Read an E-Book Week, Day 3

More free reads and a few that I hadn't mentioned this week. Mostly non-Kindle formats, although many can be easily converted.

Another author makes a book offer via comments:

Readers can also receive a free e-book by posting a comment on my blog post between now and March 14th. They can choose from among my two novels and five titles from my editing clients (quantities of client books are limited).

Lillie Ammann
http://lillieammann.com

Bullying: A Parent’s Primer is a 19 page booklet, free this week if you request it by email (link is mid-way down their page).

CurrClick provides curriculum material for homeschooling and has a free download of St. Patrick: The World's Greatest Missionary, just in time for the upcoming holiday.

Sharing Books specializes in children's books and they are available on a "shareware" basis. Download it - if you like it - pay a donation.

EcoBrain offers e-books and mp3 audios about the environment. They are offering Understanding The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming, Secondary Level as a free purchase from March 8-14. They also offer a companion book, Understanding The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming Inter. Level that is currently marked down to $5.99. Both are educational in nature. NOTE that the files there are watermarked PDF's with cut/paste prohibited; you may not be able to convert them to any other format.

Jean Sheldon has a free download of The Effects of Gravity on the Soul of a Poet, a book of poetry.

If you haven't read Heather Wardell's Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo yet, be sure to grab a copy. Not only are both the PDF and PRC formats DRM free, you are also free to copy them for others, convert them and give out the converted copies and pretty much anything else you want to do with them other than sell them or print them out and bind them as a book (print out and keep looseleaf and you are fine).

Pauline Rowson's Tide of Death, free in PDF format, is a marine mystery and is the first in a series, with a new book coming this April.
The Eye of Alloria by Rae Lori. Also two short free reads on her web site.

One I missed earlier was Steve Jordan's Berserker: The Kestral Voyages. Steve set up the web site for Read an E-Book Week

Wizards.com (of Dungeons and Dragons fame) has up a free PDF copy of Paul S. Kemp's Twilight Falling. It looks like a printers proof, so I doubt it would convert well for the Kindle, but it's still worth reading.

Libby McKinmer has Fox Hollow up as a free PDF this week (it's on the right side of the web page).

A Veneer of Respect: a free e-book by Alex Domokos and Rita Y. Toews. I'm not sure what it's about, as it isn't mentioned on their web site other than the free link. Another free ebook, Looking In... Portraits of the Canadian Soul , is on their Novels page.

The Long and the Short of It has two sections: Romance and Erotica. Both have a selection of free short story reads and on the main page you can request a PDF of past Friday Recipes.

There are a few additional sites changing the books every day: Twilight Times Books has Darrell Bain's e-book Darrell Bain's World of Books all week and an additional free e-book each day. Among the selections will be Jerome and the Seraph by Robina Williams, Behold the Eyes of Light by Geoff Geauterre and No Place for Gods by Gerry Mills. In an unusual move, Rose Dog Books and Red Lead Bookstore change their free reads at 5 PM, just as they close down for the day - so West Coaster better check early or you'll miss that day's books. I suspect that Whitmore Publishing Company is doing the same, as the book hasn't changed since last night. Calderwood Books has A Falling Down Man by James Lally as today's read and a Pirate Adventure coming up tomorrow.

If you grabbed the ereader formatted books over at Zumaya Publications, you may want to head back over there. They've added a title Better Than Chocolate that wasn't there previously. These are not easily converted to other formats, but can be read on your computer. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the fire up Stanza and look for the Ebook Week entry in the online catalog. Not only are many of the other free reads there, but this entire list from Zumaya has it's own entry. Better yet, there is a bonus read you only get there: Kingdom Come by David Lynn Anderson. And for those that will only read on the iPhone - you'll miss out on Better than Chocolate, as that's only on the web download page. For those who haven't used Stanza before, there is an excellent tutorial, featuring this weeks free reads, over on Lexcycle.

All Romance E-Books claims to have "a wide variety of e-books", but nearly all are erotica (there are some "young reads", but even those are for older teens). However, they do have about 80 free reads. I find their web site a little annoying (the car will time out on you while browsing, making you log back in a lot). These reads are also available thru Stanza for you iPhone - but the ordering is less integrated than many others, using the web site in Safar (and you can't see what you are doing when typing in your login info). Still, the short nature of the free reads is a natural for the short reading time that most will use their iPhone for. Note that once you have purchased a book, you can't purchase it again and that you can only download a book in ONE format (even if several are available). So you must decide ahead of time where you'll be doing your reading (or grab the HTML, if available, so you can convert it yourself -- although the effort required seems a bit much for short stories you'll probably delete after reading). If you want something a bit milder in nature, check out the free reads at Wild Rose Press (there are 64 of them).

Olive Tree Software has a number of biblical related ebooks: several versions of The Bible, including translations in a number of other languages, devotionals and commentaries. If you read just the free material on this one website, it would keep you busy for years (of course, to read it all, you'll need a years of language study as well). The only problem is that their materials appear to only be available in PDB format. They have loaders for many of the PDA's and phones out there, including the iPod/iTouch, but no mobi or HTML files that would let you easily ocnvert them for the Kindle. Additionally, these PDB files can't be read with the current ereader software, which is version 3.0.3, as they require 3.0.4 or above, which appears to be limited to handheld devices. Still, if you have a smartphone, PDA or iPhone, they have a large collection.

If you are hunting for a good multi-format reader (software) for your computer, you may want to check out Calibre (version 0.5 just released this week). It reads most non-DRM formats (but not ereader PDB) and will let you convert several older formats to more modern ones. It even understands screen size differences amongst reader hardware and lets you customize things like the margins around text. It's also quite useful for fixing the metadata on mobi/prc files, which have the author names missing or don't sort correctly. The program is completely free (although the author does accept donations).

Women's Adventure Magazine is a new offering on the Kindle. This is a bi-monthly magazine (the price is $1.25 monthly, but it is delivered every other month). and the current issue is Jan 7th. From the best guess and looking at the calendar, if you start your trial subscription today, you should end up getting two issues (Jan and March, which is due any time). It's hard to tell from a single issue if you'll really end up liking the magazine. The January issue is mostly about winter sports, but has a fairly large feature article on the poor selection when dating in winter resort towns ("The odds are good, but the goods are odd") and another on places to vacation in order to escape the snow and cold. There are several other articles, some just oriented to a female audience (retreats and chocolate, anyone?), while others do involve outdoor adventure (top women ski jumpers). With any luck, the next issue will come this week and I'll be able to tell if I'll keep the subscription past the trial period. Remember, you can trial any magazine, newspaper or blog for 14 days, at no charge. But with a bimonthly magazine, you need to be careful when you start the trial, if you want to be able to compare a couple of issues before shelling out for a subscription.

Women's Adventure is the only sports, travel, fitness, and lifestyle magazine published specifically for active women. Published bi-monthly, Women's Adventure is for women who choose to thrive in the wild. Every edition inspires, informs and invigorates. Experience the thrill and excitement of adventure and personal challenge in today's modern world.

The Kindle Edition of Women's Adventure Magazine contains most articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images. For your convenience, issues are auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle at the same time the print edition hits the newsstand.

Read an E-Book Week Update

This in from an author, via a comment to an earlier post:

I am offering a free ebook of Book I of my trilogy, When Women Were Warriors. You can download it here.

Catherine M. Wilson

http://www.whenwomenwerewarriors.com/
http://www.catherine-m-wilson.com/

David Bowles is giving away a free copy of Spring House if you leave him a comment (on his March 9th blog post) by Friday.

Wild Rose Press has 64 free ebooks posted (all Romance and pretty much short stories). They are also holding a contest to win a free Sony Reader. They are in the process of moving to a new site and name, White Rose Publishing, specializing in Christian Romance. There are not as many free reads there, but I did find six today.

Books for a Buck has a couple of new ebooks for $1 this week: Frag Limit and The Glove of Shadows. You can also get the entire book Private Lies this week for free (multiple formats).

Read an E-Book Week Continues

The Babysitter's Code by Laura Lippman. This short story was originally published in the collection Hardly Knew Her.

Jasmine Jade/Ellora's Cave is offering a free copy of Gryphon's Quest by Candace Sams. They have several formats available, including Mobi and HTML. You can only pick one format (even if you try to buy the book more than one time), so if you need to do conversions for multiple formats, html might be a better choice. Note that you do have to create an account and give them address and phone info (no credit card info will be required); also, their checkout procedure is cumbersome, requiring five or six clicks and screen refreshes before you are ready to download your book.

BeWrite Books has Poetry today for their free daily downloads: Vinegar Moon by Donna Biffar, Letters from Portugal by Jan Oskar Hansen and sexions by Renée Sigel. These are in PDF format and they had some problems early in the day with the Vinegar Moon download (it was less than 1K and they emailed out replacements), so make sure your files open after you download them.

Smashwords has a long list of titles that are free, free with a Coupon Code or 25%-50% off with a coupon code that are available this week. A great number of these are short stories and erotica/romance seems overly represented, but there are a few gems in there, for those that dig thru the list.

There is a great collection of original Science Fiction put together by Mike Brotherton over at Diamonds in the Sky. Not only great reads, but with enough science in them to be a resource for Astronomy teachers. Read them online or download in mobi, ereader or PDF formats.

Cory Doctorow has two of his books, Little Brother and Eastern Standard Tribe as free download, both in multiple formats.

If you haven't picked up Hal Spacejock yet, now is the time. This one is still free and the next 3 are now out in ebook format. The ordering process is a little rough for those yet (they are in Australia and it's the publisher's first foray into ebooks), but they are DRM free and in two formats, so you can read on most devices.

SciFriGuy has up a bunch of classic SciFi ebooks, all in PDF format.

Clif Burns has two books (also PDF format) on his site: Of the Night and So Dark the Night. Both are supernatural mystery/thrillers.

Ralph Lalonde has FreeGround [First Light Chronicles 1] available in PDF and Mobi formats for free.

M.D. Benoit has one free ebook and another buy one get one free offer for her (The Jack Meter Case Files series. At the least, be sure to grab Metered Space over at Zumaya. You can then buy Meter Destiny at Amazon (or elsewhere), email her proof of purchase and she'll send you Meter Made (and a copy of Metered Space) in return (with any luck, this would be in prc/mobi format; the free download of Metered Space is the ereader PDB format).

Real Goods Solar has an offer for you: a free ebook containing everything you need to know about getting started with solar power. This 70-page eBook exerpts the “Renewable Energy 101—Solar, Wind, and Hydro Electric" section from Real Goods' Solar Living Sourcebook. This massive tome -- now in its 30th anniversary edition -- that covers everything you need to know about generating your own electricity. But this free eBook isn't all. The first 90-plus pages of the book are also available online for free. If you like what you read, you can also order the printed edition of the 600-page book for just $35.

Hacking the Kindle 2, USB Charger for Kindle 1

One of the most popular features of the Kindle that is missing from the Kindle 2 is the ability to set up custom Screen savers. Some people just wanted different artwork or photos of their family, others didn't like seeing the instructions for the screen saver mode all the time, while others added text that identified their Kindle and how to contact them if it was found. This feature was "undocumented", but was built in and only required a keystroke to activate. Removing custom screen savers only required removing a few files in a system directory (which only contained your custom screen savers) and restarting your Kindle. The Kindle 2 no longer has this capability (just one of many features that were removed - either they were overly concerned about tightening down the code or had too many support calls. Now a clever programmer has figured out how to restore that feature in the Kindle 2, but it does require modifying the Kindle's firmware, which may void the warranty (unlike with the original Kindle) and could result in a dead Kindle 2 if not done properly. Nevertheless, a brave group over on Mobile read have already ran the fix (which can be removed when your Kindle needs to be upgraded) and report no problems. First, read this entire thread, then get the latest version of the patch. Make sure you know what you are doing, before you start. If you are not comfortable at the DOS prompt and don't know both what a system file is and how to see them, you are probably better off skipping this one and waiting for Amazon to give the feature back (make sure you tell them you want it back, too, as they'll only do so if enough people complain). For your images, both PNG and JPG are ok (no TIF or BMP). For best results (and no speed delays), size them to 600x800 before copying them to your Kindle.

The second hack has even more risk of killing your Kindle. A lot of people want to be able to tether their Kindle's to their computer, much as you can do with a cell phone, gaining them unlimited free internet access from anywhere Sprint Mobile works. Not only illegal, it is unethical to do so - plus Amazon both knows where you live and has your credit card on file, along with your agreement to the Kindle Terms of Service (which allow them to charge you for internet access other than associated with Kindle purchases). What Jesse Vincent has figured out how to do, however, is sort of the opposite: how to use your computer's internet connection instead of Whispernet. It makes little sense to use this with the basic web browser - after all, if you have your computer and it has internet access, why use the stunted browser of the Kindle? But, if you are in area that doesn't get Whispernet coverage, this hack lets you Kindle think that it does - giving you access to samples and one-click buying from the Kindle and allowing you to use the Save for Later feature that cannot be accessed from the Amazon web site. I'd pay heed to the ample warnings on his blog though - messing around with the Kindle in debug mode, other than as directed by technical support, can break your Kindle and require a trip to Amazon for repair (and they may charge you for it, since this is outside the TOS and warranty). But, if you are familiar with linux, comfortable with the command line and either have a Mac or can translate his directions to Windows (the notebook/desktop PC must have it's networking modified to allow the access, as well, just as with a cell phone, but it is a reverse connection from most tethering setups), then have at it.

Many people have reported that they are using a standard USB charger for their Kindle, but Amazon has warned against doing so, as the USB port wasn't designed for that amount of current. After seeing pictures of iphones and other USB phones that melted or caught fire while charging, that's not a scenario I want to risk. What Alan over at SnarkBytes has done is a little different - he modified a USB cable to charge the Kindle using the standard charging port (which is the same charging tip as used by many Sprint phones). His blog explains in detail what you need to do, how to do it and includes a disclaimer not to blame him if it doesn't work, kills your Kindle or your USB port. It's probably a fairly safe thing to do (if you don't mess up the wiring), but I'll stay with my Gomadic USB Charger (these come in coiled, straight and retractable models; more charging options here). I especially like their Universal Charging Station, as it lets me use a single charger for four devices at a time (and it charges all my handheld devices, if I rotate them around, as few of them need daily charging, reducing phantom power loads from having a half-dozen chargers plugged in). Unlike some organizer boxes for charges, which just hide all the clutter and lock your power bricks inside an overheated box together, the Universal Charging Station has a single (small) power connector and four different spots to plug in devices. It comes with one tip (you can order more on the Gomadic web site), as do most of their chargers/USB cables - with a little planning you probably won't end up needing extra tips at all. There is also a travel version of the 4-way charger and a 4-way car charger available directly from the company.