What to Do With Your New Kindle

So you received (or have a pretty good idea you're going to receive) an Amazon Kindle e-reader this holiday season. Well done, you.

Now it's time to begin taking advantage of your device. Our guide below applies to all four of Amazon's current E Ink e-readers -- the basic Kindle, the Kindle Keyboard 3G, the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Paperwhite 3G -- as well as most older editions.

Setting Up

After you've unboxed your Kindle, you'll want to create an Amazon account or sync it with your existing one. You'll also want to familiarize yourself with your e-reader's menu and navigation systems. You can find instructions for those steps here.

Get Free E-Books

Assuming you're like me, one of the first things you'll want to do is load your device with as many free e-books as possible. Amazon offers around 2,500 free e-books in the Kindle Store, which are divided into two sections: popular classics and rotating, limited-time offers.

Here's a few picks to get you started: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

You can browse for e-books on your device (under "Kindle Store" in the menu) or on Amazon.com. Purchases made on Amazon's website will automatically be sent to your e-reader, as well as any Kindle apps you've downloaded onto your iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry device. To find the right app for your phone, click here.

In addition to free classics, you can also borrow one book per month from Amazon's Lending Library if you have an Amazon Prime subscription. Amazon Prime costs $79 per year and includes complimentary two-day shipping on Amazon products, as well as free access to Amazon's catalog of online streaming videos.

Outside of Amazon, there are a number of other -- and more extensive -- resources for free e-books. The first is your local library. Every library's checkout system is different, so it's best to check your library's website or to contact a librarian to ask about e-book borrowing procedures. You can also lend and borrow books from friends for 14-day periods. See here for instructions.

Elsewhere, you can find millions of titles are available through Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive (mainly historical items useful for academic work), Open Library, ManyBooks.net, LibriVox (audiobooks), Fictionwise, Bookyards and Planet eBook.

Where possible, download the .MOBI version of the e-books you want to read. You can then import them directly to your Kindle via a USB cable or by emailing them to your designated Kindle email address (which you can find by logging into your Amazon account and clicking "Manage Your Devices" under "Your Kindle Account"). For more information on importing via USB, click here.

Many libraries and websites offer e-books as .EPUB files, but Amazon doesn't support those. If an e-book you've downloaded is only available as an .EPUB, you can convert it to a Kindle-supported format using a free software program called Calibre.

Beyond free e-books, there are of of course millions of titles in the Kindle Store, usually priced around $9.99.

Subscribe to Your Favorite Periodicals

Subscriptions to many newspapers, magazines and blogs (like this one) are available in the Kindle Store. Each comes with a 14-day free trial and is delivered automatically to your device as updates are released.

Accessorize

There are dozens of covers and other accessories designed to protect your device and enhance your reading experience.

I carry my Kindle in my handbag most days, and I've never felt the need to protect it in a cover -- but I'm not everyone. You can find a selection of Kindle covers on Amazon.com (click here to browse for Kindle covers, here for Kindle Paperwhite covers and here for Kindle Keyboard covers). If you have a regular Kindle or a Kindle Keyboard and plan on reading at night, I'd recommend getting a case that comes with a light attachment.

In addition to Amazon, you can also find a range of handmade covers at Dodocase.com and Etsy.com, or design your own at medgestore.com.

As you've already discovered, you can charge your device by plugging it into your computer using a USB cable. If that's not fast enough for you, you may want to pick up a wall adapter for $19.99, which Amazon promises will fully charge your e-reader in four hours or less.

Read Your Kindle Books Anywhere

It's likely that you won't always have your Kindle device with you, which is why it's important to make sure you can access your reading material on as many devices as possible.

Amazon offers a number of free reading apps for the desktop (Mac and Windows PC), as well as iPhone [iTunes link], iPad [iTunes link], Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone smartphones. As long as your devices are connected to the Internet, you'll be able to automatically sync where you last left off in a book, as well as your notes and highlights.

Other Tips

Although I don't personally use my Kindle for much beyond novel reading, there are plenty of other things you can do with the device. You can download dozens of word, puzzle and crossword games, many of which are available for free. You can also listen to MP3 files, look up words in the dictionary and on Wikipedia by highlighting them, and have books read to you.

Have additional recommendations for first-time Kindle owners? Please share them in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Amazon.