Amazon, you ol' dog you.

I've said it once, I'll say it again - I don't particularly care for ebooks. Due to my lack of one, and lack of being organised in the slightest, all of the following pictures have been borrowed from the internet and the caption will send you to the original link. 

I'm going to look at the Kindle, I've got pictures from the touchscreen, keypad, and the other one that's not either of those two. I'm not looking at the Fire, as I just want to focus on the ink display. Kindle, as we know, was created by Amazon, who is taking over the world. I don't want to get in to it, mainly because I'm super tired but also because that's not what I'm here to talk about. Instead, design. Let's start with a cover. Naturally.

Left - http://bit.ly/O3euGx; right - http://bit.ly/R8Y56P

Here we have One Summer, published in 2011 by Grand Central Publishing. However, on the left, the 6" E Ink display Kindle, retailing for $109.00 on amazon.com right now. On the right, a book, or at least the cover of a real book, most likely hardback. The colours in the cover are fantastic, the subtle tones of summer make you want to pick up this book and find out what this one summer was all about. The author's name is first, due to the fact he's established and written enough novels to have his name known. The typeface is a classic serif, making him look even more important. The typeface for the title feels nice and flowy, giving the impression this book's going to be full of fun and drama. But to the Kindle. My main issue with the Kindle is there's no ink technology to make the screen colour yet. Maybe you look in to every ebook you purchase, but with this one, I wouldn't buy it based on the cover on a Kindle. Does that makes sense? Anyway, I've been told Kindle's don't automatically go to the cover on an ebook, you have to choose to. I buy books because I love the physical object with a pretty cover you can hold - ebooks just don't appeal. 
To the body text!

The Paris Wife prologue. http://bit.ly/O3euGx

Here's a sample page on the same Kindle as above. The original printed page looks the same as this - same typeface, same capital T, and roughly the same space between PROLOGUE and the beginning of the body copy. The typeface is a nice serif, easy to read and attractive looking. The margins around the text is also great, a nice amount of space so the page doesn't look or feel cramped while reading alone. I assume this is probably the preset size typeface, since it's easy to change the size on a Kindle, as you can see. 

http://amzn.to/MT9doe

Apologies, this isn't from the same book.
You can even sneakily choose a sans-serif typeface - blasphemy! This is one cool feature I'll give the Kindle. I know when I get tired or my eyes are just feeling lazy for no reason, I'd love to be able to make the typeface of my book bigger. The other great thing about this feature is that it opens it up to a whole other market of readers, older people. I mean no offence when saying this, but it's true! I've heard people buying ereaders for parents and grandparents so they don't lose reading. I'm aware that libraries often stock large print books, I'm just not sure how much of a market there still is for this. 
One more picture, and it's pretty awesome. 

http://bit.ly/dNFLaW

At least I think it's awesome. I'm not a huge fan of manga or graphic novels, but I've dabbled. You can purchase graphic novels and manga for Kindle, but this one I've found was using a programme called Mangle. I think it's come out great considering it's not made for the reader. The images have come out really well, although I'm sure it would look better in colour. They're really clear and easy to read, which is probably due to the converter too. The only issue is the pages don't totally cover the whole screen, so they overlap a bit like on the right hand side. Because you can adjust the typeface size and manga is in panels, it wouldn't be too difficult to create a setting that's perfect for this genre. This is the Kindle keyboard with 3G and wifi, which is currently $189.00 on Amazon. They're managing to do pretty well for themselves, are Amazon.


A few more to come,
K.

Nigella = obvious domestic Goddess.

I, like many other people throughout the world, love Nigella Lawson. For one, she's a bit of a babe and embodies most of the great aspects of women. She's also a great host on her TV shows, and I've spent many a great evening with my Mum, eating dinner and watching Nigella. This is about one of her many books, which I've actually found on Amazon (evil) as an extract from the Kindle version.

Nigella Lawson, Nigella Express: Good Food Fast, Hyperion, 2007

Here's the lovely cover of Nigella looking like a babe with her pasta. Now, while I do think this is a great cover with a bold heading and great stand-alone repeated subheading, I'm confused by the need for colour, which is something throughout the ebook. Perhaps it helps it sell, I don't know. This is the Kindle version, and only the latest (most expensive) Kindle has full colour - the Kindle fire. Without this, the cover and careful contrast of the green writing on darker background becomes redundant. Also, I think having a Kindle Fire is more about saying 'I don't want an ipad' rather than anything about e-readers - it doesn't (and probably can't) use the ink technology I feel is the best thing about e-readers. Although you could use this ebook on your computer, not everyone likes to have their laptop in the kitchen.

Contents and 'About this Book'. Apologies for the poor quality - screen capture.
Click on the images for a better view.

Each recipe is hyperlinked, and these work within these sample pages and presumably the ebook you purchase also. The typeface used throughout the body copy is a serif - something similar to Times New Roman. As a book that relies on the information it gives, the typeface choice is a good one. Nothing too fancy, nothing too plain.

Oh Nigella, you so cool.

The introduction is quite similar to the above typeface, I just liked the picture of Nigella. It brings it back to the fact this is her cookbook, since the rest of the pictures I've seen are just of food. Plus she's probably the reason you bought it in the first place. Still it's in colour though - a tad useless on the Kindle.

Section marker.

As these are just sample pages from the ebook, this is the only section marker that you can view. I really like this page even though I'm really not a pink kind of girl. The typeface is simple and slightly serif, but still a little bit fancy, there's a nice play with the 'easy' and the clock in the frying pan implying the recipes are easy and non-time consuming. Underneath, again, are hyperlinks to the recipes in this section. Not going to lie though, they don't all sound that easy. 

Delicious-looking pizza.

Here's an example of one of the recipes - naan pizza. Looks pretty good, although Nigella does say she can eat a whole takeaway pizza - crazy. As before, the text is in the same typeface. The title is in the nice pink, a repeat feature from the section marker. I think it's nicely set up - the title, an introduction about the recipe and how she came up with it, the ingredients and then the step by step process. One thing I think is great is the use of the bold typeface for the ingredients list. We've covered recipes before in our editing classes at school, and this follows what we've said in class - ingredients go in the order in which you use them in the recipe. Plus it helps them stand out from the rest of the recipe. The picture, while looking fantasticly delicious, does become a bit redundant given the black and white nature of most Kindles, as previously discussed. However, an image adds so much more to a recipe, I personally always like to know what the thing I'm making is supposed to look like.

Just for another example, here's the recipe for Nigella's mustard pork chops.

And here's the picture of them. Just for another mouthwatering image.


That's all I've got for Nigella and her Kindle- format cookbook. More book design to come soon.