How to, Think

How to load non-Amazon ebooks onto your Kindle

Deon du Plessis

8th August 2013

This being the digital age, you probably have a bunch of ebooks on your PC’s hard drive, but you might not be getting to them because reading books on your monitor isn’t anywhere near as comfortable as being curled up on your favourite comfy chair with your Kindle. Because there are so many different ebook formats, and not all of them are compatible with the Kindle, you might not know that reading them on your Kindle is even an option. We’re here to tell you that it is.

That’s where Calibre comes in. It’s an ebook management tool that works on every major operating system, and it’s completely free to download and use. It offers a huge number of ways to manage your ebook collection, including converting them from and to just about any ebook format and loading them onto your Kindle for easy reading.

The steps required to do this are surprisingly easy, and if you follow this handy guide, you’ll be able to take your ebook collection with you wherever you go.

Step 1: Download and install Calibre from the author’s website.

Step 2: Run through the brief setup procedure.

Step 3: Load your ebook collection into Calibre.

Step 4: Connect your Kindle to your PC using its USB cable.

Step 5: Highlight all the books you’d like to copy across to your Kindle by clicking on each while pressing the Control key, or just push Control + A to highlight the lot.

Step 6: Right click on any of them, and choose Send to Device. Select Main Memory and click OK. Main Memory only becomes an option when your Kindle is connected to your PC.

Step 7: Once the copy stops (ticks appear next to each book indicating they are on your Kindle), disconnect your Kindle from your PC.

Step 8: Check your Kindle: all of the books you’ve just copied across are now in your library.

Step 9: Take some leave, find a quiet spot and catch up on your reading.

Congratulations, you can now read all of the ebooks on your Kindle anywhere you want to.

About Author

Deon du Plessis

Deon got his first taste of PC gaming at the tender age of 11 when his father bought an 8088 XT, ostensibly to "help him with his homework". Instead, it introduced him to Leisure Suit Larry, King Graham, Sonny Bonds and many more, and Deon has been a PC gamer and hardware enthusiast ever since. He landed his first professional writing gig in 2006 at a prestigious local PC magazine, a very happy happenstance as he got to write for a living about things he loves - tech, PCs, gaming, and everything in between. He's been writing about it all ever since, and loves every minute of it.