Sony has a deal with Google that allows users of the Sony Reader to get all
kinds of public domain e-books for free. But what about the Kindle users?
Not to worry.
Thanks to Buzz Out Loud listener Dave for sending along a tip for downloading
free e-books right to the Kindle, no computer necessary. That's something
that the Sony Reader can't do.
First, make sure your Kindle's on and the wireless connection is active.
Press menu and select experimental.
Then select basic Web.
Press menu again and select enter URL.
Then enter www.feedbooks.com/mobile.
Now you can browse through books by title or author. It's a little tedious
using the navstick to move down and select the titles.
I'm going into Authors.
select D for Dickens.
And select "A Christmas Carol."
Once I've found the book and clicked, it will ask me if I wish to download
it. I say OK.
It downloads. And once it is finished--I can press Home and the book will
show up on my list of books. No charge! The full public domain book is
there, absolutely legal.
Feedbooks.com also makes a Kindle Guide that you can download and use instead
of the browser.
When you download the guide, it shows up in your list of books on the home
page. And then you can open that guide and and browse for books from there.
The thing is, I could not make it work on my Kindle 2, and even when we did
get it working on a co-workers Kindle it kicks you out to the browser to make
downloads anyway. The browser-version worked just fine, so you might just
want to go with that.
And keep in mind any books you get from feedbooks won't sync to other Kindles
or to the iPhone app.
Enjoy your free e-books, I'm Tom Merritt, CNET.com.
