Free Ebooks

Free ebooks! Last summer I got a refurb Sony 300 Pocket Reader a few weeks before Amazon lowered the price on the Kindle. I love the little thing anyway. The best part of an ebook reader is taking advantage of all the free books available online.

A good place for free ebooks is your local library. Check to see if your library loans out ebooks (click Libraries tab and enter your zip code). With just about any format except Amazon Kindle's proprietary format, your library holds many new titles. My branch is very busy though, so most books require waiting periods. The process is the same as signing them out normally, although you may need to download and install Adobe's Digital Editions to authenticate the DRM'ed ebooks.

For most of the Western literary canon, you have Gutenberg.org. They digitize out of copyright books in multiple formats. This includes all those pre-1920s classics you read in high school English class. Gutenberg also has a large selection of 1950s sci-fi which, due to lack of copyright renewal, are now public domain.

You can find modern sci-fi and fantasy books at the Baen free library. Annother source of Baen free ebooks is the Fifth Imperium. Baen often includes CDs in the later books of their series. The CDs often include the entire series and Baen allows legal distributing and downloading of the contents. Their strategy of hooking readers on the free books so they buy more books worked for me at least. Sheepherder's Daughter(the download options at left contain the entire book, the sample chapters link do not) was a trilogy and I bought the combined trilogy omnibus paperback after reading the first one.

I recommend the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint (right hand column of the linked website) and the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold.

A much smaller library of books are available at Suvudu.

A great blog highlighting book deals is Books on the Knob. Amazon Kindle and then Barnes & Noble Nook release the most free books but often I find cheap or free deals on books compatible with my Sony reader. The blog updates often, so check it out!

A forum I browse for free ebooks is Mobile Read. Besdies collecting the latest news on ebooks, you can get reviews and opinions on ebook technology, hardware, and plain old discussion on the stories in the books themselves. The free ebooks forum is great for finding deals, coupons, and free, legal downloads.

Manybooks.net describes itself well. I like Lucky Stiff, an old pulp novel about a woman framed for murder, only to escape from the electric chair by a lucky last minute reprieve. She then heads out to get payback on the people who framed her.

Munseys is an unusual site listing many old pulp novels.

Below are a few other sites I found from a Woot.com post that I haven't checked out yet:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/freebooks.htm
http://www.feedbooks.com/
http://inkmesh.com/free-ebooks/

The Kindle today announced they are selling ad-supported versions of the $139 Wireless Kindle (no 3g) for $114. Amazon is dangling  ads for deals like a $20 Amazon card for $10 and an mp3 album for $1. I'm in! (the $114 version is inder the Kindle with Special Offers box at the Amazon product page)

Happy Reading!

Envaulted.com

Envaulted.com gives you 1% cashback on up to three of your credit cards. As with Offermatic, you give them access to your credit card accounts. Envaulted is written up in several trustworthy news sources, so I signed up. Their website said no beta applications remained but I put my name on a waiting list. It was worth the wait.

Envaulted gives a straight 1% back. Once a month you may get a check so long as you reach a $10 minimum. You can boost your cashback by taking up the new offers Envaulted advertises every week. These offers give a higher rate percentage back.

For example, one week I received 3% cashback on Shell gasoline. The week before I received bonus cashback from Exxon, my closest gas station. The deals seem to be based somewhat on my purchases, although I am not one hundred percent sure they differ for everyone. I got a sandwich at D'Angelos, so they offered me a bonus 10% cashback at Subway (which I took).

Whenever convenient, I take advantage of the deals. For example, I don't normally go to Shell. So that week I tanked up about one quarter to bide my time instead of getting a full tank. Going out of my way to get gas 3% cashback on Shell gas seems silly. When I made a trip to a store with a nearby Shell station, I filled up there. So the waiting was the hardest part.

This week's deal is Papa John's at 10% back. I've never gone, but I'll eat lunch there a few times this week so long as the price and quality are reasonable.

I requested a check a few weeks ago and received my first $24. When I put my card info in, the last transactions are downloaded. Envaulted applied the cashback to the history even though I made a large  purchase before I joined. Sweet! Soon I'll ask for another check when I hit the $10 minimum.

So, essentially free money, as I was going to buy gas and food anyway. Will they last? I hope so, I like free cash.

Offermatic.com

Offermatic.com gives you rebates in exchange for your credit card account info: login and password. Dangerous! Insane! Who would do such foolishness?!

So I went ahead and did it. Reputable newspapers and investors have faith in the security. The NY Times reported on the website and an investment group is pouring money into this, so I am fairly sure it's safe. The company backing the security side is Yodlee, the former web machinery behind Mint.com when they started out.

The Mint.com look and feel is here. Adding accounts is similar, with a dropdown screen appearing where users search for their credit/bank websites. Clicking on the Offers link right away I saw a few offers based on my purchases history from my credit card. They amounted to spending $10 to get $5 back in a few weeks. When I saw the offers clicked to activate them. Expiration dates are listed on the offers, but you receive no penalties from not using them. The offers I choose were:

$5 Barnes & Noble
Stacking bonus here: Barnes & Noble's 10% discount from AAA took an additional bite out of the price. I bought more than the ten dollars I needed to spend. So maybe Offermatic's business plan is good.

$5 Trader Joe's
Just edged over spending $10 thanks to the Trader Joe brand rippled chips, some avocados, and a red pepper. Hoping the taxes are counted as well.

The nice thing about the offers is the explanation of why you received them. I spent money at B&N and Trader Joe's, so I I got those offers. I ignored an offer of a Restaurant.com giftcard for 250 points. Last month I ate at restaurants a lot so I got this offer and I planned to cut down. Plus, I never ate at any of the the restaurants listed and only a few were close by

Offermatic allows you to grind for points. The user spends those points for various stuff: rebates, higher level offers, or coupons.  By typing out a few quick but truthful reviews (+25 points a piece), attaching a few of my credit cards (+150 each), and linking to my often unused Facebook and Twitter accounts (+100 each), I acquired 900+ points. When I reach a certain number of points I can redeem them for gift cards:

$25

2,500 Points

Bloomingdale's Gift Card

$25

3,000 Points

Amazon Gift Card

Amazon is the highest cost gift card at 3000 points. Another option from Offermatic is for my account to level up to receive level 2 offers. Cost: 4000 points. The preview of level 2 offers included $10 rebates to Big Y and T-Mobile, places I bought stuff recently. I'll probably stick to getting the $25 gift cards for now.

Not everything went smoothly. My incentive for signing up, a choice of $5 rebates from Amazon, didn't appear. I had to contact their support staff to have it show up. It took a few days but it appeared.


Needless to say, many will shy away from giving out personal info. So: error or triumph? Will I experience Desert Storm or Pearl Harbor? I'll let you know when/if I get my rebates.

And if you're willing to take the plunge, try my referral link (I get 200 points if you do).

Update: Got 2 of 3 rebates so far, for $10. Score!

DonorsChoose.org

I read about DonorsChoose.org in the NY Times.* Local teachers who need money for their projects put in a request and DonorsChoose looks it over. If it seems legit and the costs line up, the project is offered online. 

The site offers anonymous donations or you can advertise your generosity on Facebook. I choose anonymous and donated by credit card.

An easy to use interface helps keep track of the projects you donated to or the tags/categories associated with that project. CharityNavigator.org gave them a nice four-star review, writing about DonorsChoose's low overhead and 92% of funds go to people in need.

Charitable and businesses match dollar for dollar on some projects.
I donated to a class of students learning to cook and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation essentially doubled my donation's effectiveness. Other charitable oganizations include Townsend Press, which subsidizes reading projects.
　
To extend your donation's effectiveness, you can buy a book about schools in America containing a $15 DonorsChoose giftcard. The book is available for $6 and change. If you're short of $25 on an Amazon order and trying to get free shipping, then toss the book in. The DVD has a $25 giftcard but is obviously more expensive.
　
Anyway, a class of students learning to cook for job training are on their way to getting their cooking supplies thanks in part to the book Waiting for Superman and Bill and Melinda Gates' generosity.

* The actual article was from 2010 but I wasn't able to open it, so I used this other one instead.

Hey There

Welcome to my blog. I'm your host, russellmz. Every financial coup and calamity I make will reside here. You, the reader, will mock or encourage me. Hope you enjoy reading.

My first article will deal with www.donorschoose.org. It's a great charity site to see where your money goes and how. Recipient classes and teachers get your money for special projects from books to specialty equipment.