I love my Kindle. For a tech writer, I don’t actually have many gadgets – but the Kindle is one I would never trade. Being able to read an endless variety of books on one slim device with a paper-like display makes me feel like I’m actually living in the future. But sometimes, a book isn’t what I need. Sometimes I just want to read a lengthy, well-written magazine article that would make me feel smarter or better informed.

Another good reason to read long-form articles is that you can finish them in one sitting; that always gives me that satisfying "Saturday morning with the paper" feel, if you know what I mean. Delivereads is one lovely way to get your long-form fix on the Kindle.

First, here’s what the site itself looks like:

read articles kindle

It says that the first step is to "let your Kindle know" they’re coming. Your Kindle has an email address, but only those addresses you enter into Amazon's "white list" can use it. So go to Amazon’s Manage My Kindle page and add Deliverads to the list of allowed addresses.

articles kindle reader

The address, as you can see, is dave@delivereads.com. "Dave" is Dave Pell, the guy behind Delivereads, who curates the articles sent out using Delivereads. Now that you’ve added Dave to your white list, you need to find your own Kindle’s email address, to tell Delivereads where to send content to. That address is on the same page, under Your Kindle Devices:

articles kindle reader

Now let’s take this address and paste it into the Delivereads page (yes, that’s my Kindle’s email. To each his own!).

articles kindle reader

Note that you don’t paste the whole address in, but just the beginning, and then use the drop-down to select the correct suffix. Then just click Subscribe, and get the following message:

read articles kindle

That’s it! As simple as could be, really. A welcome message should appear on your Kindle within an hour, and then you’ll get long-form articles every now and then for your reading pleasure.

The Content

You may be curious to know what you’re subscribing to, what sort of articles you’d be getting every week. Here is the current crop, as of this writing:

I read the piece about AOL, and it was very good. I used to write for Download Squad (an AOL property), and working there wasn’t like that at all. It was still interesting to see what other parts of AOL looked like. It took me about 5-10 minutes to read the article – just enough time for a relaxed cup of coffee.

Alternatives

While Delivereads is very well executed, the idea of delivering long-form articles for the Kindle is not groundbreaking. Send Me A Story were there first, but I haven’t received anything from them for months now. Here’s hoping Delivereads proves more consistent and persistent.

Do you know of similar services, maybe ones not curated by a single person?