So My Kid Won a Free Kindle...

[amberfocus]

...and I haven't the faintest clue. I do not want to buy him a bunch of ebooks, but I know there are supposed to be a bunch of good, free books out there in the public domain. So how do I find them and then how do I get them on the Kindle? Talk slow and use little words please.

Comments

[kitsune17.livejournal.com]

I use Calibre to put my books on my Kindle and get them through...umm...certain LJ communities. I buy some from Amazon as well.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

[rowofstars.livejournal.com]

Sweet! That's a pretty cool prize.

The Kindle Store on Amazon.com has a free collections page. From the main Amazon screen:

+ On the left hand side arrow over Books
+ When the menu opens click Kindle Books
+ On the left hand side again, scroll down to section called More to Explore, click Free Collections.

That provides links to the Open Library, American Libraries archive, Gutenberg Project etc. They all have Kindle button links to tell it to download that book to your Kindle. You do have to put your Amazon.com account into the Kindle to register it, so it knows where to send the books, and put the Kindle on your home wireless.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Also this site is handy to search for stuff. I've gotten several cheap & free books through this search.

http://www.ereaderiq.com/

[ari-griffin.livejournal.com]

Free Stuff Times has a daily (usually) list of all the free Kindle books and it is separated by genre. http://www.freestufftimes.com/free-kindle-ebook-downloads-21
You just have to have an amazon account and link it to the Kindle.

Kindle

[graphnic.livejournal.com]

Amazon.com kindle store. Go explore. Lots of authors run special prices. Books for free, or a dollar. Good stuff!

[amyo67.livejournal.com]

Actually you can start at Amazon. They also offer a lot of free and really inexpensive books. And they'll deliver them wirelessly right to his Kindle.
As far as getting ones from public domain, I have a software that allows you to keep tabs on all ebooks and if they're not in the right format for Kindle, there's a way to convert them.
I can walk you through it in email, or chat if you like, whenever you're ready to get started just let me know.
ANd Congrats to T on winning.

HUGS

[azriona.livejournal.com]

Neat!

Check your local library, too - my library in VA offered ebooks, though I'll admit I have no idea how you downloaded them. Apparently they lock or delete themselves after a specified time, so no worries about late fees. :)

[glory_jean]

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Public domain, so old and weird some of it, but the classics are there.

Seconding your library. Ours has a virtual library and you can d/l ebooks and e-audiobooks. We use it a lot -mostly for audio since my son is dyslexic- but it's really easy to use and they are "returned" automatically (expire). I'm lazy and like the no trips to the library thing.

[adriana-is.livejournal.com]

Try your local library to see if you can download ebooks to your Kindle. There are a lot of free e-book sites such as bookbub.com and Amazon has daily deals that you can sign up for and get a daily email. Sometimes they have great stuff for very low prices.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Check out Baen Books (http://www.baenebooks.com/default.aspx) if you're into SF or Fantasy. They have a "Free Library" of books where (for example) the first one in a series is free so you can check it out. The big advantage of Baen is that their downloads are DRM free so you can download in any format (including Kindle) any number of times and use/read them on any machine with any software, rather than being locked in to a particular machine/software combination. Plus, as you'll see if you check out their prices, even their paid books are much cheaper.

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

Your local library might have free books. search your library's website and see if they have an e-book collection. Your librarian should have a sheet explaining how it works. I know how ours works but not sure if all are the same. Kindles and Nooks rock!

[angelfireeast.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Libraries have ebooks which you just download for free. It's just like any other book you get from the library. Least libraries here in Canada. Lots of famous and poplar books and they are getting more ebooks all the time. You should look into it. As far as I understand you can download them the library website. I'm sure the US has something similar in their libraries.

[crimedoc1.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I've got a Nook, myself, and love it (although my husband is quite disappointed - he thought that since I've got an e-reader I would stop buying physical books - HA!)

Anyway, good sources for free ebooks...

Amazon, obviously - they've got a lot of free stuff for the Kindle, and not just out-of-copyright classics. Keep an eye out - they frequently offer books for free for a short time.

Project Gutenberg has a ton of older stuff: http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

Baen Free Library - for SFF lovers, they have a selection of their books in e-format for free: http://www.baen.com/library/authors.asp

Google Play has free books: https://play.google.com/store/books

MyBeBook has free titles: http://mybebook.com/download_free_ebook/

Public Library - Go to OverDrive and search by your zip code to see which libraries in your area offer e-books for check-out: http://search.overdrive.com/
You check out e-books online, using your library card, and after the checkout period is over, they magically vanish from your e-reader.

I believe there are also some LJ websites for people who love e-books - check those out for additional suggestions. :-D

Oh, also, if you like AUDIO books, LibriVox has a bunch of those free: http://librivox.org/

[empressnan]

I use Pixel of Ink, and have literally gotten HUNDREDS of free books that way. They send out an email every day of available free books. But, I'd suggest you go to the site and look at their categories before signing up. No need in getting emails for books you don't want him to have access to. Happy Kindling!

[sunfall-e.livejournal.com]

One of the places I found good public domain books is gutenberg.org. Sometimes it works best to get the books in html format zipped and convert it with Calibre, but It is a great website. They proofread the books and everything.Amazon has a lot of crap public domain unproofread, etc.