Amazon has a handy featured called “Give as a Gift” which you can use to send someone a Kindle book via email. For authors, this can be 
quite handy for book promotion purposes. If you can drive more sales to your Kindle edition by getting others to give it as a gift, the rank for your book’s sales page will improve and will ultimately lead to more visibility on Amazon, thus increasing your overall sales.
For example, let’s say you agree to speak at an event or conference and then ask the event host if they would be willing to give attendees a copy of your book in Kindle format. They agree to give a copy to all 100 attendees. The host would then go to Amazon and use the Give as a Gift feature, which will allow them to email a redemption code to each attendee, one at a time. Their attendees get a bonus, while you gain new readers, increase your sales, and improve your overall sales rank on Amazon!
Yep, it really is that simple. And we are using this feature to give away bonus books to the first 50 who register for the Nonfiction Writers Conference! Check it out here!
Hello. I have a gravitation of people & businesses who’ve signed up to purchase my book(s). This is a great idea if one doesn’t have fans on the edge of their seats, literally, to buy ones book(s).
I hadn’t seen this button on Amazon yet; thanks, Stephanie!
What I’d love to see is “You’re the author; gift this to someone without having to pay for it first.”
Of course, the first abuse of that would be to sell digital copies from our own websites and use Amazon’s network to fulfill the orders. Oops. Guess that’s not gonna happen.
How do you give multiple copies at once? It’s not obvious from the tool.
Hi Joel, It would be nice if we could gift copies of our own Kindle books via Amazon, but you’re right–Amazon wouldn’t like the abuse of that and quite frankly, they have no incentive to offer that service to authors. However, you can do that with Smashwords by creating a 100% off discount code. And unfortunately there is no bulk gift option (that I know of). If you need to gift multiple copies, you have to go through the process one at a time. I’ve been doing that for people who register for NFWC and it’s not as painful as it sounds! Just a minute or two per purchase if your credit card info is already on file.
Thanks Stephanie. I find this article very useful, especially your reply to Joel on how to use Smashwords to gift copies of Kindle books.
That gift button has been there for quite a while now. I’ve used it multiple times to give free books to my subscribers. It’s definitely a handy little link!
Does it cost anything the author to gift her Kindle book to the others? If yes, how much? Can authors also gift their paper books distributed on amazon.com and published by createspace.com?
Hi Lina, Good question! Yes, you still have to pay the retail price to gift a book. I don’t believe there is a way to gift your Kindle book without paying for it through Amazon, but you can do this if you distribute your book through Smashwords. You can create a discount code for 100% off and then provide that to readers. Hope that helps!
Great if you live in the States. Amazon.co.uk doesn’t allow this important service (in fact there are an amazing number of differences between the .com and .co.uk offerings).
That is interesting to know, Dave. I wonder why??
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We published used CreateSpace and a tiny publisher. We figured out that it was cheaper to buy our book on Amazon where we got free shipping through Amazon Prime than to order the book in bulk, buy an envelope, and ship the book. Plus the extra sales boosted our rankings! What do you think about the free giveaway days on kindle? Any tips? We’re trying it this Tues/Wed and would love to see a bunch of copies downloaded. Thanks for your article.
Hi Ashley, The KDP Select give-away programs can be an effective way to attract readers for your book, though I don’t like them for two reasons. First, Amazon requires exclusive rights to distribute your ebook, so it can’t be available via Smashwords, iBooks, the Nook store, etc. I think that is unfortunate. I also think it’s frustrating that you don’t get any data about who downloaded your book–no contact information or any way to follow up. With all of that said, I do think that you can gain more readers and build some buzz for your book via a give-away program. Wishing you lots of luck!
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It’s a common frustration that the otherwise excellent Kindle platform does not allow UK users to buy eBooks as a gift for someone else. If you want to give a Kindle eBook to someone in the UK, it’s still not possible directly, but there is this neat work-around which creates a custom gift card with the book’s cover, name and a short link as the gift image. http://echoebooks.com/blog/160-giving-a-kindle-ebook-as-a-gift
Didn’t know about that, Jeremy. Thanks for sharing!
It is true that they can opt for a gift certificate on Amazon or exchange it for another title. Can’t do much about that…