HN Explorer

Read Almost any Amazon book for Free

7 points by mpchlets ↗ HN
Find the ASIN of an Amazon book on Amazon's site then put in this url: https://read.amazon.com/?asin=REPLACE_ASIN_HERE Try: https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B0064CPN7I https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B003H3IOXM https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B0045JKJ7G

9 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 28.3 ms ] thread
orionblastar
Good trick but you have to sign into Amazon to activate the offline reader for Amazon Kindle Cloud reader. If not then it won't work. Also it seems to go to a part of the book instead of the first page or cover. Perhaps it reads the history of the person who last accessed the ebook in that way?

I guess Amazon will shut it down eventually or check permission for the ebook before letting you read it. I write ebooks and had one published on Kindle with my Orion Blastar character that I am always reinventing.

https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B007LAX6YY for those interested in the book. See if it works.

For some reason it is also here:

https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B007M4AACA

But it only includes the copyright page, and the rest of the ebook is gone. I submitted a new copy that fixed formatting errors, but later found out MS-Word 2010 corrupted my original data file on my hard drive. I did a recovery and switched to LibreOffice because MS-Office kept giving me problems.

I am in the process of rewriting the ebook, and I can see why people had an issue with it, I'll try to get it reuploaded if all that is showing up is the copyright page.

Thanks for the info, it shows me that the readers get a different version of the ebook than what I get as the author. I didn't know the ebook only had a copyright page for the updated version, when I previewed it in the Amazon Kindle preview program it was the whole ebook and not just the copyright page. So this little 'hack' actually helped me as an author.

mpchlets
Yup you do have to sign in, but it definitely lets you see the entire book, it just starts on a random page it seems.
orionblastar
Even stranger my second link makes it a 'sample' ebook which is why only the copyright page shows up. It is a short story like 16 pages, and I hoped to develop it into a full novel eventually. I wanted feedback from readers before writing more of it. Yet the first link is the original first edition before I made any changes to it, and you can read it formatting errors, etc and all.

Also the first edition did not have hyperlinks but the second edition did.

Oddly enough it does work somewhat. I wonder what other ebooks are sample only and which ones are the full version?

Anyway I just uploaded a new edition of the ebook, in 24 hours Amazon will approve or reject it. I wanted to give it away for free, but Amazon limits that, not only that but the lowest I can charge is $0.99USD and they won't let me self publish it to other ebook stores.

If anyone wants a free copy, email me at orionblastar@gmail.com if interested.

jlgaddis
> entire book

After flipping ahead several pages in a book I pulled up, I got a pop-up with this message:

"You have reached the end of the sample content. You can buy the full version from the Kindle Store or return to your sample."

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/DQjC5he.png

willcate
Wow. There's a hole big enough to drive a truck through.
Kanbab
It only shows book previews...
nu2ycombinator
It lets you read only sample content of the book. You can read it on Amazon site for all books by default.
31reasons
Its a misleading statement. Please change it to "Read sample pages for most Amazon books". or take this post down, it has practically no value.