Thursday, September 17, 2009
Amazon Kindle outside of the US
Update: 20 March 2009 by nerdgirl– Please make sure to read through the comments for other tips and tricks from lots of people who have used this method and gotten it to work. And this does work with the Kindle 2!
Here is a guide to getting an Amazon Kindle working outside of the US and downloading books outside the US. This is targeted at people who have a Kindle, but don’t have a US credit card / billing address to purchase books.
(Amended some of the instructions based on comments)
- Go to Amazon.com & sign in with your regular username / password (you should be able to log into Amazon.com even with your international account) create a new Amazon.com account (NOTE – .com for U.S. Amazon shop). Do not use your international Amazon account because things go weird. Use a generic email address like gmail.com (with your location set to U.S.) instead of something that is country specific (ie, .co.uk, .fr) otherwise Amazon will block Kindle purchases.
- Use a U.S. address – it doesn’t really matter what address because nothing is going to be shipped there, so look up Pizza Hut in Fresno, CA if you want. Just make sure that the zip code is valid.
- Next step is to buy a Gift Certificate and email the code to yourself.
- Apply the Gift Certificate to your newly created account.
- Register your Kindle online – this is because you won’t be able to use the wireless Whispernet to register the account
- Set up 1-Click payment method associated with your Kindle to make the Kindle books button enabled for purchase. Enter a valid credit card number, but use the U.S. billing address that you set up earlier. This seems to work because once you add the gift certificate Amazon doesn’t attempt to authorise your credit card until you run out of gift certificate credit.
- FINALLY, you should now be able to buy books on the Kindle. Remember to keep your gift certificate topped up with enough credit for what you are purchasing. You will select which Kindle to send the book to wirelessly from the 1-click setting (even though your book won’t be delivered via this method).
- To download your purchased books and sync to your Kindle via USB, go to your digital downloads on Amazon – Be sure to click on the Downloads tab, then you should be able to see your previously purchased book. Click the Download to computer button (note that if you have several Kindles on one account, you need to select which Kindle you want to download for, otherwise the DRM won’t recognise it).
- Connect your Kindle via USB and drop the file into your Documents directory and VOILA!
* Remember you have to be logged in to use any of the account links (duh)
Hope that this works for you. If you have any variations or other tricks to get this going, let me know…
Labels: amazon kindle
Kindle PDF conversion – View PDF on Kindle
PDF support on the Kindle is experimental and via conversion of PDFs to Kindle format. This post covers how to do kindle pdf conversions for Kindle 1 and Kindle 2.
Amazon has released the Kindle DX for preorder (it ships in the summer) and it has in-built PDF support (licensed from Adobe). Check out my Kindle DX PDF FAQ for details.
Kindle PDF Conversion using MobiPocket Creator
There are a few ways to convert PDF files for the Kindle. One is by using the MobiPocket Creator – MobiPocket Creator – a free software from MobiPocket. In addition to PDF you can easily convert Word, HTML, and .txt for the Kindle. If you do not use the link above and go to the MobiPocket Software page, then you will get a choice between Home edition and Publisher edition, choose MobiPocket Creator Publisher edition. The Home edition does not have the PDF option.
Here’s a video walkthrough (The first 7:43 – then it repeats) – done
Another option is to use Stanza, which lets you ‘read eBooks on your Mac or PC and share with your iPhone, iPod Touch, & Kindle.
Kindle PDF Conversion via Amazon’s PDF Conversion Service
Finally there is paid and free conversion to Kindle format. For PDF files this is ‘experimental’.
Paid Conversion (10 cents per file) -
An attachment sent to your Kindle’s e-mail address (”name”@kindle.com) will be converted and delivered wirelessly to your Kindle for a charge of only ten cents per document.
Free Conversion – instructions from Amazon’s page (the ‘converting your personal documents’ section is what you should look at) are
If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the ten-cent fee, you can send attachments to “name”@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed back to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection.
If the lack of PDF support was holding you back from buying a Kindle you should see that you can either use MobiPocket Creator or Stanza or Amazon’s experimental conversion and PDF support on the Kindle is no longer as much of an issue (some files still don’t convert well). Combined with all the other Kindle benefits it makes sense to order an Amazon Kindle Now!.
Detailed PDF Conversion Steps for Mac and Windows
How to Use Stanza to convert pdf files for your Kindle on the Mac -
“Simply open the book in Stanza, plug in your Kindle to your computer using the USB cable that was supplied with the device, select File->Export Book As->Amazon Kindle, then browse to the Kindle on the save file dialog. The Kindle will appear in the dialog with the name you assigned to it when you first registered it.”
How to use MobiPocket Creator to convert pdf files for your Kindle on the PC (see video above for actual walkthrough) -
- Make sure you have the Publisher Edition.
- When you start MobiPocket Creator, the main screen has on the right ‘Import From Existing File’ options – one of which is PDF.
- Choose the file(s) to import. And import it.
- After that select Build from the top menu.
- This will create the file + by default opens the file folder.
- In this folder, look for a file with .prc extension and copy it to the Kindle’s Document folder.
4.2
Take personal content along with you
Protect the distribution of copyrighted content
Labels: amazon kindle mobipocket, amazon kindle pdf, amazon kindle word, kindle convesion, kindle pdf, kindle to pdf, mobipocket creator kindle, pdf conversion kindle, pdf kindle, pdf to kindle
