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Free Ebooks!

Posted: 07 Apr 2015, 21:23
by Cristiana

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 07 Apr 2015, 23:31
by Jesse Fforde
I work in a book shop and this gives me all kinds of nasty eye twitches.

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 08 Apr 2015, 19:48
by Reanna
Not everyone can afford books, sadly.

I'm an avid reader. I used to go out and buy books in bulk, especially from those bargain bookstores, but at this point in time, I can't even afford that, so I'm always looking for these sites or using Amazon for my Kindle with their free books. I miss real books, but if I want to read, this is all I can do. :/

Thanks for this! I'll check it out.

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 08 Apr 2015, 20:29
by Pi dArtois
I never buy/download pirate books, because I know too many writers, some struggling, who are in as much a bind for money as I am.

I do like those freebie books on Amazon, sometimes they're absolute rubbish, but there have been a couple gems.

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 08 Apr 2015, 22:25
by Sterling Monsivais (DELETED 6002)
A few points to make, here:


1.) E-books generally do not negatively impact the sales of physical books. In most cases, books available on Nook/Kindle/etc are scanned in from the physical copy and run 4-8 dollars less, which...generally doesn't make a dent in author profits. In the cases of the links provided, these are not pirated.

2.) Linking back to my first point, they are books that are now considered public domain, meaning quite a few of these are past the 70-year copyright agreement. This is especially true of classic works of literature.

3.) Authors do not get any compensation whatsoever from used/secondhand bookshops. This is true even with popular sites like Amazon; that money goes directly into the pockets of the retailer.

and finally:

4.) Free e-books, free books, or less expensive e-books are often more practical for several reasons. Books are expensive. A hardback alone is usually upwards of $26 for fiction/non-fiction and $18+ for YA fiction. Not everyone can afford books. Yes, libraries are an option, but not everyone has access to a library, and not every library is guaranteed to carry copies of a book--particularly in the case of older/out of print books.

Shocker of shockers, as much as I love books and am an avid reader, guess what? I own two E-readers because I a.) am running out of space on my shelves and b.) don't always have an extra $30 to chuck away at conventional bookstores. It's 2015; this really needs to stop being treated as a taboo practice.


That being said! Thanks for the links! It's pretty generous.

*Scurries back to the shadows*

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 08 Apr 2015, 22:59
by Remington Rothfelder
Thanks for the site. I've been looking for some more classics.

Re: Free Ebooks!

Posted: 09 Apr 2015, 00:17
by Pi dArtois
Sterling Monsivais wrote:
and finally:

4.)
I love ebooks, and have kindle across, eight or ten devices? (long story, which includes my whole family using one Amazon account - but it's awesome Amazon doesn't have device restrictions).

In NZ paperbacks start at $25 and climb from there. I could pay around $50 - $60 easy for one hardback book. So as far as cost goes, having a US Amazon account where I can buy books for $4 - 8 means a lot to my annual budget (so I totally feel you there)

And I've been trying to find the charger equivalent for my iPaq I bought in 2002-ish so I can see if I can pull my eBooks off my reader on that. My comfort and love of eBooks goes back a long way.


Chloe and I get into all sorts of awesome discussions about eBooks, and we have agreed to disagree on the pros of either but I love ebooks for their portability and their ability to let me have my usual ten active books going at a time and not have to carry around the actual books themselves.

There was no judgement about people that read ebooks in my post. Rather that it is sometimes hard to determine in some sites like these which are books that are allowed to be downloaded, and which, are not and I mentioned it, because I'm usually leery of them, as a personal rule. A lot of public libraries in the US now, allow free downloads of classics too.

They're a good source of freebies.