As a follow-up to my Oxford Geek Night talk about how to turn Kindles into literacy, I thought I'd provide some instructions on how to get books - for free - from the excellent Project Gutenberg and onto your Kindle.
Unlike Amazon, Gutenberg doesn't provide a "straight to Kindle" service, so you'll need to download the file manually. It's easy once you get used to it, but maybe not obvious the first time round.
Note: this is for the non-technical reader! I'm going to assume you're using some version of Windows, though; I'll also assume that you know how to use Windows Explorer to find files: either by clicking on folders on your desktop, or clicking on the folder icon on the start bar, or... the problem is, it's slightly different on every version of Windows, and I don't have any of them to hand! So please search for how to do that separately if you're not sure.
Ready? OK, there are three main parts to this process:
A. Getting the book from Gutenberg to your PC
- Let's imagine you've found a book and you're on "the book's webpage" on Project Gutenberg. For example, The Valley of Fear by Conan Doyle: if you click on that link, you can see the sort of page I mean.
- You want to download any .MOBI version: if it gives you the option, you can go for a version with images, although on some e-readers they'll appear in slightly grainy black and white. so
- The file should begin downloading. Where your browser puts it depends on your version of Windows (and your browser), so you might have to find it without my help! Try opening a Windows Explorer window and looking for a folder called "Downloads".
- Here's a tip, though: on more recent browsers, as it's downloading the file's name will appear in a box at the bottom left of your browser, and beside this box is an arrow. Click on this and choose "Show in folder". A Windows Explorer window will appear. with the book highlighted.
- Right click on the book filename - it'll be called something like pg3289.mobi - and click rename. "3289" in this instance is Gutenberg's reference number for this work; but you should change it to something more memorable like "Conan Doyle - Valley of Fear" and press enter.
... At this point, you might want to repeat this procedure for a few more books, so you can do the next couple of steps for all the books at once!
B. Connecting your Kindle
- Connect the Kindle with a USB cable. You can use the cable that came with your Kindle, or any standard "Micro USB-B" cable, such as you might get with a more recent mobile phone. So long as the socket and plug match - don't force them! - it'll be fine.
- You might get a popup offering you options for what to do: if so, ask to open it in a folder. This will open a Windows Explorer window, with the Kindle highlighted and a few folders on it visible, including one called "documents".
- If you don't get a popup, open the folder yourself anyway: open Windows Explorer by some other means. Then find "My Computer", underneath which is "Kindle". Click on "Kindle" and you'll see the same as described above.
- Double-click on the documents folder, which opens it You'll now see some of your Amazon books. Don't mess with these files.
- If you haven't done already, right-click in any blank space in the Windows Explorer window, and create a new folder called "Gutenberg", to distinguish your downloads from ones you bought on Amazon. Double-click on this sub-folder once you've created it.
C. Getting the book(s) from your PC to the Kindle
You should now have at least two Windows Explorer windows open:
- Your browser's downloads folder, with many files including the .MOBI files of the books you just downloaded
- The Gutenberg folder, inside the documents folder, on your Kindle.
There are now lots of different ways of copying these files from one folder to another. You can click and drag them from the downloads folder to the Gutenberg folder; or you can right-click on them, select "copy", and then right-click inside the Gutenberg folder and click "paste". You can even use CTRL-C and CTRL-V to copy and paste, if you know how to do that.
One last thing! Don't disconnect the USB cable straight away. Instead, find "My Computer" again, and right-click on the "Kindle" icon. Select "eject". This makes sure that all the books have finished transferring to your Kindle and safely shuts down any data transfer between your computer and the Kindle.
It's probably not the end of the world if you don't do this, but you could cause some data corruption on your Kindle, which might even (gulp!) damage some of the files you got from Amazon - this is pretty unlikely but better safe than sorry.
And that's it!
Once you "eject" your Kindle, the new books should appear at the top of your Kindle's list of books (but maybe below any "collections" you've created.) You've now got some classic works of literature, for free: happy reading!
