Monday, January 17, 2011

How Can You Read "Saving My Knees," an Electronic-Only Book, If You're Kindle-less?

Q: Argh ... I didn't find an Amazon Kindle under my Christmas tree this year, so how can I read your book "Saving My Knees"?

Another made-up question ... but I wanted to do three blog posts, addressing three important matters. One: Why is the book electronic only? Two: How can I read it then? Three: What if I still don't have any way to read it?

Today's installment: "How can I read it then?"

Amazon should be processing the book in the next 24 hours, at which point I'll add a link here to where the book can be found online. If you own a Kindle or Kindle DX, you can download "Saving My Knees" and you're off to the races ... you'll be virtual-paging through almost 55,000 words that will get you thinking about your knees in new ways and challenge some of your beliefs about how to heal.

But what if you don't have a Kindle? Here are some solutions, all of them absolutely free.

If you own an iPad, you can download "Kindle for iPad," which should enable you to read any of Amazon's electronic books on your iPad.

If you own an iPhone, you can download "Kindle for iPhone."

If you own a BlackBerry or Mac, or a device that uses either the Android or Windows Phone 7 operating systems, go here for your solution.

I saved the best for last, because most of us own ordinary ol' PCs and not any of this other fancy gadgetry. That's no problem at all, as "Kindle for PC" will set you up nicely to peruse e-books all day long.

I've been using Kindle for PC for a few weeks now (partly to preview "Saving My Knees," to see how it will look as an e-book). I usually refrain from being a software cheerleader, but Kindle for PC is very, very neat, even if, like my good friend Molly, you hate technology and belong to the Lead Pencil Club.

First, the feature set: If you've just finished the Evelyn Wood speedreading course, you can display the book in newspaper-like columns, to whiz through the content faster. If you like your book to fill the computer screen, that's an option. If you want to change font size, font display, or how many words are crammed onto a line, you can tweak any of that, easily. And it goes without saying that you can quickly jump anywhere you want to in the book.

Kindle for PC does other things too, but here's what I think is coolest: it opens up a whole new world of free books. Access to free, quality content always elevates a good piece of software to great. For example, old books in the public domain (whose copyright protection has expired) can be downloaded from Amazon ... at no cost (I'm a huge Lewis Carroll fan so my first selection was "Alice in Wonderland"). Also there are some modern books that cost absolutely nothing too, such as a rather good thriller I downloaded for kicks.

Okay, you may be thinking: I've got a device to read the book on. But I live abroad. What about payment? (You'll pay $9.99 at most for "Saving My Knees", depending on the size of Amazon's discount.)

As I understand, Amazon's U.S. e-books are available through the U.K. site (with the payment automatically converted to pounds). My guess is that Amazon will expand this option this year to other countries ... we'll see.

So what about the rest of you, who don't live in the U.S. or the U.K.?

I'll admit I haven't done a lot of research into this yet. But I did find a Web page that shows how to buy a Kindle book from Amazon.com without a U.S. billing address, by using a gift certificate purchased with an international credit card.

Note: I can't vouch for this method, as the site is not Amazon-sanctioned, but anyone who gives this option a try, share your experience in the comments section and I'll be sure to update this post.

So there you have it! If this still doesn't help you, the last of these three posts will throw the floor open to the truly hard-luck cases to describe their problems, and we'll figure out solutions.

I want this book to be distributed as widely as possible because I think the message is very important and this kind of inspiring, fact-based story isn't available anywhere (and, amazingly, I've yet to find the scientific studies that I cite in "Saving My Knees" in any other "heal your knees" books). My hobby is troubleshooting and thinking around corners (that was part of the secret to my success in recovering), so I'm sure we'll find a way for everyone who wants to read this book to have that opportunity.

11 comments:

  1. Bought the book today. I'm really enjoying reading it-- love your writing style. I've read half of it and would probably finish it tonight if I didn't have something else I have to do. I'm on Doug Kelsey's program (basically) right now and can't wait to be more informed as I navigate through what I hope is my recovery. THANK YOU so much for sharing what you have learned! I'm sure I will comment more in the future. I'm just so excited and happy that your book is out that I had to share right now!

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  2. Hi Richard. I managed to buy your book even if I live in Finland, in northern Europe. I followed the rules of the link you posted. It took about 2 hours to read and understand all the actions, but I made it! Now its time to read and enjoy. Thank you.
    Samuli

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  3. Great to hear, Jenni and Samuli! Hope you enjoy it. When you're done, I encourage you -- and anyone else who reads the book for that matter -- to contribute a review to the "Customer Review" section of the book's Amazon.com page. I don't have a huge team of publicists behind me, so I'm counting on the word spreading virally about the book -- and about how it can help people, which I hope it has for you both. And if it can be bought in Finland, I'm convinced it can be purchased anywhere! :)

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  4. Thanks for an inspiring, entertaining and informative. I was waiting with bated breath for your book to be published. Finished it iPod Touch 'cover-to-cover in a couple of days while following Doug's program at the gym (you have almost made me reconsider good-old paper books...almost!). I can't tell you how many times during the first few chapters I felt like you were telling my story....I hope the my story continues to follow the second-half of the book! Hope you keep up the blog as well.

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  5. Is there any other way to purchase this book outside the US? I tried the method you posted using the Gift Certificate, but it didn't seem to work! I really wish to have a copy of this book due to my increased knee pain. Thanks!

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    1. The best ways, Anonymous, are really through Amazon.com, or any electronic bookseller that's affiliated with Smashwords. The good news is Amazon.com is rapidly spreading around the world (my latest sales report shows countries including India, Japan, Brazil, France and Canada), so it should be coming to your country (or a country near yours) soon. Otherwise my best advice is just to read over the blog; a lot of my thinking is here. The book is just the full story, that's all. Cheers!

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  6. Hi. I am 23 and recently Jerked my knee and ended with a small knee injury while playing badminton. Doc said it is cartilage damage and has recommended MRI to start with. A little apprehensive as don't want to get caught up in things like surgeries and stuff. And just came across your blog thankfully. I do t have the book online herein India. I really suggest andrequest that you come up with a hardcopy some time, ESP with the way docs these days scare us. Lol. I will go through your blog and will surely leave my comments and questions. Thanks a lot for coming up with all this.

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  7. Perhaps because you have become so proficient with the computer during your years of education and years of work as a journalist, it is difficult to even grasp how much of an obstacle not having access to a hard copy of your book is for many of us more advanced in years than you.

    Given that you displayed such admirable persistence and drive in ultimately finding a solution to healing your own knees, is it possible that some of those same awe-inspiring aspects of character could be used to make a hard copy available for purchase. Not everyone even owns a computer -- and they would no doubt fall into that upper age range most likely to particularly need your book, darn it.

    Thank you so much for your consideration.

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    1. Yes, you make good points and eloquently as well, Anonymous. I have avoided the hard copies up to now, because they're rather a pain in the neck. It's not that I can't figure this out -- I'm just not convinced that there's enough demand out there for hard copies that it's worth my while. But you're quite right that the older demographic -- people who might benefit most from this story -- would in many cases prefer hard copies. Let me look into this matter again; there may be a relatively easy way to allow people to order single hard copies. The downside is the cost might be up around $20 or so.

      The good news though (and I tell everyone this): most of what I believe and what helped me is on this blog anyway -- and that's free. So if you spend a few hours perusing this site, you may not get my full story (which is in the book), but you should get a good sense of what I found was important in healing my knees.

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  8. Hi
    I m from Turkey.How can I buy your ebook.Do amazon sell it in only US?Can I buy it from Turkey?
    Thanks

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    1. Amazon sells it in its U.S. bookstore for Kindle products. It's also sold in the German, French, Italian, Spanish and U.K. Amazon bookstores, plus on Smashwords. I'd encourage you to read the intro before buying it; it's not for people who are primarily looking for how-to manuals on exercises. Best!

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