Check out our new service, Downloadable Ebooks and Audiobooks, through Kentucky Libraries Unbound/Overdrive.

Other places you can download free books include:

Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org 36,000 free ebooks available in many formats.

Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org Over 2.7 million texts, mostly non-fiction. The bulk of the titles have been contributed by academic libraries. This is likely the best source for historical works. In addition to the ebooks, the archive contains movies, video of music concerts, audiobooks, music podcasts and the Internet Wayback Machine for viewing archived websites.

SmashWords: http://www.smashwords.com/ Over 30,000 titles, mostly self-published, from independent authors and publishers. While not all the listed titles are free, it’s very easy to limit browsing to only the free titles.

Many Books http://www.manybooks.net Over 29,000 titles, primarily fiction. There is a bit of overlap with Project Gutenberg, but there are some titles here that are not duplicated on the Project Gutenberg site.

Forgotten Books: http://www.forgottenbooks.org Almost 10,000 titles. Some unique titles not available elsewhere, lots of overlap with Project Gutenberg.

Scribd http://www.scribd.com Millions of documents including books, short stories, poems, pamplhets, brochures and government documents. Scribd describes itself as “the largest book club on the planet” with an emphasis on social networking. While texts can be read online at any time, downloading requires that you login with a facebook account.

 

Specialized Sites:

Bean Free Library: http://www.baen.com/library 120 current, copyrighted, science fiction and fantasy novels from Baen Books. Available in multiple formats, the collection includes works by David Weber, Eric Flint, and Mercedes Lackey. Reprints of classic sci-fi titles by James H. Schmitz, Keith Laumer and others are also available.

Munseys: http://www.munseys.com Mostly pulp fiction and dime store novels. Available in a wide variety of formats for free download.

Internet Sacred Text Archive: http://www.sacred-texts.com contains hundreds of religious and philosophical texts covering everything from Alchemy to Zoroastrianism. Texts are in HTML versions for online reading.

Searching:

InkMesh: http://inkmesh.com/ indexes numerous sites including SmashWords, Amazon, and other book retailers. In addition to searching, it is easy to browse by both broad and narrow subject headings. Results can be limited by several factors including price.

Google Government Research: http://www.google.com/unclesam Google searching limited to government websites. This is enormously more effective than using the standard google search.

 

Many thanks to Jennifer Gregory of Boone County Public Library for her generous permission to share this listing and review of free ebook-related websites.

A few words about Ebook formats and software:

Ebooks come in many varieties, from Adobe to Kindle and beyond. Each E-reader device will work with one or several preferred ebook file formats. Currently the most common ebook file formats are EPUB, PDF, MOBI/PRC, AZW, and TXT.  You can tell which kind of ebook file you are looking at by paying attention to the final string of letters in the name of the file. For example, a file named “ebook.PDF” is a pdf file and will work with any adobe software, on your desktop computer or on several kinds of ereaders.

There are also several varieties of software made specifically for reading ebooks, and many of them are now available on your computer, on your phone, Ipad, tablet, and ereader. Some of the various ebook software includes:

Adobe Digital Editions: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions

Sony Reader Library: http://ebookstore.sony.com/download/

MobiPocket Reader: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/

Kindle for PC: http://www.amazon.com/pg/kindle/pc/

 

To Create Ebooks:

Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/download/

MobiPocket Creator: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/