Get Free Books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google Ebookstore

After discovering sites specifically offering free books (here), it may be a surprise that the major online booksellers, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Google ebookstore are also great sources for free books that you can download and read on your computer, your Kindle, your Nook, or -- as has been pointed out to me -- other ebook readers.

Why would they do this? Simply, it is good business. If you visit their sites looking for free books, you may find a book that you would like to buy.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Amazon, which sells the Kindle, and Barnes & Noble, which sells the Nook, are carving out markets for ebooks with their increasingly popular ebook readers.

You can access free books for the Nook from Barnes & Noble here and learn more about the Nook and how to get free software to turn your computer or smart phone into a virtual Nook here.

You can access free books for the Kindle from Amazon here and learn more about the Kindle and how to get free software to turn your computer or smart phone into a virtual Kindle here.

Notice that these offerings are not limited to books that are out of copyright. The two booksellers offer more recent books for free at times. Keep going back to check on the latest offerings, and--as previously mentioned--while you are at it, you just may want to buy a book... or two... or...

Google ebookstore

Google ebookstore (website) is the new kid on the Internet, dating from 2010. It is the only one of these purveyors of ebooks that does not have its own ebook reader, but from its site, Google ebookstore offers downloads of free software to read its volumes(here).

While Google ebookstore books are compatible with a variety of devices (list), they cannot be read on the Kindle. If you have a Kindle and really want to patronize Google ebookstore, you have to use their free software.

Google ebookstore is building on Google books (they do not use a capital letter for ebookstore or books), and there seems to be some sorting out, at least as far as free books go.

Free books from both Google services

Since the world would be a much better place if more people were reading The Mysteries of the People, the series of novels by Eugène Sue, consider that you want to begin reading the with its first volume, The gold sickle: or, Hena, the virgin of the Isle of Sen, a tale of druid Gaul, and you would like to read it for free.

If you go through Google ebookstore, you can read it online for free, starting here. On the other hand, if you go through Google books, you can read it online or download it as a Adobe .PDF file or as an .EPUB (the Nook format) file here.

You can also download it, by the way, in various formats from Project Gutenberg (here), from the Internet Archive (here), and from Munsey's (here)-- the three sites for free ebooks described in my article.

If you find a book through Google that is not available on the other sites, but you have a Kindle, you can, of course, convert it to Kindle's preferred .MOBI format with Calibre (learn more, including the download site ). You can also access "Retroread" (here), where you can convert the file you wanted to .MOBI or download files that others have already converted. By the way, Retroread is powered by Calibre, so you can just go directly to Calibre yourself.

Check this index to my articles on "How to Read Ebooks for Pleasure and Convenience."