Wow! Amazon made 2 changes that will impact how you load personal documents on to your Kindle / Kindle 2 a lot.
For anyone who has recently sent personal documents to your Kindle, we’d like to let you know about some updates to our Personal Document Service (via Whispernet).
The carrot – There is now support for RTF files and experimental support for docx files.
Starting May 4, in addition to the existing list of supported file types (DOC, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TXT, AZW, MOBI, PRC), you can send RTF files to your Kindle email address for convenient wireless delivery. In addition to the existing experimental support of PDF, you can also send DOCX files for conversion. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle.
The stick – The fee to send personal documents to your Kindle has been changed … to 15 cents per MB.
We have also modified the fee associated with sending personal documents wirelessly to your Kindle. This fee is now based on the size of your file. The fee for Personal Document Service (via Whispernet) is 0.15 per megabyte rounded up to the next whole megabyte.
You do, of course, have the option to use the free document conversion and then transfer from your PC to your Kindle via USB.
If you would like to download your personal documents for free, or if you are not in a wireless area, you can continue to send attachments to “name”@free.kindle.com to be converted. These documents will be e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login.
What it means to You
If you were using the Kindle 2 to peruse and carry around a lot of your personal documents it’s going to start costing you.
People using work documents and/or schoolwork in particular would get hit and would have to start relying on the free conversion service instead.
Q: Does it reduce the utility of the Kindle 2/ Kindle?
A: If you were transferring a lot of large documents, then yes. Not otherwise.
Q: Is it a reasonable move?
A: Perhaps. Think of it as the fact that 1-2% of Kindle owners who were transferring hundreds and hundreds of MBs of files every month and adding on to costs for Amazon and thus to book prices.
Q: What percentage of Kindle Owners are going to get hit by this?
A: A very small and very vocal percentage.
At this point I think it’s a reasonable change in policy and that it doesn’t really impact the Kindle 2′s value proposition too much. .5 to 1% of Kindle owners will disagree vehemently and talk about how its going to kill the Kindle 2. Amazon has in-detail usage statistics and there’s little chance they’d make the change unless there was a very small percentage of users who were driving up whispernet costs to unreasonable levels.
400-500 newspapers will give Amazon free publicity by writing about the dangers of Amazon having so much control and then wonder why advertising revenue has fallen off a cliff.
Filed under: news Tagged: | kindle conversion fee, kindle whispernet
I’d like the big screen Kindle to sit in front of me on the Piano’s reading rack and be able to quickly call up just lyrics and chords that have been scanned from my printer to my Mac as well as Word documents that have been saved as lyrics and chords.
Can i get these into the Kindle,and can you instruct me how to do it?
Much appreciate an answer to this.
Glenn
For Word documents ->
They have to be in docx format.
1) Email them to your Kindle Address (on the home page, press menu, then choose settings to see Device Email – that’s your kindle email address).
2) They will be converted and sent back to you.
There’s a 10 cent per MB charge.
OR to get them converted for free –
1) Email them to ‘name’@free.kindle.com and they will be converted and emailed back to you for free.
To see how to view scanned images on your Kindle DX take a look at Tip #4 on this page – http://ireaderreview.com/2009/03/09/kindle-2-tips-kindle-2-hack-list-top-25/