Free ebooks not available or not free in NOOK bookstore

[Sun_Cat]

There seem to be many more freebies offered in the Kindle bookstore compared to the NOOK bookstore. Some of them have Amazon DRM, but that is easily removed using the Calibre plugin designed for that purpose. (Google is your friend for finding this plugin. I don't feel at all bad about doing this, since they are free.) With that plugin installed in Calibre, all you have to do is add the books from your Kindle for PC directory to your Calibre library, and then use Calibre to sideload them onto your NOOK.

One frequently-updated site that has thousands of Kindle freebies is here. But it's terribly difficult to navigate -- impossible to filter by genre, for example. You can often find a thread in the Kindle forum following an update to that site where folks list their favorites. Here's today's.

Here are a few I've gleaned from recently added listings. I've checked the NOOK bookstore. They're either not available or not free.

The Covert Element - A James Becker Thriller (James "Beck" Becker Suspense/Thriller Series)

The Book of Useless Knowledge

Killer In The Hills (A Jack Rhodes Mystery)

Greek Food Recipes

Mozart's Wife

Cluttered Homes, Cluttered Minds

One Hundred Open Houses

I'd encourage others to post attractive-looking or recommended titles that are free only from non-NOOK sources.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Just noting: those are self-published titles. B&N doesn't allow self-published titles to be priced below $0.99. Neither does Amazon, but Amazon reserves the right to make self-published titles free if Amazon wants to, and then not pay authors royalties on any free downloads. Recently Amazon's been offering deals to self-published writers to make their e-books available only on Kindle.

It's becoming a standard Amazon practice: attack the competition at the expense of the suppliers, and claim that it's all for the benefit of the customer. It's the same sort of thing that Wal-Mart has long been accused of.

Unfortunately, the practice works. Authors are afraid to complain because Amazon also reserves the right to eject any author's works from Amazon at its sole discretion. Customers flock to Amazon for the exclusives. We're destroying long-term competition in the search for a short-term bargain. It's a variant of Lenin's "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

(Not that there aren't e-books that are available from traditional publishers for free at Amazon but not at B&N. Titles published by Bell Bridge, for example.)

[Sun_Cat]

Thanks, Doug, for explaining those issues. I thought that at least some of them were temporary freebies approved by the authors. That could be the case, couldn't it? If so, do you know of a way to distinguish those from forced freebies imposed by Amazon?

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

To my knowledge (which is not all-encompassing), Amazon doesn't provide a way for authors to set e-book prices below $0.99 — except for the relatively few e-books from Smashwords which can be priced at "free". So any self-published e-book price below $0.99 is a price that Amazon chose to set. Whether the author was consulted or not, it's hard to tell, but I don't know why Amazon would bother.

Officially, this is only supposed to be done in order to match prices on the same e-book elsewhere. However, Amazon's contract declares that Amazon is the sole arbiter of what constitutes price-matching, and no complaints or objections will be entertained. Authors have complained about free-pricing by Amazon when there was no sign of a lower price elsewhere, and their inability to do anything about it except to walk away from Amazon entirely. That's not something that many authors are prepared to do.

Here are postings from one author who got angry enough about it to take a chance on Amazon kicking him out:

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/10/09/two-things-you-need-to-see-for-the-following-saga-to...

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/11/01/sword-of-damocles/

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/11/03/ooo-this-one-is-sharp/

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/11/04/a-sharp-pen-and-equally-sharp-opinions-on-my-experie...

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/11/08/kdps-final-response/

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/11/09/a-sister-in-spirit-across-the-pond/

http://lmstull.com/2011/11/16/amazon-blunder-means-free-books/

http://www.bloodsoakedandwriting.com/2011/12/06/official/

[datbrown]

I've noticed a lot of books being offered by Amazon for free via Facebook. I try to stay on top of what is free at B&N so I can offer it at the FB page I run. I don't like Amazon, and have favored the Nook books as my source of reading material, though the thought of posting both did cross my mind, I chose to remain faithful to B&N. I guess woman's intuition has some merit.

I follow your thread: Free NOOKbook summary thread - please no OT

Where I collect the free books and post them to the page I run.

https://www.facebook.com/Tina.R.Bro

Thanks to B&N for supporting new authors and supplying us with free books to read. A lot of people are finding these new authors and asking for more from them.

Tina

[aprilbabyAK]

I run Cheap e-Reads and Kindle on the Cheap on Facebook and yes, there are more for Kindle because of Kindle Direct Publishing and their contract clauses with authors. We still have freebies for the nook though. 90% of those tons of freebies for Kindle are not up to our standards for posting. We are picky about free books even though they cost nothing. Stop by and see us

[kamas716]

Doug

Thanks for the links re:James Crawford.  That was certainly interesting reading.

[Twolfmom]

Thanks for all the viewpoints & info on this. I was told by a website that used to post free Nook & Amazon books that they are only doing Amazon now because Amazon made a deal w/ authors that if they agree to make their e-books exclusively to them that they will add them to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. This allegedly removed 60,000+ books from B&N & other sites. This screws over Amazon customers also, though, because to use the KOLL, you have to have Amazon Prime, currently priced @ $79/yr.. BTW, the site still posts/emails the free book lists, they are just only for the Kindle now.

Thanks to the sites that Datbrown & AprilbabyAK run, we can still find out about freebies for the Nook

I do follow their pages on FB. Thanks for your hard work, ladies!

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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Doug_Pardee wrote:

To my knowledge (which is not all-encompassing), Amazon doesn't provide a way for authors to set e-book prices below $0.99 — except for the relatively few e-books from Smashwords which can be priced at "free". So any self-published e-book price below $0.99 is a price that Amazon chose to set.

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I've since learned that authors enrolled in the exclusive-to-Kindle "KDP Select" self-publishing program can set their e-books to be free for up to five days every 90 days.

Since the authors contracted to make those e-books available only on Kindle, there's no way that B&N can match the "free" price or even offer the e-book at all.

[Omnigeek]

Doug, Thanks indeed for the link to James Crawford's experiences. Certainly some eye-opening material for contemplative thought.

[Hmr28]

This probably does nothing at all. But.... every book I come across on goodreads that I would have purchased via BN and which is available only on Amazon because of their new shaft the consumer (and the author even if the authors are too starstruck to realize it) policies I send an email or post a note to on goodreads telling them what a shame it is I can't read their book.Hopefully the authors will realize that ultimately it is a losing proposition for them in the long run.

[RHWright]

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Hmr28 wrote:

This probably does nothing at all. But.... every book I come across on goodreads that I would have purchased via BN and which is available only on Amazon because of their new shaft the consumer (and the author even if the authors are too starstruck to realize it) policies I send an email or post a note to on goodreads telling them what a shame it is I can't read their book.Hopefully the authors will realize that ultimately it is a losing proposition for them in the long run.

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Posting a note to goodreads probably does no good.

Directly emailing or, better yet, good old fashioned snail mail is the most likely to get noticed. And even then may not count for much. Amazon is the 900-pound gorilla on the ebook sofa. They have the market share and power to make these deals because authors/publishers feel they have no choice if they don't want to be shut out of that market.

[Hmr28]

Actually, every author I've posted to on goodreads has responded (Of coure their responses are generally  "too bad, so sad") . Goodreads has a messaging option for those authors that are on it, and most indie authors are. You can also "fan" an author.

[bklvr896]

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Hmr28 wrote:

Actually, every author I've posted to on goodreads has responded (Of coure their responses are generally  "too bad, so sad") . Goodreads has a messaging option for those authors that are on it, and most indie authors are. You can also "fan" an author.

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Which shows they don't care and I for one, would probably write them off my list forever, even if they start publishing elsewhere.  Downloads of free eBooks doesn't mean people are reading the books, it just means they downloaded it because it was free.  My experience so far, is that of the free books I've downloaded probably less than 1% are worth reading.  So, I don't worry about Amazon having more free books, because I probably wouldn't read them anyway.  

[aprilbabyAK]

I do agree that the majority of freebies are really not anything I would read, but there are some good ones that do not appear to be Indie that BN is not price matching like they have in the past. I see a book free at Amazon and then go to BN and the book is priced higher than I had previously noted.