I’m going to give you some tips how to download free books.

First of all you need to download Kindle.

Did you know there are 1.3 million books on Kindle already, and their number is growing – fast?

You may know the name “Kindle” of the digital reading device that is sold by Amazon. That’s right, there is such a device and the cheapest costs 79 dollars if you’re interested in buying it (see picture). It looks like a flat digital book and it’s very easy to use. You just download books on it and start reading. As it’s light-weight, you can take it everywhere.

Should you decide to buy a Kindle device, you will be entitled to borrow from the 145,000 book Kindle library. This is free.

But hang on, you don’t need to buy the device.

 

No Kindle Needed

You can also download the Kindle app on your computer, tablet or smartphone.

Once you have the app, you can download all the Kindle books you want and read them on your computer, tablet or phone. The program has the same functions as on the Kindle device.

I usually read Kindle books on my phone, but occasionally I read something on my laptop.

Here are some links to download Kindle:

Kindle for computer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download

Kindle for Mac: www.amazon.com/kindleformac

Kindle for Android phones and tablets: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=165849822

Kindle for iPhone: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_iphone_mkt_lnd?docId=1000301301

Kindle for iPad: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_ipad_mkt_lnd?docId=1000490441

Okay, I hope you got that done. We now have the application.

Let’s score some free books!

Downloading Free Books

Downloading the books is done in a few minutes, once you’ve registered with Amazon. They ask you for your name and details. After you fill in your credit card details you will be able to “buy” books with one click. If you choose the free books, your credit card will not be used.

The first thing you could do is browse free books on Amazon.com.

Free Classics

There are thousands of classic books that you can easily find on the Amazon site. Here is a page with free classics:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A%21133143011%2Cn%3A2245146011&ie=UTF8&qid=1346227442

Among those are: Jane Eyre, any books by Charles Dickens, Moby Dick, fairy tales, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, etc.

Still some of the best books in the world, these golden oldies.

Free New Books

As there are many free books available for Kindle that are rubbish or that don’t interest us, we’ll want to find some books that have been reviewed and that are selected from the huge heap of books on the market.

Here are two websites where you can find reviews of new free Kindle books and a download link.

Pixel of Ink: http://www.pixelofink.com/

FreeKindBooks: http://freekindbooks.com

A clever thing to do is to subscribe to their newsletter, so you’ll get the reviews in your email. That way, you won’t miss out on offers.

One word of advice: you need to act quickly, because these books don’t stay free forever. Amazon allows authors and publishers to promote their books for free for a maximum number of 5 days every 90 days. Authors can also choose to promote their book just for one day. So if you see a free book somewhere, click on the link on the same day.

After You Download

Open your Kindle app, go to your archive, and press the button “Sync.” This will trigger a search for new items on your Kindle. The new book or books pop up in your library. Press the book cover with your finger or mouse, and the file will download to your device. From then on you can open it whenever you like, and the Kindle will remember where you left off reading last time.

My basket of free books for today:

• “I’m All Inside Out” – Easy Poems about life and some beloved dead people in the poet’s life.
• “Fractal Art Compositions” – New Age/SF digital art images. Rather nice. They remind me of the Alien(s) and Avatar movies.
• “Malaika” – A story about a man and his friendship with a lioness (a female lion) in Kenya.
• “Trailing: A Memoir” – An American woman marries a doctor from Médecins Sans Frontières (the international doctor’s rescue service) and they move to Kenya. The woman has to deal with traumatic circumstances and she enters a crisis.
• “Marvin’s Book” – A professor wants to help the family of her student who has died in a car accident. She promises to write a book in the student’s honour and open a scholarship in his name. But that promise proves not so easy to fulfil.

I won’t possibly have time to read all my newly downloaded books. I might just choose the book that seems most interesting, and read it whenever I get stuck in a lift or a plane, or late at night when I need something to make me sleepy.

Have fun reading!