DRM-free eBooks and where to find them

With QRead, the accessible e-text reader for the blind, you will have access to an immense quantity of reading material. This list provides a few good starting points for finding those DRM-free books.

BOOKS FOR FREE

Bookshare is an online library of accessible books and periodicals. Memberships are free for students with a print disability and for schools and institutions serving those with blindness and other print disabilities. You can also purchase a membership. Project Gutenberg has free eBooks available in many formats, all DRM-free. There is an incredible collection here spanning every genre imaginable, and all are in the public domain. Overdrive offers books in the "open epub" format via many public libraries. To find out if your library offers books via Overdrive, check the library's web site or the link above (use the "find a library" feature). When you check out an ebook in this format, you can transfer it to any device you wish during the checkout period. Be aware not all books via Overdrive are offered in this format – be careful and check the details for the book under "Available formats" before you check it out. Don't miss the Baen Free Library. Smashwords, mentioned below, has free books as well.

BOOKS TO BUY

Before you start shopping, visit Books on the Knob. This site has lists of deals and coupons for multiple formats of ebooks, but off to the right side there's a list for deals and coupons specifically for DRM-free eBooks. Smashwords has a huge collection of eBooks available for purchase, and all of them are DRM-free. They have every possible category you can think of and then some. Baen Books has a variety of books available for purchase, and all of them are DRM-free. They offer webscriptions as well, which are a type of serialized novel. More about that program here. Every single book at Tor's web site is DRM-free. They seem to truly understand that when you buy a book, you appreciate being able to read it anywhere you want. Calibre, the popular ebook management program, has a section on their site that lists DRM-free eBooks. There are multiple ways to search, including author, title, genre, and price. O'Reilly, the popular technical books publisher, offers a lot of eBooks without DRM. Elsevier has over 18,000 books for students that are DRM-free. The list includes many interesting topics like Forensic Neuropathology and the Subsea Engineering Handbook.

FIND YOUR OWN

There is a lot of DRM-free reading out there on the internet. If you don't find anything that appeals to you in this list, try your favorite search engine and include the phrase "DRM free eBooks" along with a subject or genre.