I want to buy a kindle for college..but...

[Phillyboy]

I looked on the kindle store and they did not have any of my books, so i was wondering if i could purchase my books as ebooks and upload them onto a kindle?

[Nate the great]

If you want it for textbooks, then don't buy the Kindle. The page turn is too slow, the interface too sloppy, and the features too limited.

The best thing for textbooks is a laptop.

[Elsi]

Hello Phillyboy -- welcome to MobileRead. When you say "any of my books", do you mean that you don't find any of the textbooks that you have been assigned? It's possible that is indeed the case. Textbooks generally have small print runs to begin with, and until recently, you wouldn't see much (if any) discussion about using eBooks and their readers in a classroom setting.

Tulane Univ. has announced they are increasing the number of textbook titles available in digital format.

http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/081709_textbooks.cfm

There's a discussion about Tulane's announcement in this thread.

If you find the assigned texts as eBooks, then it might be possible to read them on the Kindle.

• If the books are in Mobipocket format without DRM, then you can read them as-is on any model of the Kindle
• If the books are in ePub or Microsoft .LIT format without DRM, then you can convert them to Mobipocket and read them on any model of the Kindle
• If the books are in PDF format without DRM, then you can read them as-is on the Kindle DX. You *might* be able to covert them to text or Mobipocket format to read on the K1 or K2.
• If the books have DRM protection, then there are routines available that can strip DRM; MobileRead has a policy against giving links to these routines or instructions on how to use them

One thing I would suggest is discussing the possibility of eBooks with your university. See if they have a program or may be interested in starting a pilot program.