I’m really amazed at how much content is available for free these days. Since e-publishing began, there has been free (or super cheap) content, but much of it was not worth the storage space on my Palm Pilot.

Now, I read eBooks on my iPad, and I usually shop the Kindle store, although I have content through the Nook service as well. Authors can publish via Kindle direct, with little cost, so some of them are listing older content, or items that contain promotional content, for free. 

My two latest reads were free downloads. One was a full length novel by Lizzy Ford, called Rebel Heart, and it was better than I would have expected for a free read. Not a great book, but I have read worse books that actually cost real money. Rebel Heart is sorta of science fiction, somewhat romantic, with a heavy dose of political thriller thrown in for good measure. The characters, especially the hero, are worth reading about, and while the plot jumps and jerks like a kid learning to drive a stick shift, there was a good amount of originality in the story-line. Many self-published books suffer from problems with grammar, spelling, or punctuation, and there are few issues with those in this book. Instead, the problems are deeper, so Rebel Heart is a 2 star book.

The second freebie was quite well written, but the focus is not what I expected. 
How to Work for Yourself: 100 Ways to Make the Time, Energy and Priorities to Start a Business, Book or Blog by Bryan Cohen is more about time management than how to begin a business, write a book, or write a blog. And, there are some heavy doses of promotional material in the introduction and conclusion, but in a free book, that is quite forgivable. Actually, I really enjoyed this short read. Cohen has some great ideas on finding more time, and some of them are novel. If you want more time for whatever projects you have in mind, this little tome might be very helpful.

Both of these books made me think that Amazon’s free offerings are actually worth a look.