My friend likes to read Kindle books and I’d like to send him one as a gift. I know how to have Amazon ship a printed book to someone, but how do I have them send my friend a Kindle book?
I sent a Kindle book as a gift for the first time a few days ago and, not surprisingly, Amazon makes it really easy for you to buy and send gifts. Once you’ve found the book you want to give, you’re just a few clicks away from (electronically) wrapping it up and sending it to your friend.
Don’t know what email address your friend uses for their Amazon account? Not a problem.
Want to buy it now but have it delivered on a future date (maybe so they get it right on their birthday)? No worries.
Want to hand deliver it or email it yourself? Amazon has you covered there too.
Let me show you how easy it is.
Just as when buying a printed book, the first step is to find the book on Amazon’s website. Be sure you’re looking at the listing that says “[Kindle Edition]” after the title. Over on the right in the green section you should see an orange “Give as a Gift” button.
Clicking that button will take you to the “Complete your gift purchase” page, where Amazon gives you a few options to control and customize your gift.
If you want to send the gift directly to your friend, choose the first option “Email the gift directly to my recipient” and enter their email address. It doesn’t matter if this is the address your friend uses for their Amazon account. Any email address they read will work fine. If you don’t change the “Delivery date”, Amazon will send the gift now.
But let’s say you want your gift to appear in your friend’s email inbox on their birthday, while you’re on a weeklong scuba dive trip in Indonesia (hey, I can dream!). Just click in the “Delivery date” field and pick your friend’s birthday on the handy calendar that pops up. Then give yourself a pat on the back, knowing that your friend will get a pleasant birthday surprise while you’re taking underwater photos of elusive leaf scorpionfish.
What if you want to be “old-fashioned” and print out a gift certificate to put inside a card? Just choose the “Email the gift to me” option and print out the gift certificate email Amazon will send you. This option is also handy if you want to email the gift certificate but like to add a longer message than the 300 characters that Amazon allows.
Regardless of who you send the gift email to (your friend or yourself), the next (optional) step is to personalize your message with the names of you and your friend, and a short message.
When you’re done writing a clever message, click on the “Preview Email” button and Amazon will show you exactly how the email the email will look.
When everything is set to your liking, just click the orange “Place your order” button, Amazon will give you a reassuring confirmation message, and you’re done.
Finally, don’t worry about your friend already having the book you’re sending. Amazon will let them exchange your gift for an equivalent value Amazon.com gift card. How can you go wrong? So stop spending money on shipping costs, and start buying all your friends Kindle books.
I know what you say in the article is true up to a point. Unfortunately, Amazon seems to have a blind spot. I purchased an ebook for myself and liked it so much I wanted to send a gift copy to a friend. The problem is, Amazon keeps telling me I already own the book and there is now such thing as a button on the page to “Send as a Gift”
What now?
That’s an odd one, and I’m not sure what to suggest, William. Maybe you can reach out to a customer service person at Amazon and get assistance directly from them? Good luck!
Additionally if you already have the book in your own Kindle Library, no matter what approach you take, there is no option to buy the book again in any format.
Unfortunately I followed the instructions and ended up purchasing the book for myself as I set up for
One Click purchasing. It was only when I read to the bottom of your article that I saw the comment
about this service not being available on Amazon .co.uk
Please update your post so that others do not get caught the same way.
Oh, only in the US. Great!……not…good old Amazon. Always thinking about everyone
Not true Dave. I am looking at the ‘Kindle edition’ and “Give as a gift” is not displayed in my purchase options. I have endlessly tried to do this to no avail. I wish I could attach the screenshot to show you exactly what I am seeing but it is something like this:
Buy now with 1-Click
Deliver to:
Ricks Kindle for Mac
How buying works
Available on your Mac
(No Give As A Gift Option Displayed)
Then it says in a new box below the first one:
Try it Free
Sample the beginning, blah, blah, blah etc
Still no (No Give As A Gift Option Displayed)
Nowhere on this page is ‘Give As A Gift Option’ displayed
Everything about how to do this says the ‘gift’ option is there and I’m not the only one who cannot se it displayed. Totally frustrated Dave. Any ideas?
Josef
This still only applies to the US 🙁
I dont know about Canada, but in all other countries this *cant* be done.
I also wonder what happens with amazon.com if you want to gift someone e.g. in Europe?