Jennie's Reads

Don’t worry, here’s how you can do it.

Trust me when I say that this type of question/comment pops up at least 10 times a week in the “In My Kindle Girl Era” group on Facebook (which you should probably join if you read on a kindle, it’s a super fun community! 😉). So because I see these posts all the time, I did a little digging as to why the books are unavailable for purchase through the app, and also how-to if you ARE on mobile.

Why You Can’t Purchase Through the App (iOS & Android)

Word on the street via BookRiot is that Amazon disabled the function to purchase books through the iOS app in 2011 because Apple had demanded a 30% cut of each ebook sale. Amazon was like, “forget that!” and just disabled the button to buy. Then in 2022, Google (Android’s parent company) started its demands to collect on each ebook sale made through its app as well. So you bet Amazon once again said, “forget that!” and so it is… we are no longer able to purchase ebooks through our mobile applications. I have many opinions on how this can be viewed ranging from “you’re a giant multimillion dollar corporation, you can handle a % cut” to “well, I guess you need to make money too, I’m glad you didn’t hike up ebook prices and give into Apple + Google”. It’s a mixed bag.

How To Purchase on Mobile

So, that leaves us with the question, “well, then how do we purchase on mobile?” Well friend, go to your choice of mobile internet browser– whether it be Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or whichever you are signed into Amazon on, and look for your book there. The beautiful button on the top left of our 4 button quadrant will be lit up with the price of said book, and give you the option to purchase as you wish.

An alternate way you can purchase your books is through the Store on the Kindle itself! I particularly enjoy this option because I can just press “Read Now” after purchase, and it’ll open right up on my Kindle! Do keep in mind though, that the store can be a little slow sometimes, and has to do a quick update every so often – but honestly, this doesn’t deter me at all. It’s also the easiest way for me to hop right into the next book of the series if one is available!

I hope this blog post helped you out a little bit, and as much as it’s annoying- what can we do with corporate greed, hey? However, the convenience of the Kindle and cost effectiveness of ebooks is worth it IMO.