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A Quick Reminder About Freebies

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Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

Informal Poll: What Are YOU Reading on Your Kindle?

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For several years, I started or participated in a monthly poll on the USA Amazon Kindle discussion boards asking people a simple question: what are you reading on your Kindle? Unfortunately, the discussion boards on Amazon have gone away and I have periodically hosted something similar on our website.

Since the pandemic stay-at-home orders started over a year ago, I’ve been reading more than usual (and I read a lot!) and I have been slowly whittling down my digital to-be-read pile.

I’ve received some great tips with past polls, finding out what others are reading on their Kindle, and found some “new” authors I generally wouldn’t have found using my hunt-and-peck method. While I have certainly enjoyed the “mainstream” author suggestions over the years, I’ve also enjoyed a lot of independent authors from each month’s poll I never would have heard of previously.

If you are reading this on the blog’s free email subscription, the blog’s free reader app for your Fire tablet or Android device – or anywhere other than the blog’s website – and would like to check out the poll and find some new things or, better yet, tell others what you are reading, just click here, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and start typing away in the comments section!

Here’s how this works – on the blog’s website (using the link above) list a book you are currently reading or just recently read on your Kindle, whether you would recommend it, did you get it free, and anything else you would care to share.

As I type this up I am reading a thriller by James Rosone & Miranda Watson called Monroe Doctrine: Volume I.  It is a realistic thriller set in the near future about the start of World War III, where China starts a world war using artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art military equipment.  As I type this up, I’m almost finished with it – and have enjoyed it so much I have the next two books in the series already on my Kindle (they are included with my Kindle Unlimited subscription).  It is very realistic and refreshing as it’s not jus another series where the USA and its allies win every time: as a matter of fact, they get their collective butts kicked, hard.  If you enjoy fast-paced military thrillers I would recommend giving this one a try.

Finally, here’s my standard continuation of each request for prior participants in the poll: if you like or dislike a title you have read, in addition to telling us about it in this informal poll, how about writing a book review on the Amazon website? The review will certainly last and be visible a lot longer than this poll will. If you’re like me, you look at the customer reviews in order to see if you want to investigate a book further. Since we are all a little community here, and while I realize each review is each person’s opinion and we may not like the same thing, I know your friends and online discussion neighbors would appreciate your honest assessment of the likes and dislikes without providing a spoiler – I know I would!

Your reviews don’t need to be a long dissertation of the book, I like to keep them short, sweet, and hopefully to the point (some people think I am too blunt on things I dislike, but I am at least giving you my honest opinion!).

We’d really like to hear what you’re reading right now – I, for example, may find something interesting from your list I want to read (It’s been known to happen!). If you are reading this on your Kindle – or anywhere other than the blog’s website – and would like to check out the poll and find some new things or, better yet, tell others what you are reading, just click here, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and start typing away in the comments section!

Anyway, that’s all for today. Have a great rest of your week!

Michael

 

Free Samples of Kindle Books

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I thought it was an appropriate time to remind you of the free sample option Amazon has with the Kindle program: consider it like going to the bookstore (well, that is if there are many of them still open these days) and turning a few pages before buying it. You can get a free sample of a Kindle book – usually a few chapters to just a couple of pages – to try out and see if the book is something you are interested in prior to buying. I use the feature quite a bit, as I get extremely annoyed in shelling out money for a book and realizing about 5- 10% of the way through it I think it’s not for me.

If I am interested in the book, I will do one of two things:

  • If it is a free book and I am even remotely interested in it, I will download the whole thing. What do I have to lose? Nothing (e.g., it’s free!). Should I complain because I don’t like it or the genre? No. Again, it’s free – why the sense of entitlement? Over the past several years I get complaints emailed to me from time-to-time about too much of one genre or the other being available for free. Why? I don’t know – a publisher or independent author is making it available for free which sounds great to me. Like I said before, you don’t have anything to lose! Maybe these folks should redirect their energies and complain directly to the dysfunctional US Congress – both parties – about getting their act together and behaving as adults…but that’s another blog post for another venue.
  • If it is not a free book (gasp!), I usually will download the sample in order to see if I like the first couple of pages, then I will make my buying decision. Why waste money sight unseen when I can have a sample downloaded to my Kindle for free?

I bring this up as I don’t want any of you to forget about the free sample option. I have a separate folder / category devoted to samples on my Kindle, and I select and download 3-4 samples at a time when I see something after trolling through the Amazon store, but I may not check the sample out until later. Why wait so long? Usually, it is because I am in the middle of another book – I’m not one of those people who can multitask between multiple books at the same time. When I’m reading a book I’m usually pretty absorbed and get deep into the story, characters, etc. and can look up at the clock and realize three hours have quickly passed.

So, how do you find / download the free Kindle sample? Go to any Kindle book available on Amazon’s website and on the right-hand side of the page you will see another icon titled “Send a free sample.” Click that button – if you have multiple Kindles, please make sure you have the correct Kindle listed in the drop-down menu. If you are looking at a book via shopping directly on your Kindle, one of the options is to check out the free sample, click that item and the sample will be delivered to you.

With the free samples, plus the books on my Kindle now, I should be set for a long time…

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

Are you receiving the blog’s posts by email? You can if you click here or type in http://www.fkbt.com/subscribe into your web browser – just fill in your email address, smack the “Subscribe” button, and make sure you reply to the confirmation email!

 

 

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

How About a “Free” Amazon Gift Card?

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The following is a revision of a post I first posted about in August 2014, and I usually repost / update it each year before Christmas. I decided to do it now as there still seems to be a shortage of coins as well as inflation seems to be here to stay and everyone could use a little bit more (how does the USA run out of coins / spare change?).

If you are reading this post on the blog’s website I would appreciate a “Like” or “Share” so your friends and family can be notified of this tip, also!

Kindles and other eBook readers have some costs to them: by the time you purchase the Kindle and other related accessories (cover to protect it, maybe an extra charger, etc.) can certainly add up. However, you’ve made your initial investment in the Kindle hardware, and there is enough free content out there for you to read the rest of your life without buying another book. Forever.

Forever is a long time.

While I do read a lot of the free books I talk about here in the blog I still enjoy certain authors and will purchase a lot of books. Some of them are inexpensive offerings from independent authors and some are from your mainstream “big name” authors, and I don’t care what the price is – I’ve gottagetitnow. Well, I do care what the price is but I may just wait until it gets below $10 unless it’s a new one by David Baldacci. I’m sure there are offerings by favorite authors you want to buy, too.

So, what’s my point with this post? Great question because, as in real life, I am getting long-winded.

You have a source of “free” money you can spend in the Amazon store and you probably don’t realize it as it is right under your nose. I’m talking about your loose change.

Most of you have seen the change conversion machines in grocery and other stores, and a lot of you have used them: you take in your coffee can of loose change, dump it in the hopper, the machine counts it and then spits out a receipt you take to the cash register to redeem for paper currency or a credit in the store. The one main drawback to these machines, to me, is a lot of them take a 10% or more commission / cut of whatever you brought in as their profit. For example, at an 10% commission rate you would need to bring in $11.11 worth of change to receive a $10 bill. Some people will say “so what” and accept that as a cost of doing business vs. rolling the money yourself and either turning it in to a bank (if they accept the change these days – my local branch of Bank of America does not) or taking it to a convenience store who needs it and having everyone behind you steam as you and the convenience store clerk count out a bagful of pennies.

That’s really a stupid effective interest rate for a three day loan, assuming they empty the machine every three days.

The grocery store usually splits the fee earned 50-50 with the owner of the equipment, but even if the grocery store is providing a three day loan to the equipment maker until they are reimbursed, that is one heck of a money maker (why didn’t I think of that?)!

I’m sure some of you are still wondering what my point is with this post. I’ll get to it, I just had to set the stage.

Coinstar is one of the largest providers in the USA of this equipment to stores. They have partnered with Amazon to not charge you a fee for the change you bring in if you bring in a minimum of $5.00 worth of change, but they will give you a gift card eligible for 100% of the change you bring in to be used at the Amazon website; I am assuming Amazon is paying the commission fee as a customer acquisition cost.

That’s actually a huge benefit for you and me as we feed our Kindle book addiction or shopping habits on Amazon.

Using my earlier example, if you brought in $11.11 worth of change and selected the Amazon gift card option, you would get a $11.11 Amazon gift card as your receipt. You would then enter the gift card details on your Amazon account on your computer (or Kindle, if the wireless feature is on with the browser pointed to the Amazon website). You can then use those funds now applied to your account and buy not only Kindle books but anything else on the Amazon website.

You also don’t have to roll the coins yourself or, if your house is like mine, you have a couple of containers here and there full of spare change. You’re also not giving up any of your money as a commission just for someone to accept your spare change. I hope that’s change you can believe in (pun intended).

Coinstar has partnered with other companies in addition to Amazon to offer gift cards with no fee to you – you turn in $11.11 worth of coins, you get a $11.11 gift card to the Amazon store or to the other store(s) participating in the program. While Coinstar is one of the largest providers of this equipment to stores in the USA, they are not the only one so don’t assume your local grocery store is a Coinstar machine.

To find a Coinstar machine, you can point your web browser to https://www.coinstar.com/findakiosk and do two things from this page: (1) enter your zip code in the middle of the page to find a Coinstar machine near you, and (2) see a list of companies that have signed up for the gift card promotion by clicking “details” under the name of the store / retail location. When I just did the same for a location near me, in addition to an Amazon gift card my selections were to lots of major retailers, make a donation to a charity, or even receive bitcoin.

One thing to note is not all of the retailers will dispense an Amazon gift card – for example, WalMart will not, and I suspect that is because they and Amazon are fierce competitors. Check the participating Coinstar locations near you to see what type(s) of gift cards they dispense as many of them are different.

My old quart-sized Mason Jar I use to hold my change is almost full of coins, so it’s off to the Coinstar machine!

Hope that helps!

Michael

Are you receiving the blog’s posts by email? You can if you click here or type in http://www.fkbt.com/subscribe into your web browser – just fill in your email address, smack the “Subscribe” button, and make sure you click the link in the confirmation email!

 

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A Quick Reminder About Freebies

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

Donate Your Used Kindle

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Seeing as how there were lots of people who upgraded to a new version of the Kindle or Fire tablet platform since Prime Day, I thought it would be a great idea to pass on this idea again….

Many times, I am asked by people what to do with an older Kindle or Fire tablet sitting around collecting dust because the owner either upgraded to a newer model or just doesn’t use it anymore. My normal response is to check around with a local charity, such as a shelter or literacy group in the person’s area as I am sure one of them would appreciate a Kindle or other eBook reader.

If you have a used Kindle, how about donating to The Kindle Classroom Project? The Kindle Classroom Project was founded in 2011 by schoolteacher Mark Isero, and was started to promote the love and power of reading among high school students in Oakland and San Francisco, California in the USA. The program now serves over 2,500 students: students receive a Kindle and access to a growing library of approximately 2,500 books 24 hours a day.

You can check out their website and read more details / see pictures of students with their Kindles at https://www.kindleclassroomproject.org/ – I’m impressed how big of a difference just one person like Mark can make! Check out their website and you will see lots of links on how a used Kindle is making a difference.

FKBT’s subscribers have donated quite a few used Kindles over the years and have made a difference!

If you would like to donate your used Kindle to The Kindle Classroom Project, just point your web browser to https://www.kindleclassroomproject.org/ for more information.

Also, if you know someone who has a used Kindle they are no longer using, why not pass along this information to them?

Have a great week!

Michael

 

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick reminder – if I or anyone else tells you about a book being offered for free or discounted on the Amazon Kindle website and you are interested, please jump on it immediately. Don’t wait a few days or even a couple of hours, or you may see the book being offered for sale vs. what you thought was free! I’ve seen it happen many times over the years.

Why does that happen? Sometimes there is a glitch to the Amazon system, an author may have forgot to set the book’s promotion on the Amazon website, or who knows?

Bottom line here is don’t wait – log on to the website frequently (www.fkbt.com) or check your email shortly after 8:00 a.m. Central time for the daily digest if you are subscribed to the free daily email. Grab them now as once the book is yours, no matter if you paid nothing or $9.99 for a book, it is yours forever!

I should say something similar about books discounted to 99 cents: the author, for example, has told me their book(s) will be discounted for a particular day and I set the posts up in advance. The same issue that can cause titles to not be free can also apply to the discounting for a particular day. Please make sure you verify the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

got books

About Free Kindle Books and Tips

So, who writes all of these posts to the blog? A gray-haired guy in Texas named Michael Gallagher who doesn’t blog full-time but blogs as a hobby.

The Kindle Books and Tips blog has a simple purpose: to provide an interactive blog where you will receive tips to maximize your Kindle experience.

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