Friday, March 18, 2011

David Cassel Interview (Me & My Kindle Blog)




1: How much time does it take to put together a post? You seem to put a lot of time into each one including links, sample txt, and even lyrics.

Yeah, it takes at least an hour to craft a really good blog post.  It's not a single article; it's more like an ongoing relationship with each reader that gets re-awakened every day. I'm always trying to "grab" their interest with something big -- breaking news, an exciting idea, or something that's just really, really fun. But there's a lot of research into each post behind-the-scenes - and a lot of time spent polishing up the way that it's finally written!

2: What other Blogs do you read on a regular schedule?

I'm a little star-struck by the bloggers who write for Amazon.com.  It was just this week that Amazon let Kindle owners start subscribing to their blogs individually. So I jumped on Omnivoracious -- Amazon's blog about books -- and Armchair Commentary, which is Amazon's blog about movies and TV.

There was a lot of disappointment when Amazon discontinued the Kindle Daily Post blog -- but it's still available on the web (at KindlePost.com). And I just recently discovered that Media Bistro has a dedicated blog that's all about the publishing industry (called "GalleyCat".)  

And of course, I check Amazon's web site for press releases -- along with Google News -- to make sure I'm catching any breaking news about  Kindles!

3: What was it that drove you to start a blog about the Kindle?

I began thinking about history, and wondering if the book might really start to disappear in my lifetime. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime change, and I really wanted to be a part of it somehow. At one point I even thought about interviewing every last librarian in the country.

I still think the e-book revolution is going to change everything. And I guess I wanted to be where the action is.


4: Of all the great content ready to be sent to our Kindle within minutes (and no need to pay for gas to go get) what are you reading on your Kindle right now? 

I actually got to meet author Linda Watanabe McFerrin, and I'm just finishing up her novel "Dead Love" -- which is a very well-written zombie romance. But lately
I've been on a biography kick -- I'm reading Keith Richards' biography, "Life," along with "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood."

I'm a sucker for a free classic, so I've also started working my way through the original "Jungle Book" -- and Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." And after the movie "True Grit" came out, someone suggested we try reading the classic western books, so I picked up Zane Grey's "The Rainbow Trail" -- which was a sequel to his most famous western -- as a free ebook in the Kindle store. 

5: Have you updated your Kindle with the new software if so what is your favorite new feature?

I haven't. Around Christmas time, I bought my girlfriend a new Kindle 3, and then she handed down our Kindle 2 to me. So unfortunately, I'm not eligible for the upgrade. 
But I am curious to see how those page numbers work!

6: Do you find your reading more books now with the invention of the eReader than you did with dead tree books?

Absolutely. I once joked to a friend that Amazon had discovered a way to sell "the joy of reading" back to us. I read a news article about a school that bought Kindles for all their students -- and one of the students said that it really made reading feel more cool. I knew reading was cool already, of course, but it's even more exciting now, more cutting-edge and modern. 

I'm reading books that might be coming to me straight from the author's hard drive. Maybe it's a story that they just finished writing last weekend. Maybe it's something
that was too "edgy" for a print publisher to take a chance on. Maybe it's something that's so exotic and obscure that it doesn't even exist as a printed book any more.

But to answer your question...yes.  I'm definitely reading more now with the invention of the e-reader.

7: Is the Kindle the only ereader that you own? 

Yep!  (My girlfriend once joked that I couldn't switch to another reader, because I'd already named my blog "Me and My Kindle.")

I once thought about buying a Nook or another reader, just to give it a test run and compare it to the Kindle. But honestly, the "second reader" I'd 
most like to have right now is an original Kindle 1.   It's almost like a classic car -- it's clunky and asymmetrical, but it started a revolution. 

8: If you could bring one thing to your Kindle with a new software update what feature would you like to see?

Well, there's obviously room for improvement in the Kindle's mp3 player.  And I sometimes have trouble finding the ebooks I want to read, so maybe Amazon could come up with a better way to search by title or author.  But I've also been using the Kindle's web browser a lot lately, so it'd be nice if Amazon could improve its performance. 

I know Amazon doesn't really want you to browse the web -- because they have to pay for all the bandwidth you use. But I've seen sites like KInstant.com, which re-format any web page so it'll display faster on your Kindle. I think Amazon should try something like that!


9: Along with subscribing to your great Blog is there any other social networks we can find you on? 

Not yet.  But please tell your friends to read my blog! :)

Let's share the e-book revolution together!



2 comments:

  1. Great interview. I love your blog! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks :) I have a lot of fun interviewing everyone and getting their work seen

    ReplyDelete