[vi-kindle] Borrowing Books with Amazon Prime
- From: "Russ Kiehne" <russ94577@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Vi-Kindle" <vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:47:52 -0800
I found the following article and hope some of you can make use of it.
Borrowing Books with Amazon Prime
by Lisa Salinger
BACKGROUND
If you have a Kindle and Amazon Prime, you are able to borrow one free book
a
month. Unfortunately, this must be done directly from the Kindle. An app or
Kindle program will not work. If you can not see the Kindle screen, you are
out
of luck … or so I thought. While Voice Guide does not read these options,
there
is a work-around, a series of steps which will allow you to accomplish this
fairly painlessly. It is possible that this procedure could change in the
future. For this reason, you may choose to have sighted assistance for the
first
try. If the process does go wrong, you will have only a few possible
outcomes.
You could end up buying, not borrowing the book, you could have the free
sample
of the book downloaded to your Kindle, or nothing would happen. So having
said
all that, let’s begin.
GETTING STARTED
There are three main steps to the process. The first and third can be done
easily from the computer, and the second needs to be done from the Kindle.
Note
that this works with the Kindle Keyboard, and not with the other touch-based
devices or any of the Kindle apps for the phone or computer.
FROM THE COMPUTER
First, you will need to find a book to borrow, as not all Kindle books are
eligible. When you have searched for a book, look at the information
displayed
after each title. If eligible, there will be a line that says, “Borrow this
book
for free on Kindle.” Do not select this item. Instead, go back to the book
title
and press Enter.
Use your screen reader’s Find command, (Control f for many), to search for
the
word “speech” without the quotes. You should find an item which says either
“Text-to-speech enabled,” or “Text-to-speech disabled.” If it is disabled,
you
will want to think about writing to the publisher to ask for them to enable
the
feature, but for the moment, borrowing this book will be of no use to you.
Assuming text-to-speech is enabled, the final thing you will want to do on
the
computer for now is to add the book to your wish list. I recommend that you
only
add one book at a time to your wish list. Otherwise, you will be borrowing a
book on your wish list, but you won’t know which one. If you want to keep a
list
of books you would like to read, you can start one on your computer, or you
can
set up a separate list just for books. A method I like that is quick and
easy is
to get the free sample of a book I might like to buy. I read the sample, and
if
I want to get it at some point, I keep it on my Kindle. If not, I just
delete
it.
Please note also that when your wish list is displayed from the Kindle, it
will
only show Kindle items. You may have many other types of items on your wish
list, but they will not show up on the Kindle. For our purposes, this is a
very
good thing. Note: If you have purchased Kindle books from your wish list, on
the
computer, they will unfortunately appear on your wish list on the Kindle. To
make things easier and more uncluttered, go into your wish list, and select
the
option to view all items, both purchased and unpurchased, and remove the
purchased Kindle books.
FROM THE KINDLE
First, turn on your Kindle’s wireless. If you do not, you will be prompted
to do
so. My preference is to turn it on first, since when you are asked to turn
wireless on, the Yes and No options do not speak.
From the main Kindle screen, press Menu, and you will hear the message “Shop
in
Kindle Store.” Press Select, the middle of the five-way navigation square,
to
confirm. Nothing is spoken after pressing this key. Press Menu again, and
you
will hear “Kindle Storefront.” Nav down through the options until you reach
the
one labeled “Your Wish List.” Press confirm again. At this point, you will
have
no speech for the remainder of the process.
Once you have pressed Confirm, you are in your wish list, which displays any
items there. The first item, which is highlighted, is the title of the book.
Pressing Down once will highlight the author. Pressing Down an additional
time
will take you to the next title on your list, if there is one. If you only
have
one book on your list at any given time, it will be highlighted when you go
into
your wish list. Press Confirm again, and you will have a screen with more
book
information, much like you would have on your computer. The first option is
highlighted, and pressing Confirm here will result in buying the book.
However,
pressing Down once will take you to the option to borrow on your Kindle.
Press
Confirm twice. I believe the first time selects the option, and the second
is to
confirm you are sure you want to borrow the book.
Wait a minute or so, and pressing Home will show you a list of books. If you
have not changed the default behavior of sorting books by date of purchase,
the
book you have borrowed will be first on the list and will be designated as
New.
It seems that you are eligible to borrow a book on or after the first of the
month. For example, I borrowed my first book October 30. On November 1, I
was
eligible to borrow a different book, and I will be able to borrow another
one on
or after December 1. You can only have one borrowed book at a time. When you
try
to borrow another book, you apparently get a message asking if you want to
return the previously borrowed book. I did not explore options for doing
this on
the Kindle. My philosophy is to use the PC whenever possible so I have the
maximum amount of access.
BACK TO THE COMPUTER
From the Amazon site, choose the Manage Your Kindle option, and find the
book
you borrowed, and hopefully enjoyed reading. Choose Actions, and then the
option
to return the book. Once you have done this, you may want to remove the
returned
book from your wish list before adding the next one to be borrowed.
IN BRIEF
While the may seem like a lot of extensive instructions, it is quite simple
once
you’ve done it a time or two. The instructions, minus explanations, can be
condensed as follows:
Find a book that can be borrowed with Prime and has Text-to-Speech enabled.
Add
this book to your wish list, and make sure your list contains no other
Kindle
books. From your Kindle, turn on wireless, and press the following keys:
Menu,
Confirm, Menu, Down to Your Wish List, Confirm twice, Down once, and Confirm
twice more. When you’re ready to return the book, go to Manage Kindle, then
find
the Actions button associated with the title. Activate it, and choose Return
Book.
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