Alas, Project Gutenberg and most other public domain sites aren’t optimized right now for devices with small screens and slow browsers.

And free Kindle download guides—with links to public domain books—are not as easy and convenient to use as they could be in my opinion (TeleRead Co-Editor Paul Biba offers his thoughts later in this post).

What’s more, free editions of more than a few public domain books are AWOL in the Kindle’s bookstore. To my surprise, I couldn’t dig up one for A Journey to the Center of the Earth, the Jules Verne classic.

The glories of FreeKindleBooks.org

Enter FreeKindleBooks.org.

It will take you to thousands of Kindle books organized by author. I don’t know the exact title count, but the site at least passes the Upton Sinclair Test, as I’ll call it: I could find 21 of his books such as a The Money Changers.

Jules Verne (right photo) showed up with 34 titles. including Journey.

59 Dickens works, 49 by Twain and 7 by Austen

Fifty-nine works by Dickens (left photo), 49 by Mark Twain and seven by Jane Austen (less prolific than the other two) appear on FreeKindleBooks.org. Simply put, for people who like major public domain authors, this is more than just a vexingly abbreviated collection.

On top of that, you can use the site’s “experimental” mode and locate books by PG number—apparently all of the catalogue. Just go to the real PG and search for the title and accompanying number, then return to FreeKindleBooks.org’s experimental mode to download the actual book. If a desktop or laptop is handy, that might be a faster way to look up the PG numbers.

FreeKindleBooks.org, granted, has flaws. For one thing, there’s a lot of verbiage at the top, rather than the lists of writers (leading to title lists). But just keep scrolling down and you’ll find the lists.

How Kindle owners can use the Web browser with FreeKindle.org

Don’t be scared if you’ve never used the Kindle’s Web browser before or don’t mess with it often.

From the Home menu, just hit the Menu key, scroll down to Experimental, press joystick-style button, then go to Basic Web Browser if you’re not there already, which you should be. Press the joystick button again.

If the enter-Web-address rectangle is cluttered with a previously made entry, hit Menu again and choose Enter URL, using the joystick. Type in FreeKindleBooks.org and hit the return button (under the DEL on your keyboard).

Other possibilities for free easy Kindle downloads…

• Mnybks.net: Unfortunately I found it harder to use for direct Kindle downloads than FreeKindlebooks.Net was.
• Feedbooks.com: Yet another. Use http://feedbooks.com/?format=mobile. Neither it nor Mnybks.net will give you as many selections as FreeKindleBooks.net will with the “experimental’ feature in use. But Feedbooks does offer some of the best-formatted books online.

…Plus a reminder that you can copy books directly from your desktop machine to the Kindle…if the desktop is handy

With the above methods, you don’t need to have a desktop machine handy.

But with a PC, Mac or Linux machine, you can use your Firefox or other browser and download a book directly to your Kindle’s solid-state storage via a USB connection.

The Kindle comes with a USB cable. Plug it in between your Kindle and your desktop. Then do the download from your desktop browser after specifying that you want the file copied to the e-reader (a Documents subfolder) rather than the desktop.

The e-reader might show up as something like Drive K. Whatever is a drive you normally don’t see!

If you use a laptop instead of a desktop, just substitute the word “laptop” for desktop.

Additional thoughts—from Paul Biba: He favors download guides over a FreeKindle.org approach

After this post appeared in its original form, Paul kindly shared his own thoughts:

“There are two Kindle catalogs that I, personally, find more convenient to use than the web browser method that David mentions above.  These are actual catalogs of the holdings of MobileRead and Feedbooks.  You download them to your Kindle, either by using the browser or by downloading them to your desktop and then adding them as a book, and then you can open them and use the search function of the Kindle to find what you want.

“Both catalogs are updated frequently, I think weekly, so you can re-download them whenever you want and keep up to date.  They are especially easy to update because both of them have links on their front page which will automatically fire up the Kindle browser and download the latest catalog to your Kindle.  The only thing you have to do, then, is to delete the old catalog as the new one does not overwrite it.

Needed: Easy downloads off the Gutenberg site

I would strongly urge Project Gutenberg to build a mobile site for Kindle-style machines, if that isn’t already planned—yes, more than just for the Kindle itself. PG seems to be moving in that direction. While cellphones are important, Gutenberg shouldn’t forget owners of Kindles and similar devices. Ideally the post I’m making now will soon be obsolete.

Granted, Sony and other vendors have Google Books ties, but PG is special because volunteers can choose which books to digitize (a plus that I wish Gutenberg would play up more often).

The ePub issue: I would vastly prefer that the existing FreeKindleBooks.org use the ePub standard. But meanwhile TeleRead will continue to serve the here-and-now needs of Kindle owners.

My discussion of The Money Changers: Here, on my Solomon Scandals site. Upton Sinclair’s expose of the financial industry is still terrifyingly timely.

(Updated 10:28 a.m. EST to include Paul’s thoughts.)

(1) “Price of devices,” (2) “price of e-books,” (3) “Smartphones,” (4) “Apple’s rumored tablet computer,” (5) popular authors’ ambiguity over e-books, (6) digital rights complexities, (7) standards issues and (8) librarians’ fears about their jobs.

So, gang, what’s your take? I myself don’t think in terms of either one kind of e-gizmo or another—or even P vs. E. For a long time, there’ll be many choices, even in the latter area. Cellphones aren’t going to kill the Kindle, or vice versa.

Related: eWeek piece arguing against e-readers and other single-use devices.

Apparently. Fron the Kindle Facebook page:

“Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team.”

(Thanks to John Hagewood for the link)

“The big shift over from analog to digital is happening in the reading space,” Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading unit, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

While this may be true, we reported yesterday that more people still use smartphones, PDAs, and other multi-purpose devices to read e-books at the moment.

We’ve known for a long time that a lot more people read e-books on multi-purpose than dedicated devices—they’re cheaper, they do more, they’re easier to pocket.

And more people have them. It is estimated 1.7 million people own a dedicated e-reader, and that number may rise to 4 million by the end of the holidays. But Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches.

“The iPod Touch is always at hand,” Shannon Stacey, who has written several romance e-novels, said. “It’s my calendar, it’s my everything, so my books are always with me.” Ms. Stacey, who also owns an early Sony Reader model, said she had now bought twice as many e-books for her iPod Touch as for her Sony.

But others are still dubious:

“The Kindle is for people who love to read,” [Ian Freed, vice president for the Kindle division at Amazon] said. “People use phones for lots of things. Most often they use them to make phone calls. Second most often, they use them to send text messages or e-mail. Way down on the list, there’s reading.”

Of course, we know that people who read e-books have been in love with their small screens for more than ten years. E-books were one of the first big “killer app” uses for the Palm, and e-book vendors eReader and Fictionwise have been in business ever since.

Some have even gone so far as to predict “the end of single-purpose devices,” but that is probably still premature.

However, Dear Author points out, in another context, that Amazon allows up to 6 Kindle devices to be registered to a single account. These devices can all read the same books. There is no limitation on how long the books can be used and they can all read the same book at the same time.

I suspect that Amazon hasn’t highlighted this because it doesn’t want to make the publishers antsy, but it is potentially a far better sharing scheme than what BN offers.

Or, all right, your wish list on whatever shopping site you like to use. (But let’s face it, Amazon’s marketing machine is good enough that “Amazon” and “wish list” have pretty much become synonymous over the last few years.)

But this year, Amazon has something new cooking, that may entice you away from other sites’ wish lists: the “universal” wish list button. This is a great idea for everybody who has “wishes” from multiple e-tailer websites—especially those who buy e-books elsewhere (such as Webscriptions) but use Amazon’s wish list for their Amazon purchases.

I can’t remember exactly when Amazon announced this new innovation, though I get the feeling it was recently. It works through the use of a “bookmarklet” tool that you drag to your browser’s bookmark bar.

When you find an item that you would like to add to your Amazon wish list, just click the bookmarklet, then enter the price of the item and a description. When you are done, the item appears on your Amazon Wish List, with a button to redirect the wish list viewer to the origin site for shopping purposes.

This is a very clever innovation indeed. Given that Amazon is already the “go-to” site for wish lists, this provides a way that wishers can combine their wishes from all their favorite sites in one convenient place. Even if I strongly dislike some of Amazon’s business practices (with regard to the Kindle versus Mobipocket formats, for instance), I have to tip my hat to—and make use of—such a darned useful feature.

I have already added a couple of Baen Webscription months to my Amazon wish list, as well as a BluRay DVD drive from NewEgg. I can’t wait to see what I might wish for next!

But if you use a Linux desktop and are sufficiently adventuresome, yes, you can use the Wine Windows simulator to run Kindle for PC.

Details at Lifehacker. Anyone care to tell how the tip there works out?

“More than 90 top newspapers and magazines are available in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription. Available for the first time on Kindle is the National Post. Additionally, all of Canwest’s major daily newspapers will be available on Kindle. They join top papers such as Le Monde (France), the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph (U.K.) and the Washington Post.

The Canadian-targeted Kindle is said to let you choose from 300,000 books although blogs and Web browsing apparently are not available (thanks, eBook Reader).

Big thanks to Steve Windwalker, TeleRead contributor and editor of Kindle Nation Daily, our original tip source in this case! That’s Steve shown on the Kindle screen.

Some Sony hardware news today: Wireless Sony e-reader apparently ready for preorder now—and meanwhile the Sony PRS-500 firmware update is out.

Press release…

National Post welcomes Kindle to Canada

Further to today’s announcement by Amazon.com, National Post, and soon all of Canwest’s big city daily newspapers, will be available on Kindle devices.

“Whether in print, online, or on-the-go on mobile devices and smartphones, our quality journalism is accessible to Canadians where when and how they want it, throughout their day,” said Dennis Skulsky President and CEO Canwest Publishing. “Amazon’s Kindle is another exciting step and whatever comes next, we’ll be there too. We’re excited to be celebrating Kindle’s arrival today and I look forward to what the future holds as we continue to explore and develop innovations in multi media publishing and outlets for our unparalleled content.”

“This is great news for National Post fans who can now subscribe to the full edition and have it “delivered” daily, wherever they are in the world,” said Gordon Fisher, Publisher National Post.

This is also great news for Canadians who already use Kindle devices “down south”. According to the Canadian Snowbird Association there are in excess of 100,000 Snowbirds that flee the harsh Canadian winter and head to all parts South every year. For those who enjoy using their Amazon Kindle while in the US, for the first time this season, they will be able to subscribe to their favourite Canadian hometown or national newspaper too.

Kindle devices and newspaper subscriptions are available exclusively at The Kindle Store www.amazon.com/kindlestore.

About Canwest Global Communications Corp.

Canwest Global Communications Corp. (www.canwest.com) is Canada’s largest media company. In addition to owning the Global Television Network, operating 18 industry-leading specialty channels and having ownership in 5 specialty channels, Canwest is Canada’s largest publisher of English language paid daily newspapers and owns and operates more than 80 online properties.

Employee morale may also be sagging.

“I used to come in early and stay late,” a Fool commenter quotes a Border site for employees, “because I loved Borders and wanted it to succeed. Now I’m ashamed to work here.”

As a reader and shopper, and perhaps a writer or publisher, too, what do you think of Borders? Is there any way that e-book tech could help save the company? Or do you think it’s hopeless because Amazon and B&N are so much stronger in the E area?

Related: Will independents outlast the big bookstore chains? by Peter Beren, who writes the SF Publishing Examiner blog.

Image: Flagship store in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Random House’s Kindle sales in September, 2009, were $22.6 million, up from $2.9 million a year ago.

The Lost Symbol was a huge part of this with 100,000 ebook sales in its first week.

In the first half of 2009, Kindle ebook revenue grew 400% from a year ago.

(Via Amazon Kindle Review.)

Well, the secret is to use the Manage Your Kindle page. At the very least it can send a day’s worth of postings to the app—I don’t know about blog subscriptions on a permanent basis. You might also try this for newspaper and magazines, although there may be problems.

Within the “Manage” page, scroll down until you see the “Deliver to…” options for individual purchases. Go with “Transfer to computer.” When your browser comes up, you’ll probably be on a “downloads” page. Arrange for the file to be saved or sent to your Kindle for PC app.

I tried this with an old Washington Post edition and got an error message, either because this won’t work with the Post and other newspapers or because something had expired. That’s why I don’t know about magazines and newspapers.

The “Deliver to” tweak worked fine with a day of posts from the TeleRead blog subscription, however (except for some weird formatting).

Of course, you could read blogs directly for free with RSS feeds, but for those who prefer the paid subscription approach, maybe the above tip will help. Anything to modify or add?

Related tip—for people wanting to email book to their Kindles: If you’re having trouble getting your Kindle to pick up books mailed to it—including those to be converted from Word, PDF, TXT, etc.—don’t forget to specify your sending address within Manage Your Kindle. Cost per item is 15 cents.

Well, interactive books have finally come to the Kindle—except that these books are actually thirty years old. Amazon has begun selling Kindle editions of the venerable “Choose Your Own Adventure” series.

These are the books that those of us who are old enough remember where each page or multi-page section ended with a reader choice: if you take the left fork in the road, turn to page 8. If you take the right fork, turn to page 9. And so on.

Although they were not the first interactive stories, they were the best-known, and spawned many imitators (including a line from Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR).

With interactivity touted as “the future of e-books,” I find it amusing that the first major line of interactive e-books is actually just reprints of paper books that are three decades old.

New release 0.11.2 is available for linux computers. Sources and debian packages (for both i386 and amd64 platforms) are available here. This release:

• Fixes a crash on amd64 platform.
• Uses new protocol for a communication with a popular Russian e-book site.
• Includes new features like authorization. Book-buying without a browser will be available in the near future.
• Fixes some small user interface bugs.

Editor’s note: Notice the browserless book-buying? In the future will FBReader be as easily to use for book-shopping as a Kindle is? And will it use a standard shared with other open apps? And maybe even tie in with the Open Content Alliance’s catalog-related efforts?

Without doubt, Sony’s Steve Haber and Adobe’s Bill McCoy have been more sensible on DRM than Amazon, with more flexible approaches. I applaud their efforts. But we’re a long way from nirvana. Gang, what do you think of this snippet from Boing Boing?

I recently talked to Sony’s Steve Haber, President of Digital Reading, about its flagship ebook reader. Named the "Daily Edition," it hits stores next month. Notwithstanding differences between each manufacturer’s respective libraries, it offers all the best features of its main rival, the Kindle. But Sony says it offers one thing that Amazon won’t: actual ownership of your books.

"Our commitment is that you bought it, you own it," Haber said. "Our hope is to see this as ubiquitous. Buy on any device, read on any device. … We’re obligated to have DRM but we don’t pull content back."

Um, as long as there’s DRM, Sony isn’t offering  genuine ownership of your “protected” books, a category that unfortunately includes most bestsellers. And remember, “Buy on any device, read on any device” is just a hope—and can really be achieved only without DRM or with social DRM (which could embed your name into an ePub file without destroying the ability for it to be read any ePub-capable machine). Operating systems and apps come and go. It is inherently impossible for the e-book industry to come up instantly with up-to-date, DRM-capable apps for every gizmo.

What’s more, genuine ownership means you can sell your books. Is Sony planning this?

The good news is that Adobe, Sony and B&N are hoping to provide compatible DRM approaches. That’s progress but still no substitute for lack of traditional DRM. It would also be nice to see Sony aggressively encourage publishers either to drop DRM or use social DRM, not just less restrictive forms of traditional DRM. Last I knew—this may be changing—Sony insisted that books in its store use DRM. I wonder what the more current policies of Sony and B&N will be.

With B&N, I’d call attention to the fact you can lend a book to a friend—with a 14-day period—only once as far as I know. Again, this is far from genuine ownership.

Meanwhile, in fairness to Amazon and its Kindle, let me note that you can use the K machine’s Web browser to download nonDRMed public domain books and even commercial books without “protection.”

Detail: I’m curious about Boing Boing’s mention of the Daily Edition as having a nine-inch display. Last I heard, Sony was saying the screen would be seven inches. Is Beschizza accurate here?

Related: How the New York Times was fooled? Sony’s misleading ePub-related news release, in TeleRead, and Seattle’s Bill McCoy, E-Books and Digital Distribution Expert, Leaving Adobe, in Xconomy.