How To Give a Kindle Book as a Gift

If you need a last minute gift and want something more personal than a gift card, you can now give Kindle books as a gift.

As an example I decided to give myself a kindle book to create a how-to post.  First you need to find a book that you want to give.  I decided to give A Little Book for New Theologians.   Underneath the normal purchase button on Amazon is the “Gift as a Gift Button” (see right.)

Instead of your normal checkout page you will get a gift page.

First you need to type in the email of your recipient.  You can use any email for the person you are giving it to.  But it easier if you send it to the person’s Amazon account email.

The two options at this point are to send directly to the person’s email (what you would do normally) or you can email the gift to yourself and give it directly to the person.  The second option is whether you want to give it immediately, or if you want to send it on a future date.  If you want to send it on a future date then you pick up the date.  It will be delivered between midnight and 3 AM (Pacific) on the day you choose.  So if you are giving a Christmas gift you would want to send it on the 26th instead of the 25th or else it would be delivered before you actually open Christmas presents.

You can also include a message as well as your name and the recipient’s name and confirm the book information.

There is a note at this point that says that the recipient can exchange the book for Amazon credit if they already have the book or if they don’t want the particular book that you are giving.

Once you confirm the purchase and payment info (just like you would on any other Amazon purchase) the recipient will receive an email with instructions on how to accept the kindle book.  It will have an image of the kindle book, the message that sent and a link to receive the book.  If the recipient is logged into their Amazon account then you will go directly to the Amazon page.

It is at this point that the recipient can exchange the book for Amazon credit or accept the kindle book and it will go into your kindle library (archive.

To send the book to your kindle, you can either push the book from the Amazon “manage your kindle” page or download it directly from your archive on your kindle.