4 ms·

When I owned my Kindle, I had about 80 books on it. I'd paid for 2 of them, "Les Miserables" and "The Count of Monte Cristo." The rest I got by combing the top

When I owned my Kindle, I had about 80 books on it. I'd paid for 2 of them, "Les Miserables" and "The Count of Monte Cristo." The rest I got by combing the top sellers list and "buying" all the books listed as free.

vtail 16y ago
Well, do you know that both of these books are available for free? http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://www.gutenberg.org/ and http://calibre-ebook.com/ http://calibre-ebook.com/ are your friends.
- papachito 16y ago
  Came here to post just that. Both of these books are very old and as such did fall under the public domain a while ago. One of the biggest advantage of ebooks is that you can get public domain books for free. I don't understand why would anyone buy them.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Sometimes I'd rather pay $0.99 for an e-book that is formatted well than acquire it for free in a messy unfriendly e-book.
  - holdenk 16y ago
    How can you tell when its going to be well formatted versus just a paywalled copy of the free one?
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      Both Kindle and the iBookstore offer free samples. They usually work really well though they do sometimes have problems, such as cutting off before the main text starts due to a long introduction. (And I downloaded a sample of the famously footnoted Infinite Jest from iBooks... didn't include any footnotes. Anybody know if that's just a limitation of the sample? My purchase decision depends on how easy it is to get to/back from the footnotes...)
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - joubert 16y ago
    I agree. In fact, a little while back NPR had a story about Shakespeare's Double Falsehood. There's a free ebook but the quality sucks. I spent some time putting together a decent ebook and put it up for sale on my startup's catalog - http://fifobooks.com/Catalog?bkid=629c4fc4-cac6-4702-ad97-3b2c35e62620 http://fifobooks.com/Catalog?bkid=629c4fc4-cac6-4702-ad97-3b...
- malloreon 16y ago
  I did find them for free, but not until later. I suddenly had a hankering to read each book, and $2 total ended up being an acceptable spend.
sh1mmer 16y ago
I have a lot of free book but a lot of paid ones too. I bought everything written by Terry Pratchett via Amazon and maybe 30 books from O'Reilly direct from them.
deleted 16y ago
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vtail 16y ago

Well, do you know that both of these books are available for free? http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://www.gutenberg.org/ and http://calibre-ebook.com/ http://calibre-ebook.com/ are your friends.

papachito 16y ago
Came here to post just that. Both of these books are very old and as such did fall under the public domain a while ago. One of the biggest advantage of ebooks is that you can get public domain books for free. I don't understand why would anyone buy them.
sliverstorm 16y ago
Sometimes I'd rather pay $0.99 for an e-book that is formatted well than acquire it for free in a messy unfriendly e-book.
- holdenk 16y ago
  How can you tell when its going to be well formatted versus just a paywalled copy of the free one?
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Both Kindle and the iBookstore offer free samples. They usually work really well though they do sometimes have problems, such as cutting off before the main text starts due to a long introduction. (And I downloaded a sample of the famously footnoted Infinite Jest from iBooks... didn't include any footnotes. Anybody know if that's just a limitation of the sample? My purchase decision depends on how easy it is to get to/back from the footnotes...)
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- joubert 16y ago
  I agree. In fact, a little while back NPR had a story about Shakespeare's Double Falsehood. There's a free ebook but the quality sucks. I spent some time putting together a decent ebook and put it up for sale on my startup's catalog - http://fifobooks.com/Catalog?bkid=629c4fc4-cac6-4702-ad97-3b2c35e62620 http://fifobooks.com/Catalog?bkid=629c4fc4-cac6-4702-ad97-3b...
malloreon 16y ago
I did find them for free, but not until later. I suddenly had a hankering to read each book, and $2 total ended up being an acceptable spend.

sh1mmer 16y ago

I have a lot of free book but a lot of paid ones too. I bought everything written by Terry Pratchett via Amazon and maybe 30 books from O'Reilly direct from them.

deleted 16y ago

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