Saturday, December 19, 2009

Free or low-cost Kindle books - 12-19-09 - Update

Many of these are likely to be short-term.

Paul Carr and TechCrunch are offering his book, Bringing Nothing to the Party - True Confessions of a New Media Whore, in PDF format, for free, in the U.S., under a Creative Commons License though it is for sale outside the U.S., with rights owned by his publisher and it is still available as a Kindle book (for $9.99) at Amazon.  His friends apparently don't tend to have Kindles and I guess wouldn't want to read it on an iPhone, iPod, or on their laptops etc., so he is making the book available for $0.00 in the U.S.

  He still owns the U.S. rights to his books, despite the frowns of his publisher, W&N, and its parent company, Hachette Livre, about releasing one of his books for free -- Hachette has "decreed that they will not allow any ebooks to be distributed for free, or without DRM."  W&N and Hachette have reminded him that foreign readers would be able to download the PDF e-book from the U.S, which would breach W&N's contractual rights.

  But you can download the PDF version now.  He adds:
' Finally it’s worth saying that, for all of my ego, the book is actually quite a hard thing for me to give away: its 275 pages tell the story of a very strange few years of my life – years that cost me my career, my reputation, the love of my life, and very nearly my freedom.  In other words, it’s a real feel-good Christmas romp. '
Read the background article I link to in the beginning to get the full background.  You can also get the HTML version with linked footnotes.


Midnight in Madrid

  By Noel Hynd, Kindle Ed.
$0.00 U.S.     10 user reviews, 4.5 stars

"...With echoes of classic detective and suspense fiction from The Maltese Falcon to The Da Vinci Code..."

My Bondage and My Freedom

  By Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895, Kindle Ed.
$0.00 U.S.     8 user reviews, all 5 stars
(Hardcover, 2008 - $24.95
 Paperback, 2005 - $6.95)

"...he ...documents the memories of being owned, how slaves coped during these times, and how he managed to pull himself out of it all." -from James Hiller's review.


Metagame

  By Sam Landstrom, Kindle Ed.
$1.59 U.S.     53 user reviews, 4.5 stars

There are several rave reviews for this apparently quite creative science fiction book by a writer new to the readers.


The Voice: New Testament

  By Thomas Nelson, Kindle US Ed.
  (with book and chapter navigation)
$0.00 U.S.
  16 user reviews, 4 stars

Very unusual translation using modern expressions -- script-like, and with additions that are noted and sourced.  Controversial for those reasons but liked very much by many.


LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
Here is the ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books.

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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2 comments:

  1. Wow great blog. I just got a KIndle last Monday 12/14 and I'm lovin' it. Then I happened upon your blog and I'm lovin' that too. I'll be checking this blog out for sure. Keep up the great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Igotnothing,
    Thanks very much, and congratulations! That enjoyment of your Kindle doesn't tend to fade either :-)

    ReplyDelete

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