Update 10/7/13 - Added additional Kindle book searches and including the monthly Amazon deals. Updated the free non-classics (or contemporary) book searches section and will do that monthly.I've added a separate page for Free Non-Classics so that the search links there can be accessed and used without having to see the the long page of blog posts that are on the main A Kindle World (Kindleworld) page.
The searches include (1) the current and previous months' releases that are still available and which can be sorted by publication date, popularity, or customer ratings average as of that day and (2) several less-known Amazon lists for temporarily-free or very low-cost Kindle books. That now separate page can be separately bookmarked and browsed without having to see the daily postings on the main page.
Occasionally, I'll post an alert on Twitter about a Kindle book (or productivity app) that's temporarily free or on discount for a day or so, if I think readers might not want to miss it. For books, this will generally be a non-fiction one having to do with the Kindle or just a book that's highly regarded. You can 'follow' twitter.com/kindleworld to catch them, although the tweets are usually about info in the latest blog posts.
Those already on Facebook might like to add Facebook (facebook.com/kindleworld.andrys) via the 'Like' feature (to get Facebook notifications of a new posting or alert) if interested in that. Questions can be posted there, with responses in a day or two, which for some is more convenient than posting questions in a comment-area of a blog post.
Current month's search-links for free Kindle books (contemporary, non-classics)
Updated January 6, 2016
December 2015 JANUARY 2016.
Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
Publication Date Bestselling
Adding, for interim alert, Highly rated, under $1
And, of course, here's the Kindle Daily Deals, which changes shortly after midnight each day.
They added the Monthly Kindle deals, but these are 99c up to $3.99, often at very good discounts, but never free. However, they're very popular, so are included here for interest.
In addition, added during 2012: "Mostly 99c Kindle Books" page, which is a different Amazon listing from the one for highly rated Kindle books under $1.
Amazon Top 100 (Also, UK-only) along with Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.
Update 12/23/12 - Amazon expanded the Kindle Daily Deal to include books in several genres as of December 2012 and children's books earlier in 2012. They also added prior to that the MONTHLY as opposed to Daily deals.
This blog article was updated throughout, as of Dec. 23, 2012, for latest information, links and approximate numbers of Kindle books in current Amazon sets, as of that day.
Earlier Update - 12/15/11 - Amazon changed the coding of the display of Kindle books -- types and sorting methods -- so I changed the various links.
UPDATES for Dec. 20-21, 2011 include adding links for Classics + Public Domain ONLY, as they include latest governmental and organizational information books and documents, and some of the latter are intriguing. Also updated Feedbooks info.
UPDATED Dec. 19, 2011 to change all links and add some
ALL REVISED LINKS FOR FREE KINDLE BOOKS PAGE ARE BELOW
The various links below are now revised to work with the new coding, Monday the 19th In the meantime, the information on free book sources remains accurate. The UK links at the end still need revising though.
This long-standing blog entry, Free Kindle Books (begun in 2009), was revised April 10, 2011 to remove most of the chronological changes made over the last two years as it became too confusing to read.
It was also updated again soon after that for the many changes to the free and low-cost Kindle books area at Amazon. Besides the 33,000+ free, complete books (only the ones in English), there are links to find Kindle books that are $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99, as a lot of authors are publishing in that price-range and they're not easy to find. Some are books by indie authors and others are popular books for which the price has been dropped by Big6 publishers after a couple of years or when they want to introduce new readers to authors who have
UPDATE-2a: NOTE that as of Dec. 2012, Amazon Prime customers can borrow one book per calendar month from the the Prime Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL) selection of approximately 180,000 Kindle books
And as of September 21, 2011, Amazon Kindle customers have been able to borrow Kindle books from 11,000+ public libraries in the U.S.
[ End of Update-2a, first added Nov. 10, 2011, and updated Dec. 23, 2012 ]
Find Free Kindle books plus Lower-Cost Kindle Books
Click here first for most recently published NON-classics under $1 or try that list sorted by bestselling. There are more new temporarily-free books or discount-promos on most days, but also prices do change back, so check them regularly.
UPDATE-1: NOTE that the Amazon book promos tend to be temporary and when the price goes back up, Amazon updates the product page $-amounts faster than they update the pricing amounts for the database used for the Amazon searches. You'll note that they're in flux often, so ignore the few that are higher than $0.99 the search-value.
To limit your search to Only the FREE non-classics, check directly below:
This resource contains prepared links that you can click on, at any time, to find, for example, the most recently published free non-classics, or you can choose to see these according to bestselling or highest rated ones as they appear, on a daily basis or more.
These are usually temporarily free, on a short promotional basis, and a click will show you the latest ones, although Amazon displays free books on various listings and they don't all show up any one list
On your computer's web-browser, you can of course bookmark this page to get here more easily. The short URL is http://bit.ly/kfreelow3.
Chapter, Excerpts and Previews
Since most Kindle owners seem interested in complete books, I've tried to avoid search results for books which offer only certain chapters, excerpts and which are, essentially, previews. At least, they're labelled clearly, in any event, when you go to the Amazon Kindle book pages.
Free Kindle-Compatible books at Non-Amazon websites
This guide to Free and Low-cost Books page also includes links to most of the other (non-Amazon) Web site that have a strong offering of free Kindle-compatible books, many of which are directly downloadable to your Kindle at no added cost. Let me know about good (legal) ones I haven't included.
Important advantages to downloading Kindle versions of free books
Bear in mind that when you download free Kindle books from Amazon, they can be
1. Sync'd with your other Kindle-compatible devices and
2. Included in your private-password protected Annotations webpage on Amazon servers,
which can be accessed at kindle.amazon.com
Kindle Edition blog-subscribers
Subscribers to the Kindle blog-edition have found that when following blog-links to a book or other Amazon product, the Kindle Edition is not always enabled to make clickable orders through the Kindle-version of the Kindle Store.
. So I recommend a drop-in to the webpage when you feel like checking the latest published free nonclassics and best-selling free nonclassics -- as these can change in a couple of hours and there are about 6 pages of them at any given time.
Another Amazon Change - "Relevance," which I've called "LateListed."
It shows up now only in certain circumstances and sometimes is called 'default' so I'm ignoring it at this point.
"By Relevance" ('default') or Late-listed ebooks tended to include books that were published some years ago but which were recently added to the temporarily-free non-classic Kindle book listings. "By Publication Date"-lists would show these books, published some years ago, lower down in the listings when sorting by more-recently published, at the top. I'll watch what they're doing it with it these days and see if I can make sense of it.
With the links below you can quickly see only the small selection of currently-free contemporary Kindle books sorted also by Publication Date, Bestsellers (linked just above) or by the Average Customer-Rating, as that's made easier with the prepared links on this page.
Each Kindle Edition blog has the last 25 blog articles, searchable on the Kindle so that you can find items of interest more easily within the 25 articles while offline. I think many will find it useful despite my penchant for giving source-links for data. I try to include enough info from the news sources so that Kindle Edition blog-subscribers for A Kindle World don't have to click links to get the main points.
Again, a few newer books are promotional and free for only a while. Sometimes for only a couple of days.
So it's a good idea to bookmark this page, in addition to other resources you use, to check out, when you're able, what might be new to you, with the ready-links to categories of available free or very low cost books.
SUMMING UP:
MAIN FREE KINDLE BOOK SEARCH LINKS
1. INCLUDING CLASSICS & PUBLIC DOMAIN (updated 12/23/12)
Amazon's now almost 41,000+ free books (complete and in English), sorted by:
Bestselling or by Highest Rated or by Publication Date
These include both the classics and non-classic books.
UPDATE 12/20-21 to include mostly Public Domain (Classics included) titles -- somehow some contemporary ones and books with the work 'classic' in the description are also included.
2. MOSTLY CLASSICS & PUBLIC DOMAIN
The Public Domain ones include later books or documents that are offered to the public by government or informational organizations.
As of today, 12/23/2012, there are over 33,000 Classics and Public Domain offerings and some impurities that sneak in. These are sorted by:
Bestselling or by Highest Rated or by Publication Date
The last, publication-date, sort is best for latest free government or organizational information releases on quite esoteric subjects. [End of Update]
3. NON-CLASSICS ONLY (mainly)
Amazon's CURRENTLY FREE Non-Classics sorted by Bestselling, or by Highest Rated, or by Publication Date.
UK links added:
Recently published free books and bestsellers
The free Non-classic Kindle books list changes almost daily, sometimes hourly.
This should help with finding Amazon's Kindle Digital-Text Platform (DTP)-published authors' new self-published books and other-publisher Kindle books that are discounted):
(NOTE: SOME higher prices will appear in each set because their prices changed but they are
still tagged somewhere as the lower price.)
These are links for non-classics UNDER $1 (From $0.01 to $1)
a. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS.
and links for non-classics FROM $1 to $1.99 (mostly)
a. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS
and links for non-classics FROM $2 to $2.99 (mostly)
a. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS
You can change the Sort on the Amazon page, at the top-right.
4. The Project Gutenberg e-books catalog (MOBI editions) for Kindles. You can browse or search the catalog on your Kindle and click on one to have it downloaded to your Kindle from the site.
There are no Amazon charges on a download from the Project Gutenberg site.
5. A humongous Amazon Forum thread on a million or so books readable on the Kindle - How to get them (mostly free).
6. How to convert, in 2-3 minutes, any of Google's half million free books. They are available in ePub format. But you can now download instead the PDF versions although the re-flowed text of ePub and Kindle-Mobi books may be easier to read than original layout PDFs.
OTHER SEARCHES
I need to add these days that some international Kindle users in Europe and some other countries are in high wireless-cost areas, so Amazon charges about $2 more in some countries for the otherwise free book. They've removed the additional charge in a few countries though.
FREE CLASSICS AND PUBLIC DOMAIN BOOKS AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE
(Let me know what you use, from the list below, that needs updating. Thanks.)
For these Amazon customers and any Kindle owners interested in finding mostly free, direct-to-Kindle e-books at other sites -- these sites can download direct to a Kindle, at no cost:
You can also download to your Kindle or computer, for later transfer to your Kindle, free "mobi" or "prc" format books from feedbooks.com, manybooks.net, fictionwise.com, and as I've often mentioned, any of 30,000 well-formatted books from the Project Gutenberg set.
Recommended also are the millions of free Internet Archive books and documents plus other offerings from the January 24, 2010 blog article.
The Internet Archive folks are responsible for Open Library -- "Open Library is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published."
Mobileread Forum books makes very well-proofed e-books. This links to their listing of e-books, sorted by Amazon-readable 'PRC' format and by most recent first. These tend to be very well formatted, with linked table-of-contents page when applicable, and mostly free. Some of their ebooks are sold at Amazon and I think more of them will use the self-publishing feature of Amazon in the future.
Baen.com. Baen's Free Library offers science-fiction in ".prc" (MOBI) format, which is essentially the Kindle format without rights-protection. While Baen's e-books might not be directly downloaded to the Kindle (they offer you the choice to email their e-books to your Kindle instead) -- and if you get a book that way, it incurs costs of about 15c per megabyte of a file. Books that are mainly text seldom are more than a megabyte so the cost would be 15c).
But you can choose to, instead, download Baen's e-books to the computer and transfer them via USB cable to the Kindle's "documents" folder (or use the USB cable to attach the Kindle to your computer and download direct to the Kindle's "documents" folder. Here's their Guide to doing that.
Baen.com also sells non-rights-protected commercial offerings (in addition to offering free classics) in that format.
NOTE: Again, Kindles with 3G Cellular wireless or using WiFi networks CAN download books direct-to-Kindle from several book stores (see above) using the Kindle web-browser.
If wondering what the differences are between the '3G' and 'WiFi' capabilities, a short blog article here may help.
FURTHER UPDATE 12/20-21, 2011
Feedbooks Dedicated Kindle Guide
Commenter Tom Semple pointed out that Feedbooks.com discontinued the Kindle Guide but has instructions for downloading the Kindle-compatible editions as well as a link for downloading them direct to the Kindle. [End of Update]
Mobile Device-Optimized Pages
For those who can and do use the wireless feature to look up information on the Net, there are links to the mobile-device-optimized versions of the webpages for feedbooks.com and manybooks.net.
The Kindle can access these two sites more easily using these links::
(1) feedbooks.com-mobile: http://www.feedbooks.com/?format=mobile and
(2) manybooks.net: http://mnybks.net.
Some (especially e-Ink reader users) who need smaller mobile-oriented webpages might want to use the free, downloadable 'book' file I put together which is made up of mobile-device-friendly links to various popular websites and which explains some workarounds for problems that might be encountered using webpages such as the one for gmail.
AMAZON'S Free Book Collections webpage
As of March 2, 2010, Amazon added a new page with pointers to Free Book Collections on the Net, all of which are included here. This ongoing blog article includes other large, Kindle-compatible book sources as well and has pointers to and links for such things as how to get the Project Gutenberg books on your Kindle directly, without needing to use a computer vs the method described at Amazon's page.
That new Amazon page also includes a link to its own Amazon Free Classics listing. There are over 15,500 free classics at Amazon. Again, annotations made on these Classics can be kept on your private, password-protected webpage on the Amazon servers, and you can sync Amazon books between your Kindle-compatible devices, including smart phones, tablets, and with free apps for them and for your PC or Mac.
NOT FREE
For those interested in an easier-to-remember shortcut to Amazon's current 100 Bestsellers (the majority seem to be free but there are regular-priced ones in the list as well), try http://bit.ly/kbsellers.
Here's a search some have requested on the forums -- non-classics under $10, for a time when the Big6 publishers (with Apple iBookstore as driving force) have successfully pushed Amazon to the "Agency" model and to prices too often from $13 to $15 for newer books.
That lists contemporary Kindle books priced from $3.00 through $9.99, and sorts by bestselling books, with most popular books first, as Kindle owners on forums have wanted to be able to easily find e-books that are priced below $10.
These start at $3 because $0 to $2.99 range is already covered above.
When at the page results, you can sort by low-to-high or high-to low also, using the options in the top, right-hand corner.
Also, a popular item for browsing has been the Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2009. This was first noted in the blog entry for Amazon's Best of 2009.
Later added Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2010.
And here's Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2011 so far (Dec. 19 Update).
*NON*-KINDLE - These are paper books, but the 40% discounts should be noted.
As of March 3, 2010, Amazon has created a new page that highlights what they consider "the best new books" to read every month. These feature "editors' picks" and "reviews of the best new reads in fiction, nonfiction, and books for young readers, available at 40% off all month long." The new page is titled Amazon's Best Books of the Month Store.
Again, these are *NOT* Kindle books, but some books are not in Kindle format and some readers don't have Kindles, yet :-)
CURRENT KINDLE MODELS for reference - REGULAR pricing, which changes when there are sales.
See New Kindles for details
Just want to say THANKS for all the info. My Kindle arrives Monday.
ReplyDeleteGuy, welcome to the Kindler community :-) Loved your article on how Balzac drove you to buying a Kindle and equally enjoyed your piece on Strangers on a Train.
ReplyDeleteI recently re-watched that film when Farley Granger was here, at age 80, interviewed in person for a film festival. I have a couple of photos and brief videoclip that I should get up. Same voice, healthy, obviously a bit older but still in good shape.
From your column, I can see the book is quite a bit more interesting though!
For others, see http://bit.ly/balzacguy
Thanks for the delightful feedback. Let us know how it goes with the new addition.
:-)
I will. I ordered the Kindle 2 BTW.
ReplyDeleteGuy, I'm bringing the K2 with me too. It's the perfect size for normal book reading. The DX, though I love it and prefer it now, sometimes just seems ostentatious. The other is more personal.
ReplyDeleteSay, you must have your K2 now!
Great blog and a great resource. Now that the Kindle is FINALLY available in Canada I am thinking of ordering one and love the idea of free content. Am wondering if you have any insight into the reason why Amazon charges Canadians $2.00 each for all the books they are offering for free in the US? Trying to recover costs associated to setting up the network in Canda? Because they can? It sort of bothers me to know that I won't have access to as many free books as an American user would (aside from public domain books).
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteIt would bother me too. But the key is with publishers of items subject to digital rights management, especially e-books (though iTunes has a similar problem with at least some apps being downloadable outside the U.S.), and the digital rights involved and someone(s) must convince them they'll make more money if they have some kind of agreement that is more similar to the ones for physical books, which flow rather freely w/o concern about country borders and also seeing Amazon as the Selling Point or place of sale instead of each place the customer is at.
The $2 has to be an averaging of cost to them for the wireless in places where they can't get decent deals going with the wireless carriers. But there is that general "the cost of doing business outside the U.S." reason they give, which is one that any business will see when expanding its business abroad and when needing to sell from one point.
Worse is spending for an e-reader and finding most books you're interested in are downloadable in the U.S. but not from the country you're in.
The digital rights thing is crazy. Good luck on your choice!
Delighted with my Kindle so far, and I'm looking forward to the new updated version w/PDF capability. So far,I've loaded my Kindle with free books and find reading on this device a pleasure.
ReplyDeleteGuy,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see this update from you. You will like the updated PDF capability and the option to have Amazon convert a copy to reflowed-text for the usual features. Also, the webbrowser has been faster, and the Wikipedia access is almost instantaneous.
Thanks for the follow-up.
I live in Bangalore and want a Kindle. I wonder whether I can download books into the kindle .. and I wonder whether I can use the USB to shove a few free books inside.
ReplyDeleteToo much information on the web that conflicts :-(
Thanks .. and you have a great site. I plan to keep visiting.
Arvind
Arvind,
ReplyDeleteIn India, web-browsing is not enabled (though 24/7 free access to Wikipedia is), but you can download Amazon books direct to your Kindle, yes.
However, the 'free' Amazon books would cost something like $2.30 to your country (and to Europe).
I recommend getting free books (via your computer) at feedbooks.com or manybooks.net instead or download any of the 30,000 public domain ones at Project Gutenberg and then move those to your Kindle via the USB. Totally free that way.
Thanks for your nice words!
Thanks for your blog, Andrys! I feel confident that I will be able to manage my Kindle with your help - I'll get one at Christmas. Just downloaded Kindle for PC and am reading the slow cooker cookbook! I enjoy following you on Twitter - I am Chanteuse64 there.
ReplyDeletenewwine,
ReplyDeleteWill be glad to help, and Christmas is a great time to get one :-)
I like your choices of screen names. Say, besides the Kindle interest, another shared one: I sang in the SF Symphony Chorus for many years (but am no soloist - loved being part of the sound the group produced though). A favorite of concerts we did was Berlioz's Beatrice and Benedict, soloist Federica von Stade.
Can you tell us how you implemented a price range in the searches for books under $1, under $2, etc.? I see the ranges in the rather long URLs that these links point to, but I don't see anything on the Advanced Search page on Amazon that lets you specify price ranges.
ReplyDeleteMark,
ReplyDeleteAlmost a year ago, I used
http://www.jungle-search.com/US/kindle.php to get the basic urls for what I knew I wanted.
I had to go look it up just now, remembering I should look up 'kindle books jungle*' because it had been so long since I used it (and because my first guess didn't work).
Recently I just modified the ranges in the URL, as you saw. Amazon doesn't make them available to us but the jungle-search team knows what's possible with undocumented search routines at Amazon.
I should do an entry on jungle-search page because I got there just now and see it has more options than it did when I last visited.
I would imagine you have a developer's kit for the Kindle? Or, at least I'm hoping you do.
Thanks for the pointer to jungle-search! I did see that during some Google searching but hadn't tried it. I wonder how they discovered the apparently undocumented search features?
ReplyDeleteI don't have a developer's kit for the Kindle. I thought about it, but I've got too many other quixotic projects (writing a text editor in Ruby for Linux, learning the Brahms Op. 118 and the Ravel "Le Tombeau de Couperin", etc.). The one thing I really wanted to do for the Kindle is write a tagging system, but I'm going to wait for Amazon to release their promised organizational features before deciding what to do about that.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteWhaaat? Did you know I have an mp3 of the Op. 118 up? The first one I tried people complained it was too fast, so this one is very slow. I like a variety of tempi on this (one at a time). I'll write you with the URL - I handled the inner lines pretty badly in a few spots but the piece is gorgeous!
Had no idea you were a pianist!
Smart to wait before doing that work because they more or less promised it'll be ready before summer.
Andrys,
ReplyDeleteLong time reader here. Keep at it!
Just thought it would be nice if you'd write something about the numerous versions of certain books. I just looked up Dracula and it has multitude versions. It often hard to tell what you are getting, especially if it's abridged (which I hate). Captain Blood is equally confusing.
Maybe you've covered this issue and I missed it?
Cheers.
I remember trying to get the Devil's Dictionary and wound up going through 14 samples of them and found one I liked but then found what I felt was the best version on mobileread forums.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me I should get the link for that books forum there and include it and had not because it has prices on some of them (not free) and might confuse in a blog entry on free books but I recently expanded the ongoing free books entry to low-cost books so I could do that under the Not-Free area below.
The copy I liked was mentioned to me by someone who reads this blog and it was available not from the regular books section there (for some reason) but from a message in the forums.
If in investigating multiple copies, you have recommendations on the ones that are best formatted and have linked table of contents, let me know and I'll put it onto a new entry for a recommended version of a book that has umpteen copies.
Thanks for the feedback and suggestion!
Online reviews have hinted at a new Kindle in August. Do you think this will still happen or was the larger kindle it? I'm thinking of buying one but want to wait if a new version is coming in August. I've read lots of good comments about the new larger one but don't want big one.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Anonymous (7/20/2010)
ReplyDeleteI know only that the e-Ink makers did make these in smaller models, and I can't imagine they won't be made available. Bloomberg Business has hinted of a new model but they don't name their sources or have any details. I might post something about this later.
You do get 30 days to decide whether or not you want to keep a Kindle you purchase with full refund available if it doesn't meet your needs.
Andrys,
ReplyDeleteHi, wondering if with everything else you've had a chance to keep up with www.retroread.com, which continues to evolve and is pushing 2,000 user-converted titles available for download, fully searchable using Google search, and more importantly, can be directly downloaded from Kindle browser (nice link for your Kindle optimized sites ..) As well as emailed to your personal email, kindle, or free.kindle addresses (configurable). While it's still only ~10% of Project Gutenberg, it has a LOT of headroom with 1 million+ Google books to source from.
We get lots of visits from your "How to convert" page, but every converted book is added to the library too, so it's also just a place to go (from your Kindle) to get books!
Thanks,
dme
I am a new Kindle owner and accidentally loaded a bunch of books in complete folders by drag and drop. Used up a lot of space and I can't access them. If I de register my Kindle and then re register it, will that remove everything? Then I could reload the books I got on Kindle from my site could I not? Any help would be great. Thanks and regards
ReplyDeleteMarcus
Your links to free non-classics are just redirecting to the Amazon front page for me. I'm using Firefox 5.01.
ReplyDeleteKat, I have so many links to free non-classics. Could you mention one specific one? They tend to be by publication date and other sort methods.
ReplyDeleteI tried 4 of them and they all went to the right page and brought up the right lists.
I have firefox 5.0 and after reading your note, I won't be upgrading it...
Could you try IE? on the same links? Or even Google's Chrome? Chrome is very fast.
Thanks.
As an author, getting your books free on Amazon is something of a lottery. First you have to upload to the likes of Barnes and Noble and Apple through smashwords who accept free uploads. You then have to hope readers report them free with the "report a cheaper price button" (Or nudge the readers through various forums.) It is still not certain that Amazon will price match. I have a short political thriller Where there's a will, there's a war free on .com and .co.UK, but for some reason there is no "report a cheaper price" button on Amazon Germany. Only the old classics seem to be free in Germany.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to update the "Free Kindle Books Page. For example, when I click the link "most recently published NON-classics under $1" at the beginning of the article I get sent to a page where the first item costs $144.45. A sort in price order shows that the cheapest item on that list costs $2.31! Several other links do similar things.
ReplyDeleteA good idea though.
david,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the heads-up on that. When I get back tonight I'll look over that code.
How are the ones at the top of the reference column at the right, for the general page doing for you?
David,
ReplyDeleteI checked it out, and the book you described seems to have been removed from Amazon's search-database for the parameters used in the search.
With two exceptions at the top, for which pricing has gone back up but the database doesn't contain that information yet, the rest of the entries on the first page are $0.99
Here's a snapshot of what I saw when I clicked on that link.
Then, when I sorted it from low-to-high, I got a lot of $0.01 e-books.
So, I've added 1-1/2 paragraphs to explain this. I hope that generally, the link is helpful when people check it -- although it's in flux as I mention, since promos are temporary.
Let me know if the linked listing still has no under $1 listings in it when you search it (and if it does, let me know which browser and version you're using). Thanks!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend and I recently bought two Kindle Touches while in the US for Thanksgiving. We both live in Europe (Germany). We've noticed that when she searches for free books on-line, she has over 44,000 to choose from yet I have only 22,000 to choose from. What could be different in my settings that lessens the amount of books to choose from? Thanks, Gerry.
Gerry
DeleteI assume you are using precisely the same search words. In my experience, different search tools or browsers return a differing number of hits. For instance, if she searches using Google and you search using Yahoo, you will received different results. The same applies for using Internet Explorer versus Mozilla Firefox, or different versions thereof.
Hope this helps.
Beth
FYI, the Feedbooks "Kindle Download Guide" does not exist any longer. As I recall, they discontinued this service many months ago. I think there were a lot of problems downloading it (it was huge, and I certainly had such problems) and they just couldn't justify continued support.
ReplyDeleteIn any case Feedbooks remains my first stop when I'm considering a public domain title (which in Kindle Store have always been terribly formatted). They have a good template and consistently good formatting.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteHow interesting. I don't remember the Guide being os large it would be a problem since staight text downloads 4x faster than most, so they must have added illustrations since I last looked.
Thanks for reading through all that and finding this. I'll update it tonight.
And thanks for the reminder that they take care with the formatting there. That's very important. Will add your note about that there.
Beth,
ReplyDeleteMany good points! I had assumed they were both doing searches of Amazon Kindle books but probably not, and the search terms definitely make a difference, as well as where you're searching in the store. Thanks!
I am going to tell my authors about kindleworld because this looks like a great resource. I really like the under ten dollar link. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteAfter I download free daily ebooks, will I get charged for them if they are no longer free?
ReplyDeletejeanni, after you download free daily ebooks, there'll be no charge attached to them when they're no longer free. If you caught it in time, it's just free to you. Not to worry :-)
DeleteRegarding download from Gutenberg.org (and from other web sites), you may want to revise the information on that to take note that (at least my 1st gen) Kindle Fires cannot download and open .mobi files directly with the web browser. They still have a Fire 'review' over at gutenberg ranting about how difficult it is to get free content on the Fire, and that people should consider a Nexus 7 instead. I don't know if this is still true of more recent Fires. The workaround is kind of ugly (move it from Download to Documents using ES File Explorer, AND go to Settings Applications and Force Stop the Kindle app to get Docs view to update!).
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear that newer Fires don't have this problem (but only if it is true!).
Tom, thanks for the reminder. I was going to do a blog entry, at one point, on the curious rant there from the new Project Gutenberg manager, after I tested the process and was able to get the mobi books on the Kindle Fire by using that old style Gutenberg 'Magic' catalog file (something like that).
DeleteHowever, you did have to move the key mobi file to the Kindle reading folder to get it recognized and that IS a bit difficult for the average Kindle Fire owner, because there are multiple files that come down with each download and, yet, when you move the mobi book you only need to move one file. But I'll need to experiment all over again as I've forgotten the details.
I never had to Force Stop the Kindle app to get it to recognize the new docs. Just powering off and back on should do it.
Thanks again.
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Yes, power off/on probably works too, it has been too long since I have done anything much with my Fire (force stop might be needed to get cover thumbnails?). It's baffling why they don't fix this, though I'm not sure this is through any conscious decision to make things more difficult for users. You can download PDFs and even ePub and it will offer to move it to the desired app that's registered that file type. And of course on normal Android and iOS devices, it is very straightforward to download mobi and have the Kindle app open it.
DeleteI've never observed 'multiple files' downloading though the Download folder can get a bit cluttered if it isn't cleaned up once in awhile.
Tom, I probably ought to deep-six the blog entry on the Magic Catalog but I liked searching it on my e-reader and downloading it right then and there onto the Kindle (w/o going to the site via the web browser) but when testing on the KFireHD about half a year go (on two occasions), it did not find books I knew were there. So I should revise this, at least for tablets, and have people get it from Project Gutenberg direct.
DeleteRe multiple files, I got about 4 to 5 files for each book! It was really confusing and I finally did find the one file out of all those that should be moved. So this goes on a near-term todo to get that straightened out then. Appreciate that reminder!
Hi, I was wondering if there is a discussion anywhere as to which kindle editions are likely to be most reliable. I recently realized that the editions which are low cost or free rarely have page numbers and so I have been more cautious with which editions I buy. I was comparing an Oxford Editions and Reader's Edition of the same text (The Mysteries of Undopho) using Amazon's invitation to 'look inside book' and was surprised to see that whole passages were omitted in the 'Reader's Edition'. I assumed there might be differences in format - but unless it says 'abridged' I did not think there would be outright omissions! More to the point, The Reader's Edition was $6 which should (in my opinion) mean better quality control. Is there a guide somewhere as to all of this?
ReplyDeleteMerlin,
DeleteI don't know of dedicated discussions on this but I'd try the Kindle Community forums and Amazon's Goodread discussions. I did see tghat some "Reader's Edition" titles actually headline that they are abridged though. I'd think that a discussion of all this would make a very interesting message thread. If you find one, please let us know. Thanks.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. You have a wonderful blog! Keep it up!
ReplyDelete