How to access Free Books on Kindle

Like I said in the introduction, you don't need to own a Kindle in order to be able to read free, and paid, Kindle books! Simply go to the Amazon website > Shop by Department > Free Kindle Reading Apps and download the app or apps you need for free. This way you can read Kindle books on any device that is able to connect to the internet from Smartphones over tablet computers to desktop computers and laptops. All apps are available for a variety of operating systems like Mac, Windows, Android and so on.

Now that you have your Kindle, or Kindle app, it is time to get started hunting down great free books! For a first overview on what is available simply navigate to the Kindle eBook section on Amazon and sort by price from low to high.

But that gives you just a rough overview on what is available, so how do you find the ideal book for you? You can have a look at the current Top 100 Free Kindle Books by clicking on any free book, scrolling down to its sales rank and clicking on '(See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)'. This gives a list of the most popular free books. But you can fine tune your search even more!

At the left site of the Amazon Kindle Store you see the different genres, just click the one you are interested in and sort the results again by price, lowest to highest. Voilá, you just found a great list of free books in your favorite genre!

These books might be free, but are they worth spending your valuable time reading them? And why are they free? Can free books be good books?

First of all, to make sure you don't waste time with books you don't like have a quick look at the review section of each book. Don't bother with the good reviews - read the bad ones instead! This way you get a first impression of what the book is like and what other people think of it. Remember, one persons waste is another person's treasure, so what bothers one reviewer might be actually something you don't mind or even like.

And, last but not least, understand why some books are free on Amazon:

First of all there are a bunch of classics available whose copyrights have expired and that are now permanently in the public domain. Most of them are great, in the end, they haven't become classics for nothing!

Second there a new and / or unknown authors that want to get their name out. Here it really pays out to not only read the reviews, but to also check the first chapter(s) with the preview feature. Some of these authors are great, some less and some are truly awful. But you never know, you might just find a new favorite author and can say 'Oh, I have read their books even before they became popular.' and give yourself so an air of a literature treasure digger ;-)

And third there are established authors that put one of their many books up for free in order to promote their other books. These are normally great finds as these are already established authors that know how to write great books! It might even pay out to check out their websites and see if they announce free promotions there ...