To ask if you use illegal downloads for your kindle...

[laalala]

Where are they? I downloaded a couple of books and they saved onto my computer, they said they were transferring to the kindle when I pressed the button. But now I can't see them anywhere on the actual kindle.

Abra1d - I don't know much about this sort of thing, but have you put your own stuff up yourself. It is really easy on Smashwords or Amazon (but no support with editing, marketing etc). You will know the industry better, but you may get some sales.

RE torrents, if they aren't the right file types you can use something like Calibre E-Book Management to auto-convert on sending. I actually use it for all of my books now whether they are kindle or other format! Hence not offering better instructions on putting them in the folders

None of my books show up on my Amazon account either.

how do amazon know you have been downloading books not from them? How do they know whats on your kindle?

A lot of the music places that pursue piracy got the information from the sites that provided the illegal music, I think. Perhaps it is the same?

Crikey- Prime members have access to kindle library.

www.freedigitalreads.com

Lol telling everyone on a public forum you illegally download books is not the brightest move.

Lisa, I went all gooey inside when I read that.
I am also a writer of real life printed books in my day job, and a lot of us are struggling because of books being sold second hand as well. Remember, if you buy the hard copy, we get about £1 of that, and 6p for a library loan, but nothing if you shop in charity shops for books or buy them second hand from websites.

Would people who view it as stealing, still view it as stealing if the author was dead?

I will admit to having downloaded free books, but just the ones I already own.

Amazon Prime only let you borrow one book a month :(. Don't see that as good value really.

I suppose, rather than passing on my paperbacks to friends, I'll just rant on about how good they are instead.

I down loaded about 30 books onto my kindle the other week. A friend had a memory stick with about 5000 books on it. I had a quick skim through them and took the ones I thought I'd read!

I didn't bother asking questions where it came from but upon reflection, I guess it's not very legal to share books this way!

Apparently you can buy CD's with thousands of books on them from ebay for a few pound. I guess they're not strictly legal either!

Any book whose author has been dead for over 75 years (I think) is out of copyright, and so can be copied and distributed freely. So RL Stevenson, Jane Austen, Bram Stoker, Shakespeare etc are all easily available legally.

Some people distribute their work for free, and it is an option after so long or in certain circumstances with Amazon etc - they may be other sources of the stuff. There is going to be some legal stuff out there, and I don't see why people shouldn't enjoy it.

Back in the days before ebooks, in the days of print only and without piracy in the same way, most first books did not make a profit. People who write books rarely make a lot of money. In these days of ebooks more books are published than are sold. I can make as little as 30p from a sale of a book. Mind you, I don't think I am popular enough to be pirated lol!

Boffin - I am going to be revisiting my kitchen equipment after looking at the starter set idea and seeing what I can lose.

Places like Waterstones etc sell dead authors books as ebooks £2.99 iirc - when they are available free elsewhere the thieves!

I don't have a kindle but bought dh a kobo because I knew he would hate being tied to amazon - you can share the ebooks you buy for the kobo and probably other ebook readers too.

We3 - not true anymore, my kindle was 2 days out of its 1yr warranty and the 'screen went funny' - cue 4 phone calls to amazon and no replacement, no remorse, £50 off a new (most expensive) one, therefore grrrrrrr! Rubbish! I didn't mishandle it or anything, had a case etc. customer service out of warranty is bad!

Send any word / publisher files direct to your on email and from there to your kindle email (go to 'settings' in 'manage my kindle' to find out what the email is), and files will go to your kindle for free. Best thing about it, I used it for wrk a lot!

Only books that have 'allowed' themselves to be 'lent' can be on kindle, not all. They disappear from your reading list for the time your friend s reading them, then one back. Most of my favourites don't allow it so I can't :(

I really think the kindle has a known screen fault and am cross they won't replace knowing this, put there is a case in the US pending on this. Other than that I do like my kindle.

Really need my bed now!! Night all

I am not computer friendly so wouldnt know how to start if I wanted to.

I have had my kindle for 3 years and I never use it unless for free books (amazon offers not illgeal) or under £1 books.
I read Amanda Hocking for example but I will never sway from paperbacks which are much cheaper (2nd hand on amazon or charity shops) I got 6 books for 2 quid today.

I think one problem is that ebooks are sometimes too expensive. I know that they are subject to VAT when printed books are not, which makes no sense.

Publishers and Amazon always seem to claim that the costs for ebooks are not significantly lower than print books, but I cannot possibly see how this is the case. If I buy a print book from Amazon for £5, it has had to be printed and transported from the publisher to Amazon, stored at Amazon and then posted to me. A kindle book will sometimes cost about the same, but none of these costs apply.

At £5, I would think about whether I really wanted the book, as if I didn't like it, it would be a waste of money. Or I might get it from the library

Perhaps it would be better all round if prices of ebooks came down, so that the 20p to 99p special offers came more of the norm. Then sales would rise massively, as people buy so much more because the price is lower. So instead of a book selling, say 5000 copies, it might sell 100000 copies, and if these are mostly in ebook form, costs will surely be minimal? Authors would make more money, which is a good thing, because I believe they deserve to be paid for their work and the temptation to steal would be so much less.

Have you tried syncing and downloading? You need the wifi on to do it.

See, I have a kindle, my sister has a Kobo, so can i "lend" the books to her, in the same way I read a paperback then pass it on, surely I have paid for it, so can pretty much do what I like with it? I would not even think twice about lending out or giving away a paperback, so why does it feel wrong to do so with an ebook (many of which are only pennies cheaper than a paperback!) And is it even possible with books you have bought?

This goes back to when my kindle broke in the Summer....they offered a 20% discount on a new one, then after told me I had to send back my old broken one to keep the 20% discount. I argued why I had to send back my old one, apparently it was their policy...they kept insisting i had to send it back....even though they had said it was completely broke and unable to be recovered before this.

In the end they let me keep it, since I explained to them, If i HAD to send it back to them, it had never been mine to begin with, it had been a damn expensive rental, and as a rental i expected a new one free. As i said, I have paid for it, if i want to use it as a very expensive coaster, that is my right. They demanding it back to see if it could be reconditioned, rankled me, since why could they not have it back to see if it could be fixed for me, instead of me paying out more money.

Mad banners - I am am an e- reader illiterate - I think kobo ebooks can be shared with other compatible e-readers ( not just other kobo e- readers ) but it might not be true for kindles due to the different types of files / formats.

I am sure some experts on here know better than I do though.

I read books on my Kindle Fire that I borrow from my local library on Overdrive.

But tee you can'tsharebookswithfriends, like passing on an old paperback you have read?

No, I think you can only do that with an Amazon.com account. Which I actually have, but my Kindle is attached to Amazon.co.uk.

Or, as some have said, by having Prime.

Guess I'll name change again after this post but www.theebooksbay.com is good if you torrent ebooks. Or you could do what I did and buy 400k off ebay for £6.40 I review every book I read in exchange and buy one book from a self publisher per week from Amazon some are amazing I wouldn't torrent from a small self publisher but the bigger ones they can afford and Amazon certainly can.

I Never switch the wi-fi on with my Kindle either all books brought from Amazon are downloaded to PC.

Illegally downloading films and music is really common, I don't see much difference in downloading books illegally.