How to Gift an E-book
Today, I solved a mystery.
Books are fantastic gifts but in our cyber-centered digital universe of e-readers and ordering presents on-line things get a bit impersonal.

Every major retail outlet in America now offers gift cards but a gift card is not a book. I wanted to send a specific book to a friend who prefers e-books so the investigation began.
I’m happy to say that yes, it’s possible to share copies of your favorite book and gift them the less expensive eBook version!
The first thing you will need is their email address. Just like ordering anything else the retailer has to know where to send the item purchased so have the recipient’s email address handy.
Next, you’ll want to know what device they use to read e-books. Most people have either a Nook (sold by Barnes and Noble) or a Kindle (sold by Amazon). People who read on their tablet or iPad usually use either the Nook app or the Kindle app. Hard core Apple addicts might read i-books and Google Books is out there along with a few others but just about every smart phone and tablet app store offers the free download of Nook and Kindle.
If you don’t know what e-reader your recipient uses and don’t want to ask the safe bet is Kindle which can be used on just about all devices and if you find out later your friend has one of the other rare devices that will not download the Kindle app Amazon will refund your purchase.

Prepared with the book information and the recipients email address all you have to do is go to the book seller for the type of e-book you want (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or Google) and find the e-book edition.
Look for the “gift” button and follow the prompts. The process was pretty easy on all of the sites I went to.
One thing that threw me off was that when I was not signed into my account I couldn't see the gift button on some sites and the gift button was not always available on the mobile site. It helps to be logged in your shopping account from a desktop (or make sure your are in the “full site”). Sadly, I could not find a way to order a gift book directly from my e-reader .
Tip: You can not purchase a Nook e-book on Amazon or a Kindle book on Google Books so you may have to register with the company you need to purchase through.
If your gift recipient reads on a Nook or with the Nook app you can go to a brick and mortar Barnes and Noble to purchase the e-book (and pay in cash if you prefer). The customer service associate will take care of your e-book purchase and send the gift without your having to sign in or provide any electronic information other than the recipient’s email address.
The recipient will received an email with a digital link to download the book you purchased for them almost immediately and you can include a short personal message so they know who was thinking or them.
The last question on my mind was, “Can they return or exchange the e-book?”
The short answer is yes. E-books can be returned and e-book gifts can be exchanged.
After you have purchased your gift e-book it’s a great idea to send a card or e-mail letting the recipient know the book was sent just incase hungry spam filters eat the notification. If the notification gets lost in the black hole of lost email you can log into the site, review past orders and resend the gift link.
Happy reading. Go send someone a great book!
