18 sites to download free e-books that you may already know
Sometimes one wonders if a book’s success is due to the good content or the author/publisher’s promotion. I suppose they will go equally. But why do I say this? … I say it because of the large number of free electronic books that circulate on the net and that not because they are free are less than those worth a few euros (in some cases more than others ). And for the record, I am not referring to books that are in the commercial circuit, with copyright/publisher rights, and are uploaded to portals for illegal download (I apologize if any of the portals mentioned below contain any work with these rights), but to books in the public domain, creative commons or that their authors put on the Internet at zero cost for a specified time or in the digital version thereof.
Many (many, almost impossible to mention all) the portals that exist on the Internet offer a vast amount of electronic books for free download. Internet portals ranging from large companies dedicated to the world of books (see Casa del Libro, Kobo, Bubok or 24symbols), pages of memory custodians and free access to it (see archive.org, Wikibooks or the Project Gutenberg), libraries (see the National Library of Spain, the Library of the Cervantes Institute, … and all public libraries that are going to start, or have already done so, to lend electronic books to their users and that go beyond books classics or creative commons) or large companies in the Internet world (see Google or Amazon).
Below are some of these pages or web portals that make available to everyone who so wishes a large number of titles to download to your device (whether mobile or not) in various formats and ranging from simple text flat up to formats like epub, XML or pdf.
Table of Contents
Open Library
A project of the non-profit organization Internet Archive and partially sponsored by the California State Library. To date, they have collected 30 million records, of which 13.4 million are already accessible on the web, and 230,000 of them can be searched in full text. Open Library is a large digital library that was originally developed to support the visually impaired community.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg can be considered (and in fact, is) the first great collection of free ebooks put online. The project offers more than 45,000 electronic books; many of them are digitized and corrected with thousands of volunteers.
Google books
Google makes available to all Internet users a section of free books (Top Free) which can be downloaded and read from the device’s browser (after log in to your Google account and payment of 0 euros) or through the application Google Play Books to read the books on Android phones and tablets.
Amazon
Amazon offers a large number of titles at 0.00 euros “for its users,”… and when I refer to its users, I do not only mean users who have an Amazon account, but also those who have a Kindle in their possession.
House of the book
Casa del Libro has a section of free ebooks ordered by subject and even authors. To access the books in free download “only,” we will have to register on the web and accept its data protection policy and use conditions. Besides including our shipping data for future purchases (in case you want to make them), become a seller of new or used books (yes, you read that correctly… although I think you can skip this option by going directly). Once the book is selected, it redirects you to tagusbooks to read the books directly from the browser … I suppose that the owners of a Tagus eReader will have access to the selected books from their mobile device.
Kobo
The Kobo digital book platform also makes available Internet users a good (quantity speaking) collection of digital books at 0 euros. All you have to do is enter your page, access your search engine and sort the results by “from lowest to highest price”. As in previous cases, to read the book, you have to register on the platform.
National Library of Spain
The National Library of Spain, through the Hispanic Digital Library, provides free and free access to thousands of digitized documents, including books printed between the 15th and 19th centuries, manuscripts, drawings, engravings, brochures, posters, photographs, maps, atlases, scores, historical press and sound recordings. Its objectives include the dissemination of Spanish cultural heritage and guarantee the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage.
24symbols
24symbols is a platform that allows you to read electronic books from the cloud without the need for downloads or incompatibility of formats. They currently have a catalogue of 15,000 titles (make it clear that not all of them are free, but a large part) and that the least of the problems is that they include advertising in the free readings. As in other platforms, it asks you to register to access the reading.
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore in the United States. To put it in comparison with something similar, we would say that it is the House of the Spanish Book. It offers a wide selection of titles for 0 euros… the “only thing” (I say unique in quotes because I have not verified it) that surely the downloads are only accessible to owners of the Nook reading device.
Wikibooks
The project is integrated into the Wikimedia project and whose objective is to make textbooks, manuals, tutorials or other pedagogical texts with free content and free access available to anyone. Also from Wikimedia highlight the Wikisource project and whose intention is to create a free compendium of texts from primary sources in any language, as well as translations of texts.
OpenLibra
OpenLibra is a personal project of Carlos Benítez. Its idea is to try to gather the greatest quantity of quality bibliographic resources in one place, paying special attention. You can download the book without any registration or view the pdf in the browser.
Public domain
“Website dedicated to disseminating all works in the Public Domain, and to combat attempts to make us believe that if you do not pay, it is neither legal nor culture, even if Cervantes wrote it, Miguel Ángel painted nor Mozart composed”. The book collection’s supported formats range from plain text to XML, through pdf or PDB (among others). The works are mainly in Spanish, although there are also Portuguese, Italian, English and German.
Free-ebooks.net
Free-ebooks.net is an online resource for downloading and sharing free books. It allows the authors themselves to upload their books to the platform. The books can be read from the browser in HTML and pdf format or downloaded to the computer or mobile device in TXT, pdf, epub and Mobipocket formats. “VIP” users will download the books in their own formats for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony Reader.
Feedbooks
Feedbooks is an electronic bookstore and online publishing service. Like any bookstore, his business is the sale of books, but he also has a series of sections from which to download electronic books for free in ePub, .mobi or pdf. These sections are “Public Domain” and “Original Works.”
Bookdot.com
Librodot.com allows, upon registration, the download of more than 10,000 books by more than 1,000 different authors. The books that it makes available to users can be downloaded in ePub and mostly in pdf.
ReadPrint
Online library (community) with thousands of classic books in electronic format. This platform also allows you to comment, discuss and join virtual reading clubs.
ManyBooks.net
Over 29,000 public domain and creative commons ebooks available for Kindle, Nook, iPad, and most eReaders.
Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library
Although the download may be a bit more complicated than the previous resources cited from the Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library, electronic books can also be downloaded or viewed directly in the browser. To carry out this action, one would have to go into any of the areas mentioned in the left menu, select the author’s option and then access the catalogue or works to access the resource. Furthermore, if you become a member of the library, you will be able to download from the catalogue of its electronic library works on Spain and Latin America, philological studies and publications of the Cervantes Institute, as well as other literary works.
Expanding the list …
Lektu
“Lektu is a new online platform for the sale of digital content (mainly ebooks) that aims to be a meeting point between the rights of writers, publishers and readers”… and even if it is an online sales platform (like others that have been seen previously) it does not take away so that part of their titles can be put for free. In this platform, three types of “free *” books can be highlighted (* some require social payment). These are its categories: Free, social payment and pay if you like.
Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA seeks to collect the wealth of America’s libraries, archives, and museums and make them freely available to everyone. It allows access to a large collection of digitized resources defending the public option by putting the collection in the hands of students, teachers, academics and the general public.
Hispanic
“Hispana brings together the digital collections of archives, libraries and museums by the Open Archives Initiative promoted by the European Union and fulfills about digital repositories functions analogous to those of Europeana about European repositories, that is, it constitutes a content aggregator for digital collection databases. “
The Publiteca
La Publiteca is a non-profit project that aims to be a space to publish, share, and talk about many ebooks circulating on the Internet on advertising, marketing, communication, the Internet, and related disciplines. Almost all of the ebooks are freely distributed under Creative Commons Licenses.
Dyskolo
Dyskolo is a non-profit publishing project that seeks to establish a new relationship between those who write and how many people enjoy reading. Dyskolo’s books are not copyrighted “because their application restricts free access to culture, commercializes creation, deprives authors of any right related to publication, distribution and dissemination of their own work, and only benefits economically a tiny intellectual elite and large publishing groups”.
Ablik
Ablik is a free platform for reading and publishing eBooks. It contains copyright-free classical works and original creations, in various languages, which can be read online on any device as if they were books, page by page, or downloaded in reader formats such as ePub or Pdf. (Users who decide to register can also create their library and save books in it). Ablik is also a self-publishing platform where writers can publish and share their creations and take advantage of various editing tools.