I have broadened my Amazon experiment. I learned that it’s possible to subscribe to participating blogs on an Amazon Kindle. Being bold and daring – oh, alright, curious, I thought to myself: “Why not?”. Of course, that question wasn’t aimed at me taking out one of these subscriptions. No, I decided I’d put Imagineer-ing into the mix. Of course, being Amazon, nothing is straightforward…
The first thing I discovered is that you can’t open a “kindle publishing for blogs BETA” account using the same information as you use elsewhere on Amazon. You have to use a different email address! Fan-bloomin’-tastic! Ah well, Amazon wills it… After that, it’s pretty plain sailing, surprisingly. You do need a screenprint of your blog and a copy of your site’s ‘masthead’ or banner. As a seller, in effect, you’ll also need bank details unless you choose payment by “check” (note the spelling!). Not a problem! You enter your name and address, and stipulate that you’re from whatever country – the UK in my case. Move on to opt for transfer payments and discover that you need details of a US bank! Let’s nip back and opt for “check”. Everything’s done. A few hours later (and I’ll admit it was vastly quicker than the quoted wait time) and your blog is there, in all its glory, on a Kindle blog subscription page. You can dance for joy, now… but hang on! You glance at the little box at the side, where it says: “This title is not available for customers from: United Kingdom (change region) Shop titles available for United Kingdom”. Oh, good grief! I’ve told it I’m from the UK and I still can’t subscribe to my own blog!
Right! Simples (as a certain meerkat would say)! Trot over to Amazon UK and set it up there. Yeah, right. One minor detail: you can subscribe to blogs here, but just try to find a link that leads you to a way to set one up on it! Send a request for help and – “we can talk on the ‘phone or chat live”. I don’t do ‘phones, because of hearing difficulties, and I never use live chat features! Result: the blog is available for subscription for all those who use Amazon.com but isn’t available to me, the owner and writer, unless I “Change location” to the US.
Such fun… not!
If you happen to be interested, you can subscribe to the blog on your Kindle. I’ve no idea what it looks like. I’m also not entirely sure that charging $0.99 for it (the price I see) is right.
Do you have a blog available through Amazon? If so, is it worth doing?
Do you subscribe to a blog available through Amazon? If so, is it worth the fee?
Finally, does anybody know how in blazes I can set it up in the UK?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have just bought a new brick wall to beat my head against – from Amazon!
~ Steve
52.057772 1.143786
