Procrastination is my middle name...

[Gary Compton]

I'm still faffing on thinking about getting a Kindle. I know I'm a dinosaur.

Did I see somewhere that you can email your WIP to the machine and read it on the device?

Any knowledge on this would be great

 

[allmywires]

Yep. Done it loads of times. You get a kindle specific email address and you can just email the word document to that.

 

[Gary Compton]

So you can just flick the pages across?

I'm thinking of getting the basic to see if I like it. What do ya think?

 

[allmywires]

Yeah, basically. the formatting is sometimes a bit dodgy - it doesn't like double spacing, it comes up HUUGE - but I find it really helpful. Somehow I don't seem to pick up on mistakes as much on a computer as I do on printed stuff, and the kindle reads like a print book. If that makes sense.

I always said I wouldn't get a kindle because I like print books so much but honestly, I've been turned. they are really handy and clever little things! (I have the kindle touch by the way).

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Yes - I even give mine a cover I get a very sad kick out of it.

 

[Gary Compton]

How do you do that Anyakimlin?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Just with PC Paint & some photographs they are not hi-tech. Then place them on the first page.

 

[Gary Compton]

So you just insert an image on the 1st page. Is it full size?

 

[Ursa major]

I sent a version of the first scene of the now-removed prologue from WiP1 to my Kindle. In spite of the somewhat dubious content, it look fine on my Kindle. (The file I sent was single spaced and a .rtf.)

I sent it last August, so can't recall if I had problems with the font size (which can be changed), but I've checked and it's now in the same font size as my copies of Ian Sales's The Eye With Which The Universe Beholds Itself, and Neal Asher's Polity Agent, which suggests the process works properly.

 

[Gary Compton]

WiP1 - you have more than one? I am impressed I just have a WiP

Thanks for the info.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I've never had serious formatting issues.

I just put them in the centre of my first page. (I really am not technical & they are not great)

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yep. Done it loads of times. You get a kindle specific email address and you can just email the word document to that.

Is it a case of emailing or simply uploading?

Got to admit, I'd never heard of this - I thought anything on a Kindle had to be formatted in HTML?

Sounds like a great idea, though.

Hows does someone do this, please?

 

[chrispenycate]

I don't have a special eMail, or anything; I've not yet used the WiFi interface on my Kindle. I'm a computer illiterate. But using its USB/recharging lead, I cheerfully transfer .rtf documents (or, wait a minute, do I Calibre them into MOBI first?) into my Kindle, and dump my own stuff, and seventy-five word challenges, and critiques, and… so I can peruse them on the tram, train, restaurant or wherever.

It's a pig making notes in the non-keyboard version (which I have).

 

[Ursa major]

It's emailing, Brian.

One can upload things to Kindle over the USB (charging) link, but all that does is treat the Kindle as USB storage (with its own display capability). I tried uploading files** this way, but with very poor results (pages not fitting on the screen, for example).

By emailing, the file is converted into a Kindle-readable file format.



** - Note that I don't have any mobi conversion software on my PCs.

 

[Brian G Turner]

A "kindle specific email address" though? I'm a bit lost on that point. And I thought I was quite computer literate.

 

[allmywires]

It's just that Kindle creates an @kindle.com email address for you to file share, with the same handle as the email address associated with your account. eg if my email address associated with my Amazon account were allmywires@hotmail.co.uk, they would create allmywires@kindle.com. You can then send .doc files from amw@hotmail to amw@kindle and you just need a wifi connection to download it.

 

[CrumpleHornedSnorkak]

Does this emailing files to your Kindle work with older models, or just the new fancy ones? I'm a bit of a hater of the eReader, but my boyfriend has one (not that he EVER reads - he won it through work) and I quite like the idea of looking at my writing as though it was printed. Its not mega old, probably two or three years.

 

[allmywires]

Pretty sure, yeah. My mum's got the basic kindle, and she's had hers a couple of years. I've emailed her stuff to it before.

 

[Ursa major]

Mine's a wifi-only Kindle4, without a "keyboard", so the design's from 2011.

 

[CrumpleHornedSnorkak]

Ah, cool. Well, it definitely has Wifi. Will have to dig it out and have go. Cheers.