A Special FREE KINDLE NATION SHORT
Excerpted from
FREE:
How to Get Millions of Free Books, Songs, Podcasts, Periodicals & Free eMail, Facebook, Twitter and Wireless Web With Your Amazon Kindle, Kindle 2, Kindle DX,
Or Kindle for iPhone App
By Stephen Windwalker of Kindle Nation Daily
The World's Leading Author on the Kindle
And How to Get the Most Out of It
A Special FREE KINDLE NATION SHORT
Excerpted from FREE: How to Get Millions of Free Books, Songs, Podcasts, Periodicals & Free eMail, Facebook, Twitter and Wireless Web With Your Amazon Kindle, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Or Kindle for iPhone App
By Stephen Windwalker
Kindle Edition
Harvard Perspectives Press
Arlington, Massachusetts
Visit Kindle Nation Daily at http://thekindlenationblog.blogspot.com/
Copyright 2009, Stephen Windwalker and Harvard Perspectives Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author or publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, article, book, or academic paper.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
This special Free Kindle Nation Short is composed of Chapters 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9
1. Isn't It Ironic? That Expensive Kindle That You are Holding is the Key to "Free"
2. Find and Download Free Books from the Kindle Store
6. Use Calibre to Manage Your Kindle's Free Books and Other Kindle Content
8. Fetch the News, Newspapers and Magazines, and Other Content with Calibre
9. Use Kindle Nation Daily's Free Book Alerts
A listing of other chapters in the Table of Contents follows for your convenience. To read more you may purchase and download the complete ebook for just $2.99 here -- or by typing "free windwalker" on your Kindle in the Kindle store. I hope you enjoy the full book and I am confident that it will help you save hundreds of dollars on free content over the life of your Kindle.
4. Find and Download Free Books from the Web
5. Find and Download Free Book Samples and Free 14-Day Periodical Trials from the Kindle Store
7. Read Blogs, Periodicals, and Other Web Content for Free on the Kindle
a. Read Directly on the Web With the Kindle Web Browser
b. Set Up a Google Reader RSS Feed for Your Kindle
c. Flag and Send Interesting Web Content with Instapaper
10. Unlock the World of Free Audio on the Kindle
11. Use Free Email, Facebook, Twitter and Other Services on the Kindle
12. Use Kindlepedia for Free Wikipedia Research on Your Kindle
13. The Mythical $9.99 Price and the ABCs of Kindle Store Pricing
14. The Politics of "Free" Books in the Age of the Kindle
16. Tips for Making the Most of Your Kindle's Free Features
a. Check Sprint's Wireless Coverage for Your Kindle
b. Free for You: How to Ask for and Use a Kindle Gift Certificate
c. A List of Kindle-Friendly Web Links
1. Isn't It Ironic?
That Expensive Kindle That You Are Holding Is the Key to "Free"
Welcome to the world of the amazing Amazon Kindle. It's that expensive ebook reader you've been hearing about: $299 for the Kindle 2, $489 for the super-sized Kindle DX, and $199.99 for a just-like-new "refurbished" Kindle 1 shipped straight from Amazon.
Who can afford that?
Well, there is a good chance that you can. And I'm not just saying that as a balm to heal your potential buyer's remorse if, as is quite possible given the fact that you are reading these lines, you have already bought a Kindle.
The fact is that, while the Kindle's entry price may seem a little steep, the Kindle itself is as great a key to future free content of all kinds as you may ever find.
For starters, did you know that the Kindle also comes with a free built-in web browser and a wireless "Whispernet" service that provides you with almost anywhere, anytime connectivity?
Connectivity with Amazon and the Kindle Store, of course, so you can keep buying Kindle books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs, and be reading them on your Kindle within 60 seconds.
Connectivity with Wikipedia, so you can look up anything that comes to mind or that you read about, within seconds.
But that's not all.
You can also connect with Google, with your email or Facebook or Twitter accounts, or with just about any other text-based website!
You can check scores, stocks, news, or weather, and then send an email, a text, or a tweet to share the news.
You can read blogs, online documents, and news sources any time and any place you please.
Don't get me wrong: this is not a lightning fast, full-featured browser. It's great in a pinch but you aren't going to start using it to send dozens of email messages each day.
However, it is free, it is there, and it is quiet. If, for instance, you are trying to read a real book on your Kindle, you will find the Kindle's connectivity is a lot less intrusive and distracting than most connected devices. It rests quietly in the background until you decide you need to use it for something.
And at that point, there's no need to find a Starbucks or other wi-fi connection.
There's no need to pay a monthly wireless charge, a data fee, or an activation fee.
There's no need to do anything but enjoy your Kindle.
Free.
But that's just the beginning.
Now that you've purchased and downloaded this ebook, you are about to learn about millions of free books, blogs, articles, music tracks, podcasts, periodicals and research documents that you can download to your Kindle in a snap, whether you are stocking up on beach reading or in the middle of a daunting research project.
Whatever you paid for your Kindle, the purpose of this ebook is to provide you with all the information, tips, tricks, and links that you will need to make sure that it begins paying for itself today and continues for each and every day that you use it.
So let's get started.
To read more you may purchase and download the complete ebook for just $2.99 here -- or by typing "free windwalker" on your Kindle in the Kindle store. I hope you enjoy the full book and I am confident that it will help you save hundreds of dollars on free content over the life of your Kindle.
2. Find and Download Thousands of Free Books From the Kindle Store
Have you heard that most books in the Kindle Store are priced at $9.99?
If so, it might seem like a lot to pay for a digital book, when neither the publisher nor the author incur any expense for printing, paper, shipping, or warehousing. Ebooks at $10 a pop can add plenty to your monthly credit card bill in a hurry.
Well, here's some good news.
Over 40% of the books in the Kindle Store are priced at $4.99 or less, and among those there are over 7,400 free books.
Another 30% are priced between $5 and $10, and of those that are priced above $10, the vast majority are technical books whose paper editions are far more expensive.
While it is true that most of the 7,400 free Kindle books are public domain titles, many of these are classics that make great leisure reading. And if you happen to be an English, philosophy, or humanities major, those classics could save you a bundle when it's time to buy textbooks. Not to put too fine a point on this, but these are not junk titles -- just type the name of one of your favorite classic authors into your search and you will likely be pleased with the return, especially when see the prices.
It's easy to access these free book titles and download them to your Kindle within seconds at no charge.
While it is generally true that you will be able to search the Kindle Store more effectively -- and more price-consciously -- from your computer than from your Kindle, it is certainly possible to get a listing of public domain titles in the Kindle Store while searching with your Kindle. Here are the basics:
From your Kindle, just go to the Kindle Store and type "Public Domain Books" (without the quotation marks) into the search field.
Your Kindle will soon display search results of over 7,000 titles.
If you want to narrow these results by category, just use your Kindle's 5-way or scroll-wheel to select "Narrow Results by Category" in the upper-right corner of the display screen.
Click on any title to check the price before buying, and select the "Buy" or "Try a Sample" button to download all or part of the book to your Kindle.
As is often the case with Kindle Store searches, you can see a lot more information and make a more informed choice about which books -- and which editions -- you want to buy or sample if, whenever possible, you do your searching from a computer. Here are a couple of helpful links that will help you find just the kind of free books that you are looking for in the Kindle Store:
* Go to http://bit.ly/FreeKindleStoreBooks for a listing of "over 7,400" free Kindle books of all kinds. Why did I put "over 7,400" in quotation marks? Well, it's because -- although there are 7,400 there -- Amazon limits your search to 120 pages, so that you may have to surrender after viewing 4,800 free Kindle titles. Do you have to surrender? No, just click on one of the category links in the left sidebar to narrow your search within specific categories of free Kindle books.
* Go to http://bit.ly/FreeKindlePromotionalTitles for a listing that excludes all the public domain titles so that you only see those Kindle books whose authors or publishers have set the price at zero, generally as a promotion to stir up interest in a new title or the same author's more recent book.
* While we are at it, you can also get a heads up on Kindle titles -- of all prices -- that are so new that they have yet to be released just by going to http://bit.ly/ForthcomingKindleTitlesNow, just for fun.
And yes, you can access any of free these titles regardless of which Kindle you may be using, whether you paid $299 for the Kindle 2, $489 for the super-sized Kindle DX, or $199.99 for a just-like-new "refurbished" Kindle 1 shipped straight from Amazon. As a matter of fact, you can even get them without a Kindle if you are equipped with an iPhone or iPod Touch, the free Kindle for iPhone app, and a copy of my 99-cent ebook No Kindle Required - The Complete "Kindle for iPhone" User's Guide.
To read more you may purchase and download the complete ebook for just $2.99 here -- or by typing "free windwalker" on your Kindle in the Kindle store. I hope you enjoy the full book and I am confident that it will help you save hundreds of dollars on free content over the life of your Kindle.
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 should make a point of getting familiar with the greatest Kindle App 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 Chapters 2, 3, and 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, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, 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, PML, RB, PDF, and 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 date, 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 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 http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/download.
I recommend that, even before you download Calibre, you begin by watching Kovid's YouTube presentation on Calibre at http://bit.ly/CalibreVideo. As much as it is my usual style to go through and break down instructional material step-by-step, the fact that Calibre is still in beta -- Version 0.6.3 as I write this -- suggests to me that 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. In the future, you may also want to check out YouTube's eReader channel at http://bit.ly/eReaders-on-YouTube 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 that 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, a subject that we will explore in Chapter 14.
To read more you may purchase and download the complete ebook for just $2.99 here -- or by typing "free windwalker" on your Kindle in the Kindle store. I hope you enjoy the full book and I am confident that it will help you save hundreds of dollars on free content over the life of your Kindle.
8. Fetch the News, Newspapers and Magazines,
And Other Content with Calibre
In Chapter 6 you learned how to use Calibre to manage your ebook library. In this chapter, we'll focus on how you can send Calibre out onto the internet to fetch entire periodicals on a regular basis online and, then, to deliver them in elegantly formatted files directly to your Kindle.
Once you have Calibre open on your computer, it's a snap to fetch free content from a growing list of great online cources. To get started, just click on the "Fetch news" icon near the top of the Calibre display and select "Schedule news download" from its pulldown menu:
The next display to appear on your screen will allow you to select the language in which you wish to find online content. If you click on "English," you will see a list of content choices such as the one above. Just click on the periodical of your choice and Calibre will display dialog boxes to prompt you through the process of setting your preferences for scheduling regular downloading its content, with choices allowing you to complete your downloads at a time of your choice daily or on a certain day or days each week. The choice of the download time can be important for several reasons:
You may want to make sure that a daily newspaper downloads at the optimal time to catch its most recent edition, such as 5 a.m.
Calibre will complete your scheduled "Fetch news" downloads only if it is open on your computer.
Calibre will push your scheduled "Fetch news" downloads automatically to your Kindle only if the Kindle is connected to your computer via USB cable.
Try it. I think you will like it, and you may be amazed at how nicely and fully Calibre renders your "Fetch News" content on youyr Kindle. For instance, the weekly fetch of the New Yorker comes complete with the new issue's cartoons, Goings on About Town listings, and helpful article summaries.
To read more you may purchase and download the complete ebook for just $2.99 here -- or by typing "free windwalker" on your Kindle in the Kindle store. I hope you enjoy the full book and I am confident that it will help you save hundreds of dollars on free content over the life of your Kindle.
9. Use Kindle Nation Daily's Free Book Alerts
Okay, you can call this a commercial if you want, because I'm touting my own Kindle Nation Daily blog, but at least it's a commercial that will lead you to even more free books and content for your Kindle.
Several times a week you will find new listings of free content at Kindle Nation Daily, so if you are interested in keeping up with what's free and what's worth reading in the Kindlesphere, as well as hundreds of other useful tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Kindle, you should definitely sign up for my free weekly email newsletter, Kindle Nation, at the Kindle Nation Archive site at http://bit.ly/KindleNationArchive.
Or, if you want a little more Kindle-compatible convenience for just 99 cents a month, you can have each and every Kindle Nation Daily post pushed directly to your own Kindle in real time by subscribing to http://bit.ly/KindleNationDaily in the Kindle Store. Kindle Nation regularly provides information on late-breaking freebies in the Kindle Store, and for 99 cents a month your Kindle edition subscription will ensure that you receive this information before it is too late to act on it.
