5 Ways to Get Free E-books for the Kindle, Sony, IPad and Other Ebook Readers

How to Fill Your Ebook Reader with Classics as Well as Works by Favorite and New Authors

MH Bonham, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 30, 2010 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

I'm a sucker for a good book. I'm also a sucker for a free ebook since I'm an author and sometimes a little low on cash. I buy books when I can to support an author, but quite honestly, I hate buying books by an author that I end up disliking and feel like I've wasted a lot of money on. The good news is, I don't have to-and neither do you. You can get whole novels by both professional and up-and-coming authors that will fill you ebook reader to capacity.

Sounds good? Here's how!

1. Get Free Ebooks from Ebook Sites

There are plenty of ebooks free for the reading across the web. Many ebook sites such as Project Gutenberg offer books that have gone into public domain for absolutely no cost. Still, others such as Smashwords, Fictionwise and Free-Ebooks.net offer many books for free that are not public domain but are available for download. There are many sites, so you may wish to search for "free ebooks," but here are some of my favorites to start out:

2. Search for Your Ebooks through Ebook Search Engines

Both PDFGenie and PDF-Search-Engine.com do a decent job finding PDF books available. If you have a Kindle, like I do, you can either pay Amazon to convert your PDF to Kindle format or you can go to Mobipocket.com and download their Mobipocket publisher for free (Kindle uses the Mobi format).

PDFGenie

PDF-Search-Engine.com

3. Get the Book from the Author Free

Many authors want you to try them and read their works before investing in their books, so they're offering a few books of theirs without a catch. Look up your favorite authors on the web and see if they have free downloads of a particular book. You may get signed up for their newsletter or maybe their book may have an advertisement on the page for the trade paperback, but you get to read some great books for free this way.

4. Get Free Ebooks from the Publisher

Baen books, Dragon Moon Press, and others, started giving the first few books in a series away for free so the reader would be enticed enough to purchase the paperback or the rest of the series. Now other publishers offer free ebooks as well that you can take advantage of without a catch.

Baen Free Library

eHarlequin

5. Get Your Freebies Directly from Amazon and BN.com

Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have their own versions of ereaders which are available for download to various devices and systems. To entice you to their website, they offer free ebooks. Barnes and Noble has no problem listing all the free ebooks, but with the Kindle, it can be a little tricky finding ebooks that aren't in the public domain. Look at the Kindle bestsellers and also the lists by other Amazon readers and you're bound to find some pretty spectacular bargains.

Amazon.com

Barnes and Noble.com

References