Wednesday, January 26, 2011

TED Takes Talks To Kindle

Fans of TED, the popular technology and ideas-focused conferences held in Long Beach and Palm Springs, have a new place to get their TED fix today, through a new digital book effort called TEDBooks, being run in conjunction with Amazon.com. According to the organizers of TED, it has launched TEDBooks to feature new ideas--similar to the firm's hallmark talks at its conferences--in a short format. The short books will be available through Amazon.com's newly launched Amazon Singles program, which looks to publish short essays, original reporting, memoirs, and other works of between 5,000 and 30,000 words. TEDbooks said the new short books will be availabe on Kindle for $2.99 each. TED's first titles include a title by Nic Marks, The Happiness Manifesto: How Nations and People Can Nurture Well-Being; a title by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans, Homo Evolutis: Please Meet the Next Human Species, and a title by Gever Tulley, Beware Dangerism! Why We Worry About the Wrong Things, and What It's Doing to Our Kids. The TED conferences are known for their short talks, which highlight interesting topics and inspire thoughts and ideas.