To subscribe to a newspaper using your Kindle, you need to go to the Kindle Store on your Kindle. Push the MENU button on your Kindle and select SHOP IN KINDLE STORE from the menu. This will automatically turn wireless on, so you don't have to worry about that. Once you are connected online, you will see the main Kindle Store screen. From there, select BROWSE NEWSPAPERS from the top menu area. This will bring you to the listing of available newspapers.

Scroll down or move to the next page to find the newspaper you want, then press down on the 5-way controller stick to select it. That takes you to the detail screen for that paper, with information like price, reviews, etc. Just click the SUBSCRIBE NOW button to subscribe -- remember, all papers come with a free 14 day trial, so you can explore a few different newspapers if you want. How much do Kindle newspapers cost? The USA Today charges $11.99 per month, The New York Times is $13.99, The Wall Street Journal is $9.99 per month. The least expensive ones are $5.99 per month.

You can also buy single issues from this same screen for most newspapers -- for example, the USA Today is 75 cents for a single issue, as is the Wall Street Journal (which is less than the newstand price). This works out well if you are on vacation or something but still want to keep up with your newspaper from home (assuming you keep your "paper" subscription and don't switch over completely to the Kindle for your newspaper needs).

What newspapers are available on the Kindle

At the moment, these are the newspapers that are available for the Kindle (see online Amazon current list of newspapers):

• New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• USA Today
• The Washington Post
• Financial Times
• Los Angeles Times
• International Herald Tribune
• Chicago Tribune
• Investors Business Daily
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Seattle Times
• Boston Globe
• Philadelphia Inquirer
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• The Times
• Politico
• Houston Chronicle
• San Jose Mercury News
• The Denver Post
• Austin American-Statesman
• Las Vegas Review-Journal
• The Irish Times
• The Orange County Register
• The Arizona Republic
• Orlando Sentinel
• Le Monde
• Oklahoman
• The Independent
• Shanghai Daily
• The Baltimore Sun
• Frankfurter Allgemeine
• Les Echos
• Corriere della Sera
• Handelsblatt

You can find Kindle magazines here.

How do I cancel my Kindle newspaper subscription?

You can cancel your subscription at any time by going to YOUR ACCOUNT on Amazon.com -- there you'll find sections for Orders, Payment, Settings, Digital Content, etc. There is a link for "Manage Your Kindle" in the Digital Content section. From there you'll find a list of Active Kindle Subscriptions -- just click the link for CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION and you're done.

What is reading a newspaper like on the Kindle?

Reading a newspaper with the Kindle takes a little getting used to. Let's begin with the bad points, since there are just a few to mention. For starters, keep in mind that your Kindle version tries to mimic just the text portion of the full, printed edition of the paper. This means you won't see tables, maps, graphs, comics, etc. You also won't see most of the photos. Some Kindle newspapers include a single image related to front page stories (see the NY Times article screen shot to the right showing the photo), but that is about it. It also means you won't see any ads, which can be a good and bad thing. If your favorite musical group is coming to your city, and you read your local paper on the Kindle, you won't see the full page ad that told you when to buy tickets -- ouch. You also won't get the coupons and other inserts a hand-delivered paper offers (think Sunday morning sale information). If you don't care about those things, then you'll be pretty happy with your Kindle paper. Navigation (which we will see in detail below) can also be a little tricky -- you can't just scan 10 articles on a page quick like you can with a print edition -- you have to scroll through lists of articles to pick what you want to read. You get used to it, but it takes a little practice.

Now for the good points:

• No more newsprint on your fingers.
• No more searching through pages trying to find the continuation of your article -- you actually read articles from start to finish with nothing in the middle to distract you.
• No more trying to fold and unfold huge sections of newsprint, either at the breakfast table, on your desk, or on the train.
• No more filling your recycle bin with stacks of heavy newspaper each month.
• No more having pages blow around in the wind if you are outside.
• No more having missed or late delivery days -- your paper is on your Kindle when you wake up each morning (if you leave wireless on, otherwise turn wireless on in the morning, 2 minutes later your paper is there, then turn wireless back off).

So here's what newspapers look like on your Kindle - when you press the HOME button, they will appear in your list of content just like books do. In this case we see links for The New York Times and Investors Business Daily. To save batteries, I normally keep wireless turned off. In the morning, I turn wireless on as I head for the kitchen. When I sit down with breakfast, my papers are there on the Kindle waiting for me, and I turn wireless back off. If you're the type that keeps wireless on all the time, your Kindle papers will show up as soon as they are ready -- on the West Coast, you might get an East Coast paper a little after midnight, hours and hours before the printed version could possibly even be delivered.

So just like a book, you select the newspaper from the list and push down on the 5-way controller to open it. Most papers will go automatically to their first article or to this screen, showing the table of contents. In the case of The New York Times, you can go to Front Page, International, Business, Sports, etc. The number in parentheses tells you how many articles are in each section (7 articles in the Front Page section in this case). Each section offers 2 ways to start reading. You can either click on the section name (FRONT PAGE), which will take you to the first article in that section.

Or you can scroll over and click on the number in parentheses, which will take you to an index listing the headlines for the articles in that section (5 per page -- see screen at right, "Militants show new boldness.."). Some sections you might like to read every article, so you just jump right into the first article by clicking the section name. Other sections you might prefer to scan the article headlines and only read 1 or 2 -- in that case you click on the number next to the section name, and start browsing the headlines for those articles, then pick the ones you want to read.

Within an article, you use the normal PREV PAGE and NEXT PAGE control buttons to move from page to page. The only thing different from reading a book is that as soon as you begin an article, the 5-way control stick is always hot-linked to the navigation button at the bottom of the screen that says VIEW SECTIONS LIST, which is that Table of Contents view we saw above. So any time you are reading an article, pushing in on the 5-way takes you back to the Table of Contents -- no need to find the button on the screen or worry about selecting it -- just push in to get back to the Index. The other control you use for reading is pushing the 5-way control stick left or right to move to the next article -- many articles are 5 pages or more, so if you don't want to read the whole article you just flip the 5-way to move onto the next article without having to page through the whole thing.

Overall, you quickly get accustomed to the convenience of having one or several papers always at hand. Let's face it, printed papers are pretty ungainly and can be a pain to carry around. I like being able to easily read the paper in bed, outside on the deck (with no wind!), or when waiting for the kids to finish with their activities. The Kindle version is definitely incomplete, with all the missing maps, charts, photos, ads, etc. That takes some getting used to. In a way, you do feel more like you are reading a book than a newspaper, just because of this new format.

Deleting and Archiving Kindle Newspapers

Unlike books, a newspaper is published daily -- your Kindle reading list would quickly be swamped with daily copies of newspapers if you didn't do something about it. I tend to delete the paper daily after I read it. You do this the normal way - select it from the reading list, push to the left with the 5-way control stick, push the 5-way in to select DELETE then confirm. However, even when you delete them and remove them from your reading list, they end up in your Archived Items folder if you have an on going subscription, so there is always the most recent 7 days of papers sitting in the archive. But this happens automatically -- yesterdays paper will move to the archives by itself once today's paper is downloaded, so I don't even bother to delete them anymore.