Tech Tips: Amazon Kindle Overview

I am a huge fan of Amazon Kindle books. The main attraction for me is that I can make the font large. VERY LARGE. I am very nearsighted, so I always prefer digital reading in any form; that gives me control over the size of the font which is not possible with a printed book.

There are lots of other good reasons to use Amazon Kindle books too:

* ACCESS. You can read Kindle books on your phone (in some ways the Amazon Kindle phone app is even better than an actual Kindle device!) and you can read them in your web browser

* NOTES. You can highlight while you read, and you can access all those highlights via your online Kindle "notebok," and you can also use bookmarks and add notes to the text

* SEARCH. You can search Kindle books for specific text (the search feature is very basic, but still very useful!)

* INEXPENSIVE. Kindle books are often cheaper than the print version; some Kindle books are completely free (the free books are usually public domain texts, like the kinds of books I feature at the Freebookapalooza).

So, for this tip, I'd like you to get ready to read a Kindle book and to then access a Kindle book through at least one of those modes: web browser, phone app, or Kindle device. If you already use Kindle books, you might try accessing your Kindle library in a new way, such as using the web-based version if you have not done that before. here's how to get started:

1. Log in at Amazon. If you do not have an Amazon account, you will need to create one. 

2. "Buy" a free Kindle book. Here is a free Kindle book of interest to Myth-Folklore: Jacobs's English Fairy Tales, and here is one of interest to Indian Epics: The Loves of Krishna. Some academic publishers release free books for Kindle too, like this wonderful item: Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa. Of course, you can also purchase a Kindle book for this tip; you can find thousands of Kindle books that are just 99 cents, for example.

3. Access your Kindle book. You can do this in one of three ways:

Web Browser. Go to read.amazon.com and access the book in your web browser.

Mobile. Get the Kindle app for your Apple or Android device.

Kindle. If you have a Kindle device, you already know about Kindles, so give one of those other options a try so you can see how the web/mobile options are similar to but also different from the Kindle device.

If you can access the book, you're good to go! 

Here's a screenshot of the web view of Finnegan's book:

That's all there is to it! 

Write your post. To finish up this tip, write up a post with your thoughts about Kindle books: do you own a Kindle? have you used the Kindle app on your phone? in your browser? are you interested in giving Kindles a try if you have not used them before? Use this title for the post: Kindle Overview, and use "Tech Tip" for the post label. 

When you are done with the blog post, you're done with this Tip and ready to do the Declaration.