Tuesday, March 30, 2010

30,000 free books for iPad are for Kindle too - UPDATE

(Special note:  The March 26 blog entry has not been released by Amazon blogs dept - some kind of glitch.  I hope it comes through along with this post.  Apologies to Kindle Edition subscribers.  The gap is not what it would appear.)

Columns about the Apple iPad are highlighting the 30,000 free Project Gutenberg titles that come with it.
    As many regulars know, that's also available to Kindle owners.
  But for the benefit of those who have become Kindle users in the last 6 months and those who are Kindle Edition subscribers, I'm reposting the information on that as it will have fallen off the current pages.

The below is from a popular Kindleworld blog-article which is being highlighted for newcomers and Kindle-blog edition subscribers (who can reference it on the Kindle for another 25 days or so).

ALL Kindle-compatible books with file extensions ".mobi" or ".prc" that you download to your computers (rather than to your Kindle, which is possible from many places) can be read on the computer by the free Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac software by just clicking on the book file that is on your computer (wherever it is downloaded and kept).

The 30,000 free Project Gutenberg books are laid out well and proof-read.
This tip allows you to directly download a Project Gutenberg book to the Kindle, although that will work only where whispernet web-browsing is enabled already - U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico.

International Kindle users who live outside the U.S. and do not have web-browsing enabled in their countries can download these free books to their computers instead (choosing "Kindle" or "mobi" or "prc" format) and then move them to their Kindles with the USB cable that is part of their Kindle power cord.

Originally posted April 2, 2009
TIP OF THE DAY: James Adcock tells us how to download chosen Project Gutenbook books direct to our Kindles.  First, you need to get the catalog on to your Kindle, and you can download it by webbing via your Kindle to http://www.freekindlebooks.org/MagicCatalog/magiccatalog.html
(mucho typing on that Kindle keyboard but I did it).
OH, for the Kindle, try this instead: http://tinyurl.com/gutmagic

After downloading "The Magic Catalog of the Project Gutenberg E-Books (MOBI Edition) to your Kindle (or transferring it from your computer to the Kindle if you don't want to type in the long URL on the Kindle), follow James's instructions which are:
"Use your Kindle's Search Feature to find your favorite Author and/or Title.  Click to go to that page.  Click again on the Author: Title listing and your chosen E-Book will automagically download directly from the Project Gutenberg website to your Kindle..."
Thanks, James!

Added tip from James - How to use mobipocket.com's mobigen.exe, to easily convert EPUB books (at the DOS prompt) to MOBI versions.  Downside, any illustrations in a book are not included at this point.

  UPDATE - 3/30/10 This blog entry was first posted 3/27/10.
- It's better now to convert these using Calibre instead.  For detailed info on how to do that, see the Kindleworld article on converting ePub files to Kindle-readable 'prc' files.

See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
There's also a page of links that confine searches to mid-range priced e-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


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Posted by Unknown at 3/30/2010 - To Mail this:
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 28, 2010 at 2:09:00 PM PDT

    When will Canada have whipernet browsing (beyond Wikipedia)enabled? Is anything known about why it isn't? Hong Kong? Japan? Not Canada? Why?

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMarch 28, 2010 at 4:27:00 PM PDT

    Anonymous,
    It seems to all be a matter of whether a local wireless network group in your area decides to contract with Amazon to make it possible for Amazon to 'give' free web browsing to us.

    As you can imagine, that means the price has to be low -- and it has to be local.

    So it'd be good to get a group together (may in the Amazon forums -- have other Canadians communicate with you, as there are many on there -- and write to your local network carriers to ask them to sign a deal with Amazon to provide reasonably priced wireless so that Canadians can us that feature also.

    ReplyDelete

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