Got an Amazon Kindle for my birthday but haven’t had much time to get into it, but I understand I can subscribe to my favorite magazines and have them automatically show up on my Kindle the same day the print magazines are published? That’s pretty cool, but I’m at a bit of a loss. How do I find what magazines are available and how do I subscribe to a magazine on my Kindle?
You can do so both from the Kindle itself or by simply logging in to the Amazon.com account that is hooked up to the Kindle. Let me show you how you can do it from your Amazon account in a Web browser first, then I’ll show you the Kindle way…
First off, did you know that as of this writing there are 48 magazines and almost 100 different newspapers available for your Kindle, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily and the Financial Times? You can check both out: Newspapers available for the Kindle and Magazines available for the Kindle.
Now, let’s jump in!
Log in to your Amazon.com account, then follow the link above for the list of magazines (Why? because there are thousands of magazines available through Amazon, but only a very small number that are Kindle-ready). Here’s what the Time Magazine page looks like:
Now there’s a bit of misrepresentation here because the magazine cover is shown in glorious color but in fact the Kindle is a black and white reader, so you’re not going to see anything that beautiful when you view it on your eInk reader, but that’s another story. Assuming you’re part of the Kindle cult and want to proceed, look on the top right and you’ll see:
If you just want to test it out, you can subscribe and then cancel within 14 days (Amazon sends you email detailing how to do that) or you can just buy the current issue and see if it works for you:
I’ll subscribe, but not to Time magazine but PC Magazine instead, by finding it and then clicking on “subscribe now with 1-click”…
What’s cool is that the latest issue of the magazine magically appears on my Kindle thanks to the Whispernet data network.
Alternatively, if you only have your Kindle in front of you, no worries, you can subscribe to a magazine through the Kindle store on the Kindle itself!
Click the MENU button, then choose “Shop in Kindle Store” from the pop-up menu:
Now you’ll see the main page of the Kindle store, without all the shiny color:
You can chose “Magazines” here, or tap on the “MENU” button again and you’ll see that there’s a different menu for within the store:
Either way, get to the magazines listing and you’ll see something like this:
Let’s again choose Time magazine by clicking on it. Now you’ll see the subscription option:
Choose the “Subscribe Now” option and it’s an instant transaction:
That’s all there is to it, Give it a few seconds to download the first issue, then click on “HOME” and your new magazine subscription should have appeared!
Looking for Kindle Help? Stay tuned, we’re building a whole section to help Kindle users get the most out of their gizmo…
Thanks for the informative post. I don’t think you already addressed this, but I suppose it’s possible that I missed it. What if I already have a subscription to Time Magazine, but now that I have a Kindle I want to be able to read it there? Can I access it by entering a code from the magazine. I thought at one time that Time advertised this option on the magazine itself, but I can’t find it now.
Thanks,
Diane
Stopped using Amazon Magazines subscription.
– Too expensive.
– Most of the news is available online free.
– When you unsubscribe you loose everything.
That was not an easy choice knowing that when you buy a Kindle it is to use it (not only for books)
They are alternatives :
– Caliber (calibre-ebook.com): An App that generate your ebook from news available online and send it to your device : Very usefull but you computer has to stay on + the app must run all the time.
– Kindleman : Website that does the same for you. But this website is unstable + They do not take new sign-up subscription since a year.
– Webtoread : New website , straight forward and simple. it does exactly what it says.
I’m using http://webtoread.com since 2 months now, and I have to say that I’m pretty satisfy by such solution.
Anyway, it sound obvious for me that the news industry must now evolve, they should accept the internet revolution lie the music did.
I want to unsubscribe any magazin on Kindle you are charging my creditcard for. never have subscribed.
I want to subscribe to my laptop, and then download it to my e reader. Magazines like Vanity Fair, Esquire, Golf etc., would be best read on a larger screen, and then for reference to my e reader…….is there a list of magazines and newspapers that are part of this reading revolution?
Dave –
Thanks for the informative post. It gives me a better idea of working with Kindle. One question though:
“How do I as a BOOK publisher, set up a subscription service for my monthly book offerings?”
If you check out my site, you’ll see we are offering “pulp” for new media, and like pulp we’ll ramp up to a monthly schedule of books. It seemed like a good idea to offer them via subscription similar to what Hard case Crime does.
Look forward to hearing any insight you may have as I continue my investigations. Thanks.