We ask Alexa smart speakers to play music and podcasts, turn our smart home lights on and off, answer our questions, and even shop on Amazon. But did you know you can also ask it to read books to you? Yes, you can, and if you're interested, here's how to use Alexa to read books.
Yes, you can use Alexa to read your books
Alexa is full of possibilities, some are well known to everyone and others not so much. Among the second, less popular, is his ability to read books. Yes, Amazon's intelligent voice assistant can read a book so you don't have to.
When we say Alexa can read books, we're not just referring to its ability to read through services like Audible or similar platforms, which allow access to a catalog of books narrated by other people and played as podcasts, or audiobooks. What we mean when we say Alexa can read books is that it could read almost any book associated with your account and stored on your Kindle.
This is an important difference because it expands the catalog and offers options to enjoy content that isn't necessarily from Audible or its competitors. And most importantly, it's something you can take advantage of without spending any additional money.
What books can Alexa read?
So, to begin with, you have to know what books Alexa is capable of reading. These would be the books compatible with Alexa's reading mode:
- Books purchased at the Kindle store from Amazon. Not all of them are compatible, as we will explain a little later.
- You can also tell Alexa to read the books available on Kindle Unlimited or Prime Reading
- Finally, Kindle books compatible with the Alexa text-to-speech technology They may also be requested to be read by the assistant
How to read books with Alexa
Now that you know which books you can have Alexa read , you're probably wondering how to do it. In other words, how do you ask Alexa to read one of those books you have and want her to read for you? That way you can get on with other things.
Well, to read books with Alexa the first thing is to search for them. The easiest way to do this is to go directly to the Alexa application on your mobile device. If you go to the Play tab you will see that there is a section called Kindle Library, that is where the books that you can tell it to read will appear.
Once you have chosen which book you want, the next step would be to tell the Amazon assistant which compatible player you want it to do it on. This is interesting because it does not limit you to the use of the Amazon Echo or other compatible speakers, you could also take advantage of the function with your mobile phone.
So, in summary the process would be this:
- Open the Alexa app on your mobile phone
- Access tab Play
- If this is the first time you access this tab, the wizard will recommend that you add music services. Close the floating window for now.
- Scroll down the list until you see the heading called 'Kindle Library'.
- Select the title What do you want to read in the Kindle Library?
- Choose device where to play the content
Easy, right? Well, now a couple of additional details for when you want to use the function directly on your smart speaker. These are commands that once you know the books you have or have started to "read" thanks to Alexa, you can ask it to continue, pause, go forward, etc.
Alexa commands for when you use the assistant to read books
- "Alexa, read me the Kindle book [title]."
- "Alexa, Pause/Stop/Resume."
- "Alexa, Skip forward/Skip back."
- "Alexa, Volume (1-10)."
- "Alexa, open my Kindle books."
- "Alexa, show me my Kindle books."
Why isn't Alexa reading my Kindle books?
As you can see, using Alexa to read books for you is very simple, but that doesn't mean that problems won't occasionally arise. If you're having trouble, it's most likely due to a temporary glitch with your Echo or Alexa-compatible device; or perhaps the Kindle book isn't compatible with the assistant and its Text-to-Speech function.
In the first case, if you have read that title without problems on other occasions, all you have to do is restart your smart device with Alexa. In the case of the Amazon Echo or similar, you will only have to unplug them from the electrical current and reconnect them.
If by some chance the error is still present, try requesting another title to see if it is something specific for that book or general. If it doesn't happen with other books, the last thing you can do is check if the book supports Text to Speech.
As an extra bonus and without being a reading problem, the synchronization may sometimes not work between the page you left unread and the continuation through Alexa as a reader. In that case, open the book on another device or in the Kindle reading app, bookmark the page manually, and ask Alexa again to continue reading. Everything should now work without problems.
Audible, the other alternative
If you also pay for an Audible subscription—or are currently using the free trial—you can also use your Amazon Echo to read the books you want. In this case, Alexa won't read the books directly, but rather the voice assigned to the specific book you've chosen.
In this case, the process is quite similar. Simply add the book you want to your Audible library—note that you might have been listening to a book for days without it being added to your library. Once you've done that, return to the Alexa app on your phone, and in the 'Play' tab, you'll find the books you've added. Then, you can simply listen to them just as we explained with the Kindle library.
Reading books with Alexa, more interesting than it seems
The possibility of reading books with Alexa is much more interesting than it may seem at first. And it does not have to be a substitute for the very action that you could carry out with said book on your Amazon Kindle or any other electronic book reader and even on paper.
The appealing aspect is that there will be times when you want to continue the story you were reading, but you can't because you're doing other things like housework or driving to work. It's in these situations that Alexa's capabilities can be incredibly useful. Because you could do other things while Alexa reads.
So the only thing we can tell you is that if you have an Alexa-compatible device, try the experience for yourself and see how it goes. Maybe you discover a function that you did not know about and it completely changes your relationship with voice assistants.
In addition, this for the smallest of the house can also be super interesting to be able to use it to read them a story at night before bed. So, in a way, they are also encouraged to read and everything that books can bring us.