# **Heads Up: Free Kindle Downloads**



## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

Amazon has issued a statement to the effect that any affiliate that lists Free Kindle Downloads and gets more than 20K downloads they would lose ALL of their earnings for the entire month starting March 1st. 

So as of March 1st a FREE Kindle Download will be nearly impossible to find. They will still be available on Amazon because they are not doing away with Kindle Select and the authors can still put their books up for free for a period of time but it will be up to each individual author to let their readers know because it is really easy for an affiliate to reach the 20K download threshold. 

I will be changing my blog over to "Budget Friendly Kindle Downloads for homesteaders, preppers, and do-it-yourselfers" over the next few days and Feb 27th will be my last day posting the Free Kindle Downloads. I will be posting ebooks priced from .99-$2.99 from now on.

I want to thank everyone for following my posts for all of this time and I hope you will continue to visit my blog on a regular basis! 
Thank you so much,
Pam


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## mzgarden (Mar 16, 2012)

Thank you for all the effort you've put into the free download listings. I'll keep checking in but free was good while it lasted. Thanks again.


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

Thanks for all the postings Pam. And everyone get what you can from what she's posting the next few days.


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## Ambereyes (Sep 6, 2004)

Thanks Pam, you have done great and I will be checking on the new lower cost ones you find.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

I guess I will have to read all the ones I have collected up til now, finally. :teehee:

Thanks for all your good posts, Pam.
All good things must come to an end, I guess.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

thanks pam...sometimes you gotta get things when ya can cause sure enough things will change.

i have much reference material thanks toy you my friend !!


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Thank you Pam! I've really enjoyed the great books for free!


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## lemonthyme7 (Jul 8, 2010)

Thank you Pam for all you have posted. I guess all good things come to an end but I sure got a lot of great books while it lasted!


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## kkbinco (Jun 11, 2010)

Thank you for all the postings you've made Pam. I think I've collected over 200 of the books you've listed!


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

Thanks Pam. I guess I will be going back to the library. Authors want their book out there but Amazon doesn't want people to get them for free. I would suspect people like me who only download free books are the cause. My apologize, folks.


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## Sharon (May 11, 2002)

I appreciate the books I have been able to download for free. Thank you!


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## shannsmom (Jul 28, 2009)

Thanks for all you've given us so far, Pam! I certainly appreciate the time you spent on posting them, and probably have more than I will ever actually read anyways!


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## EarthSheltered (May 9, 2008)

Thanks Pam. Any tips on how to still find some free books on our own?


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## mpennington (Dec 15, 2012)

Thank you Pam for all the postings you have made. I have downloaded many and appreciate your efforts.


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## PATRICE IN IL (Mar 25, 2003)

Thanks Pam


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

(sad face) bummer.


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

EarthSheltered said:


> Thanks Pam. Any tips on how to still find some free books on our own?


I am sorry, I honestly don't. I can well imagine that none of the sites are going to post a FREE Kindle Download because they would risk losing so much. Amazon will still have them from what I hear but it will be up to each individual author to let everyone know about them.


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## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

Thanks for the heads up. I am happy to have gotten so many great books for free thanks to you and am surely willing to partake of moderately priced books as well! KC


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## CottageLife (Jul 20, 2009)

Pam, 
Thank you for the heads up on the change and for all of your hard work posting freebies for me for so long! Like another poster said I really need to start READING some of the books. LOL


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## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

Got some good ones today, thanks!


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## coffeehelps (Nov 24, 2012)

Thank you Pam.


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## farmerstac (Mar 16, 2005)

Thanks Pam for all the hours of reading you have provided for free.


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## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

Pam, thanks for all your hard work and for helping us all with your posts. It was an amazing, unselfish thing you did, and I truly appreciate it. 

It's a shame someone always has to ruin a good thing if it's not putting money directly in their pocket, but I figured they'd find a way to stop it eventually. I'm glad you found out about it before getting burned and not after the fact. Thanks again!


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## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

I'm not sure if they will continue to do it with this change, but you can find the free books listed on Amazon. If you go to this link: 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text 
Currently above the 1st book is a link to the "top 100 free books"
If you click on that, you will also see that you can sort them by categories to the left, so you can find books in your interest areas easier. I've been using this for a couple of years, but they have moved the location of the free book links several times, so it might move again or even be deleted on the 1st of March.

Thank-you Pam for all your hard work!

Dawn


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

I went to my Amazon account and then to Manage your Kindle. I have 1040 books, and nearly all were free downloads from Pam's Pride! Thank you do much!


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

On the Amazon site:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=sv_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&node=1286228011

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=sv_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&node=1286228011
on the far right about 1/3 page down is top 100 kindle books on a tab, and then 100 FREE kindle books list on the 2nd tab.

So, you'll be able to do some research to get free books still, but it won't be like having our Pam find the special free books for us all.


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## NewDad (Nov 16, 2005)

I love the free books we've gotten here from PAM's listings over the last couple years too but I never knew there was an affiliate program underlying the program and generating revenue for the lister. 

From what I'm reading, I believe free books will still be available, just not listing services making money on the links. Is this correct? 

Perhaps we as a forum, as we scour Amazon's site and find free titles which are of interest, we can publish the link here. No one makes money but we share the information and everyone benefits, just like the information from this free forum does for everything else..


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## ladybug (Aug 18, 2002)

Thank you Pam for all the downloads, I'll still be checking out your budget Kindle listings


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

Thanks, Pam. I'm another one who has downloaded some of the books you've found for us.


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## Buffy in Dallas (May 10, 2002)

Pam, You have no idea how much I appreciate all the time and effort you put into your Pam's Pride site! :grouphug:I have almost 600 books and have spent hundreds of hours reading all because of you. :kissy:



NewDad said:


> Perhaps we as a forum, as we scour Amazon's site and find free titles which are of interest, we can publish the link here. No one makes money but we share the information and everyone benefits, just like the information from this free forum does for everything else..


This would be great! Maybe a daily thread where people can post their finds.

I will definitely still be visiting Pam's "Budget Friendly Kindle Downloads" daily.


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## greenstar (Dec 10, 2012)

You can try using http://ereaderiq/free/

I used it prior to finding pam's postings here. It does take a little to search, but you can narrow the search parameters. 

I am sad that amazon is giving us moochers the boot. Thanks for posting all the free books pam. I really have looked forward to seeing what nuggets i could find everyday when i log onto HT.


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## Liberty'sGirl (Jul 7, 2012)

Thank you, Pam. Have really liked the links and have saved lots of them to my tablet. 

Here is a site that could do it for us that I just found through refdesk: http://www.freebooksifter.com/


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## jkhs (Sep 17, 2010)

Thank you Pam for all of the work you've put into this. I've really enjoyed all the free books that you've helped me find.


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

Here is a great link to explain what is happening:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2...ely-killed-free-ebook-promotions#.USz5eqVJOAY


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Pam6 said:


> Amazon has issued a statement to the effect that any affiliate that lists Free Kindle Downloads and gets more than 20K downloads they would lose ALL of their earnings for the entire month starting March 1st.
> 
> So as of March 1st a FREE Kindle Download will be nearly impossible to find. They will still be available on Amazon because they are not doing away with Kindle Select and the authors can still put their books up for free for a period of time but it will be up to each individual author to let their readers know because it is really easy for an affiliate to reach the 20K download threshold.
> 
> ...


I've been reading blogs and forum discussions about this for days and days (and participated in a few discussions), and had to do a lot of figuring about to handle my own daily free Kindle book post without endangering my earnings.

I've noticed many many free Kindle book blogs and sites are changing to "Bargain" books and reducing, or even _eliminating_ the free books.

I have no choice but to jump on that bandwagon. Beginning Mar 1, I also am going over to Bargain books, with a drastic reduction in the numbers of free books.

This bites hard.


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

To give you all an idea how quickly this ruling would have effected by blog if I did not change it...remember I switched it over to half budget friendly books as well for all three days of these results and before I did not have any paid books so the percentage would have been even closer to the 100% mark:

Yesterday I had 3948 free books downloaded and 73 paid ebooks putting me at 98.18%.

The day before I had 5063 free books downloaded and 144 paid ebooks putting me at 97.23% for that day.

On the 25th I had 4016 free books downloaded and 37 paid ebooks putting me 99.08% for that day. 

The rule is 20K free books and 80%.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

Thanks Pam for all you have done and continue to do.


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## MissKitty (Mar 16, 2005)

Thank you Pam..I don't understand everything but know you helped me get a lot of good books, now I get a chance to read them..Thanks again!


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## belladulcinea (Jun 21, 2006)

Thanks for the free ride for these last months!  Thing is, I usually didn't just get the free books, more times than not I also would pay for a book or get the rest of the books in a series.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Pam, if I read the article you linked to correctly, even if I purchase one of your paid books, then decide while I'm on Amazon to get 4 or 5 free ones (that you haven't listed), since I've clicked through using your blog, you'll still be dinged due to the 80/20 rule?


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

Belfrybat said:


> Pam, if I read the article you linked to correctly, even if I purchase one of your paid books, then decide while I'm on Amazon to get 4 or 5 free ones (that you haven't listed), since I've clicked through using your blog, you'll still be dinged due to the 80/20 rule?


Yes, that is correct! That is why so many affiliates are upset about the rule. We have no control of what people order after clicking through the links. So even publishing a couple free ones can cause an affiliate to lose all of the earnings they made.


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## CottageLife (Jul 20, 2009)

Pam6 said:


> Yes, that is correct! That is why so many affiliates are upset about the rule. We have no control of what people order after clicking through the links. So even publishing a couple free ones can cause an affiliate to lose all of the earnings they made.


That is so wrong  I'll have to be careful when I go for the freebies to go to google and type in 'amazon' and go that way.  Crazy!


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

Pam6 said:


> Yes, that is correct! That is why so many affiliates are upset about the rule. We have no control of what people order after clicking through the links. So even publishing a couple free ones can cause an affiliate to lose all of the earnings they made.


Darn - 
I'll be careful also. Don't want to get you into any trouble.


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

Unless you clear your cookies before getting the free books it still counts against the affiliate you last clicked through for 24 hours. It is a real mess!


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## WoolyBear (Nov 9, 2011)

Oh wow I didn't know about the cookie thing. I sure hope I haven't screwed anything up for you Pam. Off to clear some cookies.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Pam6 said:


> Unless you clear your cookies before getting the free books it still counts against the affiliate you last clicked through for 24 hours. It is a real mess!


Hmm. So you want to give us a name of one of your competitors? That way, we can order a couple of paid books from you, click through on your competitor's site and order the freebies. :grin: Yeah, I know, I've devious at times!


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

My volume of free books has already dropped dramatically. From 4-5000 a day to 1297 yesterday putting me at 93.84% verse the 98-99%. So I imagine the free books will continue to drop. The 1297 does not count against me because they don't start keeping track until today, March 1st, and stats are always a day behind. 

At this point I am really not worried about it. The traffic to my blog has dramatically decreased today as well so I think I will be just fine for the month of March. So I am sure it will dramatically fall as well. Thank you all for looking out for me I really appreciate it but I am sure it will all work out as well. Honestly, I am not worried about it at all!


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## Pam6 (Apr 9, 2009)

Belfrybat said:


> Hmm. So you want to give us a name of one of your competitors? That way, we can order a couple of paid books from you, click through on your competitor's site and order the freebies. :grin: Yeah, I know, I've devious at times!


That was one of the points that was brought up by the affiliates as well, that it would be pretty easy to sabotage a bigger book site because Amazon was only going to use the 20K 80/20 rule and if you violated it you would have to fight tooth and nail to get your earnings back for the month even if you did not promote free books. 
They also pointed out that it would be easy for someone to take someone else's affiliate ID and post it on a site with links to free books and that would sabotage them as well.


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## mpennington (Dec 15, 2012)

Thanks Pam, I'll be checking your site frequently for paid books and will be sure to clear cookies if I download any free ones. You have always had books that interested me. I should probably just start reading through the many I've downloaded just since December.


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

I needed to re-read this thread to understand the Amazon affiliate and free book issues.

We won't be having threads to people's blogs offering free books as use to be done. I know this is a disappointment, but if you want the free books, Amazon, kindle, kindle books then look on the right hand index.

This will get you the free books, plenty to keep you reading. 

And if you're an affiliate of Amazon and now doing the bargain books, just put that link in your signature - everyone here is up to date on how to check for links in signatures.

And be sure to get the Survival books first, so you'll be ready.

Thanks for understanding. 
Angie


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