Free Ebooks NOT On The Public Domain: An Evolving List

I love love LOVE my Kindle. It almost died the other week, but thanks to a little trouble shooting with the Good Thing, it'll probably last another few years. Honestly, if you read on the go a lot, this is something you should consider adding to your list of gadgets.

Now, I'm all for classics. Classics are amazing, and you can't go wrong with Gutenberg's top 100. But what about popular books? What about getting those online? There's a line between copyright stealing and actually having books up there that you want the world to read, and this debate is not one I'm getting into, except, BUY when you can. Especially Indian authors. Buy Indian authors by the buttload. Here's how I deal with my ethical dilemmas--when I'm going to be home for more than a week or two, I buy actual physical books, when I'm not and on the go, I get free ebooks from various sources.

The first of these is Tuebl. Do you know Tuebl? You MUST. It has a great collection of books you can download in a number of formats, and a lot of new bestsellers are on there. From their mission statement:

When authors put their books on TUEBL they are joining the 21st century in realizing that releasing your ebook for free only boosts your sales Source 1 Source 2 Source 3. TUEBL helps market books and authors, and also integrates flattr to allow users to donate to their favourite authors directly. No longer are we bound by middlemen and multi-billion dollar corporations deciding which books succeed and which books fail. Good writing should lead to an authors success, and TUEBL ensures that the good writers are the ones who are promoted.

It might be a bit murky, but there are ways for authors to have their books taken down if they need to. [SITE]

Another one which I just found on my Googling spree is Truly Free. It's almost exactly like Tuebl, but a little less slick design. Unlike Tuebl, there's no disclaimer for legalities, so as long as it's up, you can use it, I guess? [Okay, so I clicked on a book to see what the download format was like. You get redirected to a page, with this text:

Dear Cally,
My enquiry concerns XXXX. I certify under penalty of perjury that I have received from truly-free.org no material protected by international copyright, that truly-free.org neither hosts nor furnishes such material, that truly-free.org does not facilitate the download of such material, and that truly-free.org shall not be a party to any of our communications following this message. I have a good faith belief that truly-free.org is fully compliant with the DMCA and all other international laws and provisions for the protection of intellectual property, and that the owners and administrators of truly-free.org fully support and enforce the protection of intellectual property with due diligence.

Plus you're limited to three downloads a day, but still worth a shot maybe?]

[SITE]




Kids & 90s Classics: A little more shady, but still kinda awesome if you're looking for Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie and all those books from your childhood that you wouldn't necessarily spend money on, but would like to read online anyway are Goanwap and Bookschest.


Romance: For junky romance stuff, try Public Bookshelf which has a bunch of romance novels all categorized (paranormal, historical, and so on and so forth.) Limited collection (I don't read this stuff, so can't comment on the depth), but might scratch your *ahem* itch. (Wink wink, nudge nudge) [SITE]

Short stories: Legal and free, hundreds of links to 160 amazing short stories by well known authors.  [SITE]

Do you have resources? Add them in the comments!