You like books, right? Not fussy whether they’re paper or digital? Well then step right up and we’ll give you an instant guide to building a free personal library of Amazon eBooks, and what’s more books that you’re actually going to want to read, because they are in your favorite genre. Love thrillers? No problem. Science Fiction? Sorted. Romance? Absolutely.

I’ve already built up a library of over 100 awesome and totally free books over the past few months, which I’m going to go through at my leisure once I get marooned on that beautiful but lonely desert island with my soccer ball.

The secret lies in grabbing the right Amazon RSS links and then using one of the web’s most underrated tools…IFTTT.com. So first things first.

A. Go to Amazon.com (or .co.uk) and choose your favorite book genre:
1. Go here – http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/ (substitute amazon.co.uk for the UK store)
2. Click on Kindle eBooks in sidebar (or Books in UK)
3. Click on your favorite genre – e.g. Romance
4. Select sub topic if wanted (optional) (e.g. romance – vampires)
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and copy the Subscribe to: Top Free > [Your genre] link
[Optionally you can click on the link, and then copy it into your clipboard from the address bar]

It will look something like this, with a different number depending on genre chosen:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/rss/top-free/digital-text/158566011/ref=zg_tf_158566011_rsslink

or for the UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/rss/top-free/digital-text/362384031/ref=zg_tf_362384031_rsslink

Example Amazon genre IDs

.com genre ID examples
Generic Fiction – 157054011
Science Fiction – 158591011
Romance – 158566011
Thrillers – 157305011
Humor – 156279011

.uk genre ID examples
Generic Fiction – 341689031
Science Fiction – 362827031
Romance – 362723031
Thrillers – 362247031
Humour – 362384031

B. Set up your email delivery service in IFTTT.com

Once you have chosen your genres and have copy/pasted the relevant RSS links to a safe notepad location, go to IFTTT.com, sign up or login and then follow the instructions in my video or text after the jump.

Continue Reading… 1 2 [View All]