5 Websites To Get Free E-Books
The rise in popularity of tablets and e-readers has created
a huge demand for e-books. However, unlike physical books, the process of buying
e-books is constrained because of the limited number of online stores as well
the proprietary formats most of them use. If you have an iPad and buy e-books
from the iBooks, then access to these books is limited to Apple hardware.
Similar is the situation with Amazon's Kindle, although they offer Kindle apps
for iOS and Android.
But if you are someone who wants to read some quality
literature, fiction or non-fiction, then here are 5 websites from which you can
get e-books for free, legally. You can use access these e-books from your
smartphones, tablets and your computers.
1. Project Guttenberg
Guttenberg project is one of the largest sources for free
e-books. Gutenberg offers over 54,000 free e-books, which includes many of the
world's greatest works of literature for which copyright has expired. Project
Guttenberg creates its e-books with the help of thousands of volunteers.
To get free e-books from Guttenberg, all you need is to go
the website, find the e-book you want and just download. You don't even have to
register or subscribe. Most importantly, Guttenberg offers its e-books in
multiple formats, so that you can read them with your Kindle, smartphone, or
with the iBooks app on iPad.
2. ManyBooks
ManyBooks is another website that offers free e-books.
ManyBooks boasts an e-book collection of around 33,000, that span across
different genres from adventure, biography, horror, romance to science fiction.
Compared to Project Guttenberg, ManyBooks website offers a cleaner and easy to
navigate interface. However, unlike Guttenberg, not all the books here is free,
although most of them are. And to get free ebooks or discounts, you have to
register with the website as well.
3. LibriVox
LibriVox offers audiobooks that are free for anyone to
listen. Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project, with
audiobooks created by volunteers. LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books
in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net for
free.
All of this audio is in the public domain, so you may use it
for whatever purpose you wish. However, LibriVox gives a line of caution to its
users. Since the audiobooks they provide are in the public domain, readers and
listeners should be aware that many of them are very old. And it may contain
language or express notions that are antiquated at best, offending at worst.
4. Scribd
Scribd is a digital library and e-book and audiobook
subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd hosts 60 million
documents on its open publishing platform. Scribd's e-book subscription service
is available on Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, as well as the Kindle
Fire, Nook, and personal computers. Scribd offers all kinds of reading
materials: presentations, textbooks, popular reading, and much more, all
organized according to the topic.
5. Bookboon
Bookboon is currently the world's largest online source for
free textbooks. Its collection is focused on publishing mostly student
literature. Bookboon.com has published more than 1,000 free textbooks for
students. These textbooks can be downloaded in PDF format without prior
registration. Unlike others in this list, Bookboon is backed by advertizing in
their e-books.
