American and UK store

[whitelighter89]

As many of you might know there is a difference in the selection of books in the UK and US Kindle stores and I was wondering can you download from both of them? Is the Kindle region-locked in this regard?

Thanks!

[BruceS]

I could be wrong about this, but I believe it currently works as follows:

1. Your main store depends on the mailing address for the credit card associated with you account.

2. Even if you are a default user of the US store, everytime you make a purchase using either your kindle or amazom.com, amazon checks where you are using the IP address or whispernet connection.

If you make too many purchases while out of country, amazon will disable your account until you provide proof that you are a US citizen.

I assume that similar conditions apply to the UK store.

[history_lover]

I could be wrong about this, but I believe it currently works as follows:

1. Your main store depends on the mailing address for the credit card associated with you account.

It depends on the country you have set in the "manage your kindle" section. This is a separate setting from your mailing/billing address.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375710&#yourcountry

If your country setting doesn't match the country in your billing address/credit card and/or your IP address (there's been some mixed results on whether it's the IP address or credit card which sets it off), Amazon will pull you up on it after a few purchases and ask for proof of residence, not for proof of citizenship even though they do accept a passport as a form of ID.

[blackcat]

If you are in the UK you won't be able to purchase books from Amazon.com unless you falsify your IP address - not recommended and amazon don't like it - for obvious reasons....

However saying that when I first looked at the UK store I was a bit disappointed that some of the books I wanted weren't there but were on the US store, but there are plenty to get on and read meanwhile - 

[history_lover]

If you are in the UK you won't be able to purchase books from Amazon.com unless you falsify your IP address - not recommended and amazon don't like it - for obvious reasons....

That's not true - I have not done that and I'm using the US store from the UK. As I explained, they will pull you up on it but if you can provide a US ID (which I have because I'm American) they'll let you carry on. Also, some people say if you use a US credit card, they won't even pull you up on it and therefore it has nothing to do with the IP address. So there are other ways around it.

[Linjeakel]

I'm a UK citizen living in the UK. I bought my first Kindle before there was a UK store so of course I used the US one. When the UK store opened with the advent of the K3 I was given the choice to move my account to the UK store - there was no option to use both. I moved, but on my Manage Your Kindle page I still have the option to change back to the US store if I want. I doubt I could keep changing back and forth in order to benefit from both - there's likely a limit on the number of times you can change. I don't know if someone who's first Kindle was a K3 and who never had a US account would have the same option to change as I do.

[Ann in Arlington]

Lin. . . .and, isn't it so that, even if you use the US store, many books are not available to you because your location is the UK?

[Linjeakel]

Lin. . . .and, isn't it so that, even if you use the US store, many books are not available to you because your location is the UK?

Yes, that's correct - only the books that the publishers have released in the UK are available to me, regardless of which store I use - which was the reason I moved my account to the UK. If a book has been released on Kindle in UK I can buy it in the UK store and if it hasn't I still can't buy it in the US store even if US customers can.

So I didn't see any advantage of buying in $ when I could budget better/judge how expensive things were in my own currency and still get all the same books. In fact, there are some books available in the UK but not in the US. I suppose it's luck of the draw whether the ones you want are in your store.

The issue of trying to fool Amazon about where you are is much more complex (and probably against the TOS) and frankly there are so many books on my wish list I can buy it's not something I would consider.

[pdhenry]

If you make too many purchases while out of country, amazon will disable your account until you provide proof that you are a US citizen.

Possibly they'll want to verify that your US billing address is current, but I'm pretty sure they won't ask or care what country you're a citizen of.

[history_lover]

The issue of trying to fool Amazon about where you are is much more complex (and probably against the TOS) and frankly there are so many books on my wish list I can buy it's not something I would consider.

Well, if it's against the TOS, Amazon only have themselves to blame for it in my case. Amazon asked for a form of ID from me and even named a passport as an acceptable form so I provided them with a copy of my US passport and they allowed me to carry on buying from the US store. I've done what they asked and they seem happy with that.

And after all, you can order paper books from the US store and have them imported into the UK so I don't see anything wrong with doing the same with ebooks.

[Linjeakel]

Well, if it's against the TOS, Amazon only have themselves to blame for it in my case. Amazon asked for a form of ID from me and even named a passport as an acceptable form so I provided them with a copy of my US passport and they allowed me to carry on buying from the US store. I've done what they asked and they seem happy with that.

And after all, you can order paper books from the US store and have them imported into the UK so I don't see anything wrong with doing the same with ebooks.

I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong in your case - you are after all a US citizen, albeit living in the UK. That's not quite the same thing as someone like me pretending to be so I can not only shop in the US store but also get stuff not available to UK citizens.

I understand your point about being able to 'import' paper books from the US which aren't available in the UK, and I really don't know why it shouldn't be the same for e-books either. But the fact is, it isn't allowed so we just have to live with that or make a choice to 'work around' it. I really can't be bothered.

PS - does anyone else find it odd that the spell checker on a website designed to promote e-readers doesn't recognise either ebook or e-book as a proper word? 

[Ann in Arlington]

PS - does anyone else find it odd that the spell checker on a website designed to promote e-readers doesn't recognise either ebook or e-book as a proper word? 

(pretty sure the spelling dictionary is generic to the underlying software. . .but you might ask in Forum Suggestions if Harvey has anyway to edit it to add some of our Kindle specific words. )

[mathewferguson]

As many of you might know there is a difference in the selection of books in the UK and US Kindle stores and I was wondering can you download from both of them? Is the Kindle region-locked in this regard?

Thanks!

Use a proxy site to login in to your amazon account. You'll be taking a small risk here because not all proxy sites are secure. Choose a proxy site so it appears you are from the US.

Update your address to something generic like 1 Smith Street, New York.  Save settings. Go back to the homepage. After a few minutes you'll appear to be coming from the US.

Now log out and only buy titles from your Kindle direct. Don't log back in to write reviews or do anything else with the account. To Amazon you'll appear to be on holiday overseas.

Should Amazon ever try to stop you then sign up a new account, download Kindle for PC and buy yourself gift cards either from Amazon direct or use a pre-paid anonymous credit card (we have them for sale here in the post office).

Set up your new account as US, use anonymous credit card to buy and run through a proxy. When you download books then transfer from computer to Kindle.

Or, as I mentioned on another thread, simply torrent anything you aren't allowed to buy because you're standing on the wrong piece of dirt rather than the right piece of dirt.

[Birstel]

I changed my Kindle setting to the UK one time, but that was because Penguin and Amazon were in a pissing contest and I really wanted to read the new Dresden Files book.

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

When I needed to buy something from the UK store in order to post over there, they were very restrictive as to what I could buy. No electronics, of course, but also no toys and games. I ended up with a new paper book that cost me $20 with shipping and that fell apart page by page as I read it.

Loooovvveee my Kindle.