3G Kindle

I got one as a Christmas gift - even though I had always said I wasn't interested in any type of e-reader, as I like to turn pages of books.

I AM A CONVERT!  I've got loads of books on my kindle.  Even downloaded Mrs Beeton, for FREE (always a plus!).  I can't talk about culinary books in general, though, because I just adore the photography in most books and I would feel odd copying a recipe from the kindle!  I have to add that I bought the cover for the thing, and it now feels more like reading a book, rather than holding a tablet!

I've had a Kindle 3 (wi-fi only version) since before Christmas.  I love it!!  But I also think it does have some limitations, cookbooks being one of them.  Not only do I enjoy the photography of many cookbooks, I would be worried about the potential for disaster by having my kindle in the kitchen while cooking.

For those looking for free e-books, I use Project Gutenberg (sp?).  They have thousands of titles, in the public domain, listed for download onto the kindle.  From there, I have gotten almost the whole Sherlock Holmes collection, the entire works of Edgar Allen Poe, a number of works of Mark Twain, The Three Musketeers, and numerous others.  All downloads from there are free.  In fact, it has been insinuated that many of the public domain books that Amazon sells at $0.99 US actually come from Project Gutenberg, where you can get them for free.

Pete - a good friend told me about Project Gutenberg.  I have to confess to being a tekkie-challenged person, so I have made a hash of trying to download directly from Gutenb to my kindle!  I am awaiting an idiot's guide from her to allow me to do so.

Bughut. Noce to speak again, too.  How's the business going? 

Amazon also has a list of over 100 'free' books when you own a kindle.  That's where I downloaded Mrs Beeton!  One caveat:  I've noticed recently that some new books (which you can order and pay for in advance, YAAAAY!) are actually MORE expensive for kindle than if you bought the book in hardback from Amazon.  They state that the price is set by the publisher.  This sounds like a re-hash of the UK's Net Book Agreement.  I'm not too happy about that, but I suppose once the book goes to paperback, it may be half-price, like so many other kindle'd titles!

Ishbel, it should be pretty easy.  Use the web browser on your kindle to navigate to Project Gutenberg.  Look up the book you are wanting to download.  Make sure you use select a document file and not a sound file (which will have a speaker icon next to it).  Once you have selected the book a new page should pop up with all the formats that you can download the book as.  You want to choose the "Kindle (no images) format.  Once you do that your kindle should do the rest.  It usually only takes a minute or 2, sometimes just a bit longer and you should get a message that your book has been downloaded.

One thing that might happen if you end up downloading a lot of books all at once, is your kindle might seem to freeze.  That's because it is so busy trying to process all the new material you have just downloaded.  I usually try to keep my downloads to under 10 at a time.  Hope this helps.

OK - now how do I access the web browser on my kindle?!

I tried accessing G'burg through my PC.  Then dowloading - and then sending my email to my kindle email.  It didn't work!

I believe you can do it that way but you need to save the download onto your hard drive then use the USB cord to download that file from your computer to your kindle.  I believe it needs to be put into the "documents" folder (or something like that).

To access the web from your kindle:  Go to the "home" page and click the menu button.  From the drop down, select the "Experimental" tab.  There you will see" web browser".  Activate that and then navigate to Project Gutenberg.  Then proceed like stated in the above post.

Thanks, Pete - in the tidying up at Christmas, I think the USB lead got thrown out, hence my problem.

Your instructions are really simple, so I'll try that tomorrow!

Do you still have your charging cord?  If you do, then it is also your USB cord, at least here in the US.  If they are similar, then the "outlet" end of the cord is attached via a USB link.  Check it out.

Thanks, Pete - a book I read at the age of 10 is now on my kindle (it wasn't available on Amazon!)

I am grateful for your easy to follow advice.