Kindles are mostly simple to use, but you can get much more satisfaction out of them once you learn how to use them beyond the basics of opening a book and flipping pages. Here are 35 tips for anyone who uses a Kindle ereader, Kindle Fire device or the Kindle mobile app.
5 Ways to get free Kindle books
Get free Kindle books from Amazon: On any given day, Amazon.com has 60,000 to 80,000 Kindle books priced at “Free.” While it’s easy to find the top 100 free best sellers in the Kindle store, Amazon does not make it easy to browse the rest of the free books. That’s where JustKindleBooks comes in, they’ve made it easy to Browse free Kindle books by genre. Note: Your Kindle app, ereader or Fire can hold thousands of books in memory and thousands more in the cloud. So load up on free!
Borrow Kindle books from the Library: Many libraries around in the US and around the world let you borrow ebooks for up to two weeks. Libraries partner with OverDrive to deliver the ebooks directly to your Kindle device or app. To borrow the ebooks, you’ll need a library card, internet access and the website of your local library. Once you have all that, go to Overdrive.com or download the Overdrive mobile to get started. Read more.
Get free books with Prime Reading: If you subscribe to Amazon Prime and pay your yearly membership, and you live in the US, then you can access to 1,000 free books, magazines and Kindle Singles. This program is called Prime Reading and you can find the selection here: Prime Reading Eligible books or you can browse Prime Reading best sellers by genre.
Get a free book each month with Kindle First: Amazon Prime members also get one free book per month with the Kindle First program. All books in the monthly selection of 6-8 titles are published by Amazon Publishing. See this month’s selection of Kindle First books.
Browse the top 100 free books: Want to see the top 100 free ebooks on Kindle? Click here to see the list, the book selection changes slightly each hour.
3 Ways to share and borrow Kindle books
Lend or borrow an ebook: Have a Kindle book that you want to lend? Want to borrow a book that your friend just read? Lending and borrowing Kindle books is easy. See the details here.
Share a book with your family: Any Kindle book you purchase can be shared with your Family. But first, you’ll need to set up your Amazon Household account. Learn more here.
Give a Kindle book as a gift: Beneath the “Buy it now” button on Amazon Kindle book pages is another button that says, “Buy for others.” Just click that to gift someone an ebook. Learn more.
Refunds on Kindle books
Get refund on a Kindle book that you purchased. There’s a self-service tool to get a refund on any Kindle book up to seven days after you make the purchase. Simply go here, https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/myx#/home/content/booksAll/dateDsc/, click the three dots next to your book and select “Return for refund”. If you missed the 7-day window you can still get a refund by chatting with customer service, here’s how to get your Kindle book refund via chat.
Cancel Kindle Unlimited: Tired of paying $9.99 per month for Kindle Unlimited when there are so many truly free books on Kindle? Here’s how to cancel.
Cancel Amazon Prime: Not interested in paying $119.00 a year for Amazon Prime? Here’s how to cancel your Prime membership. On Amazon.com, log into Amazon.com, hover over “Account & Lists”, click on “Your Prime Membership” from the dropdown menu, a new page will open, click on “Manage Membership” and lastly click on “End Membership.”
Manage your books and content
View your Kindle order history. Want to see all the books you have ever purchase on Kindle, going back to 2008? Login to Amazon then visit this Kindle purchase history page. Here are more ways to view your Kindle purchase history.
Send a book you have already purchased to a different Kindle device or app: Did you purchase a Kindle book only to find that it’s not showing up on your device or your Kindle app? If so, just follow these instructions to send any of your ebooks to any other device you own.
- Log in to your Amazon account
- Go to Manage my Content
- Select the book you want to deliver
- Click the three dots to the left of that book
- Click “Deliver to others”
- In the new window that pops up select the device from the drop down, then click “deliver”
Delete a book from your Kindle: Want to delete a book from your device to free up space? Don’t worry, when you delete it from your device it stays in your Kindle Library in the cloud for you to download again at another time. Here’s how to delete a book from your Kindle.
Send yourself a document, .PDF or article: Sometimes you find an amazing article online that is really, really long, or you get a 100-page document from work that you need to read. In these cases you can avoid the eye strain of reading on a PC or your phone by sending the article, document or .PDF right to your Kindle. Here’s how.
Access your Kindle notes and highlights anywhere with this link: While reading a book on Kindle you can highlight passages, add a bookmark or add notes to passages. When you want to access those highlights or notes, just go here to find them: https://read.amazon.com/notebook
Organize your Kindle books into collections: Did you know you can organize your books into collections such as Already Read, Want to Read, Books to Lend, etc. Learn more.
How to take Kindle screenshots
Take a screenshot on your Kindle eReader: Need a screenshot from your Kindle eReader? To capture a screen shot on your touchscreen ereader tap on the top left and bottom right simultaneously.
Take a screenshots on your Kindle Fire: To capture a screen shot on your Kindle Fire, press and hold the volume down button and the power button at the same time. For more deatils see: How to take and share screenshots on your Kindle Fire
Kindle fonts, rulers & rotation
Use the Kindle Reading ruler: The Kindle Reading Ruler highlights a small portion of the text in a different color than the rest of the page. It was designed for people who have trouble staying focused on the line of text they are reading. Learn more.
Adjust your font: You can personalize your fonts, margins and text size on your Kindle ereader. Just open a book, tap the “Aa” menu, then select “More.” You’ll see tabs for Fonts, Pages, Reading and Themes. Adjust away.
Rotate your Kindle paperwhite to landscape mode: Prefer a different orientation? Here’s how to put your Paperwhite into landscape mode:
- Tap on the empty space at the top of your Paperwhite
- The (Aa) Page Display will appear, tap on the menu
- Tap on the Font and Page Settings menu
- Tap the Page menu
- Tap on Orientation – Landscape Mode icon
Manage your Kindle devices
Find your lost Kindle: Lost your Kindle? No problem just head to Manage Your Content and Devices and use the “remote alarm” if you think it’s nearby or “find my device” if it’s further away.
Change your default Kindle: It can be frustrating when you get a new Kindle and all the book you purchase keep getting delivered to your old Kindle. Here’s how to change your default Kindle:
- Log in to you Amazon account
- Go to Manage my Devices
- Click three dots on left by the device you want your Kindle books sent to
- Click “set as default device”
- Click save on the box that pops up
Learn more about your default Kindle device.
Change Your Kindle Country of Residence: Moving to another country? Want to access content that is only available in a certain country? Here’s how to change your Kindle Country of Residence.
Read Kindle Books without a Kindle device: You don’t need a Kindle device to read Kindle books. You can easily read them on your phone, tablet or laptop with the Kindle app or the Kindle cloud reader. Here’s how.
Use Kindle Xray to learn more about the people and terms that appear in your book
X-Ray is a unique Kindle book feature that functions like a concordance. With Xray you can learn more about a character, topic, event, place, or any other term used in the book. To use Xray simply by press and hold on the word or phrase that interests you in the book while reading it in a Kindle Fire or eReader. Learn more.
Conserve your Kindle battery: Is your Kindle always running low on power? Go to settings and turn on “airplane mode” to make your battery last up to twice as long. You’ll need to turn it off if you want to sync your reading between devices or get a book delivered to your device.
Use Echo to read your Kindle books: To have Alexa read your Kindle book to you, simply turn on your Echo and say “Alexa, play the Kindle book, [title].” You can also use these commands:
- “[Pause / Stop / Resume].”
- “[Skip ahead / Skip back].”
- “[Go back / Go forward.]”
- “Alexa, resume reading [title].”
Prepare your Kindle for international travel: You can definitely use your Kindle device in all corners of the world, but you might want to buy/download the books you plan to read before you go. Learn more.
Turn off the screen saver: To turn off you Kindle screensaver just press and hold the power button for about seven seconds. A text box will appear with the options “Cancel”, “Restart”, and “Screen Off,” select “Screen Off” and you’re done.
Zoom in on images: Rewrite this description, as it’s taken from another site: Press on an image in an e-book and hold for a second before lifting back your finger. A zoom icon (magnifying glass with a plus sign) will appear on the image. Tap the icon to zoom. To zoom further, pinch out with two fingers on the image.
Unfreeze your Kindle by restarting it: Is your Kindle not connecting to the internet when it should be? Is your Kindle frozen or glitching? It might be time for a hard restart. Just hold the power button for X seconds, and then give the Kindle a couple of minutes to restart. This simple process solves a lot of Kindle issues. Read more on hard Kindle restarts.
Refresh your Kindle ereader screen: Kindle eReaders are easy on the eyes and fantastic for people who want to adjust the font to the size of their preference. However, sometimes you will notice that the e-ink page may contain a faint imprint of the lockscreen or previous page that was shown on your device. If the trace of another page is bothering you then simply enable “page refresh.”
Page refresh ensures that each page you turn to is clear and crisp with no trace of your previous page. To enable it:
- Go to the “Settings” page.
- Select “Reading Options”.
- Turn on “Page Refresh”.
Copy passages from your Kindle Book to your phone or PC: You probably know that you can take notes and highlight passages as you read Kindle books. But did you know that you can export all your notes and highlights or view them online. This is super useful when writing book reviews, doing research, or writing papers for school. Here’s how to export your highlights and note:
- Open the book that you want to export notes from
- Tap the top of the screen
- Tap the menu button
- Select “Notes” and tap “Export Notes”
To view your notes and highlighted (saved passages) online go to your Kindle Notebook at https://read.amazon.com/notebook. You’ll see all your highlighted passages here. You can copy any passage and paste it into Word or your email.
See the strangest Kindle books ever published: Ever wonder what the absolute strangest books ever published on Kindle are? We’ve found and listed the 10 most bizarre books on Kindle.
No matter how you use your Kindle, for reading, school, or work, these tips will help you get the most of out your books and your device.
-Writen by the editors at JustKindleBooks.com
