IT and computing publisher and video producer Packt Publishing has announced its Android Week, offering “a whole week of free Android titles and an ever bigger selection of top selling and brand new Android titles at 50% off.” There’s only one snag. These are not general ebooks running on the Android platform – they’re programming and application development titles for Android developers, with a highly specialized niche audience. If you’re not among that merry band, then sorry people.
That said, I’m guessing that TeleRead’s readership might number quite a few such tech whizzes, or at the very least, first-timers who might want to try their hand at Android app development with the aid of a title like John Horton’s Android Programming for Beginners. There are game titles, Java programming titles, even Google Maps and Android Wear development titles. Right now I don’t see any titles on ebook or e-reading app creation, but since Packt offers titles like Instant Apple iBooks How-to, I suspect its Android range may throw up similarly useful volumes for ebook creators.
I’m not clear from Packt on exactly how long this offer is destined to run, but I suspect it may be until the end of the working week. In any case, if you’re one of the target audience, you should probably jump at it.
This page might help – https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning
It’s still somewhat confusing though. It says it runs until March 27 but there are titles that don’t “unlock” until April 11.
It also looks as if each title is only available free for one day. Presumably to encourage repeat visits to the site.
They’ve been giving away a free ebook a day for at least 9 months, although they also had a free book a day experiment last March also. Sometimes all the free books for a week will be related to a single IT related topic, like this week, and other times they seem to be more random.
I have found these scripts useful recently: https://github.com/igbt6/Packt-Publishing-Free-Learning
It claims and downloads eBooks from Packt automatically