Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy discussion
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Tips and Tricks for Ebooks / Kindle / Nook etc.
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Anita
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May 13, 2012 06:24PM
I received a Kindle as a gift recently, and I'm quickly realizing that you can spend a lot of money fast on ebooks. I get most of my real books through the library or paperbackswap.com. I'd guess that I buy only about 10% of my reading material. I looked around a bit on Amazon and found the free books sections of Fantasy and Sci Fi, and I also did a web search for free books and discovered that there are websites with TONS of free classics on them: http://www.howtogeek.com/58500/how-to..., but my taste is pretty narrow - mostly contemporary urban fantasy/PNR. I was wondering how other Kindle users in this group use the Kindle without spending a fortune? I did notice that there is some sort of e-book system at my public library, but I haven't tried it yet. Thanks!
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Hey Anita,A lot of people use ereaderiq.com to search for freebies.
At my library, they have an online system called Overdrive. It had a really quick tutorial on how to set up. for instance you have to choose how many days you want to borrow a book (7, 14 or 21 days), what format etc. You log on with your libaray card and you can get e-books. It is really easy.
I hope that helps.
Anita, there are tons of people with kindle lending shelves on goodreads. You can loan/borrow a kindle book one time, and it is super easy. It can quickly become an addiction. There is also a site called lendle.me, where you get credit (so much for each lend, which adds up to an amazon e-certificate) for borrowing and lending kindle books.
Let me know if you have any questions about either option. I'd be happy to help you through the processes.
I would LOVE an explaination of how to lend/borrow Kindle ebooks. And if anyone else on this listserve is interested in lending and borrowing, please post! I saw that there is at least one discussion group on Goodreads for trading ebooks, but I'm wondering if there's an easy way to find trades for just PNR and UF - maybe a discussion thread on this group, or maybe there's a technical solution already on Goodreads that makes it easy to figure out. Or perhaps a paperbackswap equivilent for ebooks. Thanks!
Anita,First of all, you need to know that not all titles can be lent out to other. Certain books, the publisher/author don't allow loans.
For example, the "loaning" option was disable for Fifty Shades of Grey and the subsequent books. Also, I couldn't loan Lover Reborn to a friend.
if you go to your amazon account, and go to manage you account and then go to the tab where you can download, delete or whatever for that particular book. It will have an option to loan this title.
As far as specific threads, I didn't know there were threads that loaned books. That's cool.
There are a few ways you can do this. First would be to go to a group's lending area (most, but not all, have these). From there, you can search books on individuals' shelves. or,
If you are interested in a certain book, go to that book's page. On the right hand side, there will be a list of Genres. Under that, click "see top shelves." From there, look for a tab that says kindle lending, or kindle lendable. This will then show you who has this book to lend. Send that person a nice message asking to borrow, and viola! You are set.
You will have to give that person your kindle email address (the one on your amazon kindle account, for me it is my gmail account). You will then receive an email letting you know someone has lent you the book. You have 7 days I think to follow the link and accept the book. You will then have 14 days to read the book. If you do not remove the book from your manage your kindle amazon page, the book will automatically be returned to the lender at that time.
Hope this isn't too confusing or overly detailed. It really is easier than it sounds. :D
This is from amazon (from another user)!You go to Your Account, then to Manage Your Kindle.
In "Your Kindle Library" choose the book you want to lend. On the right where it says "Actions" move your curser over it to see if it says "Loan this title". If it is able to be loaned, click on "Loan this title" and fill in the lending details.
Only a few of my books are able to be lent out, due to the publishers' restrictions. And of course, you have to know the person's email address to lend them a book.
I get a ton of freebies from Amazon...usually a heads-up direct from authors on goodreads, or Amazon makes announcements on its facebook page, too. The other ideas peeps posted on this thread are good, too...I've not heard of them but will try. I have so many freebies now it's going to take me a while to get through the stack I have! I haven't tried borrowing from the library yet, though I know people who have.
Does Amazon have a Facebook page for just PNR and UF or scifi/fantasy?
Regarding this: if you go to your amazon account, and go to manage you account and then go to the tab where you can download, delete or whatever for that particular book. It will have an option to loan this title.Does anyone know how to look up whether a book is lendable BEFORE you buy it?
I was so excited about lendle.me, then I looked at the fine print. It turns out that Amazon only allows you to lend a book once, and most popular books are not lendable, yet they cost the same as the paperback. How are those policies supposed to replace printed books? I give the vast majority of my books away after I read them, and most of those books are used, so I know that each book gets read more times than just twice. A book at a library can be read 100 times before it falls apart. It seems to me that it would be smart to make the electronic book superior to the paper version - slightly lower cost, entirely lendable, backed up on the cloud, easily sorted and organized. No wonder ebooks are slow to catch on. From Lendle.Me:
How many times can I lend my book?
At this time, Amazon only allows each owner of a book to lend it once. Once you’ve lent a book, you will not be able to lend that book again.
Why is my book “not lendable?”
Some publishers currently do not enable lending for certain Kindle™ books. Kindle™ lending is still new, and publishers are a bit skittish about it. We expect many more books to be lendable in the near future.
That has always been amazon.'s policy as far as I know. I have lent and borrowed many books on goodreads, but found that there were not that many people borrowing. I even belong to a book lending group on gr. I found I would rather lend the books I had (many I picked up for free) than not. Lendle alows you to do this while obtaining credits for your lending which will eventually result in an amazon gift card. It is a great place to borrow from as well. You can make a list of books you wish to borrow and they will be lent as soon as they become available. That said, I buy mostly ebooks now, mostly because what I read is not always offered on amazon, but there are still fabulous daily deals, especially in pnr andd romance, so I grab them when I can.
Anita wrote: "I received a Kindle as a gift recently, and I'm quickly realizing that you can spend a lot of money fast on ebooks. I get most of my real books through the library or paperbackswap.com. I'd guess t..."If u would like to borrow any of my lendable books let me know I would be happy to share, most of mine r vampire books ( I love vampires)
Sign up for Amazon's "Kindle Daily Deal" newsletter. I've also found a bunch of freebies from this website..
http://ereadernewstoday.com/category/...
Mocha Spresso- I searched for Amazon's official Kindle Daily Deal newsletter, and I only found unofficial ones that require payment for subscriptions. Did you mean one of those? If not, where do I find the official one?
On Facebook, I get most of my freebies from Ereader News Today and Pixel of Ink. There is also a page for Paranormal Project.
Mocha Spresso wrote: "Sign up for Amazon's "Kindle Daily Deal" newsletter. where do you subscribe for the daily deal please ?
I can't find it
I use this site to search for Kindle freebies:http://ebooks.addall.com/amazonfree.html
I've found some great reads here. But you have to check it every day, since the prices often go back up within a day or two.
Ladymcbeth wrote: where do you subscribe for the daily deal please ?I can't find it"
I signed up to eReaderIQ. It's for kindle users only but it sends you a daily email with free books on your region,
I mostly just use Overdrive for my kindle and I usually check out the free books on Amazon. I find going to the best sellers list is the best place to find fairly decent free books. I also usually ask for gift cards for amazon for my birthday and christmas.
Mod
You install the swagbucks tool bar on your pc and use it as your search engine and you earn points. Every 450 points gets you a $5 Amazon gift card. I average about 7-10 points a day. (you can get other giftcards too but I always use amazon.)
If any one is interested, here is the link
I just watched this short video at a family member's suggestion: http://www.tvkim.com/watch/1626/kim-o...It talked about Calibre and Kindle for mac or PC as e-book organizers, and Overdrive as a massive site for e-library books. Also mentioned Project Guttenberg as the massive site for free classics. Calibre also converts any digital format to any other digital format.
Calibra is great if you have a pc. If you only have a Kindle fire, I found that EzPDF Reader is a great app to store and read pdfs. I use Convertfiles.com to convert all my books.
I HIGHLY recommend this ebook, which is FREE today on Amazon. I got it for free, read it, and was blown away.
The Changelings (War of the Fae: Book 1) [Kindle Edition] Elle Casey (Author)
My Goodreads review: This was a free e-book I read over vacation, and I'm shocked by how much I liked it. Free books are so hit-or-miss. This one was a huge hit. I was worried at first because I thought I'd stumbled upon a contemporary young adult story about high school. I really only read YA when it's got a fantasy element. The author took a really long time building backstory, and I'm glad she did - it made the story much more engaging. I loved the snarky heroine, her side-kick, and runaway friends. Jayne's voice was sometime hilarious - I laughed out loud.
Premise: Jayne and her friend Tony run away and join up with some other late-teens to take a medical/physical fitness test being conducted by some scientific agency for some extra money. They end up in an enchanted forest running for their lives.
I've been VERY impressed by a new ebook advertising system Book Gorilla http://www.bookgorilla.com/home. I find it's much better that E-Reader News Today or any other alert system I've tried because on Book Gorilla you can specify genre. So you get a summary of a couple dozen books you really might like, every day, all of which are free or on sale. I checked Fantasy/SciFi and have found more intriguing free ebooks in a couple weeks that I found on the other services in the last year.
you guys are awesome. I am a kindle newbie as well, feels like my head is going to explode sometimes!!! I was wondering if someone could tell me why Rafflecopter won't load, it just says loading and then nothing. Is it user error?? Thanks
Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy
Books mentioned in this topic
Fifty Shades of Grey (other topics)Lover Reborn (other topics)
