The 4-Hour Chef – The First Kindle Fire Book Teaser (Want a Free Kindle Fire?)

A first look at the beta-cover of The 4-Hour Chef. Let me know what you think.

The magic elves and I have been hard at work on an early Christmas gift for you all. In fact, there are quite a few goodies in this post, including 50 free Kindle Fire devices!

Let’s start with one of the most time-sensitive…

The 4-Hour Chef is now on sale on Amazon!

I’ve been keeping things under wraps, but there is one big surprise. For the last 5 years, the most frequent request from blog readers has been a guide to mental performance. In other words, answering the question: how do you deconstruct and learn any skill?

Well, I’ve been listening all along, and that book is here!

Here’s the complete title: The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life. Intended to be “the cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks,” The 4-Hour Chef will use food as a vehicle to teach the art and science of meta-learning–the skill of learning skills. Whether you want to learn a new instrument or a new sport (or anything in between), you’ll have a field-tested and research-backed blueprint. In addition to insight from world-class chefs, we’ll have an unreal cast of characters helping you to multiply your learning potential.

For a limited time, to celebrate the announcement, you can pre-order The 4-Hour Chef for 50-80% off. Instead of $30 for print, you can reserve a copy for $15. Instead of $22 for Kindle, you can get it for $5.99.

You can cancel anytime up to ship date, so there is no downside, only locked-in savings.

Sidenote…

Why might you buy the physical book, even in addition to the Kindle? Three reasons:

1) It will be gorgeous, a wonderful tactile experience, and truly unlike any cookbook you’ve ever seen.
2) I’ll be thinking up bonuses for people who buy the print edition early.
3) It would really help me out. Inexplicably, The New York Times excludes all advice/how-to books from their e-book bestseller list, so only the print edition counts towards the bestseller list. Silly, but there you have it!

See the full book description, sneak-peek photos, and more here.

Next, I present to you the first Kindle Fire book teaser and app!

100% free and titled “A Christmas Countdown Experiment: The 4-Hour Chef Teaser,” it includes a seven-day Christmas countdown advent calendar, with unusual tips that allow you to enjoy wine, cookies, and all the other holiday vices… while losing fat.

From strategic yo-yo dieting and tequila hot chocolate, to exploding cows and tattoos, it’s full of surprises. Here’s are a few screenshots and the introduction video, followed by the download link…

Main menu – just tap any food for the recipe and much more.

I love advent calendars! Tap any day for your prescription or reward.

Download The 4-Hour Chef Teaser here. Please note! This version is limited to Kindle Fire at the moment, but the iPad (iOS) and general Android versions are almost done. They’ll be coming along shortly, and I’ll keep you posted.

But… why not get yourself a free Kindle Fire? That’s next.

If you don’t yet have a Kindle Fire and would one for free, I’m giving away 50 of them. This is a thank you for providing so much helpful feedback over the last six months.

Here’s how to get one:

1) Just spread the word in the next 48 hours! Send people to this blog post or The 4-Hour Chef page on Amazon. Here are some ideas: Facebook like, Facebook sharing, retweets, Twitter, e-mail, e-mail signature, street miming. The last one doesn’t scale as well as the others.

2) By 11am PST this Thursday (Dec. 1), leave a comment on this post telling me what you did. If possible, quantify the impact (clicks, page views, etc.), and be sure to follow these two rules, which are required for your entry to be valid:
- In the first line, tell me what you’d most like to learn in The 4-Hour Chef.
- Keep the entire comment to 200 words or fewer, so use bullets!

We’ll consider the first 300 submissions, and a few judges and I will choose the 50 we think did the best job (subjective, I know). Then we ship them off! Void where prohibited, Martians under 21 not allowed, etc., etc. Winners will be announced next week.

Happy holidays!

Much more to come…

Posted on November 29th, 2011

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Kindle, Nook or iPad? How to Choose the Right eBook Reader for You

There are many different eBook readers available on the market these days, but three stand out from the pack: the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Apple iPad.  Each has their own pluses and minuses and all are fabulous devices, but its easy to get overwhelmed with all of the features. If you’re in the market for an eBook reader and are looking at the Kindle, Nook or iPad, check out my handy guide below which will help you make your decision.

There are two varieties of the Kindle – the Wi-Fi only version, and the Wi-Fi + 3G.  The Wi-Fi only version is priced at $139, while the Wi-Fi + 3G version is priced at $189. Amazon touts their new 3rd generation devices as their best yet.

The Kindle sports a 6-inch E Ink screen, which if you are not familiar with, is much easier on the eyes than your traditional laptop or desktop screen.  Looking at one, it looks amazingly like a matte piece of paper, and there is no glare or reflections.  It’s exceptionally light and sized closer than ever to a mass market paperback book, so it doesn’t feel like you are holding a clunky device.

The downside of  the Kindle is its refresh rate, which Amazon says they have improved.  It’s still not quite as fast as flipping a page in a traditional book, and this is because of the E Ink screen.  But, in terms of the Kindle, it’s their best reading experience yet.

The Kindle also features the Webkit browser, which is sufficient if you just want to look something up online while you’re reading, but it’s definitely not for heavy or regular internet use.  Still, it’s interesting to see the Web in full-on grayscale.

The latest version also supports PDF files, which is a major bonus, but it does not yet support EPUB files (boo!). There’s also a feature that allows you to share your books.

Who Should Buy It:

Those who just want a nice reading experience, and who aren’t concerned about all the bells and whistles.  As of publication, the Kindle Store has just over 900,000 titles to choose from, so you’ll have a fairly good selection of books to choose from.  If you’re an Amazon Associate and earn gift certificates for your commission, this might also sway your choice because you can apply them to your purchase.  The same goes for SwagBucks users who might cash in their points for Amazon gift cards.

There are actually two varieties of the Nook to choose from, the Nook ($149) and NookColor ($249).  The standard Nook features a 6-inch E Ink screen and is most similar to the Kindle.  If all you want to do is read, this is a great device.

The NookColor features a 7-inch, full-color touchscreen LCD screen, and offers enhanced books, magazines, newspapers, & interactive kids books, and can be used as a media player as well.

Both the Nook and NookColor include the unique LendMe feature, which allows you to share eBooks with your friends, something that the Kindle lacks.  B&N also has a Lifetime Library, which allows you to store your favorite books for download anytime, anywhere, with any device that you have the Nook app installed on.

With over 2 million titles to choose from, you’ve got a great selection of books to read.

Who Should Buy It:

If you want lots of choice in terms of titles, the Nook has it.  B&N has more than twice the number of titles available as the Kindle.  If you want an upgraded reading experience, with color instead of grayscale, a nice internet browsing experience, and lots of features, get the NookColor.

The Apple iPad is not a dedicated eBook reader.  Rather, it is a computer device with eBook reader functionalities and capabilities. The iPad features a 9.1-inch full-color touchscreen LCD, and because of it’s larger screen size you can turn the screen horizontally and have 2 pages of an eBook open at a time, just like a real book.  Just like the NookColor though, the downside is that it is LCD, so you might not be able to read on it comfortably for as long as you could on a device with an E Ink screen.

The iTunes store offers you both eBooks and audiobooks that you can download to your iPad (as well as your iPhone and iPod). The 2nd generation model that was recently released starts at 16GB of storage and $499, with prices and storage capacity going up from there.

Who Should Buy It:

Casual readers or those who want a tablet computer first that can also serve as an eBook reader.  Apple fanboys and iTunes addicts will also like this.

If you’re a serious reader and don’t care about frills, go for the Kindle or the Nook.  If you want something with all the bells and whistles, the NookColor is your best value and the iPad is the best all-in-one device.  If I were to be in the market to buy an eBook reader now, my choice would be the NookColor, which you can also reportedly hack and turn into an Android tablet computer.

Readers – what eBook reader do you have? Do you like it? What made you choose it over the others? Do you have any additional tips and advice for our readers? Please share in the comments!

Julie McCormick is a freelance writer, and co-owner of The Cleveland Leader, a Technorati Top 1000 site. She married and is the mother of two young children. You will often find her playing around with the latest tech gadgets, messing around with code, or writing up a storm. She holds a Bachelor's degree in visual communications, and spent nearly a decade working in one of the largest public libraries in the U.S.

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