Wanna know best places to read 100% free books online??
Who doesn’t!!
Well you have come to the best place on internet. In this article, I will reveal top 10 places to read books online. This is secret knowledge, so handle with care!! This knowledge is reserved for nerds on budget.
Before we delve into different places where you can download books, try to find books by typing in name of your books followed by filetype: pdf. Sometimes this alone will bring you your desired books, 100% free.
Now let’s begin!
Project Gutenberg
This is the first place that you should visit if you are looking to read books online. This site contains plenty of books which are in public domain. Books enter public domain when their copyright expires. No one owns the rights to these books. Heck, these books can also be sold on fiverr or other freelancing sites!! This can be nice earning opportunity for you. Anyways, here is a video showing how you can download books for free from this site.
Here is a link to this site
Gutenberg is great but I don’t want to hide anything from you people. Here are some pros and cons of this website.
Pros:-
- Free books– Books are 100% free. You can get complete work of popular authors, search for vintage images etc.
- Usability– Can be re-used. Project gutenberg site buys the rights for books which are not in public domain but most of the books are indeed in public domain. They don’t have copyright infringement policies stuck to them.
Cons:-
- Dull Look-There is only one problem with this site. Books from this site look like text documents and are not aesthetically pleasing. However don’t get disheartened as you can head over to places like https://standardebooks.org/. This site is amazing as it takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that meets the requirements of today’s readers.
Libby
What if I tell you that you can borrow thousands of books for free!! Yes you read that right. 100% free books. Here is a link to this site. It also has an app available on playstore. This free app, created by OverDrive, is available for Android, iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), and Windows 10 devices. Here is a short video on this amazing site.
Pros:-
- Automatic return facility – This is something very cool about this app. It returns back the book when your borrow period gets over. Therefore there is no risk of late fees.
- Audiobooks – Not only books, this cool app also provides audiobooks. You can listen to books while travelling. How cool is that!!
Cons:-
- All titles are not available – See this is a evolving app. It started in June 2017. It may take some time for all the books to get available on this particular app. Till then we can only wait.
- Less time – You only have 3 weeks to read a book. So when you get a book issued the n you have to complete it as soon as possible. Re-issuing the book may cost you time. Sometimes you have to wait for months.
- There is a waiting queue – This is one serious problem with this app. If there is a popular book and it is there on this app, then also it is not necessary that it will be available to you. There is waiting involved. This can be really frustrating for those of you who like to read a book as soon as it is released. However there is a way around to this. All you need is a group of friends. Check out this video, in which a guy recommends a really unique way of getting books/audiobooks faster from libby.
Internet Archive
Internet has been around for 20 years and it has lot of data. There is a place on internet called Internet Archives. This place has got good collection of books, audios, videos etc. Here is a link to that site
Here is how you can actually download books from this amazing site.
Pros and cons of internet archive
Pros:-
- Too much data-Internet archive has everything that was posted on internet. This is goldmine for budding artists and other creative folks as they can take ideas from data, videos, images etc posted on this site.
Cons:-
- Anonymous posting-Well there is only one problem with this site that it lets users post anonymously. This service can be used by terrorist organisations to brainwash people with there content.
Many books
This site, as the name suggests has many books. Interface of this site is user friendly. This site has over 60 categories and has books in 40+ languages.
Every ebook page on this site contains helpful information such as genre, author’s name and word count. As most of the content on ManyBook belongs to the public domain, you can download books legally and free of cost. Here is the link to that site
Here is the video explaining how you can download free books from ManyBooks.net to Kindle on iPad. Both kindle and manybooks.net are 100% free.
Pros:-
- There is something called Flesch-Kincaid score. This score helps us identify whether ebook is easy to read or not.
- Most of the ebooks can be downloaded in several different formats.
- Offers paid promotions for authors as well.
- It’s 100 free. No sign up or email required.
- Most books are in Public domain. Therefore they can be resold for profit.
Cons:-
- Only public domain work. No contemporary work available.
- Collection is not as good as archive.org or open library.org selection of books
Free-ebooks
This is a pretty cool site which has nearly 7 million members worldwide. It has been around for 10+ years. This site is attacked by lot of people claiming that it was fraud. However this site has Alexa ranking of 17223. Many hackers have also targeted this site by purchasing domains that look like free-ebooks.net. If you wanna learn how to identify fraud domains then read this article here.
Here is the link to that site
Also here is a video explaining how you can download books from this site.
Pros:-
- Audio-books facility-Offers audio-books as well
- Promotions-Paid promotions for authors are available on this site.
- Affiliate Program-This site also has an affiliate program which pays 25% for each sale.
Cons:-
- Too many spam emails-This site offers paid promotions. While mailing to high impact reviewers is good for authors and reviewers but promoting books by newbie authors to general public has left a bad taste on general public. Some people claim that after signing up, there mails were bombarded with spam emails for this site.
Wattapad
Wattpad is basically an internet community which links readers and writers. As of 2019, it has around 65 million users! It includes all genres like classics, general fiction, historical fiction, non-fiction, poetry, fan-fiction, spiritual, humor, and teen fiction.
Now here is the great thing about Wattpad. You can start writing your own story and reach 65 million people! That’s some serious exposure for some fresh writer.
Here is a video review of wattpad
Pros:-
- Offline readability-You can read books offline. This is pretty cool feature about this site.
- Write something-Why only read others story? You can write your own story on this site.
Cons:-
- Content curation issues-According to some people, wattpad doesn’t curate content effectively. There are numerous instances of violent and adult content not been labeled properly.
- Rife with strangers-There is a chatting option open which can be used by folks with disturbed mentality to brain-wash younger folks. So a person using wattpad needs to beware of the consequences of talking to strangers.
Library Genesis
This is another interesting site on internet. This site has over 1.5 M files. This site is just superb. Check out this awesome short video which shows us how to download paid books and research papers for free! Also here is the link to this library genesis.
Pros:-
- Free access-It allows free access to content that is restricted via paid subscription or is not digitized elsewhere.
- Lot of files-It has 2.7 million books and 58 million science magazine files. So there is a lot to choose from.
Cons:-
- Very particular-Give the exact spelling of the book. Once I accidentally mis-spelled one letter, it didn’t even give the closely relevant books for that query.
- Links don’t work-Sometimes the link to first server doesn’t work. It shows error. Don’t get upset, try second link in that case.
Nettagalley
This site is not your typical site for downloading free books. Yes you can download free books, but there is a twist. You have to review that book. This website was designed for professional readers and book reviewers. Writers make their copy available to reviewers before the book is launched. They do this in exchange of review. The only requirement of this site is that you must own kindle app or epub reader.
Here is a video showing how to use Netgalley-
Pros:-
- Nice interface-This site has got a nice interface and it is easy to use.
- Easy to request books-It is easy to request books for review. The only condition is that you must actually review it so that you easily get approved for more books.
Cons:-
- Customer support is terrible-Customer support is a bit slow in answering your queries. So before asking a question, make sure that it is not already answered in their database.
- No age filter-There is no strict age based filter. Children of younger age can have access to adult fiction.
So there you have it. 8 places to have free books!! These sites will pretty much cater to all your needs for free ebooks. I hope you liked the article. Please comment below and let me know, if I missed something.
Oh and before you go to these sites, I have also compiled few killer tips for you people. Check them out.
Killer tips!!
- Try this app called filepursuit. Just go to amazon and copy paste the name of that book on this app. It will find that book for you. This app is also available on Playstore.
- You can also find free ebooks on amazon, google playstore and craiglist.
- Other good sites are bibliomania, wikibooks, Authorama, read print, International digital children library, The literature network, pdfdrive etc. Keep an eye on these sites as they regularly get updated with new books.
- Stay clear of torrent sites as they may contain all the books you need but they are not legal sites. Books/softwares/videos from these sites may have been stolen from someone. Also these sites contain viruses.