I was going to write about its features except that I found this great post from The Bookish Pinoy, describing it in great detail with a lot of pictures to boot. Read on, folks!




Here's a video from MobileTechReview, if you don't feel like reading: