Monday, August 30, 2010

Kindle Skills - Sending Files To Your Kindle

August 30, 2010 Cindy O'Neal
Your Kindle has its very own unique email address and for a small fee, you can send files to this special email address. Amazon will then convert the files to a nice Kindle format, then send the final converted file to your Kindle via whispernet.

To see and/or edit your Kindle's email address:
  • Go to Amazon.com. 
  • Click Your Account at the top right of the web page. 
  • Sign in to your Amazon account. 
  • Scroll down to the Digital Content area. 
  • Click Manage Your Kindle.
Your Kindle's email address will be listed in one of the top sections -- the Your Kindle(s) area. You will see your Kindle listed with an email address in the block to the right, something like your_kindle@kindle.com. This is the email address you can send special files (as an attachment) to be converted and sent automatically to that Kindle. There is a small fee for this, I think about 15 cents per Mb of file size. That's not bad, but if you send a lot of files to be converted, it could add up. Here is the latest information (from Amazon) I could find on the actual fees... Remember, this could change in the future:
  • Kindle (U.S. Wireless) user: We'll send personal documents to your Kindle viaWhispernet while inside the U.S. wireless coverage area for a fee of $.15 per megabyte.
  • Kindle (Free 3G) user living in the United States: If you transfer personal documents to your Kindle via Whispernet while inside the United States, the fee is $ .15 per megabyte. When traveling outside the United States, a fee of $.99 per megabyte will apply.
  • Kindle (Free 3G) user living outside the United States: We'll send personal files to your Kindle via Whispernet for a fee of $ .99 (USD) per megabyte anywhere in the world you access Whispernet service.
Fees are rounded up to the next whole MB and apply to each personal document delivered via Whispernet to each Kindle. You can transfer personal documents to your Kindle via USB for free at anytime.

Setting your Personal Document Charge Limit

You have the option to set the maximum amount you wish to pay per document for the Personal Document Service. If the conversion fee for any single document you e-mail for wireless delivery to your Kindle via Whispernet exceeds the maximum, the document will be sent to your @free.kindle.com address and a notification will be sent to your Kindle.

The Personal Document Charge Limit is a great way for you to take control. You can set this to any amount you want in the same Manage Your Kindle account area. Just type in the amount you want to set for a limit and relax from then on.

The FREE Alternative:
Send the file to your special Kindle email address, only instead of @kindle.com, change the end of the email to @free.kindle.com. After sending to the @free.kindle.com address, a link to the converted file will be emailed to your email associated with your Amazon.com account. You can then click the link, download the converted file to your computer, then transfer it to your Kindle with your USB cable.

Supported Formats for Conversion by Amazon:
  • Microsoft Word: .doc, .docx
  • Text: .txt
  • RTF: .rtf
  • Structured HTML: .html, .htm
  • Picture files are also listed as file formats for conversion, but honestly, I don't know why these would be needed. These files are not books. At any rate, these formats (if you want to experiment with having them converted) are .jpg, .gif, .png and .bmp files.