kindle tip Archives - Free Kindle Books and Tips

Fire Tablet Battery Life

January 3, 2020 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

I’ve received a few questions regarding the battery life on a Fire tablet; here’s an abridged version of one I periodically receive:

I’m wondering if you are having a problem with the Fire battery life, or if you’ve heard of it being a problem? The other night I was reading on a fully charged Fire. Wifi was off. I read for about 30 minutes and it went from 100% to 93%. That seems like a big drop considering I could go weeks on my Kindle without recharging. This was simple book reading, no games or other activity. I definitely find I have to charge my Fire far more often than my Kindle.

I haven’t noticed any battery issues with my Fires, nor have I seen any issues with my kids’ Fires. I have read a few things on various discussion boards about increased battery consumption, and after contacting Amazon’s Customer Service it was resolved with either a few keystrokes or Amazon replaced the Fire with a new one.

You can always contact Amazon’s Kindle Customer Service: they are quite good. To see a previous post on how to contact them, click here.

Because of the color screen, you will have the battery run down a lot faster than on an e-Ink Kindle.

One thing you might look at is the number of applications (apps) that are running before you contact the customer service department: for each app that is running, in addition to decreasing your Fire’s memory and dragging down the speed, if you have numerous apps running the battery will really start to drain (that’s true for a laptop computer running on the battery, smartphone, etc.). To turn off apps that are running you are not using, while there are 101 ways to do it here is how I do it on my Fire tablet:

Open the menu bar by tapping the square icon from the home screen, which is the bottom right-hand icon just right of the center; it will be the third one on that bottom list of icons.
You will then see a list of apps that are currently running or “on” right now: they will pop up within their own mini window. You may (or may not) be surprised at what is running.
To turn a particular app off, I tap the “X” of each of these mini windows.

I just did that for mine, and I was very surprised to see I had 27 open apps – search screens, email, games, weather, you name it! I turned each of them off.

One other thing you may want to try is turn off your Wi-Fi: having the Wi-Fi on continuously drains the battery, especially if you lose your connection and the Fire is constantly searching for a new network to join.

Hope that helps!

Michael

Download the Free Kindle Books and Tips blog app for your Kindle Fire or Android-based smartphone or tablet – for free, of course – by clicking here or type in http://smarturl.it/fkbtfreeappinto your computer’s web browser from the Amazon App Store or click here or type in http://smarturl.it/fkbtgoogle into your computer’s web browser for the Google App Store.

Amazon Account But No Credit Card?

December 27, 2019 by Michael Gallagher 3 Comments

Here’s a question I receive via email from time-to-time (you can always email me: michael at fkbt dot com):

I have been downloading Kindle books for quite a while, always the free ones. In fact my account is so old I don’t have a credit card attached to it anymore, so I couldn’t download a priced book even if I wanted to. I really like the freedom this gives me, in that I don’t have to worry about making a mistake, clicking the button, and getting charged for something I didn’t realize was free.

Here’s the dilemma… there are a couple of books I would like to buy / they are not free. Is there a way to do this without using a credit card? I’m not quite sure how gift cards work. Any ideas?

An Amazon account without a credit card – I’ll bet it’s rare, but it could happen if your initial credit card expired or you got rid of it and never updated your Amazon account; seeing as how the reader above gets her Kindle material for free, I can envision a situation where someone could download the free books, games, music, and apps from the Amazon website and never pay a cent.

That doesn’t answer the question – how to purchase something from Amazon without a credit card? She can’t purchase an Amazon gift card, as it would take a credit card or a draft from an existing checking account to buy it from the Amazon website. While I am sure there are other ways to do this, three ways I can think off the top of my head to get an Amazon gift card without using an existing credit card:

Have someone give you an Amazon gift card.
Turn in your spare change to a Coinstar machine and receive an Amazon gift card in exchange for no fee (click here for my post on instructions on how to do that).
Most major grocery stores and other large retailers have a gift card display, where you can purchase gift cards not only to that store but to the big box retailers and online retailers such as Amazon. You could take cash to one of those stores and purchase an Amazon gift card in varying denominations.

Assuming you tried one of the three methods above, you would then go online to the Amazon store, login to the My Account section, and apply the gift card code (and funds) to your Amazon account – all without having to whip out a credit card.

Can anyone think of another method? If so, please leave a comment in the comment field below.

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

December 22, 2019 by Michael Gallagher 1 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 $100 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.

Have a great rest of your week-

Michael

How About a “Free” Amazon Gift Card?

December 19, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

The following is a revision of a post I first posted about in August 2014, and I repost / update it each year before Christmas. I am always reminded of this post as I’ve got another big jar of coins I gathered at home and I’m thinking of needing some Amazon gift cards for this upcoming Christmas. If you are reading this post on the blog’s website or Facebook page, 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. You can also donate the change to numerous different charities vs. taking a gift card, and the charity will receive 100% of the proceeds.

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

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

September 27, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

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?

Have a great rest of your week-

Michael

The FKBT Free App

September 2, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

Hi!

About seven years ago, we had an app developed that allowed you to read the blog on Fire tablets and Android devices such as phones, other tablets, etc. It was free, and remains free, to download and over the years it had been downloaded over one million times (I wish I had a dollar for each one of them!).

We just pushed out a new update to it this week to account for various changes to the Android operating software, and you can grab it now.

If you still have the old version of the app on your Fire Tablet or other Android device and downloaded it from the Amazon App Store, you should be able to tap the “Updates” section (within the “App” folder of your Fire Tablet) and you can have the revised app updated with just a tap on the screen.

If you deleted it from your device, or if you’ve never tried it before, you can get it for free from the Amazon App store if you click here or go to http://geni.us/fkbtfreeapp with a web browser.

If you would like to get it from the Google Play store, you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/fkbtgoogle into your computer’s web browser for the Google App Store.

Also, rest assured there is no tracking information with the app – we don’t ask for your email address or any personal information, and the app does not communicate back with us: its sole function is to display the posts from fkbt.com and allow you to get the free and discounted Kindle books we tell you about each day.

Have a great week,

Michael

Your Unique @kindle.com Email Address

August 27, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

I’ve been traveling with work again a lot this year – no, I don’t do this full time – nothing beats sleeping in your own bed!

Sitting in the hotel room one night, I realized I haven’t sent out a tip lately…here’s a question I receive every now and then regarding your unique Kindle email address:

I have a kindle E-mail address, but where is it? How do I get to it?

You may already know, or maybe you don’t, each registered Kindle owner has their own unique youname@kindle.com email address, where you and others that you grant permission to beforehand can email material directly to your Kindle or Fire tablet. This could come in handy for sending Word documents, etc. from work for the “gotta read it” on the plane, but you can also use it as a method to transfer books to your Kindle. Although I believe the “Send to Kindle” tool is easier to send things from your own computer, I would recommend the email option for friends and family to send things to your Kindle; I will have a post on the “Send to Kindle” feature in a couple of days.

One word of caution, however: unless you are using the WiFi application vs. the cellular option, Amazon will charge the Kindle account holder for each document emailed; I am not putting the price in here as it has changed a few times over the years (and I have no idea what they are charging now as I primarily use the Send to Kindle Feature). While these charges may not seem like much they can add up over time.

If you do not know your unique @kindle.com email address, it’s easy to find out: log into you Amazon.com account, and click on the “Your Content and Devices” link located in the dropdown menu. Underneath the “Devices” section will list each of the Kindles, Fire tablets, Echo / Alexa dvices, etc., registered to your account. If you click on the gray square icon to the left of a Kindle or Fire tablet name (it is gray with three small black dots on it), you can see more information about the device as well as the unique @kindle.com email address to send material to each particular Kindle. If you do not like the email address assigned to you, experiment with it and find one you do like – the Amazon server will let you know if that unique @kindle.com email address is available to use.

I mentioned earlier you can have others you grant permission in advance to send material to your Kindle; if you click the “Preferences” menu item at the top of the page, then scroll way down to the section titled “Approved Personal Document E-Mail List,” you will also see the pre-authorized email addresses allowed. I would exercise caution with who you put on there, or the next thing you know your spouse or significant other will use that as a tool to send you reminders of chores to do, errands to run, or other emails!

Hope that helps, and have a great rest of your week-

Michael

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

August 23, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

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?

Have a great rest of your week-

Michael

Important Note for e-Ink Kindle Readers

August 19, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

While this is a repeat of what I posted last week, I wanted to make sure the thousands of people this impacts see it and have a chance to take action: if Amazon follows through on their timing, this should be the last post readers will see if they receive the blog on their e-Ink Kindles.

You should have received an email from Amazon last Tuesday titled “Notice About Your Kindle Blog Subscription;” mine came around 1:15 (USA Central Time) Tuesday afternoon. This email basically says the subscription will no longer publish to your e-Ink Kindle effective today, August 19^th; I’ve received quite a few emails from subscribers with a lot of questions, so let me try to answer some of the more frequent ones:

This does not mean we are stopping publication of our site! While they certainly could have worded the email notification better, it just means (a) Amazon is not going to deliver it electronically to your Kindle, and (b) they are going to stop charging you monthly for them to send you what you can receive for free (see below).
Yes, you can still receive the daily notifications, this time for free (see below)!
Amazon quit advertising / supporting the ability to receive blogs on your e-Ink Kindles several years ago, and this is just a final nail in the coffin for that service. Personally, I’m surprised they kept it active for as long as they did.

This action by Amazon impacts several thousand people in the USA and UK – please note I mentioned the word “free” a couple of times in the above. Rather than just stopping reading the blog on your e-Ink Kindles, why not sign up to receive the same content for free? Here is how you can do it:

Open up a web browser and go to fkbt.com/subscribe; once you are there, type in your email address in the in the box and click the “subscribe” button. You will now receive one email each morning with each day’s posts.
Open up a web browser and go to fkbt.com and read whichever post strikes your fancy.

That seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Give it a shot – rather than pay Amazon to deliver free content to you, how about trying the free email subscription? If you like it, great – if you don’t, you can always unsubscribe and still not be out any cash.

While you’re at it, how about telling a friend and having them sign up for free, also?

Have a great week-

Michael

Permanently Deleting a Kindle Title

August 16, 2019 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

There may be times when you want to delete items from your Kindle permanently – never to be seen again. I’m not talking about just from your Kindle, but permanently from your Amazon records so you can’t ever download it again. Forever.

Many of you may be wondering, “why would I want to do that?”

You can probably think of other reasons, but I can think of two reasons off the top of my head:

Your children, significant other, or someone else can also access your account with their Kindle, Fire, or Kindle app for the thousand of other electronic devices, and you do not want them to know what you have been reading – maybe it’s a lusty romance or any other book you may not want them to read. For example, if you’re a parent you want to be able to monitor what your children are reading.
You downloaded a book you thought was one thing, realized later it was something else, and you never want to see it again. For example, that would be a situation I would find myself in if I downloaded a romance title – they are just not my thing. It is also well-known Amazon utilizes what is in your list of books to market to you. I have some experience with this one, as I received some really strange recommendations for a particular genre after I bought a Kindle book I thought was one thing but turned out to be another (enough said on that one). Once I permanently deleted the title I thought was causing this particular point of targeted marketing, those recommendations disappeared for good.

To make a long story short, if you would like to permanently delete a title from your Kindle’s account there are a couple of ways to do it; here are the steps I use:

First, remove the title from your Kindle if you haven’t already.
Second, go to the “Manage Your Content and Devices” section of the Amazon web page. You can reach that page by using this shortlink: http://smarturl.it/myk
In this section, locate the item in the search bar just below the “Title” menu item. If you have lots of books in your library it will take some time for all of them to load. If that is the case, you can enter the name of the book – or a portion of the name or the author’s name – in the search bar on the right-hand side of this page: just look for the little magnifying glass to the left of the “Search your content” text box and to the left of the “Search” icon.
Once you have located the title, click the “Actions” icon located to the left of the title.
Choose the “Delete” option.
A confirmation pop-up will appear next, asking if you are sure you want to delete this title. Assuming you really want to delete it, select the “Yes” option.

A word of caution – if you delete the title and want to read it again you will have to buy it again!

Hope that helps-

Michael

Fire Tablet Battery Life

Amazon Account But No Credit Card?

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

How About a “Free” Amazon Gift Card?

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

The FKBT Free App

Your Unique @kindle.com Email Address

A Quick Reminder About Freebies

Important Note for e-Ink Kindle Readers

Permanently Deleting a Kindle Title

About Free Kindle Books and Tips

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