miscellaneous stuff Archives - Free Kindle Books and Tips

Amazon Account But No Credit Card?

December 20, 2018 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… I now own a Kindle Fire and would like to download a game, which is 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 or type in http://smarturl.it/fagc into a web browser 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 and the iTunes store. 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

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Need an Amazon Gift Card?

December 12, 2018 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 are also the parent company behind the Redbox DVD rental machines you seem to see everywhere. 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 8% 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, 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 eight 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

Amazon’s Black Friday Starts Now!

November 23, 2018 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

Black Friday at Amazon has officially started…all of that other stuff was just a warm-up.

To check out all of the deals, you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/amazonbfriday into your web browser. The deals will change every hour – sometimes they are for maybe an hour or two, others will last all day.

So, what have I seen so far? Let’s start with the Kindle-related stuff:

If you trade in an old Kindle – working or not – you can get 25% off a new Kindle e-Reader.

A Fire HD 10 has been discounted $50 and is only $99.99 – grab this one while you can!

The list of things on sale changes every five minutes, and you may need to click the “refresh” button on your browser – this is the time I do a lot of Christmas shopping. I will tell you I saw the DeWalt battery-operated power tools at 35% off….

To check out all of the deals, you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/amazonbfriday into your web browser but remember – the deals will change frequently during the day!

Have fun-

Michael

Informal Poll: What Are YOU Reading on Your Kindle?

October 11, 2018 by Michael Gallagher 18 Comments

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.

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 your e-Ink Kindle or 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 or type in http://geni.us/1018poll into your web browser, 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 on Wednesday night for publication Thursday morning, I am almost finished with King Rat by James Clavell. I first read this in the early 1980’s and enjoyed it then when I was reading through all of Clavell’s books in order. This was one of those I remembered over the years often thinking of it; I picked it up a while ago for my Kindle and just now got around to re-reading it. I’m a little over 90% through it (and hope to finish it tonight), and it is just as good today as it was 35 or so years ago: actually, I think it is outstanding and think Clavell is one of those authors whose writing is timeless and will never go out of style. If you haven’t read it before, or you did and it has been some time, I would recommend you give it 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 or type in http://geni.us/1018poll into your web browser, 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 the week!

Michael

Book Reviews and Why I Write Them

May 30, 2018 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

As A Blog Publisher, Why Do You Write Book Reviews?

That’s actually a nicer way of summarizing some of the emails I’ve received over the last few years!

Yes, I do write reviews for the books I read, and starting in 2011 I started to make a point to write a review for most things I read.

Why do I write reviews? Well, I do read what others write for reviews, and those reviews do influence my decision to (a) first try out the free Kindle sample, which a lot of the time leads me to (b) purchasing a book. I appreciate the time and effort complete strangers took to write a review to tell me the good and the bad, and common courtesy tells me I should do the same. If I like a book I’ll tell you – if I didn’t like it, well, let’s just say I’ve been told my professional career has been limited a time or two for being too honest (i.e., blunt).

If you’re like me, you look at the customer reviews in order to see if you want to investigate a book further – while my general cutoff is a book needs to be at least a 4 out of 5 stars, I also read the text of the review: things that may make a reviewer dislike a book might be favorable to me and, things a reviewer absolutely loved (and mentioned in the review) could be a complete turnoff to this grey-haired guy.

I also look to see if a review on the Amazon website is from an “Amazon Verified Purchase,” which tells me the person writing the review actually purchased the item from Amazon; I don’t think people should be able to review books on Amazon unless they purchased it.

Why do I look for an Amazon Verified Purchase? I’ve been burned too many times by friends and family of the author or shill reviews – reviewers that immediately rate everything a five star, they leave about one sentence of commentary (the minimum for an Amazon review is something like 20 characters of text), and they are generally marked by it being the one and only review a person has ever written on the Amazon website; these are typically reviews done in order to inflate a book’s overall rating. Another good indicator is a book will have a flurry of reviews around the same day, are short and all five stars, etc.

With the thousands of books I have previewed prior to telling you about on www.fkbt.com over the years, I’ve learned to spot the friends and family reviews pretty quick.

The “star” rating on Amazon can be broken down like this:

5 stars – I love it
4 stars – I like it
3 stars – It’s ok
2 stars – I don’t like it
1 star – I hate it

As far as the reviews I write, I try to write an honest assessment if I liked something or not without providing a spoiler: why write a spoiler and ruin it for everyone? I also think your and my taste regarding the likes and dislikes of a particular book are more honest than a paid book reviewer a major publishing house contracts with to have in a book’s advertising materials. My motto is to keep it short and sweet on your likes and dislikes without providing a Cliff’s Notes version of the book.

There are also very few things I “love” in terms of reading as well as very few things I “hate” as both, to me, are very extreme ends of the spectrum. Not to sound too hokey, but love and hate are permanent things and very few things qualify for either emotion.

Some people think I shouldn’t be writing reviews because I have this blog, and due to the blog’s popularity it could influence people’s behavior, especially if I “give” it a bad rating – every once in a while I will have a rather interesting dialogue with a few folks regarding the same. My response to those type of comments is my – and anyone else’s – review of a book reflects my opinion only and I don’t “give” out anything: your opinion on a book or item may vary, and we probably won’t agree on everything. For example, something I really liked you may absolutely detest and puke all over it.

The same could be true for something you thought was outstanding and I may question why it was published in the first place. When I read reviews sure, the star rating is important (see above), but I don’t put that much weight into the “star” rating as I look at the comments – mainly to see if they are substantive to back up the rating as well as to see what the reviewer’s pluses and minuses are with the book. If you look at those written comments, sometimes they match up to the “star” rating and sometime they do not.

I also discount reviewers who rate everything a 5 star and I imagine most others do, too.

If you would like to read the reviews I have written, you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/mgreviews into your web browser. As I type this post, I have quite a few books I need to review but you will see just about everything I’ve read over the last ten years – you’ll see I do read a lot of the free book offers, and long time readers of the blog will also see I have continued my science fiction kick.

You can vote on the individual reviews on the Amazon website if you think they were helpful or not with a simple “Yes” or “No” vote – you can click on those voting options immediately below the text of each review. The more “Yes” votes you get in proportion to the overall votes – as well as some super-secret factors Amazon won’t divulge – you will move up in the review ranking scale (yes, Amazon ranks the reviewers). Compared to prior years, I’ve dropped down in the rankings: I’ve kept pretty steady with the numer of reviews I’ve written but clearly more people have more time on their hands than I do!

So, yes, I will continue writing reviews and I hope you will do the same!

Anyway, that’s all I can type about for now. Have a great rest of your week!

Michael

Amazon’s Black Friday Starts Now!

November 24, 2017 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

Black Friday at Amazon has officially started…all of that other stuff was just a warm-up.

So, what have I seen so far? Let’s start with the Kindle-related stuff:

A Kindle Paperwhite is discounted $30 to just $89.99 – if you are unfamiliar with the Paperwhite, I think it is the best value Kindle there is and I use mine all of the time. Seeing as how these are discounted to under $100, this one to me is a steal.

A Fire HD 10 has been discounted $50 and is only $99.99 – grab this one while you can!

The list of things on sale changes every five minutes, and you may need to click the “refresh” button on your browser – this is the time I do a lot of Christmas shopping

To check out all of the deals, you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/amazonbfriday into your web browser but remember – the deals will change frequently during the day!

Have fun-

Michael

Kindles and Fires Significantly Discounted!

November 20, 2017 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment

This one is going to be short and sweet…

If you are thinking about getting a new Fire Tablet or Kindle e-Reader such as a Paperwhite, Amazon is running a deal right now as an early Black Friday event – $50 off a Fire HD 10 tablet and $30 off a Kindle Paperwhite: this makes both of them a heck of a deal and under $100. I don’t know how long the deal will last, but if you are interested you can click here or type in http://smarturl.it/amazonbfriday into your web browser. This link is good for the USA, UK, and Canada.

You can also use that link to shop all of the pre-Black Friday deals as well as on Black Friday for the expected full blowout we have come to expect from Amazon.

On the other hand, you can also still signup for our giveaway where someone will win a new Fire HD 10 tablet, Kindle Paperwhite, and one of over half a dozen other items. Have you signed up? You can (and it’s free to enter) if you click here or type in http://geni.us/1117giveaway into your web browser.

Free Kindle book offers coming in the next post!

Michael

Informal Poll: What Are YOU Reading on Your Kindle?

September 28, 2017 by Michael Gallagher 28 Comments

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? I stopped doing it on the Amazon discussion boards and started hosting it on the blog’s website – but I’ve been negligent in doing it here as it has been longer than I want to admit since my last informal poll…

If you are reading this on your Kindle or the blog’s free email subscription – 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 or type in http://smarturl.it/0917poll into your web browser, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and start typing away in the comments section!

I’ve actually been on a bad streak lately, and had some real disappointments. I finished Harlan Coben’s new title, Don’t Let Go, yesterday and it was so-so. Coben is one of my favorite authors, and I always pre-order his stuff so I stayed up way past my bedtime and finished it just after midnight. At $14.99, it was expensive and very short – and disappointing as it seemed as if he was tired of writing and just ended it. I won’t be pre-ordering his titles in the future.

I also read the first three titles of the Commander series this week (the first book was The Commander), a science fiction series by the husband / wife writing duo penned CJ Williams. The first book was pretty good, so I quickly devoured the next two. The series had a lot of potential yet went downhill fast: the third book really wasn’t realistic with the scenes and the characters just became goofy. I’m glad all three were “free” under the Kindle Unlimited program.

I also read two other sci-fi titles that were about the same. One of them, I just put down and deleted from my Kindle it was that bad. Luckily, my Kindle has a rather large electronic “to be read” pile so I am sure I will start something new for the weekend.

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 or type in http://smarturl.it/0917poll into your web browser, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and start typing away in the comments section!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Have a great weekend!

Michael

Just an Update for Today

September 4, 2017 by Michael Gallagher 5 Comments

Here is my Hurricane Harvey update from my previous post: we evacuated the day before the storm hit about 100 miles north of Houston. It took a while to make it back home as most of the Interstates into the city were flooded (in addition to everything else). I-45 finally cleared most of the way home and we made it back to Houston Wednesday afternoon – we had about two feet of water in the garage yet none in the house as it was built elevated from the street level. Sure, we threw away a lot of ruined stuff but our cleanup is done, it was only material things, and we feel extremely lucky.

Over 40 people at my company’s Houston offices need a new place to live: the devastation across the city you saw on the national news was about 10% of reality – it is really bad. Many neighborhoods are still underwater and over 100,000 people lost everything.

Today is Labor Day in the United States: if you are in the Houston area, please consider donating some of your sweat equity to a neighbor, friend, or total stranger to assist in the cleanup efforts – they need the help!

If you are not in the Houston area, please consider a donation to any charity assisting the Houston recovery efforts with the exception of the Red Cross (they take out way too much of your donation as an overhead administrative fee): many local churches are involved and I would recommend hitting the link at www.second.org as they have boots on the ground across the Houston area right now making a huge difference, and 100% of the donation goes to helping out those who lost everything.

Texans don’t complain about what the government didn’t do for them, but roll up their sleeves and get it done!

FKBT and Hurricane Harvey

August 28, 2017 by Michael Gallagher 6 Comments

All-

Many of you know I live in Houston, and most of you have heard about the devastation in the Houston area; I appreciate the emails I have received asking about us. While my family is safe (and luckily, dry), Internet connectivity is up and down and I may be a little slow to respond.

The posts will still go out!

The damage in the area is bad, but I’ve been impressed with the resilience and volunteerism of the Houston population.

Thanks-

Michael Gallagher

Amazon Account But No Credit Card?

Need an Amazon Gift Card?

Amazon’s Black Friday Starts Now!

Informal Poll: What Are YOU Reading on Your Kindle?

Book Reviews and Why I Write Them

Amazon’s Black Friday Starts Now!

Kindles and Fires Significantly Discounted!

Informal Poll: What Are YOU Reading on Your Kindle?

Just an Update for Today

FKBT and Hurricane Harvey

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