Libreture
The list of DRM-free Bookshops is a very popular part of Libreture. It started on my personal website in 2013, and has grown to include 196 sites.
The list includes publishers and individual authors selling e-books direct, as well as full-blown bookshops.
Let's take a look at what was popular over the last month.
April 2019
-
Black Shuck Books
Added 30th of March, 2019
Launched in 2015 by editor Steve J Shaw, Black Shuck Books is an independent publisher of horror fiction based in the depths of the Kent countryside.
-
Saga Press
Added 16th of April, 2019
Saga Press is an all-inclusive fantasy and science fiction imprint publishing great books across the spectrum of genre, from fantasy to science fiction, commercial to literary, speculative fiction to slipstream, urban fantasy to supernatural suspense.
-
ArabLit Quarterly
Added 15th of April, 2019
ArabLit (arablit), or Arabic Literature (in Translation), was founded by M Lynx Qualey in 2009, and has developed into a source of daily news and views on Arab and Arabic literature and translation.
-
eBooks.com
Added 1st of November, 2018
Launched in 2000, eBooks.com sells ebooks direct to millions of consumers around the world, with five local sales portals in the US, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia.
-
eManga
Added 9th of March, 2019
eManga is Digital Manga, Inc.'s own one stop online shop for manga, originally established back in 2008.
-
Faded Page
Added 12th of October, 2018
Faded Page is an archive of eBooks that are provided completely free to everyone. The Canadian equivalent of Project Gutenberg.
-
Internet Archive
Added 15th of July, 2017
The Internet Archive offers over 12,000,000 freely downloadable books and texts.
-
Itch.io
Added 28th of December, 2018
itch.io is an open marketplace for independent digital creators with a focus on independent video games.
-
NASA E-Books
Added 8th of August, 2018
NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US, offers a huge range free e-books on topics covering science, aeronatics and history.
-
Windhorse Publications
Added 18th of December, 2017
Based in Cambridge, Windhorse publish titles by a huge range of authors that cover wide aspects of Buddhism.
Well that's a big change from last month. The only shop to reappear in this month's list is EBooks.com. - dropping from 3 to 4.
The list itself is ordered by date, from newest to oldest. You'd expect that this might have a greater impact on the popularity of the latest bookshops, but only four of this month's shops were added this year - they appear quite near the top of the list. The rest are spread from 2018 back to 2017. Could this suggest that people are digging through to find something of interest to them?
There is quite a spread of genre and interest. ArabLit, to Manga, to NASA... with ArabLit being the only magazine/journal appearing this month. Augur Magazine was the only magazine to make an appearance last month.
It's great to see readers take an interest in the amazing breadth of e-bookshops out there. The e-book format really does help get more books in front of more readers, but as with any bookshop, it all depends on the hard work of the booksellers and publishers behind the scenes.
You can find more great shops in the full list of DRM-free Bookshops.
For now though, enjoy your DRM-free reading and support these amazing bookshops.