How to Automate Kindle Sideloading

Normally when you buy and download a Kindle file from a site that's not Amazon (like my direct-sales Payhip and Gumroad links here on my website), you have to put them on your Kindle e-reader yourself.

This involves much finding and untangling of USB cables, plugging them in, moving the book files from your downloads folder to the e-reader's folders, etc etc. And you must do this every time. You also have a personal @kindle.com address that you can email your books to as well, but like the USB sideload, you have to do it manually each time you download a book.

But what if you could just download the book to a folder on your computer and have it magically show up on your Kindle? Well, that's what I just realized that you can do, with one simple one-time process.

It involves two services you may or may not be familiar with: Dropbox, and IFTTT.com. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, Dropbox is a cloud-based file storage service, and IFTTT is a powerful website that automates web-based tasks for you like monitoring RSS feeds, watching the local weather, and auto-posting to social media.

Anyway, you're not here for all that blather. Here's how you do it:

1. Go to http://www.amazon.com/myk > Settings > Personal Document Settings
   
2. Add your own email address to "Approved Personal Document E-mail List"
   
3. Grab your Kindle email address from "Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings". It should be [your Amazon login]@kindle.com
   
4. Create a new Books folder in your Dropbox's Public folder
   
5. Go to IFTTT.com and make a recipe:
   

IF new file in Dropbox's Public/Books folder
THEN Gmail will email this file to my @kindle.com address

Now whenever you download a Kindle book file to that Public/Books folder, Gmail will automatically email it to your Kindle. All you have to do is download the file and IFTTT does the rest. You can probably do this with the vanilla "Email" channel too.

Go ahead and test it with one of my books if you like--The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree, the first volume of my award-winning Outlaw King gunslinger-fantasy series, is free!