14 Reasons to Put Your Phone Down & Read More Books on Kindle | My Personal Journey from Paper to Ebook Reading

Enjoying my Kindle Oasis in the spa — it needed a rinse — no worries!

My Library

Everyone who walks into my home notices my huge library of books. I love books, real books made of paper and pages that turn in my hands. I enjoy going into a bookstore, walking up and down the shelves with my eyes. When Amazon first came out as an online bookstore (1994), I eventually changed my habit and ordered physical books from the website. I still liked buying physical books and waiting for them to arrive at my door. As alternatives arose, I bought from eBay, Bookdepository and Booktopia— our very own Australian, Sydney-based online bookstore founded in 2004.

The End of Bookstores

But the death knell for physical books came for me when Borders shut down 9 Australian bookstores in 2011. I remember when Borders closed down in Chadstone Shopping Centre. Something was brewing.

That same year Borders went out of business internationally, Amazon acquired Bookdepository — its UK-based rival started by one of its former employees in 2004. Amazon also snatched up Zappos (online shoes & clothing) in 2009, Goodreads (social reading) in 2013, Twitch.tv (live streaming) in 2014, and Whole Foods Market (organic food retailer) in 2017. A revolutionary coup d’Internet was stirring in the House of Bezos.

The Transition

I started reading ebooks when the iPhone (and later iPad) made it more convenient. With so many apps on one device, blogs, documents, email attachments, PDFs, and ebooks were pouring into my phone and tablet — I didn’t want to print them to read later, so I relied on my phone more and more for reading. (There’s a high chance you are accessing my blog from your smartphone too!)

Smartphones did not make us smarter… or healthier. The reading experience on them was not ideal for several reasons. The glaring screen made the eyes tired. How many hours could one stare into an iPhone? So I always went back to physical books. I carried them on every long-distance trip. I read books in the car and in airplanes. I kept a lookout for a digital alternative, but I resisted Amazon’s Kindle. It did not have the responsive touch of an iPhone. It was black and white. It was restrictive.

In my mind, the Amazon Kindle is a bit like the old iTunes store, where their goal is to lock you into their ecosystem. iTunes eventually loosened their grip and now lets you import and export your own songs more easily. Amazon needs to do the same. Not every reading an avid reader reads is going to come from their Amazon store.

In 2014 Amazon allowed your “non-Amazon books” (called “Docs”) to be stored in your Amazon Cloud account. You still cannot easily find the associated notes and highlights you made on those Docs (they’re saved in a file called “My Clippings.txt”). But Amazon started to win me over once my Docs were saved in Cloud to sync with your Kindle app or device.

The 7" Screen of Kindle Oasis next to a Mont Blanc pen

14 Reasons I changed my mind about Kindle:

1. My reading friends and other testimonials claim that they read faster and more books using Kindle than physical books. I would agree. I may have found some reasons why (listed below).
2. The new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Oasis are water-proof. Yes, you heard that right! I am going to read more books with a Kindle because I don’t take my iPad to read in the spa. Now I can read in the shower!
3. Kindle’s screen is better for your eyes than the iPad or iPhone. It looks like white paper. Kindle’s screen is not back-lit. LED light shines laterally on the page and not in your face. When my eyes are not sore, I can read more!
4. With Kindle, I can read in the dark and not bother my wife who might be sleeping. No other ambient light needs to be turned on.
5. Kindle dared to add an extra inch to their screen! The increase from the longtime standard of 6-inch to 7-inch screen makes a huge difference on a small piece of real estate like an e-reader. There is research that shows reading on a wider screen improves reading speed.
6. Kindle is less distracting than an iPhone or iPad. There are no text messages, no social media notifications, no breaking news pop-ups, no interruptions. Just straight reading. Hence more reading.
7. There are no pages to turn. That speeds up my reading by a few minutes per book.
8. Kindle contains hundreds of books. That saves me time to search for books, even on my well-organized shelves.
9. Kindle is super-light. It’s lighter to carry than physical books or even my iPad. It feels good in my hand; it’s light in my bag. I always travel with at least 2–3 books in my hand-carry, which makes it heavy as a sack of potatoes. Now I only travel with one physical Bible and a Kindle. That may speed up my walk through the airport… and it may save my back, too!
10. Amazon has loosened its grip on how it controls my digital reading experience. Some people only read, whereas I study. I like to annotate and refer back to my highlights. I still cannot “copy and paste” text as freely on Kindle as I can on other reading apps or read-later apps (like Goodreader or Pocket), but I can share what I’ve highlighted on my social media accounts like Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter.
    I stayed away from Kindle for years because earlier versions did not allow any action but read. Now you can “copy” by highlighting 10–15% of the book (depending on the publisher’s set limit), then sharing or exporting your highlights. This increased openness is a game-changer for me.
11. Syncing your documents was a problem for a long time for early adopters who used many devices. I used to pay for SugarSync, then Dropbox, to keep all my documents synced. Now Kindle syncs all my Books and Docs between all my devices, my Kindle app and my Amazon Cloud…as long as those Docs were first loaded to Amazon Cloud, and not directly to the device. (Read more of my answer to “How to properly transfer my books & documents to Kindle?”)
    The link to read your Books on browser is: https://read.amazon.com/
12. My Books’ notes and highlights made on Kindle device are synced to my Kindle app on iOS devices and on my laptop when I’m logged into my Amazon account by a browser. One poor feature remains: my Docs’ notes and highlights are NOT viewable on my Amazon Cloud. Amazon has kept these hidden in their attempt to restrict readers.
    The link to read your Books’ notes and highlights by browser: https://read.amazon.com/kp/notebook/
13. Organizing my books have never been easier. Kindle gives me the option to place a book into multiple Collections. My book “From Buddha to Jesus” can belong in several collections: “Buddhism,” “Christianity,” and “East meets West”. My daughter’s book “12 Keys to a Good Relationship with God” can belong in “Children,” “Comic,” and “Christian”. It’s easier to bulk sort by logging into my Amazon Cloud account using a browser than by Kindle device.
14. Kindle 8th Generation and Kindle Oasis can read a book out to me by Audible. Tip: you will need your own Bluetooth audio device to pair with Oasis.

Are there any negatives to using Kindle e-Reader? Sure, Kindle’s screen is nowhere nearly as sleek and responsive as an iPhone or iPad’s. I sometimes switch back to reading on Kindle app on my iPhone because I always have my phone with me. Even Kindles’ iPhone app is more intuitive and has a better layout than the official Kindle device. There is a limitation to saving or exporting highlights, usually 10–15% of the book. Sending lots of files to your Kindle device can still be a pain (see my answers to “How to bulk send files to Kindle?” and “Why my files don’t deliver to my Kindle?”)

Overall, if Kindle offered me no other advantages than helping me read a bit faster and keeping my eyes from getting tired, I would consider those two benefits an answer to my prayers. Praise the Lord for saving my time!

Read my books on Amazon!