I’m looking to change my reading and buying habits away from Amazon and need an alternate source for my ebooks. Where can I buy ebooks that won’t expire or have their licence revoked and will allow me to download a copy of that ebook I can store on my own system regardless of the websites status?
Since the beginning of the whole eBook trend I’ve refused to buy e-books from Amazon exactly because of their DRM, and recently I went looking around for an alternative and discovered Smashwords were I can buy the books and get them at least in ePub format (some also in other formats). They’ve been getting a steady stream of money from me ever since. (No, it’s not a subscription, it’s me being an avid book reader).
No idea of how good or not they are compared to other alternatives, but they seem to have more than enough choice for my needs and do satisfy my criteria, - the same as yours - which is that I when I download a book I get to keep it and read in any way I see fit.
www.kobo.com is an online bookstore I use. I don’t know if all their books are DRM-free, but the handful I bought have been. The full name of the store is Ratuken Kobo. I like it well enough.
They definitely sell DRM’d books, it might even be the majority of books on the store. I think it depends on the publisher. I have managed to find some DRM-free books there though.
A lot of (bigger) bookstores also sell ebooks on their websites. There it usually depends on the publisher if they have DRM or not, so just look around.
Librature has a list of DRM free individuals and small presses https://libreture.com/bookshops/
Oh I forgot also if you check the details on kobo, some of the books are sold DRM free. Mostly I think it was from Tor, but could be other publishers as well.
Surprised nobody’s mentioned Weightless ebooks or Smashwords yet. You didn’t mention region, so I can’t assure these will work for you, but worth checking out regardless to see if they may.
Libro.FM as well.
Humble Bundle and storybundle.com sell DRM-free ebooks.
Careful though, not every Humble Bundle is DRM-free. I just got one recently not realizing it was locked to the Kobo app. I have an Android e-reader so I’m still able to read them, but I’m pretty annoyed given that DRM-free used to be one of the major selling points of Humble Bundle.
Piracy or your local library.
Anna’s Archive is a good option if you’re wanting to sail the high seas. Very easy to navigate, and almost all titles are available in multiple formats (I.e. PDF, epub)
MAM is the best for piracy.
What’s MAM, and in what ways is it better than Anna’s Archive?
They have a lot of content and a pretty nice community.
It’s a private tracker but it’s easy to join even if it’s your first.
Oceanofpdf.com works for a lot of titles
CrowdSupply
If you get it off Amazon, you can use Calibre to download the ebook. Then convert to ebook .epub and now it’s yours forever. I don’t like this but some books are not possible to get it legally without Amazon.
Or use baen to buy. Or if your really lucky off the authors official website.
Head’s up - since Jan this year, this route is ONLY available if you have registered a Kindle with them. The new format used by amazon cannot be “unencrypted”, even by calibre, without a Kindle “unencrypting” it for you or providing it’s key or whatever the dark magic required is.
That’s terrible, thanks for the he heads up.
If you’re an audible user, libation is a great way to own your audio books the way calibre does.
That beats connecting the speaker jack to the mic jack and recording with audacity.
I used to do that all the time as a kid, and there are still songs where I expect to hear a windows tone over it in specific spots…
A lot of publishers have DRM free content if you buy directly from them.
Verso, Tor, NoStarchPress to name a few
On the high seas
I kinda do both, I sail the sea for the book and if I like it I buy a print for the bookshelf lol
Yarrrrr.
