[Prestidigitweeze]

Hello and huzzah to everyone. If you wouldn't mind, please spread out across the field and bend yourselves into letters that spell the words BIG MOO-HANKING DEAL. Thanks for that memorable welcome and know that I appreciate the fact you care.

A little about myself (since I myself am little):

I'm a studio musician and writer who lives in New York and snatched a Kindle 3 at launch. I currently co-edit a literary magazine which is published on the web and Kindle simultaneously; I've also written a few books which, sadly, are only available on paper.

But I haven't come to these forums to pimp my wares. I've come because I like your company, and because I intend to ask questions.

For one thing, I'm a new Kindle user who isn't a fan of, say, Agatha Christie gazing at me dourly while standing next to her own name. The screens have got to go; no avid reader needs immense forenames and foreheads to identify a fave, nor am I a fan of such nondescript renderings of their mugs, nor do many of them actually represent favorite writers. (Besides which, an e-reader bedizened with authors' pictures as screensavers seems a week Hank literal-minded to this miniature-golfer-hurling tosser-toss contestant.)

For another, I'll probably ask questions about Calibre, now that we eds are getting more serious about our Kindle edition layout. (We might also want to publish print and Kindle books simultaneously as we inch into that area with a few of our best contributors.)

So you see, I've joined these forums because I like your tone and respect your level of technical knowledge. I'd like to say I'm well-versed in the subject, but that was last year and, in the words of Ouroboros the Reptilian Nudist, to be continued.