Can I Print The Ebook From Amazon For Personal Use?

I love my e-reader but I sometimes miss the feeling of real paper under my fingers. It is easy enough to print a PDF from your Kindle if the eBook is in a DRM-free PDF format. You would need to connect your Kindle to a computer and find the PDF in the documents folder on your Kindle and print it from there. eBooks that are in Kindle book format (e.g. for purchase from Amazon.com) with DRM are trickier to print. There are plenty of e-readers out there that handle PDFs better than a Kindle (Kobo, PocketBook etc.). If you’re techy enough, you could also use tools like Calibre to convert your Kindle books to print and then print them. However, be careful to check the copyright on any book you try to print out, as some publishers allow limited printing for personal use. You can always try to stick to PDFs that are DRM-free or buy print copies of your favorite books to avoid any hassle.

No, you cannot purchase and download books within the Kindle reading app without having an Amazon account (since the app is a doorway to Amazon’s e-bookstore). However, you can add e-books to your Kindle library by sending them to your Kindle email address (with the appropriate file extensions) or by using the “Send to Kindle” button found on many websites that sell e-books. Many of the classic works that are in the public domain can be downloaded for free from various non Amazon sites to read on your Kindle. Modern works of literature can often be purchased by using your Amazon account.

Yes, I find it really convenient that I can read Amazon ebooks on all of my devices. Since I don’t have a Kindle, I read all of my ebooks on my mobile devices and on my PC using the Amazon apps. For reading on the go, I download the ebook to my mobile device and then read it offline. If I’m at home and want to read but don’t want any distractions, I switch to the Amazon desktop app or use Cloud Reader. Oh and by the way – if you buy ebooks as gifts to yourself, you can actually download the PDF version of the ebook from the email receipt. (Not all ebooks will allow this – but its nice when they do!) In general, I really like how I can organize my books in collections on my various apps, and how my books are generally just organized nicely. There is one downside to non-Kindle devices for Amazon ebooks – some of the illustrated/books with a lot of special formatting do not translate very well. But for regular novels etc. – no problem.

I’m pretty much just a reader looking to read my Kindle books on my tablet using the PDF app, so this question really resonates with me. Unfortunately, the DRM protection of Kindle books makes it extremely difficult to convert them to PDF. Amazon’s proprietary book format and the Kindle reading apps for iPad, etc. do not allow users to print or save to PDF. Using screenshots of individual pages would be extremely tedious and likely to be in contravention of copyright laws as well. Instead of breaking the law, I work around it by checking the author’s website for free PDF samples or companion files, buying books in DRM-free ePUB format from retailers like Leanpub, borrowing PDF e-books from libraries that offer them through services like OverDrive, and checking if a classic book is already available in PDF format on sites like Project Gutenberg in various formats. Buying and supporting authors and retailers who sell DRM-free e-books is just one way to encourage authors to continue producing stories for us to read.

To access your Digital Content and Devices on Amazon, hover over 'Account & Lists' at the top of the page and click on Digital Content and Devices. This is the main hub to access all of your digital content including books, apps and music. Within the Content tab you can view all of your content in a list and sort by type and by date purchased. From the list of content within the Content tab, click on the Actions button for a specific item and in many cases you will be able to view a history of the delivery attempts for that item. Note that since the content is instantly available, there is not a lot of tracking for the 'order' to ship. Typically the status for instantly available content is either 'Delivered' or 'Pending'. Note that if an item says it has been 'Delivered' but you have not received it, you can send it to your device again from the Actions menu.

I just tried to set up a Kindle without creating an Amazon account and the initial setup wizard apparently forces Wi-Fi setup and account creation (login or sign up). Will the Kindle then still work (take you to Home screen)? Can you then load books via USB as well? (I set up my Kindle years ago so have never tried this).

I’ve given up on trying to figure out the Amazon freebies and go straight to library apps. The interface for Libby is much cleaner and it really is free to borrow books and not cost me a thing. And I avoid clicking on the ‘buy now’ one-click buttons that surround every free book listing on Amazon. My wallet and my TBR pile thank me.

My last thought for the day concerns discoverability vs. deprivation. I do think that piracy often serves as a discovery model for authors – allowing readers to ‘try before they buy’. However, very quickly it can devolve into depravation – people consuming media without ever contributing to the author’s earnings in any way. This ‘discovery’ model needs to transition into ‘supporting this author’. So you used that free PDF to ‘try’ an author – great! Now support them if you like their work. Buy their next book, pre-order it, get it from the library (since they paid the license for you), spread the word online… discover an author via the free sample, then become a paying reader for subsequent work by that author. That’s a sustainable relationship for the stories you love.

I see so many people confuse the different ways to get free books on Amazon. I’ll go through the main ones. First, there’s Prime Reading. Prime members can choose from a selection of free books to read one at a time. These are borrowed, just like from a library, and when you cancel Prime your borrowed books will be automatically returned, you’ll no longer be able to access them. Next, Kindle First Reads (also known as First Reads). For each month, Prime members can choose one or two of the pre-release books to keep permanently to add to their library for $0.00. These are actually purchases, so even though you paid nothing for them they are yours to keep even after you cancel your Prime membership. And then there’s Kindle Unlimited. This is another separate subscription service for Amazon, similar to how Netflix supplies hours of movies and TV for a monthly subscription fee, Kindle Unlimited supplies thousands of books for a monthly fee. Just as with Netflix, if you cancel the service you’ll no longer have access to the books supplied under that service. To check if you own a free book, look at your ‘Content & Devices’ page, on Amazon. The ‘Purchase Date’ column will list the date you purchased a book if you’ve purchased it, and the price will be $0.00. On the other hand, books supplied via ‘Prime Reading’ will say that in the ‘Purchase Date’ column, or there will be an ‘Expiration Date’ listed for borrowed books. I recommend checking the terms (usually on the book’s detail page) before you click ‘Read for Free’ to ensure that it is a borrow or a purchase.

I just realized something cool about new Kindle owners with Automatic Book Download enabled in Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Home & Library. Any book purchased from Amazon will automatically start to download to the Kindle (while it is connected to Wi-Fi and in sleep mode). No effort on your part whatsoever. It’s so cool. I buy books randomly now. This is so cool. I actually have to put on a limit to buying books, since it’s now so easy and the smallest of frictions are removed. (I have to manually tell Amazon to send it now).