How to Download Free Books onto the Amazon Kindle

The cost of books for e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader can add up. But there's no reason to pay Sony or Amazon for books that are already in the public domain. Here's how to get them onto your e-book reader for free.

By Seth Porges

Because their static screens don't flicker like an LCD, E Ink e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle (check out our coverage of the just-announced second-gen Kindle here) and Sony Reader are easy on your eyes and easy on their own batteries. They draw power only to load new pages, not to display the content, allowing a single charge to last through thousands of pages. While the manufacturers might love it if every e-book you read was purchased from their online stores at about $10 a pop, you have other options. The Internet is filled with Web sites eager to dispense virtual versions of books that have lapsed into the public domain. Some of these sites, such as ManyBooks.net, have even begun offering up versions that are specially formatted for the Kindle (.azw files) and Reader (.lrf). You won't find any recent best sellers in the public domain, but it's filled with time-tested classics—more Huckleberry Finn than Harry Potter. Amazon's Kindle store sells classics for between $1 and $4, but with sites like Many Books there's no reason to pay for them anymore. Bringing a Web-found e-book to your reader is easy—just download it onto an SD card and insert it.

And while the Kindle will also support .txt text files, it does not natively support PDF or Microsoft Word files. So if you have have any ebooks in these common formats, you'll need to convert them before you can read them. There's two ways you can do this. It can be done either through third-party software such as the Mobipocket eBook Creater , or by emailing the files to Amazon, who will do the work for you. To do this, send an email to ourkindleusername@free.kindle.com (sub in your Amazon Kindle username for "yourkindleusername"). Amazon will then send you a converted file, free of charge.

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