10 Hacks You Can Use to Make Your Kindle™ Into a Business Tool

By Bonnie Juettner

I was thrilled when I was given my Kindle as a gift. But as a freelance writer and mother, I found that I was so busy that my Kindle just sat in my office gathering dust. When did I have time to read? Answer: I do plenty of reading—for work. I began to experiment with my Kindle, finding ways to integrate its abilities into my work flow. The more I played with the Kindle, the more it seemed to be able to do. Before I knew it my Kindle had become almost as indispensable as my laptop – and why not, since it acts so much like an iPad? Here are ten hacks you, too, can use to make your Kindle into a business tool:

1. Use your Kindle as a lightweight portable briefcase. Store documents that you regularly need to access on your Kindle. You can transfer the documents using the USB cord that connects the Kindle to your computer, or email documents to yourself at your Kindle’s Amazon email address (every Kindle has one). To find out your Kindle’s email address at Amazon, just go to “Your Account” and check “Managing Your Kindle on Amazon.com.” Then click on the link that says “Sending Personal Documents to Kindle.” You can send documents in Word, pdf, html, txt, rtf, jpeg, gif, png, bmp, prc and mobi formats. If you are sending pdf files, though, include the word “Convert” in the subject line of the email so that Amazon will convert them to Kindle format. These files can be sent free if you use a wi-fi connection (use the address “your name”@free.kindle.com for these file transfers). Or, according to Amazon, the files can be sent over the Whispernet network for a fee of $.15 per megabyte in the U.S., and $.99 per megabyte outside the U.S., using the email address “your name”@kindle.com. You can set a charge limit so that you don’t accidentally rack up huge charges in document downloads. Or, you can send the files to Amazon for conversion, and then have Amazon email them back to you (free), so that you can transfer them to your Kindle yourself using the USB cord. If you want other people to email documents to you, you will have to go to the Amazon website and add those email addresses to your approved list. But rather than training your editors, colleagues and friends in the Kindle document conversion process, you may want to simplify matters and simply use the filters in your own email account to automatically forward certain items. Writers should make liberal use of automated technological tools – it’s like having your own secretary, which few of us can afford.

2. As a corollary, if you often buy books for research purposes, buy them in eBook format and put them on your Kindle. Ebooks are less expensive than even paperback books, most of the time, and storing your research books on your Kindle means that your Kindle can serve as a portable briefcase as well as a portable backpack. If you travel a lot, or simply like to work in a variety of locations, these two hacks alone can significantly lighten your load. Moreover, if your eyes (like those of many writers) are weakening, you can change the size of the font in which your books are displayed – adjusting it until it is the perfect size and has the correct level of contrast for your particular vision. If your book or document is in pdf format, you can use the zoom function to reach the perfect settings for your eyes.

3. You can also save your online research onto your Kindle (remember, html files are among the formats that a Kindle can display), so that you can, in essence, use your Kindle as a second monitor when you are away from your office and don’t have a second monitor available (and if you aren’t yet using a second monitor, you may want to consider it! Second monitors can save writers a lot of shifting back and forth between windows).

4. Even if you haven’t saved your online research to your Kindle, you can still use the Kindle as a second monitor. You can search the Internet directly from your Kindle, and you can bookmark sites that you regularly use in your research. You will be able to download some kinds of files from the Internet directly to your Kindle, if you wish.

5. While you are traveling, if you don’t like to read email on your phone and don’t like to carry a laptop around, forward your email to your Kindle email address. Or, if you don’t want to see all your email on your Kindle, forward only the emails that you know you want to see, using filters or rules within your email program. In Gmail, for example, you can use filters (check under mail settings). Set your filters to forward all mail from a specific email address, or, if you wish, forward all email related to a specific project (in that case, you might want to ask your project team members to include certain key words in the subject line of all emails that they send you related to that project). Because your Kindle can be used as a web browser, you may be able to use the online interface for your email account to answer emails as well.

6. As a corollary, if you need to, you can use your Kindle to send text messages to cell phones or to send IM messages. This means that your Kindle can, if necessary, serve as a backup cell phone – at least for text messaging purposes. You can send text messages from any web-based email account, using the Kindle’s browser. When you send your email, in “to” field type “phone number”@the appropriate gateway. Here is a list of gateways:
   
   AT&T: @txt.att.net
   Alltel: @message.alltel.com
   Cingular: @cingularme.com
   Nextel: @messaging.nextel.com
   Powertel: @ptel.net
   Sprint: @messaging.sprintpcs.com
   SunCom: @tms.suncom.com
   T-Mobile: @tmomail.net
   US Cellular: @email.uscc.ne
   Verizon: @vtext.com
   Virgin Mobile: @vmobl.com

7. What if you forgot to bring your Kindle or your computer with you? Or you got stuck in a doctor’s waiting room and would like to take the time to review a document—but all you have with you is your phone? If it is a smart phone, you may be in luck – think ahead and register your phone as a Kindle device with Amazon. Then you can still access your Kindle documents – even when you don’t have your Kindle with you.

8. Use your Kindle as an MP3 player. Yes, Kindles will play MP3 files, and will also play files in Audible.com format. As long as you have a set of ear buds along, you’re good to go. Will this help you with your work? Well, it will if you (like me) depend on music to help keep you focused and concentrating. Likewise, it will help you if you are an auditory learner and prefer to hear work-related periodicals and books read aloud.

9. Share quotes and highlights from your Kindle books with your social networks using Twitter. I could write another whole article on how to use Twitter as a business tool – but plenty of other people have beaten me to it. Like the Kindle itself, Twitter was once regarded as a supreme waste of time – another way to play around on the Internet instead of actually working. But now Twitter is coming to be regarded as an important business tool. If you, as a writer, have taken the time to “brand” yourself by building your own website, setting up a LinkedIn profile and/or Facebook page, etc., you’ll find that you can further that process by using Twitter to stay in touch with your networks. And most people who share a love of literature find that they cannot resist sharing favorite quotations and highlights from their current reading matter. Instead of resisting the urge to share your favorite quotes, give in to it – think of it as a way to promote your business. When you share your highlighted passage via Twitter, your Twitter network will receive a tiny URL with a link to Amazon.com. When your Twitter friends click on the link, they will be taken to a page that shows just the highlighted quotation and a citation to the book from which the quotation comes.

10. You can keep your calendar on your Kindle – either your writing calendar with all your deadlines or your personal calendar, or both. There are several ways to do this. You can download a Kindle calendar from Amazon for a dollar or two. Or you can access an online calendar such as GCal using the Kindle’s browser. Or you can get creative. For example, you could set up your online calendar to send email reminders, or even an annotated agenda for your day, to your Kindle email address. Then your to do list or agenda will be right at the top of your Kindle list when you power your Kindle on.

These hacks are based on the first generation Kindle – the one I think that most writers are most likely to have. If you have a more recent Kindle, you may be able to do even more. I’d be interested, as well, to know whether other eReaders, such as the Nook, the Kobo, and the Sony, can rival the Kindle’s productivity applications. If you know, please share your experiences in the comments. And good luck reKindling (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) your passion for productivity!