There's a ubiquitous smugness that appears to accompany the purchase of an ereader. It's not in the box, nor is it downloaded as an optional extra -- but a quick glance at the expression of an ereading commuter beside their paper-bound brethren seems to convey a sense that they are "winning".

The smugness of ereaders will abound with the launch of Freebook Sifter, a site that allows easy browsing of free ebook titles on Amazon.com. The relatively under designed site highlights newly free ebook titles, displaying them in a list according to their Amazon ratings and average star stats.

Its creators, Mike Powell and Juergen Horn, came up with the idea for the service after struggling to browse for newly released free ebooks on Amazon. Whiles sites like Project Gutenberg, which provides electronic versions of books whose copyright has expired, and Wattpad, which caters for new writers looking to share their stories, offer thousands of free ebooks, Powell and Horn were frustrated by the task of finding free novels on Amazon. "It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify those books which are brand new or have recently become free, perhaps for a limited time," Powell told Wired.co.uk. "Once we had the idea, the site came together really quickly. It's a very simple layout, and the coding on the backend isn't at all complicated. We have a script that runs once a day, and searches Amazon for any new books, or books which have updated rankings."


An early challenge for Freebook Sifter is inherent of its single daily update; while Amazon varies the prices of its ebooks throughout the day, Freebook Sifter currently misses price changes between updates. Despite the niggle, the feedback that Powell and Horn have received so far has been largely positive, with over 17,000 using the site on its launch. "People seemed to have been waiting for a service like this," said Powell. "Of course, as might have been expected, the first time thousands of people started using the site, a few usability issues came to light. But people have been really great about pointing them out; bringing our attention to bugs that we never anticipated. We're spending this first week addressing all these concerns."

Powell and Horn plan to monetize the site via Amazon's affiliate programme, though don't envisage retiring on the funds it brings in. While they don't earn any money on the free ebooks, the purchasing behaviour of ereader users provides them some income. "Looking at the stats that we've received, it's clear that people who buy free books on our site also go on to purchase books which aren't free -- both ebooks and print," explained Powell. "People who love to read, love to read regardless of the medium, and have embraced ereaders as the most convenient form. By promoting free ebooks, we hope that our site simply provides another impetus to get people into reading."

As well as ironing out the site's bugs, Powell and Horn are working to produce a version of the service that works for Amazon's UK and German stores.

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