A Library-Scale Stage
for Your Free Titles.
Reach 11.4 million monthly readers across 192 countries — at no cost, with no exclusivity, no rights transfer, and no payout paperwork. We index, surface, and promote your free promotional windows. You keep the book, the rights, and the readers.
- 340+ indie author partners
- 11.4M monthly readers
- 82,614 titles indexed
- $0 ever charged
How free distribution works at OB4F.
Four steps from your inbox to our shelves. No contracts, no exclusivity, no fees at any stage — and your rights, metadata, and cover files remain yours throughout.
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01
Submit
Send your title metadata, cover art, and EPUB/MOBI/PDF files through the form below, or import a feed from Smashwords, Draft2Digital, or BookFunnel. We accept one title or one hundred — there's no batch limit and no application fee.
- Standard metadata (title, author, ISBN, language, genre)
- Cover art at 1600×2400 px minimum
- One or more DRM-free file formats
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02
Ingest
Our open-source OB4F-Crawler 4.1 ingestion engine validates your files, runs accessibility and malware checks, and slots the title into the right genre shelves. Median time from submission to a live catalog page is 72 hours.
- EPUB3 / MOBI / PDF accepted
- WCAG 2.2 AA tagging verified
- Source attribution set to "Author Direct"
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03
Promote
Your title surfaces in Browse, Daily, genre shelves, search, and our weekly newsletter to 380,000+ subscribers. Featured slots rotate hourly across 31 genres. We never put titles behind a sign-up wall or a paywall.
- Hourly featured-slot rotation
- Optional newsletter pickup
- Read-online (EPUB3 reader) + download
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04
Retire
When your free promotional window closes, the title moves to a "no longer free" archive entry with a permanent redirect to your store, landing page, or next campaign. You choose the window — 7 days, 90 days, or open-ended.
- Configurable promotion windows
- Automatic retirement + redirect
- Catalog entry retained for discovery
The scale of the author-direct program.
Refreshed quarterly. Sourced from OB4F internal analytics, audited by an independent data partner.
What authors say about distributing through OB4F.
My debut novel hit 38,000 downloads in its first free window — most of them from readers who had never heard of me. The newsletter pickup alone drove a 4× lift in my paid-week sales the following month.
I write accessibility-focused technical textbooks. OB4F is the only distributor that consistently surfaces the WCAG-compliant editions in front of the right students — six community-college instructors adopted mine after a single newsletter mention.
What I appreciate is the no-strings framing. I keep the rights, I set the window, and the OB4F team writes back within hours when I need a metadata tweak. It feels like lending a book to a careful librarian.
What we ask, what we don't ask, and what we will never do with your book.
We are an indexer and a discovery surface — not a host, not a retailer, and never a rights acquirer. Every book on OnlineBooks4Free resolves to a file that lives on a source we don't control: Project Gutenberg, Open Library, Smashwords, or your own storefront. We don't store your manuscript on our servers; we link to it. When a reader clicks "Download," they leave our site and fetch the file directly from the source you provided.
What we ask of you
- That the title you submit is genuinely free during the window you declare — no "free with email signup" hoops, no in-app purchases required to read it.
- That you hold the rights, or have explicit permission from the rights holder, to distribute the file free of charge.
- That you tell us the start and end date of your free window so we can retire the listing honestly when it closes.
What we will never do
- We will never ask you to sign over copyright, grant exclusivity, or commit your title to our platform for a minimum term.
- We will never put your book behind a paywall, a sign-up wall, or a "free trial of our app" prompt.
- We will never sell reader data tied to your title, and we will never share your email with a third party without your written consent.
- We will never claim your work as our own, rewrite your synopsis, or alter your cover art without your approval.
What you should know about daily caps and formats
Some source platforms — Project Gutenberg, Open Library, certain Smashwords distributions — impose daily download caps per IP or per title. These caps are set by the source, not by us, and they apply regardless of where the link was discovered. Similarly, available file formats vary by source: a Project Gutenberg title may only ship as EPUB and plain-text, while an author-direct submission may include EPUB, MOBI, and PDF. We surface whatever the source provides and never silently reformat your work.
How takedowns and complaints work
If a rights holder — including you — believes a listing is incorrect or unauthorized, our GDPR- and DMCA-compliant takedown pipeline responds with a median turnaround of 6 hours from a verified notice. You can file a notice through the form below, or by emailing [email protected]. We log every takedown, every reinstatement, and every source change.
Submit your titles and reach 11.4 million monthly readers at no cost.
One form, no application fee, no exclusivity clause. Most authors hear back within 72 hours.
- Free promotional distribution — never a sales channel
- You keep all rights, all royalties, all reader relationships
- Hourly curation across 31 genre shelves