books Archives

Sick of being online? This guy ditched the internet for year

Just imagine! No more checking email, logging in, authentication codes, memes and seeing photos of your best friend’s meals. You might yearn for some disconnection, but it’s really difficult. Most of everyone’s work is on the computer.

Well, one dude in Canada tried it out. Aron Rosenberg spent a whole year not going online. He taught English and theater at a high school and saw how his students always had a phone glued to their bodies.

He set out to explore what life would be like sans gadgets and Wi-Fi.

How’d it go?

He paid his bills by check and answered texts through SMS on his old-school flip phone. He wrote letters — 250 letters a month.

He did his doctoral research the old-school way by looking through books and printed work. He also had more phone conversations. Sounds relaxing, right?

Since it’s still 2023, he’s back online, but (you guessed it), he wrote a book about it. It’s called “Jacking Out: A Journal of a Year Spent Offline.” I couldn’t find a link to the book. Maybe it’s only available offline?

✅ OK, maybe you can’t pull off a whole year without the internet, but I bet you can stop using your dang phone so much.

The best eBay treasures to sell

A recent analysis of over 17 million sales on eBay uncovered the best-selling items to make extra cash. I bet you have a few of these products stashed in closets — or maybe your parents do.

If you want to make a few bucks, check out the list below and start scavaging.

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Gifts for every mom

Mother’s Day is coming up quickly — Sunday, May 12. I’m sharing a series of slam-dunk gifts for all the moms in your life. Today: Gifts for the mom who loves to read.

If Mom uses a Kindle or other e-reader or tablet, this comfy pillow stand (12% off, $21.99) is a total game-changer.
Pair it with this remote, which lets her turn the page while cuddled under a blankie. It’s a whopping 67% off.
For physical book lovers, grab a rechargeable book light with three color temps and dimming. It’s only $9.99.
These lovely bookplate stickers (gold foil!) will help her keep track of her personal library ($6.99 for 60).
A little tabletop bookshelf to help her organize the stack of books by her bed. This one is 18% off ($26.99).

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Got this question from Sharon in Chicago: “How much can I make selling books on Amazon?” Be careful how you price your books. For e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, you’ll get 70% in royalties. Anything above or below that range drops your royalties to 35%. For paperbacks, you’ll get 60% of the list price (minus printing costs, which depend on page count, size and color). What a novel way to make a living!

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Want to read but can’t afford books? Listen to this one-minute episode for an insider trick that unlocks thousands of free eBooks.

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📚 A novel idea: Spines plans to pump out 8,000 AI-published books next year. The startup promises authors can keep 100% of their royalties and pay between $1,200 to $5,000 for editing, design and distribution. As you can imagine, many writers worry AI is taking the heart, soul and creativity out of the whole process. This is bound to get interesting.

Amazon started as an online bookstore back in 1994. Did Jeff Bezos pick books because … A.) His mom was a librarian, B.) He read four to six books a week or C.) He thought he’d never run out of books to sell?

Find the answer here! →

How to find thousands of free eBooks aside from the library

If you’ve run out of things to watch and are tired of scrolling through social media, how about reading a book? Sure, you can buy actual paper books online and have them shipped. But what if you want to save some money?

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Kindle upgrade: KTool lets you use your Kindle for more than books by easily sending articles, X threads and newsletters (like mine!) right to it.

Jeff Bezos isn’t one to wing it: His fourth private jet, a Gulfstream G700, just set him back a cool $80 million. It’s one of the biggest and most advanced jets out there, reaching speeds up to 710 mph. For my nerds, that’s about 92.5% of the speed of sound. And to think, he started by selling used books from a garage!

Haven’t been to the library in a while. How Dewey find the books again?

📘 It’s fundamental, Watson! Project Gutenberg has 70,000 e‑books free for the taking — legally. Don’t have a Kindle or e‑reader? Put one on your phone and read instead of scrolling through the news. Here’s “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

📖 Looking for summer reading material? Whoa, you have to check out this list: “Amazon’s Best Books in 2024 So Far.” I ordered “James” and “All the Worst Humans.” There truly is something for everyone here. Reading is such a novel idea!

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Need a new book? If you have Amazon Prime, grab two free e-books from their monthly First Reads selections. It’s early access to popular new books. Sweet!

We may receive a commission when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.

Over-share-enting: Former online influencer babies are all grown up and they want laws to protect kids from parents oversharing online. One woman said when she was nine, her mom posted about her first period online, saying, “My baby girl’s a woman today.” Maybe we need to go back to good old-fashioned baby books.

🚀 Out of this world: At 90 years old, Ed Dwight, the first Black astronaut candidate, finally made it to space. He blasted off on May 19 in Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket. Dwight made headlines during his flight training in the ‘60s, but he was never selected by NASA. Now, 60 years later, he’s back in the history books as the oldest person to leave the earth’s atmosphere. I love this!

I’m no lawyer, but …: Docs in a lawsuit against OpenAI show the company destroyed two massive datasets used to train its GPT-3 AI model. The Authors Guild (paywall link) says they likely contained thousands of copyrighted books. Oh, and the “researchers” responsible for creating the datasets no longer work there. How convenient.

Audible now has over 40,000 AI-voiced audiobooks. Good way for self-published authors to save on costs and add a voiceover to their books. Humans are watching their gigs disappear, and I’m really not a fan of that AI monotone.

📖 Calling all bookworms: You can get a 30-day free trial of Kindle Unlimited. It includes over 4 million books and thousands of audiobooks. Nice.

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For all my readers: The Kindle Scribe, Amazon’s bigger and fancier e-reader, is $100 off right now. It’ll house all your books and notes, plus it comes with a stylus. FYI, Kindles go weeks on a single charge.

We may receive a commission when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.