Free and low-cost Kindle books: Search-link options for January for contemporary, non-classics + other bargain pages (US, UK, Canada), w/ 2 New pages + Kindle discount-alerts by customers + Kindle Unlimited Audible w/ Whispersync. Updated.

January 8, 2015 - This includes a quick reminder that the free Kindle book search options in the reference section (right-column of blog) were updated for January.

Regular readers of the blog are aware of the following links, but I repost them (and often add new ones) each month or two, for those who are new to the blog or are looking for a refresher on what's available.

These include some less-known links for avid bargain Kindle book hunters

    December 2014  January 2015.
    Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
    Publication Date   Bestselling    High ratings

  There are only a few shown on the first few days of any month, and these include pre-orders due that month -- most of these are listed as "free preview" of whatever chapters chosen, some are short stories, and a few (overnight) not-entire-family-safe titles may show up. Since this is Jan. 8, the listing will include more already available, full books

    Highly rated, under $1

    In addition, Amazon still quietly carries: "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)

    Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.

    NEWer are 50 Kindle Book Deals for $2 Each.  These appear to be selections from the Kindle Unlimited subscription set of 700,000+ Kindle books

    Also, there's a new umbrella page, Kindle Book Deals, for the many types of Kindle book deals available at any given time, so it's another good one to bookmark, along with the page you're reading :-)

    And Amazon has a reminder out today that for students (and their parents), there is a special page for eTextbooks you can "Rent, Buy or Try eTextbooks for Free."


Two ongoing pages you may want to bookmark
1. Free Kindle Non-Classics - includes the above bargain links among other ones and will be further updated this week
2. KINDLE SUPPORT info
  This has an "Often Asked" section which has a lot of good info in it. Updated 7/2/14.


Also for newcomers to the Kindle or to this blog, here are the special monthly book deals for January 2015 -- where to find them, etc.


JANUARY 2015's monthly Kindle Books deal, for $3.99 or less (See UK listing here.)

For those who want to quickly look first at only the ones that are star-rated at 4 or above, here is Amazon's page for that.

  On the main monthly Kindle book deals page, separate categories are highlighted, using Amazon's usual horizontally-scrolling pick-lists, for the following topics highlighted on the main page. They link to "See all" at the bottom of each horizontally-scrolled category row [ I'm adding direct links to the full category listings ]:

  1. History and by Avg Customer Rating
  2. Science Fiction & Fantasy and by Avg Customer Rating
  3. Biography and Memoirs and by Avg Customer Rating
  4. Literary Fiction Deals and by Avg Customer Rating
  5. Religion and Spirituality and by Avg Customer Rating

  6. Whispersync for Voice and by Avg Customer Rating     Audible book with Kindle book


        The Whispersync category has sometimes shown up with an explanation that the corresponding audio book is also sold at the monthly-deal price, if wanted.

  ' Now you can seamlessly switch between reading featured Kindle books and listening to them without ever losing your place...
  First, purchase the Kindle book for $3.99 or less. Then add the narration from Audible for $3.99 or less to enable the feature. '

  The Whispersync category is back on the main Monthly Deals page (there are about 59 of these Whispersync-ready books in January's deals).  They're also included in the overall scrolled monthly deals that can be sorted by several options at the bottom of that main page.

Note that the new Kindle Unlimited subscription program includes many of these as part of Kindle Unlimited so that there's no added charge for the Audible book.

The main monthly deals page also tends to show, on the right, two vertically-scrolling categories:
  1. A list of Bestsellers
  2. Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense highlighted + more in the linked full list w/ sorting options)
      Here's that fuller listing by Avg Customer Rating

THEN, at the bottom of the new main monthly Kindle book-deals page, they offer the FULL current monthly listing, defaulting to sorting by "New and Popular" and there are 108 in all, currently, but the number may vary.

  Here's a direct link to that Full-listing (US), sorted by "New and Popular" for the month, so
    it's a good one to bookmark if you just want to jump to that) and
    you can choose another sort option for this full listing, such as
        Avg Customer Rating or by Price: Low to High

These options should make it easier to find books of interest to you.

The pricing for January's group of Kindle books returns to including 99c books to $3.99 (there were no 99-cent ones for December's monthly deal.

  The Kindle books you'll see on this special monthly-deals page  (UK version here) are new for January.

(US Link: amzn.to/mkbooks-1to4,  UK Link: amzn.to/100kbooks-1to4uk)


The ongoing Kindle Daily Deals page
for any given day usually shows a lot of books since it includes children's books, a couple of genre-specific deals, and the monthly daily deals as well.  Today, January 8, they include 12 first-in-series books.

---

DISCOUNTED / Price Dropped Kindle eBooks III - the ongoing Kindle Forum message thread
  This is an ongoing message thread in which Kindle owners share information on recent drops in pricing on specific Kindle books, often with some added info by the person posting it.

  Here's a link to the thread, which includes many books with large price drops.  I'm starting at a January 4 posting page that includes books that are still on sale today, Jan. 8 (some are highly rated). The first posting is on "My Autobiography (Neversink)" by Charlie Chaplin, which was $9.99 but is $1.99 on Kindle today.

Edited article to add that today's listings in that thread include several books from Simon & Schuster at large discount and also a book that received rave reviews in 2012, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

  The books discussed in this forum thread tend to be very short-term discounts.

  That forum topic link is to a specific post to start, in this case, a book alert on Jan. 4, as mentioned.  You can browse previous posts or days, or keep up with ongoing alerts after that, because Amazon keeps track of the last message# that you read, so that you can start from there next time.

  While many of the better deals seem to be around $1.99-$4.99, there usually are a decent number of larger-publishing house deals included (primarily price-matching) that tend to end in a DAY, so you'd need to double-check the current pricing of ANY Kindle books that interest you to see if the discounts are still active.

  Again, Kindle book prices are discounted for only a very short time, too often, and are promos, and that's another reason to watch the list.  Most of the large-publisher discounts last only one or two days even when they originate the discount.


DISCOUNTS ON ACCESSORIES Amazon's current pages (some, ongoing) on accessories for Kindle e-Reader and Kindle Fire
  1. Up to 50% (higher discount than usual) on cases for Kindle eReaders
  2. Up to 50% on cases for Kindle Fire (Gen 2) and Kindle Fire HD tablets but NOT HDX tablets
  3. Accessories for all Kindles, with some discounted.


For larger discounts, there are the ongoing pages:
  For US
Goldbox and Lightning Deals which sometimes include bigger one-day sales and
Select-Outlet Deals
Warehouse Deals
Other warehouse deals - more gift oriented
Your Amazon coupons


  For UK and Canada:
UK - Today's Deals
Seasonal Discounts and Sales - UK ('January Clearance')
Warehouse Deals - UK

Canada - The Deals Store


Recently-built Kindle Outlet Store - US
A few months ago, Amazon put together a Kindle Outlet Store to feature their certified refurbished Kindle devices at a somewhat lower cost.


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. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Free and low-cost Kindle books: Search-link options for December for contemporary, non-classics + other bargain pages (UK+Canada also) + Kindle discount-alerts by customers + Kindle Unlimited Audible w/ Whispersync

December 5, 2014 - This includes a quick reminder that the free Kindle book search options in the reference section (right-column of blog) were updated for December.

Regular readers of the blog are aware of the following links, but I repost them (and often add new ones) each month or two, for those who are new to the blog or are looking for a refresher on what's available.

These include some less-known links for avid bargain Kindle book hunters

    November 2014  December 2014.
    Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
    Publication Date   Bestselling    High ratings

  There are only a few shown on the first few days of any month, and these include pre-orders due that month -- most of these are listed as "free preview" of whatever chapters chosen, some are short stories, and a few (overnight) not-entire-family-safe titles may show up. Since this is Dec. 5, the listing will include more already available, full books

    Highly rated, under $1

    In addition, Amazon still quietly carries: "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)

    Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.


Two ongoing pages you may want to bookmark
1. Free Kindle Non-Classics - includes the above bargain links among other ones
2. KINDLE SUPPORT info
  This has an "Often Asked" section which has a lot of good info in it. Updated 7/2/14, 2:50pm


Also for newcomers to the Kindle or to this blog, here are the special monthly book deals for December 2014 -- where to find them, etc.

DECEMBER 2014's monthly Kindle Books deal, for $3.99 or less (See UK listing here.)

For those who want to quickly look first at only the ones that are star-rated at 4 or above, here is Amazon's page for exactly that.

  On the main monthly Kindle book deals page, separate categories are highlighted, using Amazon's usual horizontally-scrolling pick-lists, for the following topics highlighted on the main page. They link to "See all" at the bottom of each horizontally-scrolled category row [ I'm adding direct links to the full category listings ]:

  1. History and by Avg Customer Rating
  2. Science Fiction & Fantasy and by Avg Customer Rating
  3. Biography and Memoirs and by Avg Customer Rating
  4. Literary Fiction Deals and by Avg Customer Rating
  5. Religion and Spirituality and by Avg Customer Rating

  6. Whispersync for Voice and by Avg Customer Rating     Newer


        The Whispersync category has sometimes shown up with an explanation that the corresponding audio book is also sold at the monthly-deal price, if wanted.

  ' Now you can seamlessly switch between reading featured Kindle books and listening to them without ever losing your place...
  First, purchase the Kindle book for $3.99 or less. Then add the narration from Audible for $3.99 or less to enable the feature. '

  The Whispersync category is back on the main Monthly Deals page (there are about 54 of these Whispersync-ready books in December's deals).  They're also included in the overall scrolled monthly deals that can be sorted by several options at the bottom of that main page.

Note that the new Kindle Unlimited subscription program includes many of these as part of Kindle Unlimited so that there's no added charge for the Audible book.

The main monthly deals page also tends to show, on the right, two vertically-scrolling categories:
  1. A list of Bestsellers
  2. Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense highlighted + more in the linked full list w/ sorting options)
      Here's that fuller listing by Avg Customer Rating

THEN, at the bottom of the new main monthly Kindle book-deals page, they offer the FULL current monthly listing, defaulting to sorting by "New and Popular" and there are 108 in all, currently, but the number may vary.

  Here's a direct link to that Full-listing (US), sorted by "New and Popular" for the month, so
    it's a good one to bookmark if you just want to jump to that) and
    you can choose another sort option for this full listing, such as
        Avg Customer Rating or by Price: Low to High

These options should make it easier to find books of interest to you.

The pricing for December's group of Kindle books ranges from $1.99 to $3.99 (no 99-cent ones for this monthly deal.

  The Kindle books you'll see on this special monthly-deals page  (UK version here) are new for December.

(US Link: amzn.to/mkbooks-1to4,  UK Link: amzn.to/100kbooks-1to4uk)


The ongoing Kindle Daily Deals page
for any given day usually shows a lot of books since it includes children's books, a couple of genre-specific deals, and the monthly daily deals as well.

---

DISCOUNTED / Price Dropped Kindle eBooks III - the ongoing Kindle Forum message thread
  This is an ongoing message thread in which Kindle owners share information on recent drops in pricing on specific Kindle books, often with some added info by the person posting it.

  Here's a link to the thread, which includes many books with huge price drops.  I'm starting at a December 1 posting page that includes books that are still on sale today, Dec. 5 (some are highly rated). The first posting is on "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien" which was $9.99 in print but is $2.99 on Kindle at the current time.

  The books discussed in this forum thread tend to be very short-term discounts.

  That forum topic link is to a specific post to start, in this case, a book alert on Dec. 1, as mentioned.  You can browse previous posts or days, or keep up with ongoing alerts after that, because Amazon keeps track of the last message# that you read, so that you can start from there next time.
 While many of the better deals seem to be around $1.99-$4.99, there usually are a decent number of larger-publishing house deals included (primarily price-matching) that tend to end in a DAY, so you'd need to double-check the current pricing of ANY Kindle books that interest you to see if the discounts are still active.

  Again, Kindle book prices are discounted for only a very short time, too often, and are promos, and that's another reason to watch the list.  Most of the large-publisher discounts last only one or two days even when they originate the discount.


DISCOUNTS ON ACCESSORIES Amazon's current pages (some, ongoing) on accessories for Kindle e-Reader and Kindle Fire
  1. Up to 50% (higher discount than usual) on cases for Kindle eReaders
  2. Up to 50% on cases for Kindle Fire (Gen 2) and Kindle Fire HD tablets but NOT HDX tablets
  3. Accessories for all Kindles, with some discounted.


For larger discounts, there are the ongoing pages:
  For US
Goldbox and Lightning Deals which sometimes include bigger one-day sales and
Select-Outlet Deals
Warehouse Deals
Other warehouse deals - more gift oriented
Your Amazon coupons

And since it's the that time of the year, Amazon (and every other store) is having seasonal sale after sale.
Here are are a few general links for those:
CYBER Monday Week

  For UK and Canada:
UK - Today's Deals
Seasonal Discounts and Sales - UK
Warehouse Deals - UK

Canada - CyberMonday Wk


Recently-built Kindle Outlet Store - US
A few months ago, Amazon put together a Kindle Outlet Store to feature their certified refurbished Kindle devices at a somewhat lower cost.



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. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Free and low-cost Kindle books: Search-link options for September for contemporary, non-classics + less-known bargain pages + Kindle discount-alerts by customers + Kindle Unlimited Audible w/ Whispersync

September 4, 2014 - This includes a quick reminder that the free Kindle book search options in the reference section (right-column of blog) are updated for September.

Regular readers of the blog are aware of the following links, but I repost them (and often add new ones) each month, for those who are new to the blog or are looking for a refresher on what's available.

These include some less-known links for avid bargain Kindle book hunters

    August 2014  September 2014.
    Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
    Publication Date   Bestselling    High ratings

  There are only a few shown on the first few days of any month, and these include pre-orders due that month -- most of these are listed as "free preview" of whatever chapters chosen, some are short stories, and a few (overnight) not-entire-family-safe titles may show up. Since this is Sept. 4, the listing will include more already available, full books


    Highly rated, under $1

    In addition, Amazon still quietly carries: "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)

    Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.


Two ongoing pages you may want to bookmark
1. Free Kindle Non-Classics - includes the above bargain links among other ones
2. KINDLE SUPPORT info
  This has an "Often Asked" section which has a lot of good info in it. Updated 7/2/14, 2:50pm


Also for newcomers to the Kindle or to this blog, here are the special monthly book deals for September 2014 -- where to find them, etc.

SEPTEMBER 2014's monthly Kindle Books deal, for $3.99 or less (See UK listing here.)

For those who want to quickly look first at only the ones that are star-rated at 4 or above, here is Amazon's page for exactly that.

  On the main monthly Kindle book deals page, separate categories are highlighted, using Amazon's usual horizontally-scrolling pick-lists, for the following topics highlighted on the main page. They link to "See all" at the bottom of each horizontally-scrolled category row [ I'm adding direct links to the full category listings ]:

  1. History and by Avg Customer Rating
  2. Science Fiction & Fantasy and by Avg Customer Rating
  3. Biography and Memoirs and by Avg Customer Rating
  4. Literary Fiction Deals and by Avg Customer Rating
  5. Religion and Spirituality and by Avg Customer Rating
  7. Whispersync for Voice and by Avg Customer Rating     Newer
        The Whispersync category has sometimes shown up with an explanation that the
        corresponding audio book is also sold at the monthly-deal price, if wanted.

  ' Now you can seamlessly switch between reading featured Kindle books and listening to them without ever losing your place...
  First, purchase the Kindle book for $3.99 or less. Then add the narration from Audible for $3.99 or less to enable the feature. '

  But the Whispersync category is no longer on the main Monthly Deals page, although the deals still exist (there are about 44 of these Whispersync-ready books in this month's deals, down from 74 for August's specials).  They ARE included in the overall scrolled monthly deals that can be sorted by several options at the bottom of that main page.

Note that the new Kindle Unlimited subscription program includes many of these as part of Kindle Unlimited so that there's no added charge for the Audible book.

The main monthly deals page also tends to show, on the right, two vertically-scrolling categories:
  1. A list of Bestsellers
  2. Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense highlighted + more in the linked full list w/ sorting options)
      Here's that fuller listing by Avg Customer Rating

THEN, at the bottom of the new main monthly Kindle book-deals page, they offer the FULL current monthly listing, defaulting to sorting by "New and Popular" and there are 101 in all, currently, but the number may vary.  It was 125 in August.

  Here's a direct link to that Full-listing (US), sorted by "New and Popular" for the month, so
    it's a good one to bookmark if you just want to jump to that) and
    you can choose another sort option for this full listing, such as
        Avg Customer Rating or by Price: Low to High

These options should make it easier to find books of interest to you.

The pricing for August's group of Kindle books ranges from $0.99 to $3.99, as is usual for this monthly deal.

  The Kindle books you'll see on this special monthly-deals page  (UK version here) are new for August.

(US Link: amzn.to/mkbooks-1to4,  UK Link: amzn.to/100kbooks-1to4uk)


The ongoing Kindle Daily Deals page
for any given day usually shows a lot of books since it includes children's books, a couple of genre-specific deals, and the monthly daily deals as well.

---

DISCOUNTED / Price Dropped Kindle eBooks III - the ongoing Kindle Forum message thread
  This is an ongoing message thread in which Kindle owners share information on recent drops in pricing on specific Kindle books, often with some added info by the person posting it.

  Here's a link to the thread, which includes many books with huge price drops.  I'm starting at an August 28 posting that includes books that are still on sale today, Sept. 4 (some are highly rated). The first posting is on "Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine" which is $19.99 in print but $1.99 on Kindle at the current time.

  The books discussed in this forum thread tend to be very short-term discounts.

  That forum topic link is to a specific post to start, in this case, a book alert on Sept. 4, as mentioned.  You can browse previous posts or days, or keep up with ongoing alerts after that, because Amazon keeps track of the last message# that you read, so that you can start from there next time.
 While many of the better deals seem around $1.99-$4.99, there usually are a decent number of larger-publishing house deals included (primarily price-matching) that tend to end in a DAY, so you'd need to double-check the current pricing of ANY Kindle books that interest you to see if the discounts are still active.

  Again, Kindle book prices are discounted for only a very short time, too often, and are promos, and that's another reason to watch the list.  Most of the large-publisher discounts last only one or two days even when they originate the discount.


DISCOUNTS ON ACCESSORIES Amazon's current pages (some, ongoing) on accessories for Kindle e-Reader and Kindle Fire
  1. Up to 50% (higher discount than usual) on cases for Kindle eReaders
  2. Up to 50% on cases for Kindle Fire (Gen 2) and Kindle Fire HD tablets but NOT HDX tablets
  3. Accessories for all Kindles, with some discounted.


For larger discounts, there are the Goldbox and Lightning Deals which sometimes include bigger one-day sales.


Newish Kindle Outlet Store
In the meantime, Amazon recently put together a Kindle Outlet Store to feature their certified refurbished Kindle devices, at up to 25% off.



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. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Kindle Tips: Kindle Reading app update for Kindle for Android (v4.6) - Lots of enhancements but some are reporting crashes with the update, so waiting for the next update may be a good option for some.

   

Kindle reading-app for Android updated with Audible Integration improvements and several other feature enhancements

A copy of the forum announcement:

' Initial post: Aug 12, 2014 3:00:21 PM PDT

Megan H. - Forum Moderator says:
(AMAZON) (AMAZON OFFICIAL)
We have a new, exciting software update available for Kindle for Android. The latest version of Kindle for Android 4.6 has several new features and performance improvements.

What's been improved?

We've improved the listening experience for books with audio:
* When you're listening from a Bluetooth device, playback will automatically pause if Bluetooth is disconnected. A new permission is required for this, "Pair with Bluetooth devices." More information about the device permissions we require and why, is available at: https://amazon.com/help/kindleforandroid/permissions
* Go hands-free with Immersion Reading; enjoy automatic page turns without the screen shutting off.
* Learn more about reading and listening with Whispersync for Voice.

Helpful account information can be found on the Settings screen:
* Rename your device to make it easier to recognize when buying books from the Kindle store.
* Check your registration information, is the app registered to the correct email address?
* Learn more about reading personal documents with Send to Kindle.

Viewing options inside the book have been updated:
* "Use system brightness" is a more intuitive option for a brightness settings. Tap the "Aa" icon at the top of the screen to choose this new option. If you're not finding the "Aa" icon, tap the center of the screen to have the menu bars slide into view. This improvement was made with the help of your feedback!
* When the menus are hidden (tap the center of the screen to show or hide them), tap the bottom right corner of the screen. Do you notice a small padlock? Tap it to lock the orientation. Now you can turn the device in any direction so you read on your side or back.

Improvements were made to the Table of Contents as well:
* A direct link to the book cover is at the top.
* "Front matter" is next. Funny name but this where you'll find the title, copyright, dedication and more. There's an arrow to the right of the label. Tap it to close the front matter section.
* If a book has page numbers we'll show them alongside the chapter names. The current page you're on will be highlighted.
* If another chapter is selected, you can always get back to your previous location by tapping one of the placeholders on the location seeker at the bottom.

Lots of other improvements and fixes are included as a result of your feedback. Please keep the feedback coming, we're always listening and will be sure to send your comments to the Kindle for Android team. '

REMINDER
How does Whispersync for Voice work?
Amazon's Whispersync for Voice page has a clear diagram showing the basics of how the parts relate and how you use this convenient feature (without relying on the computerized voice we heard with the older eInk Kindles that had audio).


If this is a NEW Android app install
If you've never installed the Android app,
• go to Amazon's Kindle for Android app page
• Select "Download now"
• Follow the instructions to download the app to your device
• After installing the Kindle reading app, you'll need to register it to your Amazon account.

Kindle reading-app Updates - Where?
  . Kindle for Android Phone update page at Amazon appstore
  . Kindle for Android Tablet update page at Amazon appstore
  . or, if Google play was the original source anyway, Android Updates from Google play.

---

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button


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. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Free Kindle books: Search-link options for August for contemporary, non-classics + less-known bargain pages + Kindle discount-alerts by customers + Kindle Unlimited Audible w/ Whispersync

August 9, 2014 - This includes a quick reminder that the free Kindle book search options in the reference section (right-column of blog) are updated for August.

Regular readers of the blog are aware of the following links, but I repost them (and often add new ones) each month, for those who are new to the blog or are looking for a refresher on what's available.

These include some less-known links for avid bargain Kindle book hunters

    July 2014  August 2014.
    Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
    Publication Date   Bestselling    High ratings

  There are only a few shown on the first few days of any month, and these include pre-orders due that month -- most of these are listed as "free preview" of whatever chapters chosen, some are short stories, and a few (overnight) not-entire-family-safe titles may show up. Since this is August 9, the listing will include more already available, full books.

    Highly rated, under $1

    In addition, Amazon still quietly carries: "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)

    Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.


Two ongoing pages you may want to bookmark
1. Free Kindle Non-Classics - includes the above bargain links among other ones
2. KINDLE SUPPORT info
  This has an "Often Asked" section which has a lot of good info in it. Updated 7/2/14, 2:50pm


Also for newcomers to the Kindle or to this blog, here are the special monthly book deals for August 2014 -- where to find them, etc.

AUGUST 2014's monthly Kindle Books deal, for $3.99 or less (See UK listing here.)

For those who want to quickly look first at only the ones that are star-rated at 4 or above, here is Amazon's page for exactly that.

  On the main monthly Kindle book deals page, separate categories are highlighted, using Amazon's usual horizontally-scrolling pick-lists, for the following topics highlighted on the main page. They link to "See all" at the bottom of each horizontally-scrolled category row [ I'm adding direct links to the full category listings ]:

  1. History and by Avg Customer Rating
  2. Science Fiction & Fantasy and by Avg Customer Rating
  3. Biography and Memoirs and by Avg Customer Rating
  4. Literary Fiction Deals and by Avg Customer Rating
  5. Religion and Spirituality and by Avg Customer Rating
  7. Whispersync for Voice and by Avg Customer Rating     Newer
        The Whispersync category has sometimes shown up with an explanation that the
        corresponding audio book is also sold at the monthly-deal price, if wanted.

  ' Now you can seamlessly switch between reading featured Kindle books and listening to them without ever losing your place...
  First, purchase the Kindle book for $3.99 or less. Then add the narration from Audible for $3.99 or less to enable the feature. '

  But the Whispersync category is no longer on the main Monthly Deals page, although the deals still exist (there are about 74 of these Whispersync-ready books in this month's deals).  They ARE included in the overall scrolled monthly deals that can be sorted by several options at the bottom of that main page.

Note that the new Kindle Unlimited subscription program includes many of these as part of Kindle Unlimited so that there's no added charge for the Audible book.

The main monthly deals page also tends to show, on the right, two vertically-scrolling categories:
  1. A list of Bestsellers
  2. Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense highlighted + more in the linked full list w/ sorting options)
      Here's that fuller listing by Avg Customer Rating

THEN, at the bottom of the new main monthly Kindle book-deals page, they offer the FULL current monthly listing, defaulting to sorting by "New and Popular" and there are 125 in all, currently, but the number may vary.

  Here's a direct link to that Full-listing (US), sorted by "New and Popular" for the month, so
    it's a good one to bookmark if you just want to jump to that) and
    you can choose another sort option for this full listing, such as
        Avg Customer Rating or by Price: Low to High

These options should make it easier to find books of interest to you.

The pricing for August's group of Kindle books ranges from $0.99 to $3.99, as is usual for this monthly deal.

  The Kindle books you'll see on this special monthly-deals page  (UK version here) are new for August.

(US Link: amzn.to/mkbooks-1to4,  UK Link: amzn.to/100kbooks-1to4uk)


The ongoing Kindle Daily Deals page
for any given day usually shows a lot of books since it includes children's books, a couple of genre-specific deals, and the monthly daily deals as well.

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DISCOUNTED / Price Dropped Kindle eBooks III - the ongoing Kindle Forum message thread
  This is an ongoing message thread in which Kindle owners share information on recent drops in pricing on specific Kindle books, often with some added info by the person posting it.

  Here's a link to the thread, which includes many books with huge price drops.  I'm starting at an August 3 posting that includes books that are still on sale today August 9 (many are very highly rated), one of them by Darrell Hammond, Saturday Night Live's "longest-tenured cast member," which is $25 in print format but $1.99 currently in Kindle edition.

  The books discussed in this forum thread tend to be very short-term discounts.

  That forum topic link is to a specific post to start, in this case, a book alert on August 3, as mentioned.  You can browse previous posts or days, or keep up with ongoing alerts after that, because Amazon keeps track of the last message# that you read, so that you can start from there next time.
 While many of the better deals seem around $1.99-$4.99, there usually are a decent number of larger-publishing house deals included (primarily price-matching) that tend to end in a DAY, so you'd need to double-check the current pricing of ANY Kindle books that interest you to see if the discounts are still active.

  Again, Kindle book prices are discounted for only a very short time, too often, and are promos, and that's another reason to watch the list.  Most of the large-publisher discounts last only one or two days even when they originate the discount.


DISCOUNTS ON ACCESSORIES Amazon's current pages (some, ongoing) on accessories for Kindle e-Reader and Kindle Fire
  1. Up to 50% (higher discount than usual) on cases for Kindle eReaders
  2. Up to 50% on cases for Kindle Fire (Gen 2) and Kindle Fire HD tablets but NOT HDX tablets
  3. Accessories for all Kindles, with some discounted.


For larger discounts, there are the Goldbox and Lightning Deals which sometimes include bigger one-day sales.


Newish Kindle Outlet Store
In the meantime, Amazon recently put together a Kindle Outlet Store to feature their certified refurbished Kindle devices, at up to 25% off.




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Amazon's new Kindle Unlimited subscription plan for Kindle and Audible books. UPDATED.

I just saw this.  Today, Amazon announced the launch of a new Kindle program - Kindle Unlimited -- a new subscription service which allows customers to "freely read as much as they want from over 600,000 Kindle books, and listen as much as they want to thousands of Audible audiobooks, all for only $9.99 a month."

There is a 30-day trial available for this newly-launched book-subscription program, competitors for which include Scribd and Oyster.

This involves approximately the same number of books than are in the Prime program's Kindle Owners Lending Program.  And the books they highlight ARE in that program, which makes sense, as they would aleady have lending agreements with many publishers for those.   The difference is that this would tend to involve the Audible versions of SOME of the books involved (2,000 or so -- where the publisher agrees to that -- and the reading of and listening to those digital books would be sync'd).

  The 30-day free trial would help you decide whether or not this would work for your interests in reading.  However, note that the Audible part includes about 2,000 Audible books at this point, and for the rest of Audible's offerings, there is a complimentary 3-month Audible membership

From Amazon's press release:

' Read freely from over 600,000 books-available on Kindle devices, as well as free Kindle reading apps for iOS, Android and more

Listen to thousands of audiobooks from Audible, or switch easily between reading and listening with Whispersync for Voice

Enjoy best sellers including the Harry Potter series, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hunger Games trilogy, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and Flash Boys

The most cost-effective way to enjoy audiobooks such as The Handmaid's Tale, Life of Pi, and Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Start a free 30-day trial today.

Amazon.com today introduced Kindle Unlimited—a new subscription service which allows customers to freely read as much as they want from over 600,000 Kindle books, and listen as much as they want to thousands of Audible audiobooks, all for only $9.99 a month. Finding a great book is easy, and there are never any due dates—just look for the Kindle Unlimited logo on eligible titles and click “Read for Free.” Customers can choose from best sellers like The Hunger Games, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Lord of the Rings, and with thousands of professionally narrated audiobooks from Audible, like The Handmaid’s Tale and Water for Elephants, the story can continue in the car or on the go.
  Kindle Unlimited subscribers also get the additional benefit of a complimentary three-month Audible membership, with access to the full selection of Audible titles. Kindle Unlimited is available starting today and is accessible from Kindle devices or with Amazon’s free Kindle reading apps. Start your free 30-day trial today at www.amazon.com/ku-freetrial.

“With Kindle Unlimited, you won’t have to think twice before you try a new author or genre—you can just start reading and listening,” said Russ Grandinetti, Senior Vice President, Kindle. “In addition to offering over 600,000 eBooks, Kindle Unlimited is also by far the most cost-effective way to enjoy audiobooks and eBooks together. With thousands of Whispersync for Voice-enabled audiobooks to choose from, you can easily switch between reading and listening to a book, allowing the story to continue even when your eyes are busy. We hope you take advantage of the 30-day free trial and try it for yourself.”

Kindle Unlimited features include:

. Unlimited reading: Access over 600,000 books including best sellers like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Water for Elephants, Oh Myyy! – There Goes The Internet, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, All the King’s Men, Wonder Boys, Ask for It, The Princess Bride, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, The Atlantis Gene, Kitchen Confidential, The Sisterhood, Crazy Little Thing, The Blind Side, and The Giver, plus thousands of classics such as Animal Farm, To the Lighthouse, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cat’s Cradle, and The Good Earth, as well as books featuring beloved children’s characters from Sesame Street, and useful reference titles including books from the For Dummies series and Lonely Planet travel guides.

. Unlimited listening: Keep the story going with unlimited access to more than 2,000 audiobooks from Audible with Whispersync for Voice, and switch seamlessly between reading and listening to customer favorites like the Hunger Games trilogy, Life of Pi, The Handmaid’s Tale, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, The Great Santini, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Winter’s Tale, Boardwalk Empire, El Narco, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies, Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, The Finisher, Johnny Carson, The Stranger I Married, and Life Code.

. Kindle exclusives: Choose from hundreds of thousands of books only found on Kindle, including Brilliance by Marcus Sakey, The Hangman’s Daughter series by Oliver Pötzsch, War Brides by Helen Bryan, Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct and Matthew Hope books, When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Whiskey Sour by J.A. Konrath, Chasing Shadows by CJ Lyons, and Sick by Brett Battles.
Short Reads: For a quick escape, select from thousands of books that are 100 pages or less, including Kindle Singles from Stephen King, Andy Borowitz, and Nelson DeMille, and short fiction from Amazon Publishing’s StoryFront imprint.
Free three-month Audible membership: In addition to the thousands of professionally narrated audiobooks from Audible included in Kindle Unlimited, subscribers get a complimentary three-month Audible membership, with access to more than 150,000 titles.

. Popular Kindle features: Enjoy all the great Kindle features customers love such as Whispersync, Popular Highlights, X-Ray, customer reviews, and Goodreads integration.
Read and listen everywhere: Access across Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps for iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and phones, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Windows 8—so you always have your library with you and never lose your place.

For more details on Kindle Unlimited, visit www.amazon.com/kindleunlimited.'

Factors for consideration:
1. While the public libraries will lend you most of these books, there are waiting times and due-dates involved, and the Kindle Unlimited subscription service features unlimited reading and listening and no waiting periods.
2. This new subscription program lets you borrow up to 10 Kindle books at a time.  While you've unlimited time to read any of them, you can remove a book you've finished reading and then choose another book.
3. There is no limit on how many Kindle books can be borrowed in a given month.
4. Kindle Unlimited doesn't limit you to books read on Amazon Kindle devices.
5. You don't need to be a Prime member to participate.
6. The Big 5 publishers' e-books tend to be missing from this program at this point,
    although I imagine this will be a negotiating point with new Agreements due.

I'm not sure if Prime members (US, UK) who get to read just one of the 600,000+ Kindle books in the Lending Library at no added cost each calendar month (benefits included in the Prime yearly fee for 2-days free shipping + instant streaming video and music) would find this tempting, but those who feel constrained by the limit of one Kindle Prime-eligible book per calendar month might, as well as those who haven't opted for the Prime program.



Will be interested in any thoughts on this new development.


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Kindle Tips: Kindle Reading app updates for iOS (v4.3) and Android (v4.5) - Switch between reading and listening in the app. Other enhancements for both iOS and Android.

   

Kindle reading-apps for Android and iOS updated with Audible Integration -- switching between reading and listening within the app

Salient points from the Amazon's press release:

The updated apps make it possible for you to "switch instantly between reading a Kindle book and listening to the companion audiobook from Audible—all with just one tap, without leaving the book."

Russ Grandinetti, SVP, Amazon Kindle, points out what they've tried to do here.  “Integrating professional narration into our Kindle apps means you never have to put down a favorite book -- start reading at home, get in the car and simply tap a button to continue listening without losing your place.”

" Audio upgrades are available for as little as $0.99, with upgrades to bestsellers like the Outlander series and The Hunger Games series available for as little as $3.99."

"Professional narration is available for more than 45,000 Kindle books and growing—including popular best-sellers from an array of genres.  You can easily add professional narration to your favorite Kindle books with one click using Matchmaker, a service that scans your Kindle library to find which of your Kindle books have a companion Audible version available.

  Audio upgrades are available for as little as $0.99, with upgrades to bestsellers like the Outlander series and The Hunger Games series available for as little as $3.99."

"For as little" of course means that these are the lowest prices and that other combinations will cost more.

That "Matchmaker page-report is really nicely done and, on my own Kindle books, the report page indicates that the most prevalent audio-addition cost, in my case, is between $3.99 and $6.49 but there is an occasional crazy $12.99, which I would never pay when I already have the Kindle book.  Audible and its authors/publishers should take another look at those.  But I see a couple that I'll probably get for the $4 additional since I often don't feel like (or can't be) reading but often wouldn't mind listening to a book (especially since I'm so behind on the ones I bought).


How does Whispersync for Voice work?
Amazon's Whispersync for Voice page has a clear diagram showing the basics of how the parts relate and how you use this convenient feature (without relying on the computerized voice we heard with the older eInk Kindles that had audio).


If this is a NEW Android app install
If you've never installed the Android app,
• go to Amazon's Kindle for Android app page
• Select "Download now"
• Follow the instructions to download the app to your device
• After installing the Kindle reading app, you'll need to register it to your Amazon account.

Kindle reading-app Updates - Where?
  . Kindle for Android Phone update page at Amazon appstore
  . Kindle for Android Tablet update page at Amazon appstore
  . or, if Google play was the original source anyway, Android Updates from Google play.


Apple's iTunes lists Additional features for the iOS v4.3 update:

• Access to more than 45,000 Kindle/Audible title pairs, including best sellers
• Find audiobooks compatible with items in your Kindle library – audiobooks are delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
• Whispersync for Voice automatically synchronizes reading progress between the Audible and Kindle versions of a book
• Read and listen to a Kindle book at the same time; pages turn automatically
• Narration speeds up to 2x and a sleep timer
• Download an entire collection – gives customers the ability to download an entire collection with the tap of a button, making it easier for readers to download in bulk and load their favorite books on a new iOS device
• Students can now find terms that are in X-Ray for Textbooks by using search – occurrences in X-Ray are shown right above occurrences in the book
• Finding where an X-Ray term occurs on a textbook page is now easier – tap a page thumbnail in the X-Ray feature and you will see the term highlighted in the page of the book
• Performance and stability improvements

Intrepid Explorer and Early Tester Tom Semple points out the ability to download an "entire collection," with one tap, to a new IOS device. Although I wasn't able to imagine why anyone would want to put their entire collection on a phone, Tom points out that their set-up routine shows that they mean "*a* collection" or collection set, not one's entire collection of Kindle books, which makes more sense but I wouldn't want to do even that, to a phone. I'd rather do multi-tagging and find it important to have, on my phone, only the few books I want to read currently.  And, although the good idea of using just one button when there are so many books in a collection, it makes me wonder why on earth one would want a large collection on the phone.  It could be that I've become too 'Clouded' in my approach.


Kindle for Android apps - new features
Amazon now seems to have (or is ready to have, in the future) individual apps for Android for phones and for tablets.  They both list the following features (adding "real-time highlighting" - a Kindle Fire HD feature since 2012:

• Read and listen to books simultaneously with real-time highlighting
• Find and purchase companion Audible audiobooks from the app
• Add multicolor highlights to text
• Copy and paste text from your book
• View reading progress from book badges in your Kindle library
• View download progress from the notification shade on your device
• Jump directly to previous locations with “placeholders” on the progress bar
• Tap the Back button to return to your Kindle library while reading

Note that, for the Kindle for Android apps, there's no mention of the ability to download an entire collection (set), via a tap, to a new Android device.  Again, I don't see that as something I'd want to do) -- I might for a tablet with good storage space though.

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button


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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!