Question for the Kindle Experts
 

Hope someone can help me on this one, if I get a Kindle for myself and then the wife can we share books between the devices? I'm assuming that not possible at the same time but to share books once you've read would be great.

Thanks, advice appreciated.

Yep. The secret is to keep the all the Kindles attached to one Amazon account. You give the Kindles different names, and you can share content between them very easily. Even at the same time.

If you register them on the same account then you can share your entire collection at the same time. My wife and I both have Kindles and they are both registered to her Amazon account. Either of us can read any of the books in the collection at any time. It is a rather nice benefit for families.

Kindle
 

Unfortunately, the Kindle items can not be shared between devices. However, with the plethra of other e-readers coming on to the market Kindle may have to up the ante and provide this service. Barnes and Noble "Nook" offers the shared libraries and not sure if other models do or don't. I have a Kindle and do love it for its durability, whispernet feature, full qwerty keyboard and the more "book-like" reading page.

Sorry, but you're wrong. I have 3 Kindles, The Kindle iPhone app and the Kindle iPad app. All attached to the same Amazon account. I can send the same book at the same time to all three physical Kindles, the iPad and the iPhone without a problem.

Excellent, sounds as if that's an easy and logicial way to do it. Thanks for the quick responses, appreciated.

The only snag with having both Kindles on one account is the issue of syncing. The default behaviour is to sync to the last page read, which would be undesirable if you were both reading the same book. Best to turn syncing off in that situation.

Hadn't thought of this. Would be difficult if both parties wanted to read the same text for discussion.

I have the PC app and the iPhone app.

Suddenly, it has stopped syncing. Very annoying. It always tells me on either device that I am at the furthest page read. I can't find anything in the Amazon Kindle help files that address this.

All you have to do is not sync the devices --you'll both be able to read at your own pace with no problems.

As others have already posted, as long as the kindle[s] are registered under same amazon account, can share books.

As far as syncing to other kindle apps, as long as the books are purchased from amazon, they will sync. If you purchase or get freebies, eg baen.com and load into your kindle, it will not sync with kindle app.

As an aside, amazon earlier last month announced a swap/lend policy that they plan to launch in the near future that permits kindle users lending their books to others [on different accounts]. The caveat is when the book is on loan, original owner cannot access it.

So is best operating procedure basically to disable wireless until you finish a book? For some reason I thought the kindle would periodically auto-sync.

Doesn't affect me as our two kindles are on our own personal accounts. I have no interest in reading about vampires, nor would I risk my colleagues seeing it on my kindle :).

This happened to me. I had to completely reset the Kindle back to factory settings, and then it started working again.

Cheers,
Rick

The kindle asks you if you want to synch it with another when you turn it on. I have been sharing books/account with my brother. We have lots of books and rarely are reading the same book. The other day, I logged into a book and it asked me if I wanted to synch to my brother's spot. I simply declined.

Except I don't have an actual Kindle, just the PC and iPhone apps.

You can hide (or as they say "archive") books on your kindle...no one would ever know.

I used to turn the wireless off, but on the current model the battery lasts forever, so I leave it on. I don't think it auto-syncs individual books, though it will add a new one that you've purchased. I believe you have have the book "open" and actually tell it to sync. I've never had a problem --I manually sync when i return to the kindle after reading on the ipad.
You could always protect yourself by putting in bookmark when you're done reading...you can automatically go to the bookmarked page (or pages, if you've turned down a lot of corners)

Ahh.. good point :)

How do you delete a book from the archives?

It depends on which model you have. On the new one, you can highlight the title on your home screen, then click the left arrow on the 5 way selector button. It'll ask if you want to delete the title, click the center of the button and away it goes.

I can't remember how to delete from the 2nd model. The first, you have to plug it in to a computer, and (I think) just open the kindle folder. It's been a while since I used that one.

In any case, I'm sure a quick google will bring up the answers.

Well, by accident I figured it out: if you have "backup annotations" disabled on either device, neither will sync.

I use Calibre (free program) to synch my books on my Kindle. These are books that are not purchased from Amazon. This program is great for organizing and synching. It can also convert books from a non-Kindle format into mobi or pdf.

The helpful answers here have convinced me to get a set of Kindle's, went to order and noticed that Amazon do 2 cases - one of which has a built-in light which looks quite handy but is also half the cost of the Kindle.

Has anyone got one of those cases? Any good, should I get one?

I have the leather kindle case (without the light). It's a great accessory and is quality material. Kind of pricey at $3x, but worth it overall.

To completely delete a book from the archives means you'll never be able to redownload it again without repurchasing. If you really want to do this, go to amazon.com/myk, and find the book in the list of your purchases at the bottom. There's an option to delete. Make sure you really mean it, though.

(Using the 5-way to delete from your device just deletes the book from the device, not the archive.)

I see no reason to delete from Amazon archives, ever, so I do not. I do delete from my Kindles when I finish reading books unless they're for reference. I also leave the wireless off unless I want to synch, it does make the battery last another week or so. Anyway almost all purchases I make I download to my computer(s) and usb to the Kindle because I often read on my laptop or desktop.

I have, a few times, mostly for free books that didn't turn out to be something I'd ever finish, much less reread. It's nice to have the option.

ebook organizer
 

I am in search of an online ebook organizer to help show me what I have read as well as what is on my to read list.

At one point, I thought I heard something about a site that looked like a book shelf to show your book collection - but cant remember where it was.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

I like Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/, but I'm sure there are others.

Instead of starting a new thread, I too have question for the Kindle experts; actually I have 2 questions. ;)

Let's say I want to read a specific chapter of a book I love. How do you do that? Is there a quick way to get there?

Am I able to download from gutenberg.org an MP3 file of an audio book? If so, gutenberg gives several choices. How do I pick which one?

Is this something you download on your desktop and then install it to your Kindle while it is plugged in?

I just got a Kindle (latest version) for Christmas, and so far really like it. It is the version with WiFi and 3G. My only complaint is that everything is just thrown there in the Home section, I have 5 screens of just stuff. I discovered how to create a collection, and am starting with that.

Any other suggestions for a new user? I may have made a mistake, but ordered a Sena case, says it fits a 6" Kindle. Do you think it will fit the newest version of Kindle? I have a Sena case for my iPhone and thought it was worth the extra $$ -v- the standard Amazon one (and I found a nice discount that worked).

Definitely get the cover with the built-in light. It's great!

Thanks for that, I ended up getting the case without a light and have to say have been happy with the quality for the money paid. As for the Kindle really, really pleased, fantastic product.

Is there a way to make your collections appear at the end of the listings instead of the begining?

Recent unanswered questions
 

In case some of your recent posts have gone unanswered, amazon has a very active community forum: http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=sv_kinh_6

Bump. I'm also interested to know if this is possible.

I have the opposite question. My wife just activated a new Kindle for my 6-yr old (mom got tired of little one borrowing hers) and just noticed that mom's books are all on little-one's Kindle (and lot's of Junie B Jones books are on mom's).

Is there a way to not have them synch?

Go to 'manage your kindle', there should be a way to de-activate. If not, use the customer service button, the 'call feature', amazon rep usually calls you back within 1-2 minutes and will walk you through it. Their CS is amazing.

The only way to prevent this entirely is to have two separate Amazon accounts, one for mom and one for the kid. That would keep them completely separate.

You could also keep them on the same account but delete mom's books from the device (and delete the kid's books from mom's). They'd still be in the archive, but the wireless would have to be turned on and the kid would have to deliberately select them to redownload.

This would be correct. I bought the Kindle 3, after my SO felt it was too much of a hassle to buy her own, so she got my Kindle DX 2, I created a second Kindle account for her and you can sort books/media from the Amazon website.

Why can subscription items only be delivered to a Kindle?