Explore the free titles at ebook stores
Before you start shopping around for free ebooks, it’s worth checking out the current selection at the store linked to your e- read ing device. For example, at the Kindle Store you can click the Top 100 Free tab on the right-hand side of the main Books homepage and that of individual categories to view and download the most popular free titles. Click the ‘See all bestsellers’ link for the full list, which usually comprises classic, out-of-copyright works; stories by new and unknown authors; and cut-down, promotional versions of commercial books. Amazon also offers Free eBook Collections of Popular Classics and Time-Limited Offers.
The iTunes Store has an impressively stocked Free Books section containing more than 25,000 titles, which you can access from the main Books category in the Desktop software and via the iBooks mobile app.
Get classic titles from Project Gutenberg
With more free ebooks in a wide variety of formats, the long- running Project Gutenberg provides a quick and easy way to fill your e-reader with top-quality literature. The site specialises in out-of-copyright titles, which makes it ideal for catching up with the classics, and adds an average of 50 books a week to its database.
You can search Gutenberg by title, author or subject, and browse the list of the most popular books, which invariably includes works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
To download a book, just click its title and choose your desired format. The simplest is Plain Text, which is fully compatible with all e-readers, but for the best experience you should choose ‘Kindle (no images)’ for Amazon’s device or EPUB for other hardware readers. Alternatively, you can choose to read the ebook online or scan its QR code to open the text on your smartphone.
Download free ebooks from Open Library
Open Library boasts more than one million free ebooks, dating back to the 11th Century. Many of these, especially newer titles, need to be ‘borrowed’ via the site’s Lending Library service, which requires an account with ebook distributor OverDrive, but there are also thousands of out-of- copyright works you can download for free. Open Library offers a choice of formats for each book, including PDF, EPUB and MOBI, as well as the useful ability to send ebooks directly to your Kindle.
The site’s Wikipedia-like structure, which encompasses reader reviews, recommendations and keyword tags, makes it far less dry to browse than Project Gutenberg, and its aim to provide a page for every book ever published is commendably ambitious.
Find free ebooks faster at ManyBooks.net
ManyBooks.net offers instant access to free ebooks from various copyright-free and Creative Commons sources. It covers a huge choice of file formats - more than 20 for many titles, including EPUB, AZW and MOBI for Kindle, and three PDF sizes (such as large print) - and lets you download books with a single click, without needing to register. Equally impressive is the amount of information provided for each ebook, which includes a short excerpt, reader reviews, word and page counts, and a QR code for downloading the book to your phone. You can browse ManyBooks.net by author, title or genre.
Get new and classic titles from Feed books
Feedbooks combines public domain (out-of-copyright) books first published before 1923 with paid-for titles and ‘original’ free ebooks written by amateur authors. This makes the content feel fresher than at similar sites and, although the quality varies greatly (especially the erotic fiction), reviews from other readers can help steer you away from downloading too much rubbish. Book categories include History, Travel and Cooking, and each title is available in Kindle, EPUB and PDF format.
Download free ebooks from Google
Although the Google eBookstore, mostly has paid-for books, it does contain a ‘Best of the Free’ selection of classic titles, with the full range available at the main Google Books site (http://books.google.com). You can download books in EPUB and PDF format. If you want to read them on your Kindle, you’ll need to convert the files to MOBI format using free ebook software such as Calibre. Alternatively, try RetroRead which lets you download thousands of titles from Google Books as MOBI files.
Search for free ebooks using Inkmesh
You can save yourself time and effort when hunting for free content for your e-reader by using the speedy ebook search engine Inkmesh. Type an author, title or keyword into the search box, click the Find Free Ebooks button and lnkmesh will comb through dozens of sites, including ManyBooks.net, Books on Board and the Internet Archive, looking for matches. Each search result is helpfully accompanied by details of the available formats for the book and the devices it can be read on. You can even avoid wading through the usual out-of- copyright titles by applying the ‘exclude Public Domain’ search filter.
Discover the latest free ebooks at Mobileread
The popular online community MobileRead is a great source of news, discussion and advice about ebooks and related hardware and software. Head to the Deals, Freebies and Resources board in the forums for details of the latest free ebooks and where to find them. Many of the offers shared by forum members are time-limited, so it pays to get in there quickly.
For a more permanent choice of reading material, check out MobileRead’s E-book Uploads Library, which provides thousands of free downloads for Kindle, Sony and other e-readers. Simply choose your desired format from the drop-down E-Books menu to view a list of available titles.
Download free short stories from Smashwords
Online writing community Smashwords gives anyone the chance to be an ebook author by providing a free and easy way to distribute your work to a worldwide audience. Although some people use the site to sell their books (keeping 85 per cent of the profit), Smashwords also features tons of free stories uploaded by budding writers, spanning a wide range of fiction and non-fiction categories. It’s particularly strong on short stories, so is worth a look if you fancy reading something new and different. The ebooks are available in all the main formats and can be previewed online before you download them. Just click the ‘Free ebooks’ filter at the top of the page and choose a genre.
Get free science-fiction stories from Baen
The independent publisher Baen, which specialises in science fiction and fantasy books, offers a large number of titles for free in its Free Library section. You can download these ebooks in a variety of formats, including MOBI, EPUB, Sony Digital Reader and RTF; read selected chapters or complete books online; and have files emailed directly to your Kindle. Most titles are electronic versions of Baen books published over the last decade by noted sci-fi and fantasy authors such as David Drake, Eric Flint and David Weber.
Expand your ebook collection at Obooko
Acclaimed by About.com (www.about.com) readers as the best free ebook website of 2011, Obooko features nothing but free, legal titles by independent authors. Once you’ve registered with the site for free, you can take your pick of thousands of ebooks across categories that include Historical Fiction, Computers & the Internet, and Travel Writing & Guidebooks.
All the books are available as PDF files, with an increasing number also in EPUB and Kindle format. Obooko covers an impressively diverse range of topics and, although some titles are rather niche, it’s a useful way to expand your ebook collection without paying a thing. You can even upload books you’ve written yourself.
Get alerts when free ebooks are added to Amazon
The excellent eReaderIQ.com keeps track of all the free ebooks that are available for the Kindle through Amazon and notifies you as soon as new titles appear in the store. The details are sent in the form of an email digest, either once or twice a day, from which you can click straight through to Amazon to download the books. Recent additions are also listed by date on the eReaderIQ.com website.
Usefully, the service ignores public- domain titles, so you don’t get unnecessarily excited about yet another free edition of Pride and Prejudice, and includes already available books that have just added a Kindle version. The site also lets you set price-drop alerts for ebooks you want to buy but feel are currently too expensive, and create a watch-list of favourite books that you’re waiting to be made available.
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