UPDATE: We heard back from our Sourcebooks contact, who asked us to pass along their apologies for the mixup. B&N/NookBooks, Google eBooks, and the iBookstore currently should have the free books, and they are working on Amazon and Sony. Visit the links on this page to get the books. NookBook editions of JA’s novels available here.
Because of the delay, Sourcebooks is extending the free ebooks offer for one day through December 17! We’ll continue to post updates as we receive them.
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We received a nice e-mail from Sourcebooks saying that they are offering ebooks of all of Jane Austen’s novels and several of their bestselling Austen-related fiction titles for free download for today (December 16) only, as a celebration of Jane Austen’s birthday, but we can’t find the link. An e-mail asking for assistance for dumb bloggers has been dispatched, and we will update this post when available. (If anyone knows the link, feel free to post it in comments.)
ETA: The Google bookstore links on this page now show the books for free. They are Adobe Digital Editions epub or PDF, or you can read it on several mobile devices (once you “buy” the book, you get a page with download/reading instructions). If you buy from there, even though the book is free, you must sign up for Google Checkout and give a valid credit card number.
ETA 2: Free NookBook editions available at this link: http://bit.ly/fYUH41 (thanks to the JASNA Connecticut Chapter for posting this link in comments). NookBooks can be read on the Nook and Nook Color (of course) and there are apps for PC and several mobile devices. (While I’m here…WHERE IS THE WEBOS APP B&N???) I can also read them on my Jetbook. The B&N DRM is the easiest to deal with in non-B&N-app situations IMO. See this post for details. Also, NewEgg has a really nice promotion going on for the JetBook Lite right now–$89.99 with a leather case and “ear light”–in case anyone wants to let Santa know.
ETA 3: All books now free for Kindle. A poster on Mobileread is reporting that the books are available on Amazon to Canadians.
AustenBlog 
I just read (on another blog(:
Anyone with a digital eReader, or free application on their computer, or blackberry, or iPhone, or Android, or iPad can download the books. Just go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. online on December 16th and download away! (I highly recommend Barnes & Noble’s free Nook applications if you do not already own an eReader like me! You can read the eBooks on five different electronic devices )
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Hold on with that update. I got a few e-mails from my readers saying that while the books are on the cheap ($1 or less) they haven’t been able to find them free. We bloggers need links…maybe I’m just not seeing the right editions?
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I couldn’t find them at Kobo, where I buy most of my books, or at the Google ebooks store, which they had linked on their Jane Austen page. Also no ebooks of the novels there. I mean, the books were there, but were not free.
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Here is a link that should get you to the free Nook editions of the 10 sequels:
http://bit.ly/fYUH41
The illustrated Austen editions don’t seem to be free (perhaps not just yet). I haven’t been able to find any of the Kindle editions listed for free yet — but maybe Sourcebooks is still working on it.
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On the iPad, the iBooks store has all 10 of the sequels available for free, and 5 of the 6 Austen novels (for some reason Mansfield Park is still $0.99). Launch iBooks on the iPad, then go to the Store and search for Sourcebooks and you’ll turn up the books.
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It seems these free downloads are only available to SA, not abroad. Or if anyone outside USA could tell me how to do it, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
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I suspect that might be the case; these are US-only. Anybody in Europe able to download them?
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I haven’t been able to download either – so I’m also thinking that it’s US only. I wish it wasn’t, but even more than that I really wish that they would just come out and say so. That’s really my biggest problem with ebooks as it is now, it’s never clear if they are restricted, often you have to go though much of the process before you are told that you aren’t allowed to download.
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Well, thanks for the confirmation. I agree with you, Kira, at least Sourcebooks should have stated that the offer is only for US residents. 😦
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I just checked Amazon again, it seems like most of the books are now $2.30 which is more or less the standard price for “free” books for people from at least Europe. So not free, but still much cheaper than usual. I think I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to see if they turn up for free somewhere otherwise I might get a few of them that I really want.
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Not available in the UK, apparently.
And Jane Austen was…American?
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Here is a link to Amazon.com which should get you access to most of the free Kindle ebooks in the offer:
http://amzn.to/gu6bvv
There are still a couple of books that aren’t showing up with a price of $0.00 (as of 4:00 pm ET), or do have a price of $0.00 but are sorting at their regular prices (some sort of caching in place or something of the sort), but the books seem to be gradually appearing, so try again later if you don’t find all 16 using that link.
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Mags – Thanks for all the updates today. I just thought I wasn’t very bright since I couldn’t figure out how to get to the free books!
Just downloaded 9 new books – Yeah – and thank you to SourceBooks.
Jenn
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Sourcebooks might only be contracted to sell the books in the U.S.–which means they can’t give them away in other countries, either. It’s an unfortunate hangover of old-school publishing that is frustrating ebook users worldwide. (and it does sometimes work in the other direction.)
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Unfortunately, iBooks wasn’t gracious enough to extend the sale on the 10 sequels through today. Thanks a heap, Apple!
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