# Obsessive Book Downloading



## kindlematt (Mar 1, 2013)

I have been obsessively downloading free Kindle books from Amazon haha! Anyone do this?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

kindlematt said:


> I have been obsessively downloading free Kindle books from Amazon haha! Anyone do this?


Pretty much everyone early on.  But you'll soon find that it actually makes sense to be more discriminating. . . .if you hate Vampire romance, then don't download one just 'cause it's free. You'll likely never read it because you have so many more things you'd rather read. But at least you can easily delete it when you don't want it cluttering your library any more. 

Any more, I don't pick up free books unless they're well within my usual 'like' circle. That said, I have gotten a few that were just on the edge and the free factor tipped them in. In some cases I've been pleasantly surprised and found new favorite authors. In other cases I've thought, "well, I'm glad I didn't pay good money for that."

I do find it helpful to, more or less, keep track of the ones I get as free promos because then when I'm browsing my library and come upon something that seems 'not my usual thing', I can figure out why the heck I even have it!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

What Ann said.  And I am even more discriminating now. 

Betsy


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## athenat (Apr 17, 2013)

I used to as well... I have about 685 books in mykindle library 90% free  , think I will do some spring cleaning this week-end. But I have become more selective after I started reading a few books and saw how some of them were not that great, I mean language, errors not being proofread. So lately I look at the ratings and read some reviews before I download a book. You'll get the hang of it....lol.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

FWIW, I have 1900 kindle books. . . . . I've probably read 300-400 of them.  Some are reference so I will never 'read' but like to have them. Many are classics that I had read in paper but wanted to have on Kindle as well. I do periodically go through and do purges.  

Books I bought I will usually read eventually. I will decide if I want to put it on the 'sooner' rather than 'later' list. And will keep after reading unless they are just abysmally bad.

For free ones, I decide either I'm going to read the book soon, or just delete it.  Most of the ones I got early on for free are long gone -- whether I read them first or not.  At this point I'll keep them if they're a decent read, but if I didn't like them I delete them when I've read them.  I do share the account with my brother, but I have a pretty good feel, as well, for what he likes.  In a few cases I've kept something I didn't care for because I thought he might like it.


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## backslidr (Nov 23, 2012)

I downloaded a few hundred free books over a period of time once without even reading them. Like kindlematt, it was kind of an obsession for a while. I got over it pretty quick though when I actually started to read some of them. Even though there were a few good ones, most of them were poorly written and full of grammatical and spelling errors. At the time I thought I was being smart because I only downloaded the ones with the best reviews. I didn't take into consideration that authors had family and good friends that were more than willing to five star any piece of trash. I still occasionally pick one up now and then, but I'm much more discriminating now.


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## Rie142 (Oct 28, 2009)

I have quite a few free ones from Amazon.    Lots are duds but I have gotten a lot of really good ones.    I go through and get red of the not so great ones.    If I start reading and it doesn't hold my interest.      I DELETE it.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Yeah, I think many of us can relate.  . When I got my first Kindle in late 2008, I went nuts. I mean, OMG free books.  . 
After a while I had to go through and delete a bunch out of my archive. I noticed I had a lot of previews and chapters. That was before I learned to read very carefully. I think starting 2 years into ownership I made sure the freebies were at least in the genres I read. And since the last year they are not only required to be in my preferred genre, but also look like they are decent. Many of them are usually back list titles so I have a track record to look at. 

For some reason I have bought way more than I got freebies in the last year. 

But I also have to say that there were some amazing freebies back in the day. There weren't as many as there are now and even some expensive publisher books went on free then. Which of course led to more bought books like the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. The first book was free way back. Then I had to read all 5 in one weekend.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

kindlematt said:


> I have been obsessively downloading free Kindle books from Amazon haha! Anyone do this?


Define obsessively downloading. This week has been a bit slow for me only about 50 downloads.
Last week was really slow with only 1 download. (Though I was on vacation and the wifi connection they had was slow.)
Matt since you have found the free books section might I recommend you get the Kindle for PC app and send some of the books there. As of 1117am CDT 4/26/13 I have 4801 kindle books. Of those 1833 (all cookbooks) are on the Kindle for PC app. The others are split between my tablet, my kindle fire and the archives. Nearly all of them were freebies. I check several free book sites everyday. That is how I found here actually.
Now I am picky about genres. And I did learn my lesson on day on an author. He had all his books free that day and they sounded good so I picked them up. (All short stories). 2 days later after reading 2 of them deleted the entire set.


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## Sparticles (Apr 26, 2013)

I don't even *own* a Kindle (yet!) but decided I *must* have one once I discovered all the free books on Amazon. I would hear about the occasional one on some message forum or another, but the other day discovered there are literally thousands of free books to be had! Within a half hour I had over a dozen cozy mysteries, another dozen assorted cookbooks, my son saw what I was doing and added a few math and science books - it's so addicting! I already deleted a few that I looked through, like 10 page cookbooks, but the rest I can better read through once I get my Kindle tomorrow and charge it up.


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## stevene9 (Nov 9, 2008)

I have never succumbed to the siren song of free ebooks. I downloaded what I wanted to read. Of the 1150 books in my library, I'd say maybe 40 of them were free. Of those I have read them all except maybe 10, which are refereence (The Constitution, The Federalist Papers, The Bible, etc). I am a no clutter type of guy. The free books will always be there if I want them.

Steve


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

When I first got my Kindle, I downloaded a great many free books. I wasn't indiscriminate, I wouldn't download just any sort of book, I downloaded books of the type I might enjoy. But still, there were so many. I kept them all on my Kindle, hundreds of them. 

But I had to reset my Kindle to factory settings, a few months ago, and I didn't feel any desire to re-download them all. I have no regrets about downloading so many free books that I never got to reading, it was fun. And I did discover books that I might never have otherwise found.

I have 20,000 books from Project Gutenberg sitting on my computer. They really don't take up much space, and it brings me comfort to know they are there whenever I want them.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Sparticles said:


> I don't even *own* a Kindle (yet!) but decided I *must* have one once I discovered all the free books on Amazon. I would hear about the occasional one on some message forum or another, but the other day discovered there are literally thousands of free books to be had! Within a half hour I had over a dozen cozy mysteries, another dozen assorted cookbooks, my son saw what I was doing and added a few math and science books - it's so addicting! I already deleted a few that I looked through, like 10 page cookbooks, but the rest I can better read through once I get my Kindle tomorrow and charge it up.


For cookbooks I highly recommend the Kindle for PC App and put them in collections.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

I just don't have the space to download much more than I have  - at least on my PW... but I still try....


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

bordercollielady said:


> I just don't have the space to download much more than I have - at least on my PW... but I still try....


You do know that all purchases are stored in the cloud and you can download and remove from device whenever you want.

You do not have to store all your books on your device.

Though I have found that a spiral notebook works great for what I want to read later.


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## wholesalestunna (Aug 5, 2011)

I go through waves... I was really bad about it for a while until I got about three hundred books and then I unsubscribed from the free book mailing lists because my kindle was just way too cluttered. I have tons of books I've bought and still haven't read though.


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

A lot of Indie authors have stopped giving books away free since it doesn't help them.  I gave away a lot of books when Select first came out since it pushed sales to my books.  However, that does work any more, so I don't give them away now.  It is doubtful that many of the free books were read.

My wife and I downloaded a lot of free books when we first got our Kindles.  We never read them, so we went though and deleted most of them off of our Kindles and off of our archive.

So don't download free books unless it is something you plan to read.


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## stevene9 (Nov 9, 2008)

QuantumIguana said:


> I have 20,000 books from Project Gutenberg sitting on my computer. They really don't take up much space, and it brings me comfort to know they are there whenever I want them.


20,000 books - Holy ####!!!!!!


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## Sueracs (Apr 19, 2013)

kindlematt said:


> I have been obsessively downloading free Kindle books from Amazon haha! Anyone do this?


Thanks for your information. But I didn't download it yet. Would you please share me how to download the free kindle books from Amazon?


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

cinisajoy said:


> You do know that all purchases are stored in the cloud and you can download and remove from device whenever you want.


Yes I do know that.. but it just feels good to have all my books with me. One of things I love about the Kindle..


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Sueracs said:


> Thanks for your information. But I didn't download it yet. Would you please share me how to download the free kindle books from Amazon?


Now personally I go to either ereaderiq or onehundredfreebooks. I click on the book there and it sends me to the amazon page. Then I pick where I want to send the book to and click on the buy with one click button. In about 2 or 3 seconds, the page changes to a thank you page. Then I go to where ever I sent the book and there it is ready for me to read. Alternately you can go to amazon.com, go to the kindle store then kindle ebooks. Scroll down a bit and on the right hand side are the top 100 paid and top 100 free books. 
Have fun searching.

While I was getting you directions to how to find and download books, I found 13 new free craft books I could not live without. Including one in French and I do not speak French but I can read the patterns.


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## Holly (Mar 8, 2011)

Guilty... But I have read a lot of them .


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

stevene9 said:


> 20,000 books - Holy ####!!!!!!


Well, I didn't do 20,000 separate downloads.  It was one file with 20,000 PD books.


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## Toby (Nov 25, 2008)

Guilty as well, but I have found authors/books/new genders that I have not read before. Now, I don't download too many free books at a time like before. Before, my favorite expression was, "If it's free, it's for me."


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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

I find that I can do this with anything. It tends to degrade the appreciation of whatever it is I am mass-collecting. I have done it with video games, books, movies--and currently, I am doing it with board games. I have strived to find a balance between what I will actually put to effective use--by reading or playing--and what will never get used. The search for balance goes on.


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## MLKatz (Sep 8, 2012)

I used to download a lot more free ebooks than I do now. I agree with some of you that say that the novelty wears off after awhile. Probably like most of you - time is worth a lot too - and it pays to be discriminating. 

But when you're looking a fairly unknown authors, a free story is a way to quickly find out if you want to read more.I will also say that in a few cases, I started with a free ebook - and went on to look for other books by the author. In other cases, I don't finish the book - not always because it's bad, but just because I realize it is not to my taste.


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## KyahCA (Mar 7, 2011)

I really only download books that I know I would like to read at one point rather than downloading it just because it's free.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

I've become much more discriminate in my downloading free books. I've been really enjoying some of the "oldies" that I read when I was a kid - some books remain classics forever!

For a really good time go to: http://arthursbookshelf.com/


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## skeeterman10 (Feb 26, 2009)

Wild Rivers said:


> A lot of Indie authors have stopped giving books away free since it doesn't help them.
> 
> Really? I have found several authors work that I enjoyed, and then continued to purchase the rest of their work. I would think it would be the best way to to get your work out to the masses.


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## Ryan Patrick (Sep 24, 2011)

Yeah I've cut myself off from downloading any and all books and short stories on Kindle until I finish all the books I've paid for or gotten for free. Not to mention the 20 or so physical books I still have on my shelf that I haven't even thought about reading yet. Haha.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

AuthorDianaBaron said:


> I have 125 unread books on my Kindle and about 40 read. I keep telling myself to stop hitting the magical "Buy it Now" button, but the books are too tempting!


I have 300+ just on my Paperwhite, almost all unread as I usually delete books from the device once read. I have over 2000 books on my Amazon account, most of them unread. But I paid for most of them, I think, buying deals when they become available, such as the Kindle Daily Deal. I stopped loading up on the freebies a while ago.

Betsy


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## TheresaV (Mar 23, 2013)

When I first got my Kindle, I downloaded almost every free book I came across. I have found a lot of good authors through freebies who I probably would not have found otherwise. I still download free books, much more than I will probably ever read, but I make sure to check the reviews and use "Look Inside" to check out the book before one-clicking. I also have a problem with books "on sale" and I tend to compulsively buy the 99 cent and 1.99 books 

My Kindle library is approaching 3000 books...


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

TheresaV said:


> My Kindle library is approaching 3000 books...


I've probably got 3200 or so from Amazon and another 1000 from elsewhere. I don't get freebies or bargains as often as I used to, but I still buy a lot even with a lot of those books being unread. I re-read a lot, too, even with a lot of those being unread. But I read fast and read a lot so I don't let it bother me.

But I'm still stealing your graphic to post on Facebook....


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I been going nuts lately with sales. Mothersday sales, Monday sale, cat day sale, etc. I now get very few freebies, unless I already had it on a wishlist or know the author. It has to be very specific in the genre for me to even look at them. 
I am still cleaning up my account from freebies I got back in 2008 and 2009 that I will never read. 

I have still about 400 books that I paid for on my kindle that haven't been read yet. I don't keep read stuff on my kindle. 
My total books on amazon are about 2000. I now have more paid for books than freebies. In the first 2 years it was the other way around. 

But oh those sales lately, I just can't stop myself.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I broke the 5000 book mark today.  But 1900+ are cookbooks.  About 100 are craft and house books.  Of the rest 214 are on my tablet and 1659 are on my Fire.  And I have read about 300 books since getting the tablet last year.
We are not counting the 479 books on my kobo.


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## DaveA2012 (Jan 8, 2012)

They are *usually* free for a reason. That's not to say there aren't good free books (pd, promos).  But I have no desire for a large quantity ; for me it is about quality.  What I find mmyself doing is hitting the kindle daily deals and building up some future reads that way.  Even then I always checkout the Amazon reader reviews to see how it has been rated.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

AuthorDianaBaron said:


> Did you read 5000 books or finally max out the Kindle?  I have 128 on my Kindle that I haven't read yet and about 40 that I have read. I still read a lot of paperbacks too.


The 1900+ are cookbooks and they are stored on my Kindle for PC app. The books I have read are all just on the archives. 
When I said I broke the 5000 mark that is how many books I have bought only at amazon. As per maxing out the Kindle I have 4.44 GB of space still on it. It has 5.37GB for books, music, docs and videos. Since getting the kindle fire in December, not counting short biographies and house stuff, I have read 175 books.
That is not counting the paperbacks I read in the bath, though I do wish you could tap on a word in the paperback and it would bring up a search.


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## Grandma Mazur (Apr 15, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> The 1900+ are cookbooks and they are stored on my Kindle for PC app. The books I have read are all just on the archives.
> When I said I broke the 5000 mark that is how many books I have bought only at amazon. As per maxing out the Kindle I have 4.44 GB of space still on it. It has 5.37GB for books, music, docs and videos. Since getting the kindle fire in December, not counting short biographies and house stuff, I have read 175 books.
> That is not counting the paperbacks I read in the bath, though I do wish you could tap on a word in the paperback and it would bring up a search.


Do you have a favorite Kindle cookbook? I've been thinking of getting some but I know I would be in KINDLE BOOK HEAVEN for sure! I aleady have trouble keeping track of all my other books!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

What I love most about the Kindle Fire is it is easy to go from book to web and back again. It is also great for photography books or other books that are picture intense. I also like that it has better storage than a basic kindle.  Now what I don't like about the fire is you can't read outside on it unless you are in a very shady spot .  Also there are no collections.


To the other question: no I do not have a favorite cookbook but how I attempt to keep track of them is they all go to Kindle for PC app and put them into collections like chicken, dessert etc.  I think I found at least 10 freebies on Weds.  

Hope this helps both of you.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

AuthorDianaBaron said:


> No collections? Hum, I categorize all my books after I read them. I haven't figured out how to delete them from my Kindle yet.


What kindle do you have, we'll help you get them off. Free up some space. If they are bought on amazon, they'll always be in the cloud anyway.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

So, Diana, what do you want to do?  Delete books you've already read from your kindle?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

AuthorDianaBaron said:


> That would be awesome!! I have this one: Amazon Kindle Keyboard 3G 4 GB - Graphite
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Keyboard-Free-Wi-Fi-Display/dp/B004HZYA6E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368820145&sr=8-1&keywords=Amazon+Kindle+Keyboard+3G+4+GB+-+Graphite


ON the keyboard, when you are on a book with your 5 way button thingy, just press the left arrow on the 5-way. 
So go into your read collection, then move your cursor under the book, then hit the left arrow on the 5-way. It will then say "remove from device under it. Then hit the pad in the middle of the 5 way to ok that. If you made a mistake at the point of "remove from device", just hit your back button on the kindle. Once you ok it, its gone from the kindle.

Again, if those are books you purchased from amazon they will be in your archive to get back at any time you want. If those were books you side loaded then you'll have to make sure you have a backup somewhere.

Hope this helps. Let us know if not.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Atunah. . . . I think it's click to the right to get the menu. If you click to the left all you can do is one thing. If the book's in a collection, a click to the left lets you remove it from the collection. If it's on the home page a click to the left lets you delete it from the device. You have to have it out of all collections before it will show on the home page.

But, if I'm remembering right, a right click brings up the menu and one of the options there is 'remove from device' whether it's in a collection or not.

But I haven't had my K3Kbd for quite a while so I _may be_ misremembering.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I think you might be right Ann. I didn't have my K3 sorted by collections, but by recent when I went through steps. How quickly I forget when using a different kindle.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Well I couldn't think of it at all until you posted about the clicking.  All I could remember was that there was some way to do it and I was going to go look it up in the help pages at Amazon but got sidetracked.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think --- see, it's coming back to me now -- that if a bunch of the books you want to delete are in the same collection there's an easier way to get them out.  

From the home page, go to the collection and right click.  I think you'll get a menu where one of the options is 'add/remove items' or something like that.  If you click that, you'll get a list of all the books on your kindle and if there in this collection there's a check next to it.  You can go down page by page and remove check boxes from books you want to 'un-collect'. 

Once you've done that, go back to home and now all those books should be listed there and you can delete them one at a time but pretty quickly with the left click.

It's also possible that if, instead of sorting by collections, you sort by something like 'title' then ALL your books will show up on the home page whether collected or not.  THEN, if you do the left click there, you'll see 'remove from device'.  So this eliminates the 'remove from collection' step, which also has the potential advantage of leaving it associated with that collection so that, if you put it back on the kindle (or another one) it will sort into that collection.  I just played with my basic kindle, which has the same 4 way selector pad, and it worked this way on ot so I'm thinking it would work that way on the k3Kbd as well.

You can remove a whole collection that way too, though it won't remove the books in it, just the designation.  But that's another way, too, to get all the books in a collection out of it.  Of course, then you don't have that collection on your device any more.


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

On the KK, with the cursor on a book title, clicking the right side of the 5-way brings up a menu including Remove from Device, Add to Collection, etc.  Clicking to the left is a direct way to remove--it doesn't open a menu, just shows "Remove from Device" right under the title, and you can accept that by pressing the center of the 5-way.


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## D.A. Miller (May 29, 2013)

I just purchased a Kindle. I figured that I might as well, since I just published my first novel with them. But thanks to all of you for your comments on this topic: as an author, I wondered how many of the "free" downloads were worth even getting. It sounds like some decent authors will get a few valuable reviews from the readers. Of course, not all the free stuff is even worth the space its taking up on your kindle.

I look forward to receiving my new kindle soon--I will try downloading not only some free stuff, but I'll purchase some of the .99-$2.99 stuff that's got a few decent ratings. I need too see what my science fiction competition looks like


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> It's also possible that if, instead of sorting by collections, you sort by something like 'title' then ALL your books will show up on the home page whether collected or not. THEN, if you do the left click there, you'll see 'remove from device'. So this eliminates the 'remove from collection' step, which also has the potential advantage of leaving it associated with that collection so that, if you put it back on the kindle (or another one) it will sort into that collection. I just played with my basic kindle, which has the same 4 way selector pad, and it worked this way on ot so I'm thinking it would work that way on the k3Kbd as well.


^^ This. I was just going to type that out. And if you sort by "Most Recent", you'll probably find the books you've already read a bit more easily, mixed in, of course, with books that you've recently purchased and sent to your Kindle. (That, of course, depends on how long you've had your Kindle and many books you have on it!)


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## River Runwild (Jun 1, 2013)

I'm glad I'm not the only obsessive one - At first it was free books (and so many so very poor in quality, yes) and then it was searching among authors known to me for their earlier and usually less expensive books, which I am getting obsessive about now   However, encouraged by comments here, I now plan to delete the freebies I know I'll never read. Er, except maybe I'll keep the 'classics'. Always something, eh? Thanks for all comments here - they give me backbone!


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

Like many others, I went nuts over the free books when I first got my Kindle, and I quickly found myself with a collection of over 600 titles. The only annoying thing was wading through pages and pages of unfamiliar authors (even though I created a collection specifically for freebies) or noticing a large number of genres I wouldn't normally read.

Since I upgraded from a K2 to a Paperwhite, I've found it's a much more enjoyable experience to keep 99% of my collection in the Cloud (love being able to browse the covers in Cloud!) and keep maybe 10-20 books on the Kindle, especially since I'm mainly using Overdrive right now. I still download freebies, but I'm more more selective about it now.


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