Kindle - how, which and why ?

basketcase

Andy_L said:

basketcase said:

Am I right in thinking that you may not be tied to reading only Kindle books, but you are tied to having some sort of Amazon device on which to read them? 

As I understand it, if I buy an e-book formatted for, say, Kobo, I can read it on a Kindle.  But if I buy the Kindle format, I can't read it on a Kobo.  I know I can read them on other devices - and I have done since my Paperwhite died - but that's not the point.  We're talking about Kindles.

Also I've been told that I don't actually own all the e-books I've bought from Amazon (as I would the paper copy).  Apparently, I only bought the licence, which is different. I didn't realise that (stupid, I know).

And, if I can't read it on a non-Amazon device and it's only a licence not the actual words, can that licence be withdrawn?

The calibre app that has been mentioned for putting non-kindle books onto a kindle can be used in the opposite direction to put kindle books onto a non-kindle

Thanks @Andy_L
I'll look into that.

SpanishBlue

It's not worth paying the £10 to get the adverts removed in my opinion. 

They are only there as you turn the device on so you barely notice them.

RedRose61

Hi, I’ve got a Kindle and love it but it’s not a Kindle Fire. It’s a great reading experience but I’ve been finding that the books that I want to read are becoming very expensive. I’ve recently started downloading books from BorrowBox but I can’t work out how to download onto my Kindle or whether this is even possible. As previous people have said, reading these free library books isn’t such a good reading experience on my IPad or IPhone. 

flaneurs_lobster

RedRose61 said:

Hi, I’ve got a Kindle and love it but it’s not a Kindle Fire. It’s a great reading experience but I’ve been finding that the books that I want to read are becoming very expensive. I’ve recently started downloading books from BorrowBox but I can’t work out how to download onto my Kindle or whether this is even possible. As previous people have said, reading these free library books isn’t such a good reading experience on my IPad or IPhone. 

Simple answer, you can't.

Couple of posters above have claimed it's just a matter of using a (Windows/Mac) program called Calibre, I can only imagine that this involves removing Digital Rights Management protection from the books which is at best questionable and at worst criminal.

Until the UK public libraries can come to some kind of agreement with Amazon (ie pay them £££ so no chance) your only (simple & legal) option would be to buy a non-Kindle eBook reader.

goldfinches

I've just bought a new Paperwhite which is my fourth Kindle and one thing I have found is that you need to buy the Amazon charger for your Kindle rather than using any other charger you may find advertised as being compatible with it. If you look on the Amazon site you can often buy a bundle which includes a charging dock for less than they would cost separately. I have a plug in charger with a powerfast charging cable as well as the dock because sometimes one is more convenient to use than the other but you don't necessarily need both. 

I wondered about which e-reader to buy initially but Kindle is by far the dominant one in this country which means you get a much wider choice of books and they offer the best deals for very popular new books as well as having a huge choice of back listed titles from publishers. I've been able to get my hands on books that our local library service doesn't stock for next to nothing and if you buy a Kindle Unlimited subscription there's an enormous range of books. An author I know told me that she gets more money from the KU borrowed books that when her books are bought outright so I try to choose mostly from those books and only purchase titles I can't get any other way. When I had my first Kindle I did find that it was so easy to buy books on it that I splurged without thinking about it sometimes but discovered that you can return books for a full refund and I've done this quite often with no problems but bear in mind that there is a time limit for that.

The only things I don't like reading on Kindle are magazines and cookbooks because the lack of colour is a pain and the colour Kindle isn't yet good enough to make that worthwhile and anyway you can always read them on a laptop instead. 

Bradden

flaneurs_lobster said:

Couple of posters above have claimed it's just a matter of using a (Windows/Mac) program called Calibre, I can only imagine that this involves removing Digital Rights Management protection from the books which is at best questionable and at worst criminal.

DRM has been imposed by Amazon - often against the writers wishes.
Corey Doctorow has been quite vocal about it..

https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-available-on-audible-83cb182f2f91

flaneurs_lobster

Bradden said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Couple of posters above have claimed it's just a matter of using a (Windows/Mac) program called Calibre, I can only imagine that this involves removing Digital Rights Management protection from the books which is at best questionable and at worst criminal.

DRM has been imposed by Amazon - often against the writers wishes.
Corey Doctorow has been quite vocal about it..

https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-available-on-audible-83cb182f2f91

I understand your (and Mr Doctorow's) point WRT protected products supplied by Amazon but the point I was addressing was specifically about books borrowed from public libraries.

They have DRM applied to them to allow a borrowing time limit to be applied and also to control the number of copies that can be lent at any one time.

Ability to borrow forever or to copy freely would impinge on the author's royalty earnings. 

Kobo and other eBook readers can be loaded with library books - Kindle readers cannot*. I suggest this is because Amazon do not wish to loosen the proprietary nature of their products.



*They can, but see above.

MikeJXE

I charge my paperwhite with any charger that’s not being used by my phone/iPad 

MouldyOldDough

When someone buys a kindle (from "wherever") and wants a book - are they limited to Amazon for purchasing said book ?

My wife has no Amazon account - due to difficulties with bank account confirmation txt messages....

knightstyle

I used to use a Kobo but when that died i got a fire tablet and am very happy with it. You can download books from various sources and go on the 'net to check emails etc.
Books purchased stay in your device till you delete them, kindle unlimited books stay for as long as you subscribe to KU.
One thing I have done is to sign up for kindle unlimited, download as many books as I can, then turn off wifi and cancel kindle unlimited. Then read the books over several months before doing that again as I fine the subscription expensive for the few books i read a month.