You might be aware that there are thousands of copyright free books available online for reading. (If not, see this recent post.) There are even many open source journal sites (as mentioned in an earlier post) and open courseware pages (mentioned in yet another another post). But did you know that there are some sites that allow you to read the full text of relatively recent, popular fiction that is still under copyright and currently on sale? Some publishers view this as the equivalent of removing the shrink wrap in bookstores and allowing the user to leaf through the contents. The hope is that this will actually increase sales, because reading a book on a computer monitor is still an unsatisfactory experience for most people. Harper Collins makes available a small selection of books for online reading every month, including immensely popular works by Neil Gaiman, and Paul Coelho.
Another site, Baen Books , offers full access to a much larger collection, but in a more limited category — they specialize in Sci-Fi /Fantasy. The Baen library includes such luminaries of the genre as Larry Niven and Lois McMaster Bujold.
6 responses so far ↓
1 detoun // Oct 6, 2008 at 11:06 am
i think this is great,though i have not actually checked it out!can we see books by other favourite bestselling authors?
2 Gavin // Oct 7, 2008 at 4:07 pm
You should be able to browse for other authors on the sites I mentioned, but only what the publisher chooses to make available.
3 Angelica // Dec 30, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I think that this is a wonderfull idea because just the other day I was looking for a site online for me to read a book. Yet, I also feel as though that we should be able to pick our book through author selection. I did see something like such i just explain while I was surfing the internet except it was for children and the books were not really popular or widely known. Well here is an option you could think about: why not ask authors for their stories and in exchange you will give them a payment and not something cheap otherwise they will say no. You could offer something
($) within price range; however, something that is a little more that they would make if the book were in stores. Well I think that this is faabulouss and I wish you all the best of luck.
Angelicca
4 Gavin // Jan 5, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Thanks for your suggestion, but we have no control over what the publishers choose to make available on the sites I mentioned, or what arrangements they have with the authors.
5 Helen // May 27, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Anyways, I don’t think their publisher would approve either. I just check them out of the public libraries when I’m broke.
6 faizullah magsi // Nov 6, 2009 at 10:58 pm
The other day i got myself totally bogged down while going through numerous websites in search 4 free books,till i found a useful one .its very fascinating indeed.
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