Kindle Free For All: How to Get Millions of Free Kindle Books and Other Free Content With or Without an Amazon Kindle

by Stephen Windwalker

  Ch 5: Find and Download Free Book Samples and Free 14-Day Periodical Trials From the Kindle Store

  While it is certainly true that a Kindle in the hands of an avid reader like you or me can quickly lead to some significant expenditures for reading materials, it is also true that Amazon has designed the Kindle, and arranged the Kindle Store, to make it easy for us to sample any Kindle edition before we buy it. Once you get the hang of using the free sample chapters for Kindle books, or the 14-day free trials for blogs and periodicals, you may find they provide you with a great way to look before you buy.

  First, try out the Kindle's terrific sampling feature. Whether you are browsing titles directly from your Kindle or on your computer, the Kindle edition detail page for just about any title in the Kindle store will show a button on the right that allows you to send a sample chapter or two (usually between 5 and 10 per cent of the full text) directly, and pretty much instantly, to your Kindle. What's not to like about that?

  The sample will download directly and wirelessly to your Kindle just as the complete book would, and the title will be displayed on your Home screen with the word "Sample" in a small font just to the left of the title line.

  You can also download such samples to any device on which you have a free Kindle app, including a PC, Mac, Android device, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Even if you do most of your reading on a Kindle, you may find that keeping a sample library on another device is a great way to reduce clutter on your Kindle home page and organize your decisions about books you might want to buy later.

  Once you have a sample on your Kindle, it is easy to make a buying decision directly from your Kindle either by pressing the menu button and selecting "Buy this Book Now", or by going to the end of the sample, where you will find a link to buy the book.

  One important warning: do not assume a book you have sampled will necessarily continue to be offered at the same price you noted when you first looked at it in the Kindle Store. For this and other reasons, I usually look at a book's Kindle Store product page on my computer before clicking to buy, rather than clicking to buy it from my Kindle or while reading the sample.

  One other, relatively new way to sample Kindle books is with the Kindle for the Web feature that is still in the beta phase of its launch as we go to press. For all the latest information on Kindle for the Web, and samples of some great Kindle reads, check out our Kindle Nation Daily blog.

  Perhaps because of confusion between the Kindle books free sample program and the free 14-day trials for periodicals and blogs, some Kindle owners have been concerned that book samples might automatically roll over and morph into purchases. For instance, on Amazon’s discussion page for one of my books, Elizabeth from Fort Worth wrote in: "If you leave your sample on [your Kindle] too long, will they eventually charge you for it?"

  Elizabeth, Amazon should never charge you for a sample of a Kindle book. If you feel you have been charged wrongly, it's worth a call to the Kindle Customer Support number at 1-866-321-8851 to seek redress. Be sure to have the identifying information for the charge in front of you when you call.

  However, if you sign up for the "sample" form of a Kindle blog, newspaper, or magazine, which is a 14-day free trial, charges will begin immediately after 14 days unless you cancel the free trial by the end of the trial period.

  Also keep in mind:

  You can't easily cancel a Kindle periodical directly from your Kindle*. Instead, go to your Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com from your computer. Scroll down to "Your active Kindle subscriptions" and you'll find it easy to cancel any subscription using the link to its right. (If you have a lot of Kindle subscriptions and you want to see them all at once without going through intermediate steps and extra clicks, use this link to see Manage Your Kindle Subscriptions in "View All" mode.

  * If a 14-day free trial ends and Amazon begins charging you for the subscription, all is not lost. You can still cancel the subscription following the same process outlined in the paragraph above, and Amazon will refund -- at the least -- the pro-rated amount for the portion of the subscription month that you have not received yet.

  As of December 2010, Amazon has announced it will soon make Kindle periodicals -- including their free 14-day trials -- available on Kindle apps for other devices, starting with the Android platform. This availability will be subject to publisher opt-out, and Amazon is already showing a "Tell the Publisher I'd like to read this publication on Kindle Reading Apps" link on the pages of periodicals whose publishers have yet to enable participation.

  Between the Chapters, and Just Between Us: Free for You: How to Ask for and Use a Kindle Gift Certificate

  Whether you are a student contemplating Kindle textbook purchases or just a happy Kindle owner of any age who is blessed with loved ones who want to feed your need to read, there’s more than one path to "free" with the Kindle. If you have family or friends who want to help with your Kindle reading budget, the easiest way for them to help is to send you a Kindle Gift Certificate.

  You or your loved ones can designate the design for a Kindle Gift Card and set any amount from $5 to $5,000.

  To ask for a Kindle gift card as a gift, just email this Kindle Gift Card link to the person you’re asking. Be sure, when it comes time to redeem the card amount, that you use the email account that is associated with your main Amazon account, the same account that you use for Kindle purchases.

  To order a Kindle gift card, gift certificate, or email a gift credit in any quantity or any amount from $5 to $5,000, to anyone including yourself, just click here, look for the "click to select design" link, and use the "Select" button to choose the "Amazon Kindle" gift card. Complete your purchase and you're all set.

  (That's right, sending a Kindle gift card to yourself can be a good way to streamline your Kindle purchases or, perish the thought, stay on a budget!)

  When you receive a gift card, click here to redeem the card and add the amount seamlessly to your balance. Available for Kindle or other Amazon purchases.

  Ch 6: Use Calibre to Manage Your Kindle's Free Books and Other Kindle Content

  Any Kindle owners interested in getting the most out of free content on the Kindle -- or paid content, for that matter -- should make a point of getting familiar with one of the greatest Kindle apps to come along yet, called Calibre.

  Calibre provides features for a wide range of different ebook platforms and devices, but the fact that it supports the Kindle so elegantly is bound to make it a favorite with Kindle owners. In this chapter we will focus on Calibre's usefulness in managing, accessing, reading, and maintaining accurate metadata for the ebooks that you may have acquired based on the tips in Chapter 4.

  According to its creator Kovid Goyal, Calibre was designed to make managing your ebook collection as easy as possible, and can be used to manage books, magazines, newspapers, comics and virtually any other kind of digital content. And, like most of the files that you will be managing with Calibre, the Calibre application itself is free.

  The Calibre application will reside on your computer and will provide a great interface between your computer and your Kindle that will make it easy for you to do any of the following:

  • Convert ebooks and documents from other formats -- including CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM. EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR and TXT -- either to MOBI format so that you can read them on your Kindle or to a wide variety of other formats so that you can read them on your computer or on another mobile device. These other formats include EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF, PML, RB, SNB, TCR and TXT. (The Kindle supports AZW, MOBI, PRC, AZW1, TPZ, TXT).

  • Read any supported ebook format directly from the Calibre e-book viewer on your computer.

  • Send ebooks to directly to your Kindle library via USB cable without any need to pay for Amazon's conversion process.

  • Make corrections or changes in the "metadata" -- such as titles, authors' and publishers' names, publication d
ate, tags, ratings, and other data -- that are associated with each of the ebooks on your Kindle. Without getting too far afield from the basic subject at hand here -- free content -- you may find that this ability to edit metadata can be a powerful tool in sorting, organizing, and managing the content on your Kindle.

  In order to begin using Calibre, you'll need to download the free app to your computer. You can download the Calibre software in formats that are compatible, respectively, with Windows, OS X for the Mac, or Linux at the Calibre website.

  I recommend that even before you download Calibre, you begin by watching Kovid's 8-minute "Grand Tour" video presentation on Calibre here. There is also a further 14-minute video tutorial that includes "power tips" for using Calibre here. As much as it is my usual style to go through and break down instructional material step-by-step, the fact is that Kovid and his team are constantly updating Calibre. So I believe it will be more beneficial to you, now that I hope that I have whetted your appetite about what Calibre can do for you and walked you to the front door of the Calibre site, if I simply suggest that you watch Kovid's video and review the material on the site. It is also well worth an occasional visit to the Calibre help page to check for more recent presentations.

  Once you download and open Calibre, you will find a very hospitable Welcome Wizard that will prompt you to designate a directory where you will store and manage your Calibre Library off-Kindle so you can begin taking advantage of the app's powerful feature set. Naturally, you will find that you have the greatest range of ebook management options for those files that are not restricted by Digital Rights Management (DRM), a subject we will explore in a later chapter.

  Between the Chapters, and Just Between Us: Email eBooks, Memoranda, Scripts, Manuscripts, Directions, Recipes, Legal Briefs and Other Personal Documents to Your Kindle

  Everybody's doing it. What's that?

  Using their Kindle to read every kind of personal and professional document that they'll ever have to read, that's what.

  Your Kindle comes with its own email address, set by Amazon. You can find it on your Manage Your Kindle page and change it if you wish. It is up to you to designate the only email addresses that will be approved to send personal documents to your Kindle, starting with your own personal email address, of course. In the "Your Kindle approved e-mail list" section, enter the e-mail address and select "Add Address."

  Actually, your Kindle has two email addresses, [Kindle username]@free.kindle.com and [Kindle username]@kindle.com. Use the "free" version of the address whenever possible to send documents to yourself. They will be delivered via your wi-fi connection or to your computer without any charges. If you have to use a 3G connection to send documents to your Kindle, Amazon will apply a small transfer charge.

  The following files can be sent wirelessly to your Kindle using this transfer process: Microsoft Word (.DOC), HTML (.HTML, .HTM), RTF (.RTF), JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG), GIF (.GIF), PNG (.PNG), BMP (.BMP), and PDF (.PDF). If you are sending a PDF and you want Amazon to convert it to a Kindle-compatible format with flowable text (and the ability to use Kindle features like "text-to-speech" with it), type "convert" without the quotation marks in the subject field of your email.

  Documents sent to your Kindle will show up in your Home screen using the name you have given the file, so you will probably want to pay attention to the file name before you send it. The document must be sent as an attachment, and content included in the body of the email will not be transmitted.

  Ch 7: Read Blogs, Periodicals, and Other Web Content for Free on the Kindle

  Amazon might prefer that you get all your Kindle blogs and periodicals for a price in the Kindle Store, and those Kindle editions are tough to match when it comes to elegant formatting and the convenience of having new issues and posts pushed wirelessly to your Kindle in real time. However, there are a number of increasingly user-friendly ways to enjoy newspapers, magazines, and blogs free of charge on a Kindle, and we'll break them down and show you how in this chapter and the next.

  Here are the basic approaches:

  • You can use your Kindle's web browser to read any of millions of blogs and online periodical editions directly from the web.

  • You can use any of several RSS feed services such as Google Reader to read content summaries on your Kindle and then click through to content that interests you.

  • You can use Instapaper to flag, sort, and organize interesting articles as you surf the web and send them individually or in digest form to your Kindle.

  • You can set up Calibre to fetch the latest issues of newspapers, magazines and blogs and transfer them directly to your Kindle via an easy-to-use Calibre-to-Kindle USB connection.

  All of these feature are better than ever on the latest generation Kindle 3G and Kindle Wi-Fi models for the following reasons:

  • Both models come with wi-fi, which is must faster than 3G for any activities other than reading an ebook or listening to an audio file.

  • These latest generation Kindle 3G and Kindle Wi-Fi models both come with the Kindle's relatively new WebKit web browser based on the same platform that powers the Safari web browser. It's still a bit slow, but it is miles ahead of the previous Kindle web browser.

  • These latest generation Kindle 3G and Kindle Wi-Fi models feature the new eInk Pearl display that renders 50 percent better contrast than previous Kindle displays, which is especially important when viewing web content formatted for a larger color screen.

  • These latest generation Kindle 3G and Kindle Wi-Fi models provide other features to enhance web page viewing and reading, including Article Mode (a Menu selection while viewing any web page on these Kindles) and several different "zoom" options using the "Aa" font key or the Menu.

  Reading Directly on the Web With the Kindle Web Browser

  Kindle owner preferences vary widely as to whether they enjoy reading online content directly with the Kindle’s web browser. I find that it can be very convenient, in a pinch, to use my Kindle to check or read some material that is important to me on the web, especially if I am away from my computer or a more full-featured internet connection and the information is available on a stripped down "mobile" site. The price is always right and the connection is quiet and inconspicuous, so nobody else is likely to notice if I divert my attention now and then during a less than scintillating meeting to check my Kindle for the score of a game that is in progress, the latest news, any new emails I may have received, or a stock price.

  The extent to which such browsing, checking, and reading suits one’s purposes usually depends on several things:

  • A website’s balance between text and graphics, since graphic-intensive websites are generally very slow to load on a Kindle and difficult to view on the Kindle 1 or the Kindle 2.

  • How much content is involved. Unless one is viewing the web in landscape view and desktop mode on a Kindle DX, many web pages do not automatically format very elegantly on a Kindle screen. I don’t mind putting up with some sloppy formatting if I am reading a paragraph or two, but when I am reading a 2,000-word New York Times article I prefer the kind of user-friendly formatting that I am accustomed to either with the Kindle edition of the Times or with the Calibre fetch process. That said, periodical, blog, and website articles that are compatible with the latest-generation Kindles' "Article Mode" Menu selection usually look great on my Kindle.

  • Whether real time updates are involved. For instance, using the mobile MLB.com site to check on my beloved Red Sox works very well on the Kindle, and I can even refresh to keep up with a running play-by-play.

  • Whether the particular websites that you frequent provide a stripped-down, user-friendly presentation for mobile devices.

  • One’s general patience and tolerance for the relatively slow web page downloads and occasional freezes that one experiences with the Kindle.

  But I heartily recommend that you give the Kindle’s web browser a try so you can see if there are specific websites for which it wor
ks well in your daily life or, say, if you are vacationing for a week in a rustic, wi-fi-free cottage among the Outer Cape’s dunes.

  To help simplify the process, I recommend you reorganize your Kindle’s web browser bookmarks as follows:

  • Open the web browser. I find that the easiest way to do this is to type anything – like "web" -- into the Kindle and move the 5-way to the right to select "Google". The Kindle begins a Google search for whatever I typed in, but more importantly, the browser is open.