Did you know there are hundreds of eBooks you can read and download for free each week? I only stumbled across this industry because I was looking for ways to promote my own eBook. It turns out that Amazon.com allows authors to have a book promotion where their book is offered for free (or sometimes 99 cents) for 1-5 days every three months. You may have already seen Amazon’s own list of free books at http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_fvp_p_f_154606011?_encoding=UTF8&tf=1, but that list includes some public domain books.
What I found is that there are dozens of other, more curated sites, that feature these giveaway eBooks each day, such as:
https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/free-ebooks
https://www.freebooksy.com
http://www.pixelofink.com/category/free-kindle-books/
https://ohfb.com/book-deals/?min_price=0&max_price=0/
http://www.freebookshub.com/books/free-kindle-books/
http://www.weberbooks.com/kindle/
http://shelfbuzz.com/
http://theereadercafe.com/
http://ebookdaily.com/free-kindle-ebooks/
http://www.dailycheapreads.com/category/free
You can signup with each site to get a daily email list of freebies. You don’t need to have a Kindle to read Kindle eBooks. You can download the Kindle app to your phone or tablet, or install it on your PC.
This week, you can read my own eBook (How To Make Money Online) for free online at https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Online-Internet-ebook/dp/B010VLB6L4. I offered it for free for a week 6 months ago, and it got 800 downloads. I have sold around 50 copies (eBook + paperback) so far, and giving away my book did not seem to help or hurt my sales any. Ideally, at this point, I would make my book free all the time, so as many people as possible would read it, but that is not something Amazon allows (because they would make no money from this).
What a great book – I love books about true life experiences, especially entrepreneurial biographies, and yours was right what I enjoy most: the good, the bad and the ugly.
After reading your title I was a little skeptical, so I did a google search (which you recommend doing in your book) to see if you really made money or were just cashing in on a popular topic – needless to say, I downloaded your book and read it immediately, which is rare – most books I download end up in rotation and I read them when I get to them.
Thank you so much for sharing!
I, too, am a serial entrepreneur, starting with a Kool-Ade stand at the end of my driveway at age seven, starting a landscape business at seventeen (using green stamps for most of my tools), owning a bait shop (fishermen lined up a 5am every morning – no thanks!); I’ve owned multiple landscape businesses, from planting and sod to mowing operations to deck building to ponds and waterfalls to pavers to pest control irrigation systems; a restaurant, an auto accessory biz, and a few others. Recently I have been doing the Kindle Direct Publishing: I have over 200 books so far, and in some categories I have 60-70 books in the top 100. (search amazon.com for ‘Captain Nazi’ (easy to remember) then click my (author’s) name to see my catalog – or – scroll down Captain Nazi page to category rankings and click there to see top 100 books)
Having more failures than successes, but always glad (and un-embarassed) for having tried, I look at every success and failure, every good time and bad, as adding to the texture of my life, so when I am neck deep in crap, I just keep reminding myself to at least enjoy the experience
I did notice, or got the feeling, that you were feeling out-of-sorts as far as what the next chapter of your life will be – maybe take your own advice and think outside the box – I know that saying may be cliche or trite, but I read you as fearless when it comes to new ventures, and I am sure there are businesses unrelated to internetdotcom but can still be run online from the comfort of your office.
Thank you again for your wonderful and entertaining book – and sorry for the long comment, but once I get writing my dang fingers just won’t stop…
Thanks for the great comment. I remember Green Stamps from when I was a kid, I was into that kind of stuff too.
I took a look at your book list now. Do you make any significant money from publishing 200 KDP books?
RE: FREE BOOKS NEWSLETTERS
I subscribe to most of the newletters you have listed, and they OK, but they usually list maybe a dozen books per day and only a few of them are actually free and the majority are discount priced.
The ABSOLUTE BEST SITE for free books is freebooksifter.com – they have anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand books listed every day, plus you can switch book providers from Amazon to Barnes and Noble to Guttenberg, and the books are categorized, like for business, art, biography, etc. Click ‘Newly Added’ for the freshest free books. Here is the link:
http://www.freebooksifter.com/?s=n&n&p=4
Enjoy
Addendum: For best results, check every few days as most books are on there about 2-3 days. I have downloaded literally thousands of books from there, more than I could possibly read, but they are there waiting for me