My Road to Kindle Ownership

by Jean C. Gordon

I’m a new Kindle owner. It’s not a path I expected to take. I do a lot of research online at work. I try not to print it out. But I usually do because I can’t seem to get as much out of it reading online. I didn’t think I’d ever want to read books electronically. But I didn’t want to be a Luddite.

So, a while back, I downloaded the Kindle for PC application to my netbook, just to see what it was like, fully expecting to not like it. And I didn’t. I downloaded a couple of books by favorite authors that were being offered for free as part of a promotion. I couldn’t open the books. I deleted them and downloaded them again — several times. I uninstalled and reinstalled the application again. I still couldn’t open the books. I got busy with other things for a few weeks, or maybe, months.

Then, the Kindle icon on my netbook desktop caught my eye. I decided to call the Kindle help people. The help person suggested I uninstall and reinstall the program again. I did while she waited for the result. Voila, I was able to open the books, all of them. I set to reading them. It was okay. I didn’t like having to boot the netbook to read. I’m also in a habit of picking up the book I’m currently reading when my Facebook FarmVille game turns slow on the netbook. When the computer was slow, the reading was slow. Pages didn’t turn immediately. Switching between FarmVille and the book or my email and the book was slow.

I was pretty unimpressed until one night when I sat down to read, and I had nothing to read. I opened the Kindle app and was able to find, and immediately have, something I wanted to read. I began enjoying the online book reading more, although it still left something to be desired. When I went to the Amazon.com Kindle Store for my next book, an ad for the Kindle jumped out at me. I hesitated, then made The Decision. I went to eBay and bid on a Kindle. I won the bid and I’m hooked. Now to persuade Avalon to start providing books for the Kindle.