New! The KBoards E-Book Authors Page

12,963,190 e-books sold over 1,445 titles by 138 authors. 

As of this morning, those are the current totals for authors listed in our new KB Authors page.

In this page, authors who are members of the KBoards.com forum can self-report their sales totals. We believe this is the most reliable and up-to-date listing anywhere on the web of the sales success of e-book authors.

Over 100 authors are now in the table, including bestsellers Bella Andre, Amanda Hocking, H.M. Ward, Liliana Hart, Hugh Howey, Michael Wallace, and David Dalglish.

The page shows sales information, and many authors also include the back-story of how they reached their sales milestones. A search feature lets you find authors, and filter the display by genre and sales milestone.

Readers, click the graphic to browse through the KB Authors page. And if you're an author, regardless of your sales totals, add yourself! Click on the link near the top of the page to add or change your author info.

We're interested in your feedback. Comment below, or in this KBoards forum thread!

Merry Christmas from KindleBoards

We'd like to give a special welcome to all the new Kindle-owners out there! If you received a Kindle e-reader, or a Kindle Fire tablet, this Christmas - that's wonderful!

Here are some tips for you to make the most of your new Kindle!

1. Get content (books, apps, etc) for your Kindle! We do a daily post of free and bargain Kindle books and apps, in our KindleBoards Facebook page. "Like" that page, and add it to your Interests List, to get our daily selection of highly-rated free books!

*Tip: to add our page to your Interest List, go to the page, click on the "gear" icon near the top right of the page, and select Add to Interest Lists. That's it!

We love finding and posting about these great reads. Here's what other readers are saying about our free and bargain book selections:
     "I love getting these. I have purchased so many of the .99 books and the free ones. I have been able to get some that I missed when they were out in paperback."
     "This is a wonderful way to get introduced to authors that I'm not yet familiar with."
     "Thank you for sending excellent books to keep so many of us intrigued and excited about lives other than our own. I have read more in the last year than in my first 75 years!!"
     "This is the only news I wait for every day."
     "Thank you so much. Through your wonderful books I am able to read books that I would have never chosen before, and I love them!!! You have expanded my world."

2. Get tips, troubleshooting help, and much more. How? Join our KindleBoards user forums! We have over 65,000 members, and are the largest independent Kindle user forum. There's a lot there, but don't be overwhelmed by it! We're a very welcoming community, and friendly to newcomers.

3. Sign up for our free newsletter. It's one way to ensure you get the latest from our blog and Facebook posts! Here's the link: KindleBoards E-mail Newsletter

4. Are you an author? Or interested in writing? Our Writer's Cafe is one of the web's busiest hangouts for writers - and has oodles of advice on the craft of writing, and on the mechanics of being an indie writer, including self-publishing and marketing advice.

5. Consider an extended warranty for your new Kindle. Personally, I avoid extended warranties. But so many of our forum members have raved about Square Trade's 2-year Kindle warranty that I'm including it as a tip here. Square Trade replaces your Kindle hassle-free if it's accidentally damaged. The catch: you have to get the warranty within 30 days of your Kindle shipping date. 

Enjoy your new Kindle!

Kindle tip! Personal Docs on your Kindle

I find I am using Personal Docs more and more on my Kindle! Here's a tip, from KindleBoards member Carol Ervin. 

My husband and I love Kindle's "personal documents" feature. He prefers to read everything on his Kindle, especially manuals. Just about any kind of computer file can be transferred to the Kindle, including documents downloaded from Internet. If you haven't used this feature, you'll find instructions and help on the “manage your Kindle” page. On the left side of the page, click on the Your Kindle Account menu, then on Personal Document Settings.

It's easy to convert a file for Kindle. Just email your document to the appropriate Kindle address. Files can be shared this way among work groups, etc.  I send chapters of my novel-in-progress to beta readers for their Kindles--so much easier for most to evaluate than on a standard printed sheet or computer file.

I've always loved printed works, but I love this technology even more.

Have you tried personal documents?

Tip: keep the free books coming to your Facebook newsfeed

As you may know, Facebook can be selective about which items appear in your newsfeed.

Sometimes, posts from friends or pages will mysteriously stop appearing, as Facebook applies its algorithms for determining what should appear in your newsfeed. 

Several of you have asked how to ensure that our Facebook posts, like our Free Kindle Books posts, continue to appear in your newsfeed.

There's no surefire way, but the following things can help. I've put them in order of which have the most effect:

• Good: Take a moment (or just a second, really) to "like" the posts on our page that appeal to you. 
• Better: Click "reply" on our posts to post a short reply message. It doesn't have to be elaborate; a simple "thanks!" or, if you're in a hurry, "TYVM" will work. :)
• Better: Click "share", and add a comment when you share the post with your friends.
• Better: Occasionally visit our page directly (as opposed to viewing our posts in your newsfeed).
• Best: All of the above - which will have a combined effect of "telling" Facebook that you want to continue to receive those posts. 

Why does the above work? Because Facebook takes note of how you interact with pages and with posts in your newsfeed. Based on your "engagement," it will raise or lower the likelihood that posts from that page will continue to be shown in your newsfeed. 

In two-and-a-half months, we've grown from zero to 10,000 people following our Facebook posts. We appreciate your support and enthusiasm so much. Thank you!

Tip: Capture screenshots from your Kindle Fire HD

Today's tip: How do I capture screenshots from my Kindle Fire HD?

Some blogs are posting convoluted instructions on how to grab a screenshot from your Kindle Fire HD. Turns out, there's an easier way, through this undocumented feature:

Press the Volume Down button and the Power switch at the same time.

That's it! The screen will momentarily flash, and an image of the screen will be sent to the Pictures/Screenshots folder on your Kindle. You can view the screenshots on your Kindle, or sideload them to your PC/Mac through a USB connection.

Each screenshot is a little less than 1MB.

Here's an example (click on it to view a larger image):

Find more useful tips in our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board!

Tip: Use our advanced search to find free Kindle books and more!

Have you tried our advanced search on KindleBoards? It's an easy way to find free Kindle books and other hidden treasures on Amazon!

We call it kbsearch. Here's the direct link: http://www.kindleboards.com/search

Most people use the search tool this way:

• Go to http://www.kindleboards.com/search.
• Set the maximum price to "free" using the pull-down option.
• Choose to include, or exclude, public domain books
• Pick a sort (by price, by bestsellers, by ratings, etc.)
• Click the search button!

You can also set more parameters if you wish to filter your search. For example, you can filter to a particular genre, a particular title or author, and other search options like language, publisher, reader age, published date, and format (Kindle, printed books, audio books, Amazon shorts, etc.).

Also, on the right side of the screen we have a list of common searches. Just click on a quick-link there and an Amazon page will appear with the results of that search.

Have you tried kbsearch? Give it a try at this link!

Tuesday tip: Sharing your Kindle with your kids... and restricting content

Today's tip: I want to share my Kindle with my kids. But how do I keep them from accessing inappropriate content? 

This question comes from KB member TexasGirl: "I have a classic Kindle 2. Over the summer I bought a book for my 5th grader to read, and now she is taking the Kindle to school for her reading time until she finishes that book.

"Problem: I have several hundred books on there and many are terribly inappropriate for her to be taking to school."

What to do?

Our forum members weigh in with a detailed discussion about ways to manage this. Here's a summary:

• Moving the inappropriate books to a subtly-named Collection, and setting the Home page to Collections mode is one suggestion. This removes the books from being displayed in the Home Page listing. However, the books remain easily accessed, so this is not an ideal solution.
• Removing the books from the Kindle, while keeping them available in your Archive, is one step better. KB member Analog explains how to do this efficiently if you have many books to move to Archive. Note, though, that your child would still be able to retrieve the books from Archive, if they have wireless access. 
• Other members suggested buying your child the basic Kindle (currently $79) and then being watchful of which books they download from Archives. (This is the method my family uses, as each of my daughters has their own Kindles, and all of them are tied to our single Amazon account.)
• Another alternative is to provide the child their own Kindle and their own Amazon account... but that also is complicated in that the account needs to be tied to a credit card. But this approach completely separates their Kindle content from any content that you have purchased.

Do you have this situation at home? Any other ideas? Weigh in!

Thanks to our KindleBoards members for the tip! Find more useful tidbits in our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board!

Forum tip: use posting buttons for making quick-links to Amazon

Here's another forum tip, about a feature available on our KindleBoards user forum. 

It's an easy way to create Amazon links based on text in your post.

When you're composing a post in the forums, you can select text in your post - for example, "Stephen King", or "rubber chicken handbag" - and then click on this icon: 

This will automatically insert our "amazonsearch" feature into your post. When you complete your post, the text you selected will be converted into a link. And when readers of your post click on that link, they'll be directed to an Amazon page showing the search results for that text.

It's a fast and easy way to build links in your forum posts!

Related: we have another posting icon that looks like this: . When you select text and click that icon, your text will be converted to a link for a search for that text in Amazon's MP3 store! Try it out with any song title or artist name.

It's just one of the exclusive features available on our KindleBoards forum - making it easier for you to connect your fellow forum members with Amazon items!

Tuesday tip: Moving content and collections to your new Kindle

Today's tip: How do I move content and collections to my new Kindle?

With many of us licking our chops to get the widely-anticipated new Kindle e-readers, this is timely advice from our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board.

When you get a new Kindle, you'll probably want to load your books and keep the existing collections that you've set up.  Here's how to do that.

First, you'll have to send each book individually. You can go to Amazon's Manage Your Kindle page and send them to your Kindle that way. Or, you can go to Archived Items on your new Kindle and select books or other content to be downloaded.

In general, it's recommended that you download books in small groups of 50 to 100.  The device will work to index them when you do that - and you'll want to be sure that it all works well before you go to the next group of books.

To check for indexing each time, do a search on a non-existent word like "qxgpz".  When it shows zero items not yet indexed, you can do the next batch.

Note that the index will use the battery somewhat faster than is perhaps expected, so it's not a bad idea to leave the Kindle plugged in while you're doing this.

Once you've got your books on your device, then you can import the collections from your existing Kindle. Go to "Archived Items" on your Kindle and select "import collections".

When you do that, books on your Kindle will sort into the collections they were associated with on the other Kindle.  You can import collections anytime you add another bunch of books that were assigned to a collection on your other Kindle.

Note that if you don't have an existing Kindle on the account (perhaps because you already de-registered it to give away or sell), there will be no collections to import. In that event you'd have to set up the collections anew and assign books to those collections. This is something to consider if you're looking to give away your previous Kindle; import your collections from it first!

Thanks to KindleBoards moderator Ann in Arlington for the tip! Find more useful tidbits in our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board!

Forum tip: Use Link-Maker to post clickable Amazon images!

For those of who frequent online user forums, like our Kindle user forum, we've developed a page that makes it trivially easy to post a clickable image of any product from Amazon.

That includes book covers, CD covers, DVDs, consumer electronics, MP3s, tools... you name it.

The tool - a Kindleboards exclusive - is called Link-Maker. The URL is easy to remember: http://www.kindleboards.com/link.

Link-Maker gives you the bulletin-board code (bbcode) to put in your forum post. You have the option of a text link, or an image link.

You can also use the bbcode to add Amazon text or images to a forum signature. Authors often use this to create a row of book covers in their signature, that's of just the right size to meet most forum signature guidelines.

For those of you who want to copy/paste an Amazon image onto your web page, we also provide HTML code for that purpose.

We have a version of Link-Maker for both amazon.com and for amazon.co.uk. Just click the labels at the top to switch from one to another.

It's one of the most popular features on KindleBoards! Have you used Link-Maker? It's easy and fun, and available exclusively at KindleBoards.

Tuesday tip: How do I tell if I have the most up-to-date Kindle firmware?

Today's tip advises how to tell if your Kindle has the most up-to-date firmware.

Firmware is the software that runs your Kindle device, and Amazon periodically updates this firmware wirelessly with fixes and new features.

If you keep the wireless turned on in your Kindle device, you most likely have the current firmware already. Here's how to tell which firmware version you have. (The instructions are for Kindle Touch; the steps are similar for other Kindle versions.)

• From the home screen, press Menu, then Settings.
• From the Settings page, press Menu again. 
• Under Device Info, you'll see your firmware version. My firmware version is Kindle 5.1.2 (16795300004). 

How do I know if this is the most up-to-date firmware?

The easiest way is to go to Amazon's Kindle software update page: http://www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates.

From there, click on your model of Kindle, and a page will appear with current firmware versions. For Kindle Touch, the latest version listed in 5.1.2... so I know my Kindle Touch is up to date, through the magic of Amazon's WhisperNet!

If you're not connected wirelessly, you can also download the firmware and install it to your Kindle from your PC. The page linked above has instructions on doing so.


Thanks to KindleBoards moderators Ann in Arlington and Linjeakel for the useful tips in our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board!

New feature: Send web pages directly to your Kindle

Amazon has released a Send to Kindle feature for Chrome browser users, that allows web content to be sent directly to Kindle devices! 

The Chrome extension adds a button to the browser's toolbar lets you send articles, blog entries, or other web page content directly to your Kindle device and Kindle reading apps. You can send an entire page, or selected text from the page.

According to Amazon, this feature will be coming soon for Firefox and Safari browsers. (No word on Internet Explorer.)

Thanks to KindleBoards member Me and My Kindle for tipping us on this one in the KindleBoards forums! You can see more about the Chrome extension on Amazon. 

Tuesday tip: Getting your personal documents onto your Kindle

Today's tip: What's the best way to get my documents onto my Kindle?

The easiest way to transfer files to your Kindle from your PC or Mac is using the send to Kindle app which allows you to simply right click on any file and then send it to any one of your devices, giving it the name and author name that you want - you have to put your Amazon account details in the first time.

Otherwise, you can use the personal document service and send it via your personal Kindle address or transfer it via USB. The instructions for doing either of those are found here, including a list of compatible file types.

Thanks to KindleBoards moderator Ann in Arlington for the tip! Find more useful tidbits in our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting board!