How to download free books for ebook readers and Kindle

One of the main requests of ebook reader owners, like Amazon Kindle or Kobo Aura, is to know where they can download free books in order to fill their devices. After having come into possession of the ebook reader, it is impossible not to be seized by the irrepressible desire to fill it with titles at all costs. An ebook reading device can on average contain around 2500 titles, so why not take advantage of it then?

Although there are hundreds of sites and other resources that allow you to download books for free, most people insist on using more or less legal systems to download ebooks. In this sense, the most used resources are those that use P2P protocols (Peer to Peer), like Torrent and Amule.

Illegal services to download ebooks in different formats for free

These services are legal, but sometimes (often) they are used to exchange illegal materials, like copyrighted books, so they become illegal in this way. Also, the most used types of files for books to read with ebook readers are the ePUB (open-source electronic publication format), the Mobi and the AZW (both proprietary Kindle formats), these formats are tiny and really easy to share with P2P services. If you use Amule to share files, it won’t be difficult for you to find eBooks by searching with keywords that include the names of the above-mentioned file formats. The same thing for the Torrent format, looking for the most widespread directories like 1337x, The Pirate Bay, or Torrentz², you will find lots of titles not covered by copyright (therefore freely downloadable) or by simply searching in Google and adding those terms to the title of the book to search for. For example, you can use terms like ebook, epub, mobi, and download.

The Neverending Story epub download

Michael Ende mobi ebook download

Be careful, it is not always possible to free download books and ebooks because of the copyright! So, pay attention to what you’re doing: it’s PIRACY. Downloading a book protected by copyright when it could be purchased in one of the many online stores is a theft. In fact, more often than not, through systems like Torrent and Amule, you can (without knowing it!) download copyrighted content and then you commit a crime. The only caveat is to pay close attention to what you download and from where you download it: you might encounter, without knowing it, copyrighted material and then fall into the crime network.

And if I own a paper copy of the ebook that I want to download, can piracy be justified in this case?

Generally, if you have purchased the paper copy, you should be already entitled to use the electronic one for free, but it does not for the law. So, don’t do it if not explicitly specified in the paper copy.

Legal services to download ebooks in different formats for free

The legal services to download books in electronic format for free are constantly increasing and the trend does not seem to diminish given the continuous high demand in this sense.

Read for free thanks to technology and read for free thanks to eBooks, are a pleasure thanks to the vastity of the resources available, it seemed right to propose updated information about it.

Here is a list of the main web services for downloading ebooks:

Amazon Top 100 Free – allows you to find the hundred most downloaded books in the last period and is constantly updated, while with Kindle Ebooks sorted by the increasing price you can browse through all the titles that are offered at no cost.

Free Ebook on Google Play – allows you to download complete stories and books from emerging and classic authors who have decided to promote their works online without receiving any compensation. You can also find bestsellers sometimes and check out ratings and reviews from other users.

Internet Archive – this is an immense non-profit library with a clear and noble mission of giving everyone the opportunity to have access to all knowledge. The site (check also Open Library) is a huge digital archive of texts, audio files, and video files. As for electronic books, the collection offers texts in multiple formats, including the Mobi format dedicated to the Kindle and also the DjVu format.

ManyBooks – this website allows you to find free download books in all the main languages of the world. It also allows you to browse your catalog even by language and then view only the texts in Italian. It includes many classic works but also a good number of modern books and proposals by young authors. From the classics of literature to the stories of emerging authors, from manuals distributed in creative commons license to poems and modern fiction.

Project Gutenberg – it is a real international eBook database. Available in every language, we obviously also find those in yours, contains the major classics of world literature and supports different file formats, including, clearly, even the .mobi format, the proprietary Amazon Kindle. You will find the world’s great literature here, with a focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for enjoyment and education.

Some additions of considerable value:

Open Culture – 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices
Smashwords – the ultimate destination for independent authors and self-publishers
Free Ebooks – the awesome power of knowledge, right at your fingertips

You don’t need an ebook reader to read for free

The list of resources and sites to download free books presented above is nothing more than a small example (but already quite sufficient to fill a life of readings) of how easy it is to find free a definite abundance of texts to fill your ebook reader. Having said that it is easy to understand how a digital book reader allows you to read well and a lot, spending little. A digital reader is not necessarily mandatory to take advantage of these free resources: there are many alternative ways to read free computer books or take advantage of free texts.

Personally, we can only recommend the purchase of an electronic book reader like the Amazon Kindle PaperWhite. It has been and will remain for a long time, one of the best purchases we have ever made: very little expense and a lot of yields. We know, it will never have the charm of a good paper book and will never be able to reproduce the romanticism of the smell of the printed paper, but it has really so many qualities. It does not take up space but contains an entire library, it reads like a book and does not tire the view like tablets, it also contains many dictionaries ready for use and allows you to highlight notes to download them onto the PC: it is a highly productive tool and costs little.

In any case, as mentioned above, it is not necessary to have an ebook reader to take advantage of the legally and free downloadable text collections: you can do it in many other ways. First of all, you can download the Amazon software reader to read Mobi files on any device you have, such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Thanks to the free Kindle reading application, you can download a Kindle eBook and read it instantly on your tablet, smartphone, Kindle device or computer. Moreover, thanks to Whispersync technology, you can start reading a book on a device and pick up where you left off on another device, without ever losing your mark.

If you have other readers or software to read ebooks on your tablets, smartphones, and PCs that support other formats, no problem. The important thing is to be able to download free books and not the starting format of the downloaded files, because through Calibre, a completely free and open-source application, it is very easy to convert different formats between them.

Calibre is the Swiss army knife of text formats for ebooks and electronic books, it can be downloaded for free and is compatible with all operating systems, as well as localized in every language. The books can be inserted in the program archive through a simple drag & drop and for conversion, it is sufficient to press the Convert button and choose the format of the destination file, the program will take care of the rest. In addition to the conversion process, Calibre is able to store and catalog all your ebooks, get the metadata of the texts from the Internet and even recover the book covers. You can also use Calibre as an ebook reader app instead of the Amazon one, so you can do anything with Calibre.

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