How to Read Old Books for Free
The power of Project Gutenberg and a Kindle
Did you know you can read old books for free at the press of a button?
I didn’t either until last week.
Let me tell you about Project Gutenberg.
It’s a digital library of over 70,000 free eBooks. You can take a look at the website here.
The goal of this volunteer organization, named after the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg, is to digitize and archive cultural works. It’s the oldest digital library in the world, founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart.
Why are the eBooks free?
Project Gutenberg digitizes and distributes works in the public domain with free and expired copyrights.
You’re not going to find the latest bestsellers, but there are thousands of older works available for download.
This includes classics like:
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
How to access the free eBooks:
The search bar at the top of the Project Gutenberg website makes it extremely easy to find and access older books that you are looking for.
Once you locate the desired book, you’re provided with a variety of download options. You can even just read the books on their website, if you want.
Send to your Kindle:
Here’s a life hack if you have a Kindle… you can send all types of files to it easily through Amazon’s website.
Supported file types include: PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG, JPEG, BMP, EPUB.
EPUB is the “eBook” file that you’ll want to download from Project Gutenberg for the best reading experience.
Click here to visit the send to kindle website.
Once you download an EPUB from Project Gutenberg, you just drag and drop the file on the “send to kindle” website and in moments it will appear on your Kindle.
If you’re looking to read more “classics,” this is a budget friendly way to do it.
Download the EPUB for NORMIE:
I recently serialized my dystopian novel, NORMIE, through this digital newsletter.
The full version is still available to read for free here, but I wanted to offer a perk for paid subscribers and make the eBook file available below for download:
What I Downloaded from Project Gutenberg:
After recently finishing the 1,200+ page monster of a book that is The Stand by Stephen King, I’ve been interested in reading some shorter “classics” to mix things up.
The first of these was The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
The story itself was strange, but still entertaining. It was originally serialized in a children’s magazine, which was interesting to me because I’m currently serializing stories through this digital newsletter.
Have you read The Adventures of Pinocchio?
I purchased a physical copy of Pinocchio from Amazon and was a bit disappointed in the quality. It appears there’s a whole network of Amazon sellers who throw up quickly-formatted copies of books with expired copyrights. The illustrations were oddly placed and some of the fonts were sized incorrectly. I wouldn’t have minded as much if the money had gone to the actual writer of the story, and not some anonymous seller.
I wasn’t interested in having the same experience for the next book I was looking to read: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.
![A Journey Into the Center of the Earth (Science Fiction Novel) Annotated Edition [Book]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0925cd84-7886-4aa1-b029-7fffeec741b9_500x500.jpeg "A Journey Into the Center of the Earth (Science Fiction Novel) Annotated Edition [Book]")
Luckily I discovered Project Gutenberg and was able to download an eBook version of the book and send it straight to my Kindle.
Have you read Journey to the Center of the Earth?
So far I’m about halfway through the book and really enjoying it. I saw the Brendan Fraser movie as a kid and always wanted to read the actual story.
It’s kind of funny but almost every time I read an eBook, I end up still buying a physical copy sometime in the future.
I recently did that with Jurassic Park. I purchased the eBook to read while I was traveling and now a paperback copy is sitting on my bookshelf as I write this.
So even though I’ll be using Project Gutenberg to download copies of eBooks, I’ll almost certainly still be adding physical copies to my library. Can’t help it. I’ll probably just wait until I find a nice copy in a book store and not rely on bad copies from online sellers.
- C.S.M.
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Explore my digital library:
Novels:
Amy on the Island (coming soon)
Take a look behind the curtain of my creative process. Every week I share an update.
My novels are largely inspired by real life events. Research files are where I provide a deeper look into the topics I study to write my stories.
Want to write your own stories? I’ve put together a collection of helpful writing lessons, as well as summaries of the essential books on writing fiction and deep-dive analyses of best-selling novels.
Expand your physical library:
Pick up a copy of NORMIE, my dystopian novel, on Amazon.
Thanks for all the great information in your emails. It not just about your book. You encourage us to be better people by the books we read. Finding great reads and means to do it is so helpful. Thanks C.S.M. We await your next release.