How to download and purchase ebooks
How ebooks work
If you buy an ebook reader like the Kindle, the Kobo and the Tolino, you can buy books and download them for free using the “standard” stores on these devices. The same applies if you have an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac and then you can count on the digital showcase of iBooks. Then there are independent stores, such as BookRepublic, Mondadori Store and Feltrinelli, which allow you to buy books in various formats and to read them on devices of various brands.
If you do not want to spend money and / or do not want to go to the stores just mentioned, you can contact sites such as Project Gutenberg, which allow you to download free ebooks in various formats, without DRM and without any kind of limitation. Too good to be true? You’re wrong! In reality there are many sites to download free ebooks and on them you can find works suitable for all tastes: from the great classics of world literature to the works of emerging authors in search of visibility. Take a look at my post on the subject to find out more.
The books downloaded from sites such as Project Gutenberg, as well as on PC, can be read on smartphones, tablets and ebook readers without any limit. To transfer them to the devices in question, simply connect them to the computer and use them as common USB sticks (or manage the synchronization of books using software like the aforementioned Calibre).
If you download books in a format not supported by your ebook reader (eg ePub for Kindle), you can convert them to other formats using Calibre or other software suitable for this purpose: read my guides on how to transform ePub to PDF, how to convert AZW in PDF, how to convert AZW to ePub and how to convert PDF to ePub to learn more.
Another important thing that you need to know is that many digital stores, like those of Amazon, Kobo and IBS, allow you to lend ebooks and borrow ebooks from public libraries for a limited period of time. For more details on this, consult the official documents of Kindle, Kobo and IBS.