How To Get Free E-Books

During a recent bus ride, Jessica Goldstein, a fellow passenger, was staring into her cell phone. But she was not sending out text messages or checking e-mail. Classic literature had bookmarked her attention.

Goldstein, a technical writer, uses her cell phone as an electronic book gadget. She downloads free books through Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org, a nonprofit organization that enables readers to download free electronic copies of books onto desktop computers, smart phones or palm organizers.

"It's like going to the library on a bus," Goldstein told me as she read "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzche.

Project Gutenberg has a catalog of about 30,000 titles that are available for free. Additionally, the site has affiliate relationships with other sites that offer access to 100,000 free books.

Here are other resources for readers seeking free electronic books to read at home or on the road.

- Barnes & Noble. The company offers a free application that works on smart phones and desktop computers. The app can be downloaded at www.bn.com/ebooks and provides access to free e-books.

- DailyLit (www.dailylit.com) is a service launched by a former Random House editor and a social media guru. Classic titles, such as "Moby Dick," "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Prince and the Pauper" are delivered by plain text e-mails to your computer, cell phone or other handheld devices. Each e-mail has an installment of the book and you pick the frequency of the e-mails. The service also includes a fee-based subscription for new titles, but books in the public domain are free and there are lots of them, including many titles on school reading lists.

How to Get Free Books, Music, Movies & Games: Swaptree

It's possible to find free books, CDs, DVDs and video games without leaving your home, according to Adrienne Sylver, a Miami-based book lover and freelance writer. Through Swaptree, (www.swaptree.com), Sylver has completed about 35 trades for books, video games and other merchandise.

''Where else can you find books, DVDs and CDs and no late fees?'' Sylver said, adding that she's been happy with the quality and speed of the service.

Registration and swaps are free, but consumers are responsible for shipping charges, which is typically about $2.20 for most DVDs and CDS, and about $2.50 for the average book, based on media mail rates through the U.S. Postal Service.

To navigate through the site, consumers register two lists. Sylver maintains a wish list of titles she would like to acquire and a second list of merchandise that she would like to get rid of.
''Most people have a pile of books that they want to trade,'' she said.

Based on your give-away list, Swaptree provides a list of available swaps. To make a trade, select the ''get now'' link on the list of possible trades. That link provides information about the condition of the item and the trader's history, including feedback about past transactions. Books can be traded for games, movies or other books. In addition to her own wish list, Sylver hunts for video games and books suggested by her 12-year-old daughter.

All parties involved in a trade --including complex three-way trades -- receive e-mail alerts with a suggested timeframe for completing the deal. If the deal is accepted, shipping information is exchanged.

You don't have to leave your home to ship out the merchandise. Using a credit card, you can download and print shipping labels and postage. Or of course, you can stand in line at the post office.

Frugal Book Party in Miami & 5 Errors to Avoid in a Tough Economy

CNBC features an insightful list from Bankrate.com about 5 traps to avoid in a bearish economy. No. 1 on the list: Using credit to make ends.

"Rather than continue a lifestyle financed by credit cards -- and compounding debt in the process -- consumers should "circle the wagons" by figuring out where they spend their money, Cunningham says.

Just as calorie-counters keep logs of every meal and snack, consumers should keep a meticulous watch on incidental purchases such as meals in restaurants, nights out at the movies, and, of course, gourmet cups of coffee. Think of it as an expense report to yourself. "
-- Source: Bankrate.com on CNBC.com

Here's the link to the full article about common financial mistakes.

The list of common errors includes:

• #2 devouring long-term savings,
• #3 skipping financial aid for college,
• #4 ignoring your investment portfolios or becoming emotional paralyzed by the downturn and
• #5 cashing out the equity in your home.
  
  I'll also have more financial and frugal tips tomorrow night at a book signing party. If you're in South Florida, please stop by the event!
  
  
  
  Time: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
  When: 7:30 p.m.
  Location: Books & Books, Bal Harbour Shops
  9700 Collins Avenue
  Bal Harbour, Fl
  305.864.4241
  
  "Award-winning journalist Sharon Harvey Rosenberg shares how she lives a life of high style without the stress of high costs or deprivation. In The Frugal Duchess of South Beach (DPL Press, $14.95), she chronicles her often hilarious journey of luxury living for less in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., while equipping readers with the tools they can use in their own cities." --Source: Books & Books
  
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  Here's how to buy my new book:
  

@ Amazon.com
@ Barnes & Noble
@ Borders
@ Target.com

No-Cost & Low-Cost Books: Online and Abandoned Books

A friend recently gave me a stack of books in excellent condition. The gift — a novel and two memoirs — came with a request. I was told to read the books and give them away. The books, our friend said, could also be "released" at a coffee shop, a public bench or some other location.

The books were gifts through the Bookcrossing.com program, an international program designed to promote the free circulation of books. It is just one of several free or low-cost reading programs. From online vendors to standard bookstores, there are many affordable ways to build a library or to sample best-sellers. Here are a few:

• Dailylit.com: From a vast library of free classics, DailyLit.com will send you e-mails with bite-sized sections of "Moby Dick," "Pride & Prejudice" and other books. Launched by a former editor of Random House and a former guru at del.icio.us, the "social bookmarking site," DailyLit.com delivers books via plain text e-mails in serialized installments. The service also includes a fee-based subscription option for new titles and best-sellers. But books in the public domain are free and include many titles on school reading lists. The service lets you select the frequency of the e-mails. You can even opt to read far more than the daily portion. The database of free books includes more than 700 titles.

• Dearreader.com: This free service provides short samples from books via e-mail. This site offers other valuable perks, according to the latest issue of ShopSmart, a Consumer Reports guide. Additional benefits include an online book forum, interactive meet-the-author sessions and information about book tours and other literary events.

• Bookcrossing.com: More than 700,000 readers from more than 130 countries participate in this free book service and club. Readers are encouraged to register give-away books on the site and then follow the literary trail as each text is given to friends or left in public spaces. Each registered title has a bookplate in the inside cover with a tracking number and details about the Bookcrossing.com program. The site also has a feature that allows readers to hunt for free books. After finding a Bookcrossing.com book, readers are encouraged to go online and participate in an online journal that follows and records a book's traveling history. Registered readers can also participate in a variety of online literary programs.

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Here's how to buy my new book:

@ Amazon.com
@ Barnes & Noble
@ Borders
@ Target.com

iVillage: Top Books for the Summer

Welcome to readers visiting from the iVillage Weekly Top 10: Books for Style Mavens.

I am grateful my book, the Frugal Duchess: How to Live Well and Save , was included on the iVillage list. Other titles include: Confessions of a Shopaholic, Strut in Signature Style and Daily Candy: A to Z. Check out the full list.

Special thanks to iVillage and writer Ysolt Usigan for including my book, a personal finance memoir with how-to-save money tips, on the list.

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Here's how to buy my new book:

@ Amazon.com
@ Barnes & Noble
@ Borders
@ Target.com

I Earned 20% More After Reading This Book

Within the last 30 days, I've increased my monthly income by about 20 percent and I give credit to a book (from 1944!) that has really rocked my world, namely: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. In this piece, I'll highlight the strategy that has really put more money in my pocket.

The Background

In past posts, I've calculated that my assorted worries cost me about $6,500 annually. Over the last few weeks, I've really focused on reading How to Stop Worrying every day and that daily ritual has quieted the chatter in my brain. (Of course, more Yoga/exercise, journal entries, meditation and prayers have also helped).

Why am I a worrier? I think it's just my nature.

Even as a little girl, I used to murmur prayers in the family car as my Dad drove us from our old neighborhood in Philadelphia to South Jersey, where I grew up. Now if you know, my Dad --Mr. Safety/Mr. Excellent Driver -- the backseat portrait of a little girl whispering prayers into her passenger window is odd. Now consider this: I am now 49 years old, and I still don't drive. But that's another story.

Bottom Line: I'm hard-wired to be a worrier.

The Book

I have different strategies for handling the worries. I have mantras, affirmations, etc. Those are fine & helpful. But Dale Carnegie's book provides a formula for dismantling worries. Part of his program involves reading the book--a chapter or a page--every day and that process provides a daily shield against worries. He points out that the smartest people in business constantly review their contracts and documents because it's so easy to forget the fine print.

Carnegie's three-step formula also provides me with a practical tool for banishing worries:

Rule #1: Live in a "Day-Tight Compartment." Basically, you create a mental box. Carnegie suggested the water-tight chambers in the center of a ship. I've been using an elevator chamber metaphor, in which I shut out anything beyond the current day. Actually, I have to shut out anything beyond the current moment. That's because at 8:30 pm, I will obsess and worry about an email that I sent at 8:30 am. Did I use the right words? Did I sound silly? Why didn't I delete the message? That's the bit that drills through my head...off and on for 12 hours or more.

But in my moment-to-moment chamber, I shut my elevator door on those worries. The chamber closes and I'm lifted off that horrible floor of unwise emails and obsessive regrets. The elevator opens on a different floor in the current moment. It's a visual exercise that keeps me traveling in the Here-and-Now.

Rule #2 . Face trouble with three basic questions:

• Name the worse that can happen. For example: The 8:30 am email recipient will think that I'm a total obsessive, delusional loser.
  
• Accept that outcome: Okay. Oh well. So be it. They probably thought I was weird anyway.
  
• Improve on the worst: "Calmly try to improve upon the worst--which you have already mentally agreed to accept."-- How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, p.36. In my theoretical email example, I can improve on the worst by learning to use the delete key or letting questionable emails sit in my draft box for a day, a week, a lifetime. I can mentally promise to sit on my hands if a similar scenario arises again. With that plan, I can just go on to have a happy life, even if I occasionally send out stupid emails.

Rule #3: Constantly remind yourself about the high costs of anxiety in terms of health & wealth.

"One of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate."--p. 18

How I Earned More.

A little while ago, a national magazine offered me an opportunity to contribute to their monthly reporting staff. But I was so overwhelmed by free-floating anxieties that I was unable to contribute to the first assignment. However, in the last few weeks, I've really worked on removing stress from my emotional arteries. And by worrying less, I really had more time to complete a new assignment for that publication, which means more money for me: about 20% a month. It's a mental exercise that I can take to the bank.

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Previous Posts:

Welcome to TheStreet.com Readers

I Won't Eat or Spend While Standing Up
DIY Invitations: Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings & Other Formal Parties

What is Luxury? Town & Country: Luxe is a Moving Target

Reformed Spenders Provide 10 Ways to Save in 2008

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Sharon Harvey Rosenberg is the author of The Frugal Duchess of South Beach: How to Live Well and Save Money... Anywhere!, which will be published in the Spring of 2008 by DPL Press.

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Netflix for Books? Maybe! Or Just Go to the Library

Read bestsellers for less. That's the idea behind a book rental plan that works like Netflix. It's called Bookswim.com and the service was featured in the November issue of Real Simple magazine.

The plan works like this: Bestsellers and other titles, including classics, are available for a monthly fee. You can rent two books at a time for a monthly fee of $15. ( You can read as many titles as you want during the month, but are limited to two books at a time.) Or up to 11 books at a time for $36 a month. No shipping fees and no late fees, which can add up at the free public library if you're not organized. The library is still the cheapest option for bookworms.

But here are my other favorite sources for frugal books:

• garage sales
• thrift & used bookstores
• friends & families
• informal lending libraries in building lobbies, lounges, etc: Take a book/Leave a Book
• remainders tables at bookstores
• Community book fairs. I've found great bargains on the last day of street fair/book fairs. The vendors heavily markdown their merchandise
• sidewalk sales
• half.com
• eBay.com
• amazon.com
• hospital, library and other non-profit book sales
• Craig's list
• freecycle.org
• estate sales
• curb-side cast offs
  

Here is a great piece on tapping into used book stores: From Brip Blap: Saving Money on Books and here is a piece about New & Cheap Books!

And finally, here is a short list of a few of my most popular posts for the week:

10 Signs of Secret Debt: Borrowing Money, But Deny...

Medical Tourists: A Near-Fatality & A Waitress Who...

Be a Gypsy in an RV: Late Bloomers Guide to Saving...

16 Odd & Useful Storage Ideas: .

Beyond Bag Ladies: Financial Road Kill Dangers

10 Reasons Why I'll Work at Starbucks:

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The Frugal Duchess Booktique
The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store

Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues
Frugal Comic Book Connection
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Is it OK to Read Magazines in Stores? Companies Answer!

Is it ethical to go to a bookstore and read magazines in the aisles or in the store cafe? That's the question that was posed to me when I wrote this post about saving money on magazines.


A few people wrote in with tips and Financial Diva asked if free-reading (with coffee) at a bookstore is an accepted practise.

"Financial Diva said...
I find my local bookstore frowns on people taking magazines
into the coffee shop area and reading them for free. Do you just take them
anyway (I am always the good one!) or read them in other parts of the
bookstore?"

Good question. I usually sit down with my selection of magazines and read. I pay for the coffee; I might make a purchase. And I'm not alone; other readers are equally armed with coffee and periodicals. Are we wrong? I called around and asked a few questions and this is what I found.



"We encourage our customers to spend time in our stores," said Kolleen O’Meara, a spokeswoman for Borders (http://www.borders.com/).

Kolleen told me that the average Borders customers spends about one hour at the bookstore. And browsers are encouraged to retreat with magazines into the store-run coffee shop: "Usually our magazines are by the cafe," Kolleen said.



Likewise, it's the same story from the staff at Books & Books--a small regional and independent store in Southern Florida. Here's my conversation with a staffer from the Coral Gables branch of the Books & Books.



Q. Is it okay to read magazines in the store?



A. "Right now there are three people outside reading magazines. Lots of people come in and read.



Q. But what about retreating with magazines and coffee at your cafe?

A. Yeah, of course.



Here's a snippet of my conversation at another bookstore:

Q. Is it okay to read magazines in the store?

A. "It's hard to say yes or no. It depends. We have people who come in all day. They stay for a little while and that's fine.



Q. Browsing & reading magazine?

A. "People browse and look through magazines all day long and that's fine. But if they're here all day long and don't buy anything that's different."



During my own travels (Florida, Utah, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc), I've often chilled out at Barnes & Noble and independent stores with coffee & magazines in the lounge chairs in or near the cafe/newsstand.



But many drugstores have clear signs: "Do not read the magazines." So I guess the rules are store-by-store. It doesn't hurt to ask.

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The Frugal Duchess Booktique
The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store

Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues
Frugal Comic Book Connection
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Thrifty Book Shelf Tips

Flatly stacked on the shelves of an unusual bookcase, South Florida artist Carol Fryd has arranged her books -- fiction, biographies and art books -- into a stunning and surprisingly practical work of art. But you don't have to be artistic to make your books attractive and easy to access. Here are a few frugal suggestions:

• Sort and purge. Jane Butler-Biggs, author of Feng Shui in 10 Simple Lessons ($19.95, Watston-Guptill), recommends clearing off your shelves and sorting the books. At my house, we purge our bookcases at least once a year.

• Box, sell or donate your overstock. Trade in extra books at used bookstores for cash or store credit. We've also sold books on eBay. Many charities need books and you may qualify for an income tax deduction.

• Create a system. Consider organizing books into categories and even subcategories. Art, literature and cookbooks can be organized by genre, region or period. Lulu de Kwiatkowski, a New York-based fabric designer, suggests arranging books by color. While her color-coordinated book shelves looked good in a recent issue of Domino magazine, finding a specific book might be tricky. What's important is to create a system that works best for you.

• Be creative. Furniture companies sell bookcases in unusual shapes. For example, our coffee table and end tables have small shelves for books. We've also found attractive bookcases at yard sales and thrift stores. Others have hired cabinet makers to design and build custom shelves to fit odd corners and spaces.

• Use boxes for deep storage. My husband has packed away excess books and stored the boxes in large closets and cabinets. Boxes from office supply stores are affordable and offer lids, handles and space for labels.

That's from my latest Frugal Duchess column in the Home & Design section of the Sunday edition of the Miami Herald.
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The Frugal Duchess Booktique
The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store

Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues
Frugal Comic Book Connection
__

Don't Feel Deprived: My Favorite Advice from the Tightwad Gazette

Deprivation is dangerous for my budget. Some of my biggest splurges have taken place during one of my I-feel-poor moods.

"The feeling of deprivation will undermine any effort to pursue long-term discipline," writes Amy Dacyyzyn aka the Frugal Zealot in one of my favorite essays in The Tightwad Gazette.

I like her three-step cure for deprivation:

1. Celebrate your choice:

lRecognize that you are engaging in the discipline out of choice. You decide to give up something so that you can have something else.

--Amy Dacyczyn

My Example: We drive a thrifty old minivan. Without a monthly car note, we have more money for family vacations.

2. Rank expenses on a dollar-per-value scale. Begin to shed perks that mean the least.

"When you give up the lower priority things first, hopefully your budget will allow you to keep the extras that genuinely give value to your life."

--Amy Dacyczyn

My Comment: I've given up my shoe fetish. I used to be crazy about shoes. But now, I'd rather save the money for a spa date or just save the dollars that I used to spend on my feet.


3. Don't try keep up with the Frugal Joneses or the Big Spenders.

My Comment: I have friends that are black-belt savers and economizers. I have others who live in mansions and have full-time help, plus drivers. But it's very self-defeating when I try to compare my savings account to theirs. Sure, it's okay to have role models, but I can't compare my apples to my neighbor's oranges.

"Wringing your hands over economic inequities merely wastes emotional energy that could be better used in a positive way to achieve your goal."-- Amy Dacyczyn

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The Frugal Duchess Booktique
The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store
Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues

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