Free Kobo books?

[DNSB]

Mandatory to indicate the length of a book? Perhaps mandatory to include a reading difficulty scale. And a indication of the religious, political and whatever other beliefs of the author that someone somewhere thinks might be relevant to their personal happiness. Anytime I see the someone trying to justify their personal set of prejudices by saying make it mandatory, my BS detectors spring to attention.

Personally, I choose books based on prior experience with the author, previews (thanks, Baen!), recommendations by friends, etc (including some states of sheer boredom when I read anything with printing on it). I don't remember ever choosing a book based on it's length -- I need to read a book with 74,732 words by Tuesday, 7 PM. Would I have read Booth Tarkington's Penrod books, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Tolstoy's War and Peace or Anna Karenina, etc. if I was strictly concerned with a belief that good books must have more than 70,119 words but less than 78,635?

Hmmm... I can see the laughter that result from my saying I chose Alice Walker's The Color Purple because it was only 66,556 words over Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five which had 49,459 words because of the word count. And forget War and Peace -- who wants to read 587,287 words? Or The Lord of the Rings at 473,217 words?

Regards,
David

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Mandatory to indicate the length of a book? Perhaps mandatory to include a reading difficulty scale. And a indication of the religious, political and whatever other beliefs of the author that someone somewhere thinks might be relevant to their personal happiness. Anytime I see the someone trying to justify their personal set of prejudices by saying make it mandatory, my BS detectors spring to attention.

eh? Then they are faulty this time. Just what personal prejudice did I display? I can't believe I am prejudiced because I want to know a bit more info about the item I might intend to purchase!

Originally Posted by DNSB

Personally, I choose books based on prior experience with the author, previews (thanks, Baen!), recommendations by friends, etc (including some states of sheer boredom when I read anything with printing on it). I don't remember ever choosing a book based on it's length --

Sometimes you might feel like trying a new author yourself - or even a book not reviewed elsewhere. So, when looking at the new book on one of these web sites, how do you know it's not just a short story instead of a complete novel?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jusmee

eh? Then they are faulty this time. Just what personal prejudice did I display? I can't believe I am prejudiced because I want to know a bit more info about the item I might intend to purchase!

Sometimes you might feel like trying a new author yourself - or even a book not reviewed elsewhere. So, when looking at the new book on one of these web sites, how do you know it's not just a short story instead of a complete novel?

I have to agree with you on this. Some indication on size would be good. If I was in a bookshop, I can get a rough idea based in how thick the book is. I'm not sure if I have ever really let size affect the choice of what I buy, but I have definitely picked up a thick book to see what it was about. And I've done the opposite and picked up the thin book hidden in all the fantasy novels that make Lord of the Rings seem short.

Where I do use book size is deciding what to read next. Long books are more likely to be saved for holidays or when I know I have time to read it. If I am working long hours or particularly busy, I'm less likely to start an epic. Short novels would get grabbed off the bookshelf as I rush out the door to catch the bus to work.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I have to agree with you on this. Some indication on size would be good. If I was in a bookshop, I can get a rough idea based in how thick the book is. I'm not sure if I have ever really let size affect the choice of what I buy, but I have definitely picked up a thick book to see what it was about. And I've done the opposite and picked up the thin book hidden in all the fantasy novels that make Lord of the Rings seem short.

Where I do use book size is deciding what to read next. Long books are more likely to be saved for holidays or when I know I have time to read it. If I am working long hours or particularly busy, I'm less likely to start an epic. Short novels would get grabbed off the bookshelf as I rush out the door to catch the bus to work.

Yes, I often prefer an 'epic' when I have holidays etc.

Also, there has been a tendency, of late, on some sites, to pass off a very thin ebook, as something more substantial, and after purchase, you can be left thinking you were a bit cheated. I am talking about a 30 page "book" that looked like a normal length paperback, the way it was presented on the web site.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jusmee

eh? Then they are faulty this time. Just what personal prejudice did I display? I can't believe I am prejudiced because I want to know a bit more info about the item I might intend to purchase!

Sometimes you might feel like trying a new author yourself - or even a book not reviewed elsewhere. So, when looking at the new book on one of these web sites, how do you know it's not just a short story instead of a complete novel?

Mandatory is not among my favourite words. It reeks of someone trying to force their opinions and world view on others. Try reading "it should be mandatory for book sites to ..." as compared to "I would like book sites to ...". To me, there is a major difference in the attitudes expressed by those two sentence fragments. To you, it would appear to be trivial.

As for the length of a story? You have obviously mistaken me for someone who cares about the length of a story. I've been a science fiction/fantasy reader for many years. Those years included having subscriptions to Analog, Galaxy and the Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy back when print editions were the only portable way to read books (unless you count microfilm/microfiche as portable). This may give you a gentle hint that I like short stories, novellas and their ilk. There are many authors whose work I admire who seldom wrote anything longer than a short story.

I've also read books that came highly recommended but ended with me agreeing with a book review by Dorothy Parker to the effect ""This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." There were some other books that would have done better entered in the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Other books that should have been left to molder on the slush pile.

Again, these comments are my personal opinions which I have no difficulty not mistaking for holy writ -- unless of course, the holy writ is "The Holy Book of Universal Truth and other humorous anecdotes".

To get somewhat back on the topic of this thread -- free Kobo books, wasn't it? -- Kobo does offer previews which you can download and read using either the desktop app or your reader. The last preview I looked at had the full table of contents so a good guess at the length could be made.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I have to agree with you on this. Some indication on size would be good. If I was in a bookshop, I can get a rough idea based in how thick the book is. I'm not sure if I have ever really let size affect the choice of what I buy, but I have definitely picked up a thick book to see what it was about. And I've done the opposite and picked up the thin book hidden in all the fantasy novels that make Lord of the Rings seem short.

Where I do use book size is deciding what to read next. Long books are more likely to be saved for holidays or when I know I have time to read it. If I am working long hours or particularly busy, I'm less likely to start an epic. Short novels would get grabbed off the bookshelf as I rush out the door to catch the bus to work.

For me, book size is not all that big a deal. Last time we ran through a reading speed/comprehension test in high school -- a lot more years ago than I care to remember -- I clocked in at just over 1000 words/minute with a 90% comprehension rate after 2 re-tests because I MUST have been cheating somehow though I never understood how you could cheat on such a test. My reading speed has dropped over the decades but still well over 800 WPM. This has advantages at work where quite a bit of what I now do is reading and writing reports. Off work, I churn through books at a fair pace. When I had a 90 minute bus ride to work, that was an average novel down the tubes each day. Re-reading Lord of the Rings was not quite the week so I finished Friday by reading Bored of the Rings. Gotta love those hairy toes.

Regards,
David

[jennontheisland]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Mandatory to indicate the length of a book?

Yes, because book pricing can be extremely arbitrary at times. I'm not willing to pay 9.99 for a 20K novella. And while length may not be the deciding factor in a purchase, value for dollar is always a consumer consideration. When you go to a brick and mortar bookstore you know how long the book is by looking at the size of it. You can't gauge the length of an ebook by looking at the file size.

The remainder of your arguement against providing customers book length is a strawman.

[jennontheisland]

Originally Posted by llcj

You can get previews but you can't read them on line as you can with Amazon. You have to download them and read them in desktop or on your device. You can find the preview button just below the buy button on the page with additional information (click on the title you are interested in and you are taken to a page withe a summary and reviews, etc.) Should exist for the self-published stuff too but I have no experience with self-published stuff.

Ah, so the free "books" I've been finding are really just previews for books I can buy.

The claim of 1.8 M free books is really quite misleading since it seems that a good majority are either public domain or samples.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by jennontheisland

Ah, so the free "books" I've been finding are really just previews for books I can buy.

The claim of 1.8 M free books is really quite misleading since it seems that a good majority are either public domain or samples.

I think the free book claim is based on the public domain books, not the samples.

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by jennontheisland

Ah, so the free "books" I've been finding are really just previews for books I can buy.

The claim of 1.8 M free books is really quite misleading since it seems that a good majority are either public domain or samples.

Nothing misleading about that...Free books have to be public domain or offered free by the publishers (who generally don't do that as they are businesses and must make a profit). Or they are pirated, which means Kobo wouldn't offer them on their site.
A few legitimate sources for free ebooks exist;
here's a link to a "How-to Geek" article giving a list of legitimate sources...

http://www.howtogeek.com/58500/how-t...ebooks-online/

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Mandatory is not among my favourite words. It reeks of someone trying to force their opinions and world view on others. Try reading "it should be mandatory for book sites to ..." as compared to "I would like book sites to ...". To me, there is a major difference in the attitudes expressed by those two sentence fragments. To you, it would appear to be trivial.

As for the length of a story? You have obviously mistaken me for someone who cares about the length of a story. I've been a science fiction/fantasy reader for many years. Those years included having subscriptions to Analog, Galaxy and the Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy back when print editions were the only portable way to read books (unless you count microfilm/microfiche as portable). This may give you a gentle hint that I like short stories, novellas and their ilk. There are many authors whose work I admire who seldom wrote anything longer than a short story.

I've also read books that came highly recommended but ended with me agreeing with a book review by Dorothy Parker to the effect ""This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." There were some other books that would have done better entered in the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Other books that should have been left to molder on the slush pile.

Again, these comments are my personal opinions which I have no difficulty not mistaking for holy writ -- unless of course, the holy writ is "The Holy Book of Universal Truth and other humorous anecdotes".

To get somewhat back on the topic of this thread -- free Kobo books, wasn't it? -- Kobo does offer previews which you can download and read using either the desktop app or your reader. The last preview I looked at had the full table of contents so a good guess at the length could be made.

Regards,
David

I apologize for making this into a necrothread but this is the only link I could find with a discussion of these magazines formatted for the Kobo.

I used to buy individual issues of these magazines through Fictionwise but I'm switching from a Paperwhite to a Kobo Aura. I thought the Aura would be a better venue for these magazines. However I am unable to find them on the Kobo site. Or anywhere else it seems other than for the Kindle.

Please, will someone who knows a link to a bookstore that sells these magazines kindly share a link?

Thanks much.

[Thunderfist]

Hailee, if you search for "young adults" and then apply the free books only filter, you come up with over 1600 matches. The first 29 were all current books. The 30th was a book about the mineral losses in skeletons of young adult males. It was a broad search.

[bookaho!ic]

also try nobooko.com which give a list of free books for kobo and on smashwords and is updated daily always my first port of call

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Joe563

Go to the www.kobobooks.com website, leave the search box blank and click the GO button. When the search results are returned, select Free Only from the Filter:. The net result should be over 1.8 million books.

Wow, I never thought of that and was struggling to have books displayed by language. Works like a charm after clicking the Go button with nothing in the search field
I am so glad someone updated this thread

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by coinín

Still, I can't be the only one who would like to see the freebies actually show up when you sort by price. When you search something on the website, then sort by price- low to high, the free books vanish.
This is exceptionally frustrating when the initial search had some free books on the first page of results, only to have them vanish when sorted... instead of just bringing up the free books first. It's a little maddening.

Ummm 1.8 million books. Actually, I just did a search and it says "1900348" as the number of free books. Life is too short to scroll through a list of 1.9 million books looking for one that might catch my eye.

If you really want to see all of them, try the following URL: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/sear...none&g=both&l=

If that doesn't work for you, go to http://www.kobobooks.com, leave the search field blank, click on the search icon and then select free only from the filter drop down. You can dig further down by language, category, etc. You just have to reselect free only filter every time you make a change.

If you have a specific search in mind, fill in the search field, search, then then filter by free only.

BTW, that's what I find annoying. Every change means you have to reselect your filter.

Regards,
David