The Kindle is linked to whatever Amazon account was used to purchase it. You can change this if you want to and the instructions are in the box. Once you have your link to Amazon you go to the Kindle store. You can choose to pay for books to download or you can look at the FREE bestseller liest. Most of the free books are classics that are in the public domain which means they were published before 1923 and have no copyright. There were some free books that were more recent. With a 3500 book storage capacity I don't think you would need to store your ebooks anywhere else. Also just FYI, the 3G Kindle is great if you do not have wireless highspeed internet in your home. If you already have that the regular wi-fi Kindle is all you need. That would save you $50. The only other advantage to the 3G is that you can download overseas if you travel a lot. I personally would download all I could read at home before traveling so I saved my $50. Good luck with your choice!!