There are so many ways to find the books we love to read now. Technology makes the online search and purchases of books easy and can cover almost any type of book or topic you can think of. While wandering the aisles of a library and bookstore is always nice, it is not always practical for those who may be housebound or do not live close to somewhere they can go shopping. Book websites are perfect as they not only offer a plethora of books, but they let you search for items that you may not find in actual stores. Sites let you compare prices, so you get the best deal for your money.
Best Ecommerces Websites to Buy Ebooks
When you purchase an ebook (electronic books) reader such as Kindle you have opened the door to a lot of happy reading. These electronic reading devices are designed specifically for reading ebooks and other digital content such as magazines, newspapers and more. They have something called electronic paper (E Ink for many) that mimics the look of the actual pages of a book. The other option to use for reading electronically, aside from an ereader, is simply using your laptop or tablet with programs like Adobe Digital or simply PDF readers. There are also apps that can help convert certain files to make them readable such as Epub ebook and KOBE which can help you read what you want on almost any device.
Once you know how you are going to start your book reading then finding good ebook websites is important. You want a good selection of literature along with good prices. You may also want to know about the difference in content as some sites have only ebooks while others expand their selection to audiobooks, e-magazines and more.
Most of us jump to Amazon as our first choice when looking for digital content but there a lot more websites for book lovers that have good choices and some free offerings as well. There are many that have more genres, different ebook formats and lots of odds and ends that you might not find on the main sites but are available on smaller ones. You may start out with a plan to download ebooks and come off a website with much more than you thought digitally possible. Take a good look at the sites out there and you will be engrossed with the online content as you would in a big, old lovely library. Your reading needs will not go unmet.
- Amazon – amazon.com – You have to start off your list with Amazon simply because its one of the easiest websites to access and has one of the largest ebook libraries on the internet. If you have the Amazon Kindle, Kindle Fire or other Amazon product you can not go wrong with this library. It has one of the best lists of books along with subscription plans that let you read until your heart’s content. At Amazon, they have subscription service called Kindle Unlimited that is for Kindle users where they can pay $9.99 each month and it lets them download and read all the books available from their library of over 1 million books. They do not have current releases or best sellers in this particular group, but it is a great list of options that seems almost unending.
The other bonus that comes with Amazon online is its Prime membership. All Prime customers have access to Prime Reading as well. This is a group of ebooks, digital magazines and comics that has numbers of over 1000 pieces. Being a Prime member means you can borrow them for no charge.
As Amazon is one of, if not the largest, seller of ebooks online they often will have the best offers and give lots of discounts to help decide what ebook purchase you are going to make. The only issue you may run into is that Amazon uses something called AWZ format for its online content, so you need to use an app to convert whatever you want to read to EPUB if you are using something other than a Kindle product.
- Apple Books – https://www.apple.com/lae/apple-books/ – The next mainstream site that has a good digital library is Apple. However, it is good for Apple users alone for the most part. It was originally referred to as iBook’s and now is Apple Books but under either name it only works for those use have macOS and iOS devices. For those that have access to it though it has lots of titles that are both mainstream as well as those from smaller independent publishers. Apple does not carry a lot of free items which is also a drawback, but the average book price is not bad for those who are going to enjoy this format.
Chances are that Apple may reformat as the market shifts and grows, access to their digital material will begin to change as well to meet the market demand.
- TotalBoox – http://www.totalboox.com/ – This site is a really unique site for downloading For those who are readers who just never stop looking for new books and are constantly going from one to another this is a good site to look at. This site allows you to leave books midway through reading and then you only pay for what you have read. You will not waste your money on a book that you start and then do not want to finish. If you have picked an ebook that you really are not enjoying, then you pay for the percentage of the book you read rather than for the full product. The site has over 40, 000 in its ebook collection and you simply choose whatever you want to download and then you can pick where to start without being charged a cent.
You do not pay anything until you actually start turning the pages and reading. The site will even let you look through a book with a glance to see if you think you will enjoy it. Unfortunately, this site is similar to Apple as it only works with one operating system and this one is Android and Amazon Fire.
- Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/ – This site is a great site to find some things that are not available in the world of mainstream literature. Smashwords is one of the best sites to find books from those who distribute independent ebooks. you will not find bestsellers, but you will discover some great reads that are outside the norm. It is a good forum for new authors as they can publish their work at no cost and then maybe move their way up to the larger sellers and bigger libraries.
It has a huge library of ebooks with a count of over half a million available. The site claims that 70,000 of these are counted as free ebooks. The great thing about the Smashword site is that it gives the reader filters that you will not find on other sites. You can search for books by word count, look for essays, plays, poetry and even screenplays. It has a great mix of digital books and other content. It also opens the door to most Ereaders by allowing EPUB, MOBI and PDF so you can read their books and content on almost any device.
- Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/nook-books – While Barnes and Noble are one of the biggest actual on-site book stores in the United States, they also broaden their sales base with its own Ereader called the Nook. These are great products that can keep up with Amazon’s Kindles and are probably the closest to them in the percentage of sales in the ebook readers B&N has more than 3 million titles you can pay for and over 1 million free books online. The one glitch if you do not have a Nook is converting the books for other readers like the Kindle. Books will have to be changed into another format other than EPUB and the B&N DRM needs to be removed as well.
There is an app called Calibre ebook management that can do this for you if you need it and its handy to have if you use more than one site for finding and managing your digital content. Not all sites will be amenable to whatever device and OS you may be using so Calibre is a good way to bridge those instances where you need some support in converting the files.
- Google Play Books – https://play.google.com/store/books?hl=en – Google has stepped up the competition in the area ebooks and digital content. They have a whole area that is now simply for selling ebooks on the Google Play store. They have over 5 million titles for readers to make their way through. They are also one of the cheapest if not the cheapest sites that are selling ebooks. It seems to be as much as 10% less than the priciest which is considered to be KOBO. To buy ebook on Google Play you have to be able to use EPUB or read PDF. Kindle amazon ereaders can read PDF so access by most devices should not be too difficult.
However, book readers will still need the use of the app Calibre to get rid of any of the DRM that may be on the downloaded content depending on the publisher. Not all content will have this issue but its another instance where having the Calibre app is handy to have. Android users will find the Google Play Books the best and easiest spot to get their ebooks and emagazines. The app works smoothly with the Android operating system as well as Google assistant and other applicable links.
- Your Hometown Library – While many of us do not know it, our small town libraries are not so small town any more they have come online with both virtual reference abilities to help library users online and ebooks. If you do not want to purchase a book reader or can not afford to pay for online material, you can simply borrow the books you want through your local library just as you would with hard copies.
Many of the libraries in the United States are linked to a system called OverDrive. This great app makes it easy to borrow ebooks, audiobooks from your local library. It works with Android, Chromebooks, Fire Tablets and your laptop if it has Windows 8-10. Just install the app, sign into your library and start browsing the library ebooks and magazines. There is a possibility you can use libraries farther away as well since the OverDrive app is used in many across the country. You would just have to enquire about access.
- Other websites to buy ebooks – These previously names sites are the main ones where you will have the most luck with finding not only mainstream books but the more elusive ones as well. However, there are others such as bookbub.com, www.Bookboon.com and the Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org that will offer you free ebooks and round out your top ten sites for searching. You can spend hours browsing everything available and get happily lost in the many options that are online.
These digital websites where you can buy, rent and peruse ebooks are just the tip of the reading iceberg. Finding these sites and winding your way through their libraries can take many wonderful hours. They are great sites for those who want a quick read or want to research, look for and discuss the many pieces of digital library content available. You can find the easiest of books to read or the most technical textbooks that will keep you busy. There is no limit to what is available online when it comes to the world of literature. Set aside some time to wander the digital aisles of these online libraries and you will not be disappointed with what you find. The reading will go on for hours upon pleasurable hours.
