Update 10/7/13 - Adding additional Kindle book searches and including the monthly Amazon deals. Updated the free non-classics (or contemporary) book searches section and will do that monthly.I've added a separate page for Free Non-Classics today so that the search links there can be accessed and used without having to see the the long page of blog posts that are on the main A Kindle World (Kindleworld) page.
The searches include (1) the current and previous months' releases that are still available and which can be sorted by publication date, popularity, or customer ratings average as of that day and (2) several less-known Amazon lists for temporarily-free or very low-cost Kindle books. That now separate page can be separately bookmarked and browsed without having to see the daily postings on the main page.
Occasionally, I'll post an alert on Twitter about a Kindle book (or productivity app) that's temporarily free or on discount for a day or so, if I think readers might not want to miss it. For books, this will generally be a non-fiction one having to do with the Kindle or just a book that's highly regarded. You can 'follow' twitter.com/kindleworld to catch them, although the tweets are usually about info in the latest blog posts.
Those already on Facebook might like to add Facebook (facebook.com/kindleworld.andrys) via the 'Like' feature (to get Facebook notifications of a new posting or alert) if interested in that. Questions can be posted there, with responses in a day or two, which for some is more convenient than posting questions in a comment-area of a blog post.
Update 12/23/12 - Amazon expanded the Kindle Daily Deal to include books in several genres as of December 2012 and children's books earlier in 2012. They also added prior to that the MONTHLY as opposed to Daily deals.
This blog article was updated throughout, as of Dec. 23, 2012, for latest information, links and approximate numbers of Kindle books in current Amazon sets, as of that day.
Earlier Update - 12/15/11 - Amazon changed the coding of the display of Kindle books -- types and sorting methods -- so I changed the various links.
UPDATES for Dec. 20-21, 2011 include adding links for Classics + Public Domain ONLY, as they include latest governmental and organizational information books and documents, and some of the latter are intriguing. Also updated Feedbooks info.
UPDATE Dec. 19, 2011 to change all links and add some
First notification Dec. 15 was not complete and it's ready now (US books). Please Let me know of any errors in the links.
The Interim post said: Here are the latest correct links for current free non-classics, for the last two months, and then by various sorts for all free non-classics.
Updated Nov. 12, 2013
Oct. 2013, Nov 2013
Also, all currently free non-classics sorted by:
Publication Date Bestselling
Adding, for interim alert, Highly rated, under $1
And, of course, here's the Kindle Daily Deal, which changes shortly after midnight each day.
They added the Monthly Kindle deals, but these are 99c up to $3.99, often at very good discounts, but never free. However, they're very popular, so are included here for interest.
In addition, added during 2012: "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) along with Amazon's own Limited Time Free Promos.
ALL REVISED LINKS FOR FREE KINDLE BOOKS PAGE ARE BELOW
The various links below are now revised to work with the new coding, Monday the 19th In the meantime, the information on free book sources remains accurate. The UK links at the end still need revising though.
This long-standing blog entry, Free Kindle Books (begun in 2009), was revised April 10, 2011 to remove most of the chronological changes made over the last two years as it became too confusing to read.
It was also updated again soon after that for the many changes to the free and low-cost Kindle books area at Amazon. Besides the 33,000+ free, complete books (only the ones in English), there are links to find Kindle books that are $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99, as a lot of authors are publishing in that price-range and they're not easy to find. Some are books by indie authors and others are popular books for which the price has been dropped by Big6 publishers after a couple of years or when they want to introduce new readers to authors who have
UPDATE-2a: NOTE that as of Dec. 2012, Amazon Prime customers can borrow one book per calendar month from the the Prime Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL) selection of approximately 180,000 Kindle books
And as of September 21, 2011, Amazon Kindle customers have been able to borrow Kindle books from 11,000+ public libraries in the U.S.
[ End of Update-2a, first added Nov. 10, 2011, and updated Dec. 23, 2012 ]
Find Free Kindle books plus Lower-Cost Kindle Books
Click here first for most recently published NON-classics under $1 or try that list sorted by bestselling. There are more new temporarily-free books or discount-promos on most days, but also prices do change back, so check them regularly.
UPDATE-1: NOTE that the Amazon book promos tend to be temporary and when the price goes back up, Amazon updates the product page $-amounts faster than they update the pricing amounts for the database used for the Amazon searches. You'll note that they're in flux often, so ignore the few that are higher than $0.99 the search-value.
To limit your search to Only the FREE non-classics, check directly below:
This resource contains prepared links that you can click on, at any time, to find, for example, the most recently published free non-classics, or you can choose to see these according to bestselling or highest rated ones as they appear, on a daily basis or more.
These are usually temporarily free, on a short promotional basis, and a click will show you the latest ones, although Amazon displays free books on various listings and they don't all show up any one list
On your computer's web-browser, you can of course bookmark this page to get here more easily. The short URL is http://bit.ly/kfreelow3.
Chapter, Excerpts and Previews
Since most Kindle owners seem interested in complete books, I've tried to avoid search results for books which offer only certain chapters, excerpts and which are, essentially, previews. At least, they're labelled clealy, in any event when you go to the Amazon Kindle book pages. <-- I'll test these more before giving links to Kindle book lists that show no Chapters or Previews or Excerpts, with the downside that titles of full books which include one of these words won't be on these lists. But later on this particular set -->
Free Kindle-Compatible books at Non-Amazon websites
This guide to Free and Low-cost Books page also includes links to most of the other (non-Amazon) Web site that have a strong offering of free Kindle-compatible books, many of which are directly downloadable to your Kindle at no added cost. Let me know about good (legal) ones I haven't included.
Important advantages to downloading Kindle versions of free books
Bear in mind that when you download free Kindle books from Amazon, they can be
1. Sync'd with your other Kindle-compatible devices and
2. Included in your private-password protected Annotations webpage on Amazon servers,
which can be accessed at kindle.amazon.com
Kindle Edition blog-subscribers
Subscribers to the Kindle blog-edition have found that when following blog-links to a book or other Amazon product, the Kindle Edition is not always enabled to make clickable orders through the Kindle-version of the Kindle Store.
. So I recommend a drop-in to the webpage when you feel like checking the latest published free nonclassics and best-selling free nonclassics -- as these can change in a couple of hours and there are about 6 pages of them at any given time.
Another Amazon Change - "Relevance," which I've called "LateListed."
It shows up now only in certain circumstances and sometimes is called 'default' so I'm ignoring it at this point.
"By Relevance" ('default') or Late-listed ebooks tended to include books that were published some years ago but which were recently added to the temporarily-free non-classic Kindle book listings. "By Publication Date"-lists would show these books, published some years ago, lower down in the listings when sorting by more-recently published, at the top. I'll watch what they're doing it with it these days and see if I can make sense of it.
With the links below you can quickly see only the small selection of currently-free contemporary Kindle books sorted also by Publication Date, Bestsellers (linked just above) or by the Average Customer-Rating, as that's made easier with the prepared links on this page.
Each Kindle Edition blog has the last 25 blog articles, searchable on the Kindle so that you can find items of interest more easily within the 25 articles while offline. I think many will find it useful despite my penchant for giving source-links for data. I try to include enough info from the news sources so that Kindle Edition blog-subscribers for A Kindle World don't have to click links to get the main points.
Again, a few newer books are promotional and free for only a while. Sometimes for only a couple of days.
So it's a good idea to bookmark this page, in addition to other resources you use, to check out, when you're able, what might be new to you, with the ready-links to categories of available free or very low cost books.
SUMMING UP:
MAIN FREE KINDLE BOOK SEARCH LINKS
1. INCLUDING CLASSICS & PUBLIC DOMAIN (updated 12/23/12)
Amazon's now almost 41,000+ free books (complete and in English), sorted by:
Bestselling or by Highest Rated or by Publication Date
These include both the classics and non-classic books.
UPDATE 12/20-21 to include mostly Public Domain (Classics included) titles -- somehow some contemporary ones and books with the work 'classic' in the description are also included.
2. MOSTLY CLASSICS & PUBLIC DOMAIN
The Public Domain ones include later books or documents that are offered to the public by government or informational organizations.
As of today, 12/23/2012, there are over 33,000 Classics and Public Domain offerings and some impurities that sneak in. These are sorted by:
Bestselling or by Highest Rated or by Publication Date
The last, publication-date, sort is best for latest free government or organizational information releases on quite esoteric subjects. [End of Update]
3. NON-CLASSICS ONLY (mainly)
Amazon's CURRENTLY FREE Non-Classics sorted by Bestselling, or by Highest Rated, or by Publication Date.
UK links added:
Recently published free books and bestsellers
The free Non-classic Kindle books list changes almost daily, sometimes hourly.
This should help with finding Amazon's Kindle Digital-Text Platform (DTP)-published authors' new self-published books and other-publisher Kindle books that are discounted):
(NOTE: SOME higher prices will appear in each set because their prices changed but they are
still tagged somewhere as the lower price.)
These are links for non-classics UNDER $1 (From $0.01 to $1)
a. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. For Under $1.00 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS.
and links for non-classics FROM $1 to $1.99 (mostly)
a. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. From $1 to $1.99 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS
and links for non-classics FROM $2 to $2.99 (mostly)
a. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST publication date
b. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLING books
c. From $2 to $2.99 Non-Classics sorted by CUSTOMER RATINGS
You can change the Sort on the Amazon page, at the top-right.
4. The Project Gutenberg e-books catalog (MOBI editions) for Kindles. You can browse or search the catalog on your Kindle and click on one to have it downloaded to your Kindle from the site.
There are no Amazon charges on a download from the Project Gutenberg site.
5. A humongous Amazon Forum thread on a million or so books readable on the Kindle - How to get them (mostly free).
6. How to convert, in 2-3 minutes, any of Google's half million free books. They are available in ePub format. But you can now download instead the PDF versions although the re-flowed text of ePub and Kindle-Mobi books may be easier to read than original layout PDFs.
OTHER SEARCHES
I need to add these days that some international Kindle users in Europe and some other countries are in high wireless-cost areas, so Amazon charges about $2 more in some countries for the otherwise free book. They've removed the additional charge in a few countries though.
FREE CLASSICS AND PUBLIC DOMAIN BOOKS AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE
(Let me know what you use, from the list below, that needs updating. Thanks.)
For these Amazon customers and any Kindle owners interested in finding mostly free, direct-to-Kindle e-books at other sites -- these sites can download direct to a Kindle, at no cost:
You can also download to your Kindle or computer, for later transfer to your Kindle, free "mobi" or "prc" format books from feedbooks.com, manybooks.net, fictionwise.com, and as I've often mentioned, any of 30,000 well-formatted books from the Project Gutenberg set.
Recommended also are the millions of free Internet Archive books and documents plus other offerings from the January 24, 2010 blog article.
The Internet Archive folks are responsible for Open Library -- "Open Library is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published."
Mobileread Forum books makes very well-proofed e-books. This links to their listing of e-books, sorted by Amazon-readable 'PRC' format and by most recent first. These tend to be very well formatted, with linked table-of-contents page when applicable, and mostly free. Some of their ebooks are sold at Amazon and I think more of them will use the self-publishing feature of Amazon in the future.
Baen.com. Baen's Free Library offers science-fiction in ".prc" (MOBI) format, which is essentially the Kindle format without rights-protection. While Baen's e-books might not be directly downloaded to the Kindle (they offer you the choice to email their e-books to your Kindle instead) -- and if you get a book that way, it incurs costs of about 15c per megabyte of a file. Books that are mainly text seldom are more than a megabyte so the cost would be 15c).
But you can choose to, instead, download Baen's e-books to the computer and transfer them via USB cable to the Kindle's "documents" folder (or use the USB cable to attach the Kindle to your computer and download direct to the Kindle's "documents" folder. Here's their Guide to doing that.
Baen.com also sells non-rights-protected commercial offerings (in addition to offering free classics) in that format.
NOTE: Again, Kindles with 3G Cellular wireless or using WiFi networks CAN download books direct-to-Kindle from several book stores (see above) using the Kindle web-browser.
If wondering what the differences are between the '3G' and 'WiFi' capabilities, a short blog article here may help.
FURTHER UPDATE 12/20-21, 2011
Feedbooks Dedicated Kindle Guide
Commenter Tom Semple pointed out that Feedbooks.com discontinued the Kindle Guide but has instructions for downloading the Kindle-compatible editions as well as a link for downloading them direct to the Kindle. [End of Update]
Mobile Device-Optimized Pages
For those who can and do use the wireless feature to look up information on the Net, there are links to the mobile-device-optimized versions of the webpages for feedbooks.com and manybooks.net.
The Kindle can access these two sites more easily using these links::
(1) feedbooks.com-mobile: http://www.feedbooks.com/?format=mobile and
(2) manybooks.net: http://mnybks.net.
Some (especially e-Ink reader users) who need smaller mobile-oriented webpages might want to use the free, downloadable 'book' file I put together which is made up of mobile-device-friendly links to various popular websites and which explains some workarounds for problems that might be encountered using webpages such as the one for gmail.
AMAZON'S Free Book Collections webpage
As of March 2, 2010, Amazon added a new page with pointers to Free Book Collections on the Net, all of which are included here. This ongoing blog article includes other large, Kindle-compatible book sources as well and has pointers to and links for such things as how to get the Project Gutenberg books on your Kindle directly, without needing to use a computer vs the method described at Amazon's page.
That new Amazon page also includes a link to its own Amazon Free Classics listing. There are over 15,500 free classics at Amazon. Again, annotations made on these Classics can be kept on your private, password-protected webpage on the Amazon servers, and you can sync Amazon books between your Kindle-compatible devices, including smart phones, tablets, and with free apps for them and for your PC or Mac.
NOT FREE
For those interested in an easier-to-remember shortcut to Amazon's current 100 Bestsellers (the majority seem to be free but there are regular-priced ones in the list as well), try http://bit.ly/kbsellers.
Here's a search some have requested on the forums -- non-classics under $10, for a time when the Big6 publishers (with Apple iBookstore as driving force) have successfully pushed Amazon to the "Agency" model and to prices too often from $13 to $15 for newer books.
That lists contemporary Kindle books priced from $3.00 through $9.99, and sorts by bestselling books, with most popular books first, as Kindle owners on forums have wanted to be able to easily find e-books that are priced below $10.
These start at $3 because $0 to $2.99 range is already covered above.
When at the page results, you can sort by low-to-high or high-to low also, using the options in the top, right-hand corner.
Also, a popular item for browsing has been the Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2009. This was first noted in the blog entry for Amazon's Best of 2009.
Later added Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2010.
And here's Bestsellers in Kindle books for 2011 so far (Dec. 19 Update).
*NON*-KINDLE - These are paper books, but the 40% discounts should be noted.
As of March 3, 2010, Amazon has created a new page that highlights what they consider "the best new books" to read every month. These feature "editors' picks" and "reviews of the best new reads in fiction, nonfiction, and books for young readers, available at 40% off all month long." The new page is titled Amazon's Best Books of the Month Store.
Again, these are *NOT* Kindle books, but some books are not in Kindle format and some readers don't have Kindles, yet :-)
Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
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