Part II--How to Borrow FREE eBooks and Audiobooks

Part II--How to Borrow FREE eBooks and Audiobooks

Overdrive--eBooks
https://www.overdrive.com/

The best place to begin is at your local public library or school library.  Many libraries are offering free eBooks in a variety of formats for checking out on your own device for two to three weeks at a time.  Many libraries are using an interface called Overdrive to check out eBooks.  (You can go to https://www.overdrive.com/ and "Find Your Library.")

1. Check with a librarian to make sure that you have your library card number and a PIN. 
2. Go to your computer, smart phone, or tablet, open the Overdrive interface for your school or public library, and then log in. 
3. Once you are logged in, you can search for eBooks by title, author, subject, publisher, reading level, format, and more. You can also search only by titles that are currently available.
4. From the Overdrive interface at your library, you can select the type of eReader that you are using, including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, Windows Phone, Windows 8 Tablet, Blackberry, Blackberry Playbook, Android, Sony Reader Wifi, Kindle, Nook, Kobo or Chromebook.  Once you select your device, only the correct formats will appear when you search for an eBook.   
5. When you are using the  eInk versions of the Kindle and Nook, check out the titles from a computer or tablet, and transfer them to the Kindle* (via wifi) or Nook (via USB).
6. You can create hold lists, wish lists, and/or immediately check out eBooks that are available.  
7. Once you have your eBook selected, watch the videos for your particular eReader device that are provided by Overdrive to learn to download eBooks for the first time.  Once you have done it a few times, you will be able to check out eBooks for free whenever you want!  You can always have a supply of free eBooks to read on your own eReader. 

*For a Kindle eInk reader, just check out the eBook from Overdrive.  Once it is checked out, Amazon will open.  Log in to Amazon with the account for your device. Click on  "Get Library Book" and select the device to which you want it delivered via wifi.  Note that if all the devices are registered under the same login and password, you can have the same books on up to 6 devices simultaneously.

Overdrive-Audiobooks

1. Install the free OverDrive Media Console app on most devices, including the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android, Kindle Fire, Nook HD, Mac, Windows, and Windows Phone.  Depending on the device, you can read eBooks, listen to audiobooks, and watch videos from your library with OverDrive Media Console.  (Note that on Macs and Windows computers, OverDrive Media Console only plays audiobooks.)
2. Check out and download the audiobook directly into Overdrive Media Console on your device.  For more help with your device, try this page. 

Open Library

https://openlibrary.org/
Open Library, an initiative of Internet Archive has over 1 million free eBook titles available. You must open a free account and may borrow up to 5 titles for 2 weeks each from Open Library.  Titles are available in varying formats and may include html, ePub, Kindle, PDF, Daisy, DjVu, and MOBI. Open Library is searchable by author or title, or you can view other readers' recommended lists.

Kindle Lending Library
If you are a Prime member of Amazon, you can borrow an eBook once a month from Kindle Owner's Lending Library.  You cannot access this library via Amazon on a computer; you have to access it from the Amazon Store on your Kindle.  From a Kindle eInk device, select all categories and then Kindle Owner's Lending Library.  From a Kindle Fire, select Kindle Owner's Lending Library.  Over 500,000 titles are available in the lending library.

How to "Borrow" eBooks and Keep Them!
You can always go to the Kindle store, Nook store, or iBooks store and type in "classics" or "popular classics"  or "free classics" and sort from Low to High price.  You will find hundreds of titles available.  Most are the same books available from Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks.net.  Probably you'll just want to use the portal (ManyBooks.net or Kindle Store, etc.) that is easiest for you to manage. Once you "purchase" these titles for $0.00, they are yours to keep.

Other eBook Loan Services (Not necessarily recommended.....)

You can loan Kindle eBooks to others by logging in to your Kindle account (Manage Content and Devices).  Go to the Action button to the left of books that you own.  If it says, "Loan this book," then you can loan it to a friend by sending a notification to his/her email address.  However, I discovered that most books are NOT loanable, so I don't find this to be a very good service.

Lendle
You can borrow Kindle eBooks from Lendle on your Kindle device or on your smartphone, tablet or computer.  However, I just logged into Lendle and checked for some of my favorite authors.  Very few were available.  In my opinion, the titles available are not worth signing up for the program.  I prefer checking out titles from the local or school library.  

Nook LendMe eBooks
Nook users can lend and borrow eBooks through the Barnes and Noble community via the LendMe option.  Only limited titles are available as well.

Coming Soon--Part III--Where to Find Free Children's eBooks!