I have purchased Kindle Paperwhite 4 years back and have read 100s of books on it. In this article, I will share tips and techniques I found most useful while reading on Kindle.
What is Amazon Kindle?
The Amazon Kindle is an e-reader designed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices are primarily designed to have a very similar experience of reading a physical book.
If you are an avid reader, I highly recommend you to check out the Kindle. You can find more details here: https://amzn.to/2mlct2K
10% slower
Jakob Nielsen recently published a study where he pointed that users slow down when reading on Kindle by almost 10.7%. If you find yourself reading slowly on Kindle, know it is normal. You and I can’t do anything about it. It is the way how our eyes and brain work.
Tip 1: Set it up properly
Kindle is designed to replace the physical books and Amazon has done an amazing job designing it. Once you get used to reading on the Kindle, you will feel like reading a physical book. To have a better reading experience, ensure that a few basic things are in place.
While reading on Kindle – font, font size and brightness matter the most. Luckily, you have can select what works best for you.
Font – Right now, you have the option to select from 10 fonts. I personally read in “Bookerly” font. Try all the fonts and select what you like the most.
Font size – You have the option to select a font size in range 1 to 10. For me, font size 4 works best. Select the size where you can read comfortably with no strain.
You only have to do this exercise once. every time, you start a new book, kindle automatically select the same font and font size.
Brightness – Brightness has a direct impact on your reading experience. If it is too bright, it will strain your eyes and if it is very dim, you cannot read properly. I play around with brightness especially while reading in the night, especially when the lights are off. Before you start reading, spend 10 seconds adjusting the brightness. I use a Kindle Paperwhite. Kindle Voyage and Oasis (latest devices in the Kindle series) has an Auto brightness feature.
On these devices, tap Auto Brightness to automatically adjust the screen light. When Auto-Brightness is turned on, the screen light matches the current light condition. If you adjust the slider, the Auto Brightness feature will use that adjustment in the future.
Tip 2: Preview
Don’t just start reading the book after you purchase it. Do a preview of the book before you start reading a book.
Doing a Preview will help you become familiar with the book and help you decide if it is worth reading the book. You will also get an overall structure of the book, the author’s writing style, and the main ideas covered in the book.
In the beginning, you may find it slightly odd. Here is what I recommend you to do so – if you have purchased the book, then you can access the book from your Kindle account. Open the book on computer and do the preview on it first. previewing in the computer is fast when compared to doing it in the Kindle. If you can’t do the preview on a computer screen, do the preview on Kindle itself.
Here is how I preview on Kindle:
– I first look at the table of contents.
– Then, I go to the notes sections and read the popular highlights. It gives me a good overview of the book.
– Once I do the above steps, I tap on the screen and spend 2-5 seconds on each page looking for an important text. I am not reading at this stage, I am looking at the text which stands out like bold text, images.
Tip 3: Use a pacer while reading
If you don’t know what pacer is, I recommend you to read this blog post I wrote:
How to Increase your reading speed by 50% in 21 minutes
Using a pacer while reading is important and there are many benefits to reading with a pacer. You use pacer while reading on Kindle as well.
Don’t use a pen or pencil as a pacer because you need to tap to move to the next page. Use your finger as a pacer. You can use pacer exactly as how you do on the physical books. Just make sure you don’t touch the screen while using a pacer.
Alternatively, you can place the pacer at the beginning of the line or at the end of the line. Once you finish reading the line, move the pacer to the next line. You needn’t move finger all across the line. This method works best if you have sufficient practice with pacer on books, trained your eyes and got rid of bad habits like regression.
I admit, it looks and feels unnatural using pacer on Kindle.
Once you have trained your eyes and got rid of all the habits, you can limit using pacer and maybe skip it entirely. This is possible only after you have trained your eyes and brain.
Tip 4: Read the popular notes of the chapter first
Kindle identifies the important sentences /ideas based on what other readers have highlighted. It automatically underlines these important texts.
To find them, Click on Go to -> Notes -> Popular
Read these highlights before you start reading the chapter.
Kindle makes it very easy to highlight important text. Once you select the important text, it gets highlighted automatically.
Tip 5: Take Print out / Buy the physical book – If it is very important.
I know this is not what you want to hear in an article on reading on Kindle. After purchasing a Kindle, I have almost stopped purchasing physical books. Experience of reading on Kindle is way better than I had expected but it is not the best.
One can’t ignore the experience of turning pages and other little enjoyments you get when reading a physical book. I am not saying to stop reading on Kindle and read-only on Kindle.
Reading on Kindle has many benefits as well.
Here is what I do for some books:
If I find some book brilliant and extraordinary while reading on Kindle, I either take print out or purchase a physical book. I do this may be for 1 out of 100 books I read on Kindle.
Highly recommend to purchase it
If you haven’t purchased kindle or considering purchasing one, I recommend you to do it immediately. You will thank me later.
Find more details about Kindle Oasis here: https://amzn.to/2mlct2K
I recommend Kindle Paperwhite, it is more affordable. For more details, click here: https://amzn.to/2moTKUd
Do you read in Kindle as well? What is your experience of reading books in Kindle? Share your experince in comment section below.
Happy Reading.
Srinivas Vakati
FAQs
On the below-mentioned page, I have listed down all the FAQs I am asked about Speed reading, learning fast etc and my responses to the same.
Click here to see all the FAQs and my responses
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