Written on 1/18/2013 at 1:30 pm by eBook-mom
ePub Books is a website that sells e-books in the ePub format. As a service to its customers, ePub Books offers a vast collection of e-books free to download.
Favorite bookstore experience
As you know, I'm a big fan of finding free e-books on the internet. Yet, what I miss when I'm "shopping" for free e-books is the organized search you can experience at a bookstore.
My favorite used bookstore has a location that was once a large two story family home. Even though they've converted the house into a bookstore, you can still feel the comforts of home. My favorite part of the store is the upstairs floor divided by what probably used to be bedrooms. In these separate rooms, the books are not only arranged by category but also subcategories like most bookstores. The difference is that instead of long super-store aisles, you move through a series of themed rooms to find books.
For example, if you start-out looking for books about writing, you travel the wall of bookcases into a section of reference books; from there you go to the next room filled with classic books; from there you can leave the room and go down a short hallway to find books on history and political theory.
I wish that just like my favorite bookstore, I could travel from room to room searching for books. I miss being able to go to a bookshelf and visually connect to all the books by author or subject. Well, at ePub Books, the digital experience may not be a substitute for the bookstore experience but it's an experience well worth having.
Experiencing the digital search
The ePub Book experience begins on the landing page where you can choose books by categories and then refine your search in a left hand column. At the bottom of the refine search column you will find a section for “price” and at the top of this list is the “free” option. Once this option is clicked, you will be able to access ePub Book’s free e-book collection. Similar to other free e-book websites, you can refine your search by choosing categories and subcategories.
When you find a free e-book that looks interesting, just choose the book and you will be taken to a page that displays a synopsis of the e-book and a download option. Primarily, the free e-book downloads are offered in the ePub format but ePub Books also provides links to Apple iBooks, Amazon Kindle and Audible Digital Audiobook, just to name a few vendor choices. If ePub Books doesn’t have a direct free ePub download, they will take you to another commercial website like eBooks.com, Simon & Schuster or Diesel books for your free download.
Equal treatment for free e-books free
The ePub Books website treats every e-book equally. Just because the e-book is free, you will still find a carefully crafted display for each e-book. Specifically, when you are looking for an e-book, you get to see great cover art, a well-done synopsis and a breakdown of what category and subcategory the book belongs to. Another digital treat is being able to see the word count, publisher, date published, language of publication, and ISBN number at a glance.
Loving the digital experience
But here’s what I love about the digital experience of ePub Books. Although you can’t hold an e-book in your hand, or glance at a shelf full of books by author or category, you can easily link to other books by the same author or in the same category by well positioned links above and below the synopsis.
Since I’m an avid used book shopper, I often find used books without book jackets so it’s great to have a synopsis for every e-book. Also, being able to link so quickly to one subcategory and then so easily to another subcategory, beats traveling down long aisles filled with book shelf after dusty bookshelf. No criticism - dust is so worth it when you find a rare or hard-to-find book.
Collections at a glance
Another thing I don’t find in a used book search, is the ability to see an author’s collection from the perspective of the different categories offered in that collection. Being that I’m not a scholar on the books of Charles Dickens, for example, I had no idea Dickens wrote love stories, satire, and ghost stories. Of course, I knew Dickens made statements about political issues but I couldn’t name which books make these statement if my life depended on it.
The ePub Book Challenge
So when you find yourself visiting ePub Books, don't just take the time to find free e-books. Instead, I challenge you to download a series of e-books by the same author. Are you up for reading not just one Dickens book but instead let's say five? To tell you the truth, reading just one Dickens book is quite the challenge! If your family isn’t interested in tackling A Tale of Two Cities maybe they would enjoy reading a shorter story like the Christmas Carol? Then after falling in love with Dickens, they have the option of moving on to other books. A mother can dream can't she?