The answer to - "Where can I download free ebooks from?"

Strangely, the best place is where you buy ebooks from. All of the big retailers who sell ebooks also offer free ebooks. Of course they don't make money on those so you are unlikely to find them advertising them or even making them easy to find. For years I found doing a search on Amazon for 'free ebooks' produced an impressive list of books with prices. The same was true for Apple, Barnes and Noble (Nook), Kobo and others. They've got a little better now and you can find some freebies with that search but not many among the millions which are there.

Amazon is the biggest ebook retailer and it has a free app which allows you to get books on non-Kindle devices. PCs, iOS computers, Android tablets and SmartPhones. You can even read on Linux and Ubantu using the Cloud Reader and read offline by using the Cloud Reader's 'Download and pin book' option.

Where can you find free ebooks at Amazon?

Try going to one of these links which will take you to the lists of the top 100 free ebooks:

• Best Sellers in Action & Adventure Fiction
• Best Sellers in Action Thriller Fiction
• Best Sellers in Crime Action Fiction
• Best Sellers in Fantasy Adventure Fiction
• Best Sellers in Fantasy
• Best Sellers in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction
• Best Sellers in Historical Fiction
• Best Sellers in Horror
• Best Sellers in Humor & Satire Fiction
• Best Sellers in Men's Adventure Fiction
• Best Sellers in Mystery Action Fiction 
• Best Sellers in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Action Fiction
• Best Sellers in Paranormal Romance
• Best Sellers in Romance
• Best Sellers in Romantic Suspense
• Best Sellers in Science Fiction
• Best Sellers in Science Fiction Adventure
• Best Sellers in Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Best Sellers in Suspense Action Fiction
• Best Sellers in Technothrillers

If this list doesn't include the genre you want use the links at the left of the page to select the genre you want but make sure you select the 'Top 100 free' tab.

Of course if a book isn't in the top 100, it won't be shown. In that case you'll have to get a link from one of the many book promotion websites. The best known is Bookbub. My personal favorite is Book Barbarian because I like Science Fiction books. Both of these sites will send you a daily email of the genres you like. There are many others. Try a Google search for 'book promotion sites'.

Kindle books are in MOBI or AZW3 format.

What about free ebooks at iBooks?

On a Mac, launch iBooks (if you don’t have it, it's a free download). Click on iBooks Store. On the right, you’ll see a list of 'Quick Links'. Click on 'Free Books'.

On an iOS device, tap 'iBooks', tap 'Featured'. The ones marked 'GET' where the price is normally shown are free. Again, if a book is not 'Featured' you'll need a link or the name of the book to search for it. Here's two of our free ebooks at iBooks - Immortality Gene (a technothriller) and Raging Storm (a paranormal romance).

iBooks are in EPUB format.

Other free ebook sources

Barnes and Noble and Kobo also have free ebooks. Kobo supply ebooks to many other retailers. In the UK that includes Tesco, Sainsburys and WH Smith. 

Smashwords is a great site for ebooks. 

Find Smashwords at smashwords.com

Its advantages are that:

• You can pay via PayPal and for free ebooks you don't have to provide any financial details. 
• It has a price section which includes a prominent FREE area. 
• It's ebooks are available in multiple formats. MOBI, EPUB and others.
• It's also often a fraction cheaper than other retailers for paid books.
• You can actually earn money by promoting ebooks there.
• You may find an author will give away coupons which let you have free or reduced price ebooks there.
• Unlike other retailers Smashwords ebooks don't have DRM copy protection built in so you can move your ebooks onto other devices.

What about Google Play ebooks?

That one's easy - go to Google Play Books and search for 'Free ebooks'. 

Project Gutenberg offers out of copyright books

Find it at gutenberg.org. It offers more than 53,000 free, out-of-copyright books in multiple formats.

What if I have a Kindle Fire and want to read an EPUB ebook?

It's not surprising that Amazon don't offer an EPUB reading app in their store but that doesn't mean you can't install one. You'll need to 'sideload' the app. Get instructions here.

What if I have an e-ink Kindle and want to read an EPUB ebook?

You can't do that. You'll have to convert the ebook to MOBI format then email the ebook to your Kindle device email address. An open source (free) program called 'calibre' can do that if the file is not protected with DRM (get it at Smashwords).

What if I want a PDF ebook?

Yes, it's possible BUT you need to be aware of the risks.

• PDF files are designed for printing not for e-reading. Although most e-reading devices will read them, it's a clumsy process involving lots of scrolling since the text won't flow as it's enlarged.
• PDF files are frequently infected with malware. Why do you think so many pirate sites are out there offering free ebooks? They want to infect your computer. If you MUST have a PDF file, get it from a non-pirate site which won't infect you such as Smashwords.
• PDF pirate copies of ebooks are stealing from the author. 

If this post has helped you find free ebooks will you help us? Download a FREE copy of our books 'Immortality Gene' from http://smarturl.it/avi or/and Raging Storm http://smarturl.it/botr Even if you never read them (but we hope you will) - it will help our rankings.

An open letter to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo (Reductio ad absurdum 4)

Dear sirs,
During the course of an investigation into VAT on ebooks for a UK petition it has come to my attention that you owe me money. Apparently you have been overcharging myself and millions of other customers in 25 of the 28 EU countries.

The problem is your VAT charge. The EU states that ebooks are 'a digital delivery service' and that countries in the EU must charge standard VAT rates for this service. I have no problem with that. However you have charged VAT on the full ebook price rather than on the 'digital delivery' part of the ebook. This charge varies from book to book dependant on the file size. To simplify I suggest you apply a standard 10¢ US charge for delivery. In my own country, the UK, this would have a 20% standard VAT rate applied and would cost £0.02 per ebook.

Naturally calculating the refund due to all customers in the EU, (apart from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Denmark which do not have a reduced VAT charge for books,) would be a tremendously complex task. Getting a refund from VAT paid to the EU might also prove an overly complex task also. As a result I, and I presume the rest of the EU, am prepared to waive any refund due on the understanding that in future you apply no more than £0.02 for digital delivery VAT on each future ebook purchased.

No doubt the EU will query the reduced VAT payable. However I believe you have the means to meet any necessary challenges in court and in doing so will earn the eternal gratitude of your customers. I suspect that the reduced VAT charge will lead to increased sales of ebooks and increased profits for the authors and yourselves. The move to ebooks, in turn, will do wonders for the environment.

You might also warn the proprietors of e-zines and e-newspapers that a similar reduced VAT charge will apply to them.

Yours faithfully

John Chapman

I have seen the truth and it still doesn't make sense!

The EU changed the VAT regulations which apply to digital products on 1st January 2015. To those of us in the UK it meant a 17% VAT increase.

Previously we paid 3% on many Amazon digital products because Amazon shipped them to us via Luxembourg which applied their VAT rate of 3% - the lowest in the EU. From 1st Jan 2015 we were charged the VAT rate of the destination EU state rather than the supplier EU state. The UK therefore have to pay 20% VAT on digital products. (Ireland - 23%)

Does that seem bad? Instead of paying 3% to Luxembourg, we in the UK now pay 20% to the UK. That means we pay more but at least it will be to our own country. Perhaps it means we pay less in some other tax. Perhaps this makes some sense for music and video but there's one area where it makes no sense at all.

From January 1st 2015 the VAT rate on e-books changed too. The change affected all member states. The table at the right shows how the new rates affected e-book buyers in the rest of Europe. As you can see of the 28 countries in the EU five give e-books a special VAT rate. Ireland and the UK zero rate paper books.

In the UK the new rates meant a price rise of at least 17%. That doesn't seem a lot on an e-book which cost 77p formerly. They now cost a minimum of 99p from Amazon (a 29% price rise) but it's far more than inflation was, and a sharp contrast with the zero VAT rate on paper books.

Ask politicians and they'll tell you "Here in the UK, VAT is charged on e-books because they are a service."
They've also said "The EU doesn't allow us to charge a reduced rate."

Let's compare e-books with paper books and see how they compare:

Which of these is a service?

Paper books	E-books
Requires an author	Requires an author
Requires an editor	Requires an editor
Requires formatting	Requires formatting
Trees need to be felled (requires oil)	Not required
Timber needs to be transported to papermill (requires oil)	Not required
Papermill manufactures paper with some waste sludge (requires some oil)	Not required
Sludge needs to be disposed of (requires oil)	Not required
Paper needs transporting to printer (requires oil)	Not required
Ink needs manufacturing (requires oil)	Not required
Books need to be printed (requires oil)	Not required
Books need to be transported to distribution depot (requires oil)	Not required
Sales team need to visit retail outlets (requires oil)	Not required
Books need to be transported to retail outlets (requires oil)	Not required
Customer needs transport to bookstore and back (requires oil)	E-books are delivered direct to reader electronically.
Surplus unsold books need transport back to printer (requires oil)	Not required
Surplus requires storage or redistribution or pulping (requires oil)	Not required
Book pulp requires cleaning of toxic ink and disposal of the toxins (requires oil)	Not required

As you can see far more 'services' are required in the production of paper books than in the production of e-books. 

So:

• The EU and the UK have a declared aim of reducing carbon emissions, yet favour paper books which produce carbon emissions, at the expense of ebooks. It's been estimated that 95% of the carbon dioxide emissions could be eliminated by switching to e-books. Despite that, Reuters reported on 7th March 2017:
  

  The European Court of Justice was called to interpret EU rules on value-added tax (VAT) after Poland's commissioner for civic rights questioned whether the system of allowing lower rates only for printed publications was fair.

  The court said the rules allowed EU countries to apply reduced VAT rates to printed but not digital publications even though both met the European Parliament's objective when passing the VAT directive - the promotion of reading.

• The sludge produced by recycling books contains some particularly nasty toxins which are expensive to dispose of safely. A Danish report found some of these products were being introduced into food via recycled paper.

As for the reasons we are given for the 20% VAT charge in the UK -

I have seen the truth and it still doesn't make sense!

Is there hope that VAT will be reduced for e-books? It seems that the EU is happy to support the printing industry but feels it can ignore the wishes of content providers and readers. It sets goals and then ignores them.

So what can be done?

In the UK we are now facing BREXIT. Once that has gone through it will be up to the UK government to set the VAT rate charged for e-books.

I know what makes sense.

You know what makes sense.

It's up to our politicians to prove that to them, content is of more value than the printing press.

• If they fail to do this they are slapping the face of every author, whether that be the author of books, magazines or newspapers because their content is not as valuable as the printing presses.
• It means they don't care about reducing carbon emissions. 
• It means they don't care about pollution. 
• It means that they don't see e-literature as a way of saving schools money.

Once the UK is not bound by EU legislation, Parliament should remove the 20% VAT on e-literature

Ebooks and paid e-literature (electronic newspaper/magazine subscriptions) carry 20% VAT but paper books, newspapers and magazines are zero rated for VAT. In the past we have been told that EU legislation prevents a 0% VAT rate and that e-literature is a 'service'.