Buying US Kindle books, without hiding IP address

Just couple of weeks ago, Kindle users outside US like us found that we could not buy books for our Kindle 2 anymore. Even though we found that the solution is to hide your IP address when surfing Amazon web site, it is still very troublesome. Then in mid October, Amazon released the Kindle 2 International version and since then, we need to pay higher price for the same book.

I recently bought a new laptop with Windows 7 and I am not that keen to install a “hide-your-IP” software in the new machine (as this approach always slow down the browsing experience). But today I have a new book to buy (What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell) … so, what shall I do ?

Believe it or not, somehow I bought a US Kindle book just now without hiding my IP address (I’m staying in Hong Kong). First of all, I have set up my Amazon account with an US mail address, and also the 1-click payment method with an AMEX card with an US billing address. And then, I follow the steps below:

1. Sign out from your Amazon account, if you have already logged in;
2. Search for the book as usual, Amazon shall search for US books by default;
3. You will be able to find the book, in US selling price (in my case, US$ 9.99, instead of US$ 11.99 for Asia and Pacific version);
4. As long as you don’t log in (seems it trigger Amazon’s IP / Region check logic), and don’t change the Your country or region on the left-hand side menu, you can keep searching the right books;
5. Then just go ahead to click 1-Click to buy the book, and only at this point log into your Amazon account;
6. Confirm to buy the book for your Kindle 2 International version;
7. That’s it, I bought an US Kindle books for my International version – without utility like Hotspot and Ultrasurf to hide my IP !!
8. Then go to the “Manage your Kindle” page, and download the book to your computer, and subsequently transfer to your Kindle;
9. One point to note is : still in the right hand side menu of the “Manage your Kindle” page, there is a pending item (the new book) to deliver to my Kindle. In other words, Amazon may eventually send me the book via wireless network and charge me extra US$ 2. But to me, install one less program in my computer is great !!

Hope it help.

Tagged as: amazon, kindle