How to Read Kindle Books Without a Kindle
Amazon’s Kindle was truly a breakthrough device when it was released in 2007. It allows its owners to instantly download books directly onto the device in less than 60 seconds. Even better, the Kindle version of many books usually cost less than the physical version. The majority of New York Times bestsellers are only $9.99, which is often a significant savings over brand new hardcover books. If you visit Amazon.com often, you’ve probably seen the link to instantly download the Kindle version of the book, but were frustrated because you didn’t have a Kindle. Perhaps you don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for a Kindle when new devices like Apple’s iPad are hitting the market. Whatever the reason, the good news it that you actually DON’T need a Kindle in order to download Kindle books. Here are a few ways you can do it.
1. The Kindle App
This is applicable to owners of the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Many users of these devices aren’t aware that there is a free Kindle App available to download in the App Store. Amazon released this App on March 3, 2009, and it has since been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Even better, this App is also available for the iPad. This means that iPad owners can use their device to read not only the books that Apple makes available to them, but also Kindle’s library of nearly half a million books.
2. Kindle for PC
Another option is to download Amazon’s free Kindle for PC application. This allows you to download Kindle books directly to your computer and to use the Kindle for PC application to read them. The program is simple to use, and it is probably the best computer reading experience available. The only downside is that you cannot make annotations like you can on an actual Kindle.
3. Kindle for Mac
Until March of 2010, Mac users were left out in the cold when it came to reading Kindle books without a Kindle. However, that all changed when Amazon finally released a third method for reading Kindle books without a Kindle. Mac owners had been disgruntled about this and wondered why it was taking Amazon so long to release such a product, but Amazon finally delivered with the free Kindle for Mac software.
By providing all these methods to download Kindle books without a Kindle, Amazon has opened their library of books to an enormous number of potential customers. It is rumored that they are currently working on an App for Google’s Android cell phone operating system. This will increase their reach even further.
Amazon Kindle How-To Series – Convert Free E-Books to Kindle Books
While the Kindle wireless reading device lets you carry literally hundreds of e-books, newspapers, and magazines anywhere you go, your Kindle is actually pretty picky about the types of documents it will let you read. Free e-books, articles, white papers, and other documents you might wish to read on your Kindle are everywhere on the Internet. The problem is that they are not in a format that is “Kindle-friendly.”
The Kindle “naively” supports the following document formats -
Kindle documents (.azw)
Text documents (.txt)
Mobi Reader documents (.mobi or .prc)
But, if you have a document you wish to read on your Kindle that is in another format – for example = a free e-book that is an Adobe Reader (.pdf) file or a Microsoft Word (.doc) file then you have to convert it to the proper format for use on your Kindle. Fortunately this is not something that is hard to do.
Amazon has a service for which they charge a nominal amount allowing you to convert documents such as .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) files to Kindle files. To do this you must first have an active Kindle e-mail address. You can make sure you are set-up with a Kindle e-mail address by visiting the “Manage Your Kindle” section of the Amazon web site. Typically, your Kindle e-mail address will be “yourusername@kindle.com”.
1. Make sure the document you want to convert is in one of the following formats
Microsoft Word (.doc)
HTML (.html)
Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf)
2. Check to be sure the file is not “protected.” This can occur with e-books you have purchased with DRM (digital rights management) restrictions. You also might have documents that include passwords or other means to restrict access. You will not be able to convert these files.
3. Create an e-mail to your Kindle e-mail address and attach the file you wish to read on your Kindle.
4. Send the e-mail – Amazon will convert the document and send it to your Kindle via the wireless connection.
5. The cost for this service is $.10 (ten cents) per document.
If you want to convert your document at no charge, or are in an area where you cannot access the Kindle’s wireless service you can do so with a slight change in the steps above.
Rather than send the e-mail with the attached document to your Kindle e-mail address send it to “yourusername@free.kindle.com”. Amazon will convert the document and send it back to the originating e-mail address. When you get the e-mail back from Amazon you can transfer the document to your Kindle using the USB cable connected to your computer.
It’s as simple as that!
A few important things to remember. First, as stated above, if the files you wish to convert have any sort of DRM (digital rights management) restrictions then the file won’t be converted. Also – this is an “experimental” service for Amazon. Documents with complex formatting, or certain .pdf files, may not convert as expected. While this may not prevent you from reading the document, it will make it a bit more difficult to navigate through and around your e-book.
Congratulations! Now you know how you can quickly convert e-books in Microsoft Word, HTML, and Adobe Acrobat Reader format to “Kindle-friendly” e-books. This process can help you add a lot of great content to your Kindle wireless reading device.