How to Get Free Kindle eBooks from Amazon, Smashwords, and Authors

So you want to know how to get free Kindle eBooks from Amazon, Smashwords, and authors!

Every few weeks I put together a round up of novels that I’ve noticed are currently being offered for free on Amazon. Most of these books I’ve read, or have downloaded to my Kindle library, on the to-be-read list.

Reading taste is subjective. I like cozy mysteries, regular mysteries, thrillers, romantic suspense, autobiographies, and travel literature. Science fiction not so much. My reading tastes might not be the same as yours, so if you think the Kindle books on my round up suck, here are a few tips to find what you’d rather read. Let’s find out how to get free Kindle eBooks from Amazon, Smashwords, and authors.

Best Sellers in Kindle Store

On Amazon’s, website, there is a section for the best sellers in Kindle.

https://amzn.to/2WKuTg1

There are two sections: Top 100 Paid and Top 100 Free.

Click on the free section. Scroll through and click on titles that appeal to you. Read the blurb and decide if you want to “buy”. Keep an eye on the price before you click the buy button. Sometimes these books migrate back to their regular price.

If you want to narrow down your selection to a genre you like, go to this page on Amazon, https://amzn.to/39h7x6R on the left sidebar you’ll see different categories.

Click on your favorite genre, for example, “Mystery, Thriller and Suspense” https://amzn.to/3fW0SSg Make sure you’re in the Top 100 Free section, and if you buy, double check the price to ensure it’s still free.

If you like Travel books, click here https://amzn.to/3eX8se5

If you like Biographies and Memoirs, click here https://amzn.to/3fQvGDM

OK, I’m sure you can figure it out from here!

Disclosure

Just a reminder that I’m an Amazon associate. If you click on a link and make a purchase, I’ll make a small commission for the referral. For free Kindle eBooks, I don’t receive a commission.

Just throwing that out there in case you click on a buy link for a book that migrated back to its regular price!

BookBub

You can sign up at BookBub.com to get emails on free and discounted books in genres you like. No charge for this service.

If you have favorite authors, add them to your preferences and you’ll receive emails whenever they have a special.

You can specify how frequently you’d like to receive emails. I’m on the daily list, but while I’m writing this blog post, it’s just clicked into my brain that I haven’t seen a BookBub email in quite some time. At least a month.

Yeah, the evils of getting too many emails. It might take awhile to realize one of them has dropped out of sight!

Smashwords

Smashwords is a large online book seller. You can sign up for a free  Smashwords account and download books in different formats.

Don’t worry. In a moment I’ll have some easy instructions on what to do when you get free eBooks emailed to you.

You need to know what format your eReader uses.

Hunh? What’s this about formats?

It’s like the extension from a file on your computer. Say you use MS Office. A Word document would end in “doc”.

The Kindle wants the MOBI format.

Your iPad or iPhone, or even your Android, want EPUB.

However, all of them will take PDF files that can be read on their device/app, but the formatting may be a bit wonky.

Smashwords has different formats you can choose to download, so know before you “buy”.

Check this link for free eBooks: https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/home/1/free/any

Note the different tabs at the top of the page to click on. You might want bestsellers or highly rated books. The above link has asked for books “over 50,000 words”.

No puny novels for us!

Play around with Smashwords, and just like with Amazon, double check the price before you download a freebie just in case it’s migrated back to its regular price.

Authors

How many times are you reading a book and see a note from the author asking you to sign up to their free newsletter?

A lot of authors send out newsletters promoting new releases or special deals on their books. Sometimes there will be a pre-order special in advance of a release date. Love those 99¢ deals! Yeah, works for me!

Many authors offer a free eBook if you sign up for their newsletters.

You can sign up for Gemma Halliday’s newsletter and get a free Kindle book. https://www.gemmahalliday.com/contact

If you go to David Bishop’s website, one of those annoying pop up boxes invites you to sign up for his mailing list https://davidbishopbooks.com/

Quite often, his book The Woman is free on Amazon Kindle.

I’ve read several of his series, often catching them for free or 99¢ specials.

Author Toby Neal writes crime thrillers that take place on Hawaii. She has two free eBooks if you sign up to her newsletter. http://www.subscribepage.com/TobyNealNews

If you have favorite writers, check out their author page on Amazon and there is probably a link to their website or social media. Take a look around their website and see if they have a newsletter. Most authors are too busy crafting their next novel to send out frequent newsletters. They’ll keep you updated on deals and new releases.

Do you have a Kindle?

I read my eBooks on a Kindle Fire 7. Right now it’s on special for $35! Yeah about half the price I paid for it two years ago!

(Price is subject to change at any time. If you click and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission for the referral.)

Anyway, it’s a really great price if you’ve been considering getting one. It’s SO much cheaper than an iPad. What are they going for these days? Upwards of $500. Yikes! The Kindle can do everything the iPad does. Email, surf the Internet, take photos, play audio, and store countless books for you to read.

My next Kindle is going to be this waterproof Paperwhite.

No Kindle?

Don’t let lack of a Kindle stop you from getting in on free eBooks.

I downloaded the Kindle app on my iPad to read eBooks. And away I went. The iPad has the iBooks library which I preferred over Kindle.

But now my loyalty has switched!

I changed my mind after I did an update to the iPad and it ditched all the iBooks that hadn’t been purchased from the iTunes store.

What! That really pissed me off. There are many online booksellers that give you the option of choosing the book format to download. Some of these booksellers are no longer in business. I have no way of getting back my lost library.

OK, so Kindle it is!

My iPhone has the Kindle app, but it’s a pretty tiny screen for reading a book on. It’ll work in a pinch if I’m waiting at the doctor’s office and didn’t bring my Kindle, but for long term reading? Nope.

The good thing about all these Kindle eBooks is if you start reading the book on your Kindle, and then switch to your iPad because the battery ran out on the Kindle (yes, speaking from experience) and you’re on WiFi, a pop up box asks if you’d like to start reading from where you left off on the other device.

It’s like magic!

You can even read eBooks on your computer. When you’re on Amazon and have purchased a Kindle eBook or got one for free, there’s a tab that says “read on any device”. Click on that and you’ll go to another page that has a few apps to choose for downloading (App Store, Google Play, etc) or download to your computer.

How to get that Kindle eBook onto your device

Before you can read free eBooks on your Kindle, or iPad, etc, you have to add your device to your Amazon account. You probably logged on to your Amazon account when you added the app to your device. If not, Amazon will walk you through how to add your device.

When you click to buy, there’s an option to choose for where to deliver the book to. I have my Amazon account set up to default to my Fire. The drop down menu also has my iPad and iPhone listed.

Now here’s another magical thing. Just because I went with the Fire option, if I open the Kindle app on my iPad or iPhone, all the books I’ve downloaded are there. too.

Magic!

But let’s say you’ve signed up for a free newsletter from one of your favorite authors and you’re getting a free eBook. You will mostly likely get an option asking which format you want.

So your author emails you the book in the format you’ve chosen. Let’s just stick with MOBI for the Kindle. How the heck do you get that book onto your device?

I read all my emails on my laptop computer. So how do I get that book off my laptop and onto my device.

I’ve found the easiest way is go to the email program on that device, and click on the book attachment on the email. The device will ask if you want to open in the reading program. Just say yes and there you are.

That also works with the iPad. Just open your email, click the book, and go for it. With my iPad it asks if I want to open the book in the Kindle app or in iBooks.

Happy Reading!

I hope these tips on how to get free Kindle eBooks from Amazon, Smashwords, and authors helps you find some great books to read for free!

Check out a couple of my book reviews on YouTube.

Book Reviews: