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Amazon to Drop Free Books from Kindle Bestseller List

To mangle a snarky old line from my not-so-recent adolescence, I took a picture of the zero-priced books at the top of the Kindle Store’s Bestseller list (at right), because it will last longer.

That’s right. Rachel Deahl of Publisher’s Weekly has reported today that an Amazon representative told her that, within “a few weeks,” Amazon “will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles.”

As of today, the top 10 titles on the Kindle bestseller list, and 33 of the top 50, are either currently free or achieved their lofty ranking due to being free until the past couple of days.

The prospect of a bifurcated list will certainly create a different look and feel for the Kindle Store sales rankings, and could conceivable reduce the incentive for publishers and authors to offer free promotional downloads of some of their Kindle-formatted books. But if Deahl’s report is true the new top 10 will soon include names like Larsson, Patterson, Turow, Stocket, Quindlen, Coben, Bush, Baldacci, Junger, and Rachman.

We’ll be back soon with some analysis of how this reported change will fit in with a number of major changes that are now in the process of occurring in the Kindle catalog.

Price Breakdown on Kindle Store’s 300,000 Books as of June 11


Kindle Books Priced at $0.00 – 7,409 Titles

Kindle Books Price from $0.01 to $0.98 – 7.956 Titles

Kindle Books Priced at $0.99 – 21,159 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $1.00 to $2.99 – 37,202 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $3.00 to $4.99 – 47,217 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $5.00 to $7.49 – 27,729 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $7.50 to $9.98 – 25,039 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced at $9.99 – 44,230 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $10.00 to $14.99 – 6,919 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $15.00 to $19.99 – 10,120 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $20.00 to $29.99 – 3,681 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $30.00 to $39.99 – 12,545 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $40.00 to $49.99 – 7,078 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $50.00 to $99.99 – 22,272 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $100.00 to $199.99 – 17,797 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $200.00 to $999.99 – 2,032 Titles

Kindle Titles Priced from $1000.00 to $6431.20 – 32 Titles

Free Books in the Kindle Store

“Big Deals” on Kindle web page

Free Direct eBook Downloads to Your Kindle: Get Over 23,900 Free Books For Your Kindle at ManyBooks

Want to enjoy great, well-formatted reading on your Kindle, but beginning to feel like you are contributing a little too much to keeping the wolf from Amazon’s door?

Don’t want to fool around with transferring ebooks to and from your computer via USB connection? You may be amazed at how easy it can be to download free books directly to your Kindle over the Whispernet, without any need for a computer!

Try ManyBooks, one of the favorite websites used by Kindle owners to find and transfer free books for their Kindles. As you can see with the image above at the right, ManyBooks and its current catalog of 23,905 free books is also nicely optimized for viewing on your Kindle or on any other mobile device.

Just follow these steps to make ManyBooks a regular part of your Kindle browsing, all at absolutely no cost:

  • Use your Kindle keyboard to type mnybks.net from your home screen or from within any content you are reading on your Kindle. This is the ManyBook mobile URL. If you are reading this piece as a Kindle Nation daily blog article directly on your Kindle, you can go to the ManyBooks mobile site directly just by clicking here.
  • Push your 5-way (Kindle 2 or DX) or scrollwheel (Kindle 1) to the right to select “go to” or “google” to enable the Kindle’s web browser to bring you to the ManyBooks website or a Google listing of ManyBooks links.
  • No need to type a prefix such as http:// – the Kindle will take care of that.
  • Use the category links or keyword search feature at the ManyBooks mobile website to find a book, and click on it to begin downloading it directly to your Kindle via Whispernet.
  • Click on the “Mobipocket/Kindle” download option from the next screen, and you will see the screen prompt above, at right. Click OK to continue, give the book a moment to download, and you should find the title on your Home screen when you check for it.