Save Money by Getting Free Ebooks Legally

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February 20th, 2012

Are there sales on eBooks? Sure there are!

I’ve got an iPad and I downloaded the free Kindle App. Now I’m looking for cheap books. There’s no need to keep a stack of books. My iPad/Kindle replaces them all. I’m thinking of joining the Philadelphia Free Library. For $15 per year, they offer out of state residents the ability to sign up for a library membership and use their downloadable free eBooks.

Outside the US

Those reading this from outside the United States by the way will be pleased to note that the Philadelphia Free Library is one of the very few online lending libraries available for international use. You’ll need to arrange for a U.S. denominated check or money order to send along with your application; however it should not be a problem to get in no matter where you happen to be in the world.

InkMesh

Another resource for those trying to find free eBooks is InkMesh. This is actually a meta search site which allows you to look for eBooks from more than a dozen online bookstores. The nice thing about it is that they also have a free eBook section. The good news is that the freebies are not just classics in the public domain. Modern books are often available at InkMesh for free, sometimes from popular authors. And yes, it’s 100% legal. The material is given away by the author or the publisher because they hope that once you’ve read one book by that person or publisher, you’ll want to spend the money to buy more of the same.

Baen Free Library

No list of places to get free, legal eBooks would be complete without mentioning the Baen Free Library. This company offers hundreds of downloadable eBooks free of charge. Their idea is that you can download the books and then, they hope that if you like them, you’ll come back to buy more books which aren’t free.

Mobile Read Forum

Finally, another great resource for finding free eBooks to download is the Mobile Read forum. Here, you can discuss eBooks and everything surrounding them. However, what is particularly useful is the deals section, where you can find member posted links to free, modern eBooks or discounts and coupons.

Kobo Books

Is almost always having a sale of some kind and the coupons are regularly posted at Mobile Read. Plus, for international readers, Kobo Books’ coupons often work internationally. This is also a great place to find free Kindle books (the Kindle is the only modern eReader incapable of reading protected eBooks from libraries as well as protected eBooks from anywhere except Amazon.com).

More

In most cases when you download free eBooks, they will come with DRM protection. This is a system designed to make sure you don’t go copying the books and passing them along to millions of your “friends” via the Internet.

On your computer

In order to read DRM protected eBooks from anyone other than Kindle, you’ll need to download Adobe Digital Editions. It’s a free piece of software which will load your books onto your eReader for you and takes care of the DRM protection scheme.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 10:51 am and is filed under Business, Economy, Employment, Finance, Money, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Save Money by Getting Free Ebooks Legally

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