Have you heard of Wowio yet? It’s a free e-book service, and in my short experience with it, I’ve quickly grown to love it.

Wowio allows its users to download e-books for free; the only stipulation is that they need a legitimate e-mail, so it’s almost the same as joining a forum. The worst that happens is an occasional e-mail from them, but you have the ability to opt out of recieving those during the registration process. Each book comes as a PDF, and the clarity is quite good; there are a number of comics available, and they are quite readable. You’ll have to have Adobe Acrobat, but they offer a download for that right on the site, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. The files themselves range from 5 to about 30 mbs, so some of them are sizable, but nothing your computer shouldn’t be able to handle.

The only real downside of this is that you’re limited to just five books a day, no matter what kind of literature it is. But hey, when it’s free, I think we can endure. It’s not all amatuer work there, either - I saw Slaughterhouse Five, a number of useful art books, and even some comics from the now-defunct Crossgen Comics. The library is quickly growing, with new additions every day, so it seems like there’s some real momentum for Wowio, and that it might get big. Go take a look, get some free books.

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6 Comments »

1. 
   Firlefanz
   September 8, 2007 at 4:13 pm

   I’m a little disappointed. They won’t let me sign up, as I’m not a resident of the US. In addition, it seems they won’t take any of the usual email providers like gmail, yahoo or hotmail.

   So, I’m not convinced just yet.

   [Reply]
2. 
   Corvus
   September 10, 2007 at 7:51 am

   I’d really like to know how their justification of “protecting authors” by not letting people outside of the US sign up works. I’m also curious about what their justification is for their requirement of a particular type of email. I might be able to see a reason for that one, but the former… No, I don’t buy it.

   [Reply]
3. 
   Sean C
   September 10, 2007 at 8:12 am

   I can’t argue the fact that certain e-mail types are rejected sucks, but I think, since the site is still fairly new, it just hasn’t reached a level where they’re going to go international yet. The e-mail thing though just doesn’t make sense.

   [Reply]
   Firlefanz Reply:
   September 16th, 2007 at 2:46 am

   But why would they turn away customers when they want to grow? It’s no difference to send an email to an overseas account, it’s not as if postage is a problem. Also, there are plenty of US citicens living abroad, and they are cutting those off, as well.

   Honestly, it doesn’t make any sense to me. To me, it seems as if they believe the US are the center of the world anyway, and everyone else is in the tech stone age and can be conveniently brushed aside. It makes me angry, because it’s so … damn arrogant.

   [Reply]

4. 
   Migo
   September 11, 2007 at 12:06 am

   Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and other free email providers are the biggest addresses for spammers to spoof as it’s harder to track due to the high volume of users each service has respectively. So, I can see why they aren’t allowing those kinds of address to be used right now.

   As for non-US residents being forbade from signing up, my guess is they’re still working out the kinks in their system so they’re trying to limit their registrants. This way, if they find a bug, it can be reported locally and/or solved in a more timely manner.

   This is all just speculation though.

   [Reply]
   Firlefanz Reply:
   September 16th, 2007 at 2:48 am

   Jerry, why would it matter to report a bug locally? It’s the *web*, man. Communication is near instantly, with the only problem being time zones - which applies to the US as well.

   I don’t buy that argument.

   [Reply]

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