Late Edit: VL Baker has a post up right now, offering an important and free eBook:
Free cookbook shows you how to eat well on $4 a day..great for SNAP..download it right here!
It has been a while since I scoured the internets looking for cheap reads, and I found some interesting alternatives to browsing the sites that can be found below the fold. But first, a few websites that can help you build a fantastic free library on your eReader.
The original and perhaps the best place to find free eBooks is at Project Gutenberg. It is also a good place to donate a couple of bucks if you can spare them.
The mission of Project Gutenberg is simple:
To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.
This mission is, as much as possible, to encourage all those who are interested in making eBooks and helping to give them away.
- From the Project Gutenberg Mission Statement by Michael Hart
Project Gutenberg has now added a self-publishing portal that seems to contain, in addition to some mainstream selections, a lot of books on esoteric subjects. One thing that I have learned about Daily Kos readers is that if there is an esoteric subject, there is a Kossack who knows something about it.
From Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free eBooks, now comes the free Authors Community Cloud Library, a social network Self-Publishing Portal. This Portal allows authors to share their works with readers as well as allows readers to provide comments, reviews and feedback to the authors. Every eBook has its own Details Page, Star Ratings, and Reader Comment area.
For those interested in science fiction and fantasy, Baen Books has a free library.
Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration.) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed.)
Bookboon, originally started in Denmark and now based in London, offers 1,000 titles consisting of text books and business books. Supported by companies who desire an educated work force, each book may contain no more than 15% advertising.
I downloaded Excell 2010 just to take a look, and the advertising is less than you would see in any magazine, and since it is digital (pdf) it is easy to skip over. If you ever wanted to know how to use all of the features in Word but didn't want to pay extra for the manual or take a college level course, this may be the right place for you to find just what you need.
Open Culture, which bills itself as "the best free cultural & educational media on the web" offers not just eBooks but audio books, movies and online courses as well. It is an interesting place to browse; you can stumble across blog entries like Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intelligent Person Should Read and then download the free eBooks.
The Open Library, a part of the Internet Archive (home of the Wayback Machine as well as free audiobooks), claims 1,000,000 eBooks to download and 200,000 to borrow for reading online or on your eReader. The objective of Open Library is to create one "web page for every book ever published. It's a lofty but achievable goal."
Free eBooks.net:
Discover all-new, rising authors. Independent writers offer both entertaining fiction/romance for your enjoyment and non-fiction to help you find info from self-help to biz growth.
If you are looking for a particularly hard to find pulp fiction read,
Munseys is the place for you, with over 30,000 novels downloadable in multiple formats. Thanks
Senor Unoball!
Also from the comments, is this tip from Susan Gardner
Girlebooks is a great site too, featuring women authors. Lots of free choices among the classics (Little Women, the Anne of Green Gables series), some fairly obscure but once-wildly popular female authors of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Most are free, some are available comparatively low-cost.
I went through a lot of Edna Ferber, E. Nesbit and E.M. Delafield there.
I cannot recommend the site enough for finding interesting, forgotten female authors.
Last June, as part of this series, I wrote
eBooks: how to get them free, audiobooks too, and while that diary contains some of the above websites, there are plenty more for you to explore, including those that offer free audiobooks.
The big three eBook retailers all provide free or heavily discounted eBooks.
Amazon provides links to other sites that offer free public domain eBooks, as well as all kinds of deals, daily, weekly, monthly and always.
Barnes & Noble has a separate page dedicated to its special offers. From there you can navigate to the page that offers 101 NOOK books for under $2.99, or to the NOOK Daily Find which brings you a Great Book at a Great Price.
Kobo has a Daily Deal, for a "Great eBook Every Day" with savings of up to 80%. In addition, Kobo also offers Free First in Series which gives a reader the chance to sample a series from the very beginning.
All three have free reading apps so you can read the books on your smart phone, tablet or computer.
I confess that I spend way too much time surfing the web, and fear that browsing one of the big three would be like shopping at Costco. You can go in there with a list of items that should cost $75 and wind up with a cart that totals twice that. So I am happy letting the retailers send me a daily email telling me what book is on sale.
Fortunately, in addition to the retailers, there are services that deliver a list of free or cheap eBooks to your mailbox every day. I have been giving a test drive to three of them for the last few weeks. The services are all free to the reader, so I signed up and selected mysteries and thrillers for my trial runs. Here are some of the current results.
BookGorilla delivers bargains on Kindle books, which means you either need a Kindle or a Kindle reading app (free on Amazon website). These are a few of the offerings that appeared in my email Tuesday morning:
- From the bestselling author of THE MAN, THE PRIZE & THE CHAPMAN REPORT, 80% off a thriller with a spouse-swapping premise:
THE SECOND LADY
By Irving Wallace
BEST PRICE EVER!
On a state visit to Moscow, Billie Bradford, the beautiful and brilliant wife of the President of the United States, is abducted by the Soviets and replaced by Vera Vazilova, a superbly trained Russian undercover agent and actress who is the First Lady's physical double....
Today's Bargain Price: $0.99
- BEST PRICE EVER on Ken Follett's monumental 733-page historical epic!
THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH
By Ken Follett
A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, this historical epic—a twelfth-century tale of the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral—stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity.
Today's Bargain Price: $4.59
Everyday Price: $7.99
- From the author of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, JURASSIC PARK, SPHERE & TIMELINE,
the BEST PRICE EVER on:
A CASE OF NEED: A Novel
By Michael Crichton
When one doctor is accused of murder, it takes another to set him free
In the tightly knit world of Boston medicine, the Randall family reigns supreme. When heart surgeon J. D. Randall’s teenage daughter dies during a botched abortion, the medical community threatens to explode. Was Karen Randall murdered in cold blood?
Today's Bargain Price: $1.99
Everyday Price: $ 5.99
lists eBooks that are available from a variety of sellers, so you are not restricted to Amazon or Kindle eReaders. Some of the titles from my Tuesday morning email:
- The Whitefire Crossing
By Courtney Schafer
“An exciting original read” (Martha Wells). Dev knows that smuggling someone across the border is nearly suicidal, but he promised a dying friend he would help young apprentice Kiran. Now Dev and Kiran are on the run from a powerful mage and caught in a dark web of their own deadly secrets…
$1.99
Originally: $ 14.99
- TekWar
By William Shatner
"Everyone's favorite starship captain has boldly gone where he has never ventured before!" (The Wall Street Journal). Ex-cop Jake Cardigan is framed for dealing “Tek,” a mind-altering computerized drug. Can he find the missing scientist whose invention could stop Tek’s dangerous spread and clear his name?
$1.99
Originally: $ 7.99
- Second Watch
By J. A. Jance
A thrilling tale of honor and suspense from a New York Times bestselling author. Detective J. P. Beaumont is supposed to be resting, but instead he’s haunted by memories of his war days. As the past meets the present, Beaumont is caught in a deadly web of the cases he couldn’t close.
$1.99
Originally: $ 12.99
- Blog This
By Cami Checketts
Natasha’s online campaign has bankrupted the video game company that she blames for her brother’s death. But now there’s a hit man on her trail. How far will she go to expose a real-world villain before the deadly games become all too real?
Free!
Originally: $ 4.99
has more of a focus on finding the right books, and less of a focus on finding the cheapest books. But their deals are still very good and like BookBub, the books are available in a variety of formats.
- A Murder Hatched, by Donna Andrews
$2.99 Average Rating 4.6 based on 30 reviews
Catch the first two books in Donna Andrews' award-winning laugh-out-loud Meg Lanslow series: this ebook bundle contains Murder with Peacocks and Murder with Puffins. See how this stunning, laugh-out-loud series all began and meet Meg Langslow, one of the most dynamic and hilarious characters ever to grace the mystery shelves. (Note: This novel is not rated for content.)
- The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins
$1.99 Average rating 4.4 based on 725 reviews
In the wilds of Mongolia, a research satellite has crashed, triggering an explosive search for its valuable cargo: a code-black physics project connected to the study of dark energy--and a shocking image of the eastern seaboard of the United States in utter ruin. At the Vatican, a package arrives containing two strange artifacts: a skull scrawled with ancient Aramaic and a tome bound in human skin. DNA evidence reveals that both came from the same body: the long dead Mongol king Genghis Khan. Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force set out to discover a truth tied to the fall of the Roman Empire, to a mystery going back to the birth of Christianity, and to a weapon hidden for centuries that holds the fate of humanity. (Note: This novel is not rated for content.)
- The Advocate's Betrayal by Teresa Burrell
$2.99 Average rating 4.4 based on 392 reviews
The Killer left nothing behind but a rosary, a kitchen knife, and a dead man. but the dead man is a friend of Sabre Orin Brown. When his unsuspecting wife is accused of the murder, Sabre will stop at nothing to uncover the truth, even if it means unearthing chilling secrets. From a San Diego jail to the shady Chicago nightlife, Sabre's search for the true killer forces her to face the question: What do you do when the ones you trust the most are the ones with the most to hide?
There are other websites that will email a list of discounted or free eBooks every day like
Pixel of Ink, and
Choosy Bookworm, both of which offer only Amazon eBooks. But if you are a kindle owner they might be worth checking out.
Ishmaelbychoice has reminded me of Manybooks.net which was included in last year's posting, but now offers a daily email service to let you know about new offerings.
ManyBooks offers, well, many books in multiple formats. And they are all free. Affiliated with Project Gutenberg, they claim over 29,000 titles. And they link to free audiobooks when available.
So, what are you doing here? There are free eBooks out there. Go get 'em.
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