PCWorld - Wednesday, July 3, 2019 at 4:26 AM
How to get free books for your Amazon Kindle
When you own an Amazon Kindle, the cost of supporting a voracious reading habit
can get very steep, very quickly. A quick glance at Amazon’s list of the Best
Books of the Month shows that a decent read can set you back between $13 and
$15 for a Kindle edition book. Sure, Amazon offers deals on great ebooks, but
waiting for a deal could take forever. Many titles can be had for two bucks or
less, but it takes work to find the gems among the dross.
What you need are some solid options for finding free, absorbing content to
devour on your Kindle. We’re more than happy to point you in the right
direction. (And if you need a new e-reader, find one among our reviews of the
best
Kindles<https://www.pcworld.com/article/3227170/e-readers/the-best-kindle.html>.)
Updated July 2, 2019 with additional resources.
Project Gutenberg
[gutenberg] Seamus Bellamy
With over 57,000 free books to read on your Kindle, Project Gutenberg should
keep you busy for a while.
At last count, Project Gutenberg<https://www.gutenberg.org/> offered 57,245
free ebooks that can be downloaded in a number of formats, including ones that
are readable on a Kindle E-Reader. You won’t find any new releases here, with
good reason: All of the titles available though Project Gutenberg are either in
the public domain, because the copyright on the work has expired or because the
holder of the book’s copyright has given the project’s organizers permission to
provide access to it at no cost.
[ Further reading: The best e-readers
]<https://www.techhive.com/article/3144037/e-readers/best-e-readers.html>
That said, you’ll find plenty of amazing books to read. Some of the greatest
tomes in the English language are in the public domain: Moby Dick, Anne of
Green Gables, A Study in Scarlett and Beowulf are all there and ready for the
taking. (Project Gutenberg provides some content in 49 other languages as well.)
To get Project Gutenberg books onto your Kindle, download the book you want to
read. Then, attach your e-reader to your PC with a USB cable and open it in
File Explorer, just as you would any other connected drive. In your Kindle’s
file directory, you’ll see two file folders: Documents and Fonts (if you own a
Kindle Oasis, there will also be a third folder, called Audible). Drag and drop
the .mobi file you downloaded from the Project Gutenberg website into your
Kindle’s Document file and disconnect the device once the file transfer is
complete. Boom: You’re ready to start reading.
One word of caution: If you live outside of the United States, downloading the
books from Project Gutenberg might not be legal. Be sure to check your local
laws before pulling the trigger on any books you find here.
OverDrive
[overdrive] Seamus Bellamy
With OverDrive, your local library becomes your Kindle’s best friend.
If you’ve got a library card, you’ve got access to free ebooks.
OverDrive<https://www.overdrive.com/> is an online service that allows library
card holders to download free ebooks (and movies and audio content, too) from
their public library, school or institution’s collection to their Kindles. The
more library cards you have in your name, the more books you have access to.
Using OverDrive is dead simple. After entering your library card number and the
PIN assigned to you when you were issued your card (if you can’t remember it,
ask your librarian), you’ll have access to all of the digital content that your
library has in its collection. The more libraries you belong to, the better
chance there is of finding something you’ll want to read.
Just like a brick-and-mortar library with actual books on its shelves, only one
person can take out a book on OverDrive at a time. If a book is available,
click Borrow and follow the prompts. The service also provides a well-written
help section to walk you through the process. Depending on your library’s
rules, you may be able to choose from a number of loan periods. If a book’s
unavailable, many libraries will allow you to join a waiting list. When your
turn comes around, OverDrive will let you know.
That’s the good stuff. Now for the bad: Not all libraries offer Kindle-ready
editions of the ebooks that they have in their collection. Many libraries serve
up digital content as an Adobe Digital Editions file—a format that’s not
compatible with Amazon’s E-Ink devices.
Swap Kindle books with a friend
[amazon loan] Seamus Bellamy
Amazon doesn’t advertise the fact that you can loan books to friends, but the
option is there and it’s fabulous.
While Amazon keeps it quiet, some ebooks purchased via the Kindle Store can be
loaned out to your friends. Just hope that they’ll return the favor from time
to time!
To loan out a Kindle ebook, sign into Amazon.com<http://Amazon.com> and open
the Account & Lists drop-down menu, located in the top right corner of the
Amazon homepage. Choose Your Content & Devices. You should see a list of all of
the Kindle ebooks you’ve ever bought. Next to the title of each book, you’ll
note a grey square with three dots on it. Click it, and a list of all of the
options for this title will appear. If Loan this title is on the list, you’re
in business. Clicking it will take you to a page that lets you send the book to
the friend of your choosing’s email address. Your Kindle ebooks can be lent out
for a 14-day period, during which time you won’t have access to the title,
yourself—just as if you’d lent a book to a pal from the shelf in your living
room.
Share books with your significant other
[amazon family] Seamus Bellamy
Amazon allows two adults in the same family to share the books they buy with
one another.
If you’re not the only Kindle owner in your family, you’re in luck: Amazon will
allow a maximum of two adults per family, to share Kindle eBooks with one
another. So, if your partner buys an ebook from the Kindle Store, you’ll be
able to read it too, at no charge. To get started, log into Amazon’s website
and go to your Account Settings > Your Content & Devices. Click Households and
Family Library. From here, you’ll be able to set up your Family library sharing
settings.
Open Library
[screenshot 2019 06 27 welcome to open library open library] Michael Ansaldo/IDG
Open Library offers well over one million free ebooks, but many are subject to
your local fair use laws.
A project of the Internet Archive, Open Library<https://openlibrary.org/>
provides access to well over one million free ebooks. It bills its offerings as
“the world’s classic literature at your fingertips,” but that doesn’t mean it’s
a museum of moldy oldies. While you’ll find enough literary canon to make an AP
English teacher beam with joy, the virtual shelves are also stocked with
bestselling authors like Stephen King and Tom Clancy, kid-lit series like
Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and a host of academic texts.
Given Open Library’s stated goal is “to make all the published works of
humankind available to everyone in the world,” you’re likely to find what
you’re looking for here.
Depending on the title, books can be downloaded or borrowed. The first group is
composed mostly of public domain classics. Popular contemporary fiction makes
up much of the latter. In all cases, the books are scanned from paper copies,
which may raise legal questions depending on your locale. Open Library is aware
of this as it states in its licensing disclaimer
<https://openlibrary.org/developers/licensing> “There may be existing rights
issues on some contributions and in some jurisdictions.” Make sure to check
your local fair use laws before downloading any of these titles.
At its heart, though, Open Library is a community-driven library catalog.
Indeed, it has vastly more records than books—more than 20 million currently—as
so many books aren’t yet available in digital form. For records that are linked
to ebooks, multiple editions are listed (James Joyce’s Ulysses, for example, is
offered in 184 editions), each with its own download directory.
To search for a book, make sure show only eBooks is checked and enter the title
or author. Depending on the title, books can be read online or downloaded in a
variety of formats including PDF, plain text, ePub, and MOBI. You’ll need to
sideload the downloaded file onto your Kindle.
[screenshot 2019 06 27 category all] Michael Ansaldo/IDG
Smashwords also provides access to more than to more than 80,000 free ebooks
from independent authors and publishers.
If your reading tastes trend left of the bestsellers list,
Smashwords<https://www.smashwords.com/> may be for you. Ostensibly a free ebook
publishing and distribution platform for indie authors, it also provides
readers with storefront access to more than 500,000 titles, about 80,300 of
which are available free of charge.
Books are organized by category—fiction, non-fiction, essay, plays, screenplays
and poetry. To get to the gratis offerings, select Free from the filter bars at
the top of the page, then select a genre to start discovering new voices. Books
can be read online or downloaded in a range of Kindle-compatible formats. It’s
also noteworthy that Smashwords publishes books in languages and dialects
besides American English, and this info in included in each book’s description.
Goodreads
[screenshot 2019 06 27 books with free ebook downloads available] Michael
Ansaldo/IDG
Goodreads offers free direct downloads of some interesting titles.
Given that Amazon owns Goodreads<https://www.goodreads.com/>, it’s hardly
shocking the retailer provides a direct link to its store for every title on
its site. But you may not know it also offers direct downloads of ebooks. There
are about 2,500 of these available, many of which are free. There aren’t a lot
of popular titles here, but there are several interesting ones including a few
books in the James Potter series, a fan-fiction sequel set in the Harry Potter
universe.
Available freebies are identifiable by a button under the Get a Copy section of
the book record (the verbiage varies, but “Download eBook” and “Kindle $0.00”
are dead giveaways). However finding them among the many thousands of titles on
Goodreads is a needle-in-a-haystack proposition. Fortunately, you can find all
available ebooks aggregated
here<https://www.goodreads.com/ebooks?page=9&sort=most_downloaded&utf8=%E2%9C%93>.
Once you find a book that interests you, click the appropriate link to download
it to your computer. From there, you can side load it onto your Kindle.
Manybooks
[screenshot 2019 06 27 the call of cthulhu by h p lovecraft free ebook] Michael
Ansaldo/IDG
Manybooks has free downloads of classic and contemporary titles.
Manybooks<https://manybooks.net> comes by its name honestly. There are more
than 50,000 free ebooks here, ranging from public domain titles to offerings
from independent and lesser-known contemporary authors.
The site has an easy-to-navigate tiled interface that allows you explore by a
dozen popular genres. There’s also a regularly updated “editor’s choice”
selection of books and a section of trending titles. If you’re overwhelmed by
the options, start with the editors’ “Ultimate Guide to Our Most Popular Free
eBooks,” <https://manybooks.net/articles/best-free-ebooks-guide> which offers a
detailed rundown of classic public domain books by genre, including such
favorites as Jane Eyre, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and War of the
Worlds.
Each book record provides publishing details, a plot summary, and a text
excerpt. These are accessible to anyone to read, but you need to register for
an account to download the book itself. Once you click the download link, you
just need to choose the appropriate format, which Manybooks will save as your
preferred option in your profile if you didn’t already do so when you
registered.
DigiLibraries.com<http://DigiLibraries.com>
[screenshot 2019 06 27 digilibraries com free ebooks library] Michael
Ansaldo/IDG
DigiLibraries has a simple, if not exciting, site with 30,000 free ebooks in
Kindle formats.
DigiLibraries<https://digilibraries.com/> is an online book catalog that boasts
around 30,000 ebooks in Kindle formats, all of them free. Books are sorted into
dozens of categories and sub-categories, and the selection is predictably heavy
on public domain titles. (You’ll find Pride and Prejudice under Juvenile
Fiction, not Diary of a Wimpy Kid.)
The site won’t win any design awards, but everything is laid out clearly. You
can select from a list of genres in a left sidebar—most of which open to
sub-genre choices. Curated selections of popular and new ebooks are prominently
displayed in the center of the homepage with cover photos.
Each book record includes a text excerpt and three download formats: ePub, PDF,
and Mobi. The site limits you to 50 downloads per day, which should be plenty
for all but the most voracious readers.
Book Lending
[screenshot 2019 06 27 book lending borrow and lend kindle books for free]
Michael Ansaldo/IDG
Book Lending matches Kindle ebook loaners with borrowers.
If you don’t have a library card or your library doesn’t subscribe to
Overdrive, Book Lending<https://www.booklending.com/> is a great alternative.
The site leverages Amazon’s Kindle lending feature to match lenders with
borrowers.
Using the site couldn’t be simpler. If you’re looking for a book, press the big
orange button on the homepage and either search for a title or browse available
loans. If you want to loan a book, press the giant green button and look up a
specific title or browse recent requests. In either case, if the book is
available for borrowing or lending it will display a small orange or green
button, respectively, in its record. Just press the appropriate one to complete
the transaction.
Borrowers receive an email notification from Amazon that allows them to
download the eBook to their Kindle, and they have seven days to do it. Amazon’s
lending rules apply here just as if you were borrowing directly from the store.
Titles can be borrowed for 14 days, during which they are unavailable to the
lender, and are automatically returned at the end of that period. Also, a title
can be loaned only once.
This article originally published July 25, 2018, by Seamus Bellamy.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3290373/free-kindle-books.html#tk.rss_all
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info<http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.info>
