Amazon is making it more convenient to share snippets of an ebook with friends or family. An update to the Kindle app for Android adds an “Instant Preview” feature that allows readers to share quotes from books via more channels, and the newly shared quotes will link to a web page featuring a preview of the book.
Previously, readers could share quoted text to their full Facebook or Twitter feeds with a link to Amazon-owned Goodreads. With the new Kindle Instant Previews, users can share those passages using Facebook Messenger, SMS, email and Whatsapp or share to other social media platforms like LinkedIn or Google+.
Those links, which work on any device with a web browser, will take users to a page with the quoted text and a description of the book. From there, users can immediately start reading a preview of the book. Users won’t have to sign up, sign in or download anything to begin reading. Once the sample is done, users can sign into their Amazon accounts to purchase the Kindle book.
The previews themselves are an improvement over the traditional “Look Inside” feature found on a book’s product page. The interface closely resembles the Kindle Cloud Reader, with adjustable text sizes and Kindle-like pages of content instead of the scrolling text of the Look Inside previews. However, these previews are only accessible through the new sharing features.
Currently, the Instant Preview quote sharing feature is only available on the Kindle Android app, but it’s expected to come to Kindle e-readers and other devices later this year.
