Amazon Kindle 3GThe more I play around with the Kindle the more uses I’m finding it for it. Already there’s a plugin that can be used with WordPress to benefit Kindle owners/users. It’s called Kindle This (more info below HERE). And if you’re wanting to publish your blog to Kindle – then you can do so now – and it’s actually surprisingly easy, taking around 10 minutes to do; info on this, including step by step instructions is included below HERE.

Kindle This – link HERE

Is a handy widget that lets you put a button for sending pages or posts to a user’s Kindle address. It defaults to the @free.kindle.com for automatic free conversion – and as well as letting you include it in the sidebar using a widget, it includes a shortcode of text that you can use to embed it into individual posts or pages (like below).

[kindlethis]

Getting your wordpress site recognised on Amazon Kindle

There’s already plenty of detailed tutorials for how to publish books on to Amazon Kindle, but what happens if you host your own (wordpress) site and want to publish that to Kindle? Well, now you can – it’s easier than you think – and here’s how you go about doing it:

  1. Go to the Kindle Publishing for Blogs page HERE – and create your account. It’s not the same as your Amazon or Kindle account, so you’ll have to set up a new one. In fact, you can’t even use your existing Amazon details… it just won’t let you!
  2. So, create a new account HERE
    • Please bear in mind that you need a few things first:
      • A screenshot of your WordPress site, ideally 800×600 – and this should be the front page
      • The title of your site and whatever tag line you’ve chosen
      • The feed address for your site
      • A brief description of your site
      • A masthead – which I assumed to be a banner for your site, so created one at 468×60
      • And if you haven’t already, you need to decide on the description for your site
  3. Once you’ve created a new account, you’ll be at the main control screen… this is for all publishers, but you should see a text link that says “Add your blog to Kindle” – click this and you’ll be taken to the blog dashboard, where you’ll see another option next to a green cross, saying Add Blog.
  4. It’s just a case of filling in the relevant details – then clicking Save
  5. Before publishing it, you’re able to Generate a Blog Preview – which I would advise, because it’s difficult knowing how your site will translate into Kindle format
  6. One thing to note though – is, if your site has video content like mine has – then that clearly won’t work on the Kindle, so there’ll be a lot of empty posts – but I still think it’s worth publishing.

According to Amazon, your blog should be online in about 48-72 hours… although after I clicked Publish Blog, I was also faced with another screen saying “You have not yet completed your Kindle Publishing for Blogs account” which asks for more contact information and payment information. I guess they need this regardless of whether you’re blog or site is given away freely. If you are charging, if you’re in the UK you can’t opt to receive payment via Electronic means, as this is only available to US customers – so it has to be by check (cheque!).

And that’s it!

Your site has been submitted to Amazon for approval – and then once your site is live, you’ll also have the option of displaying custom Kindle buttons on your site, in your sidebar. Like the one below: