I've spent years hunting the web for knowledge about becoming more self-sufficient and surviving a social breakdown. Here are 17 websites that I found where you can download survival books for free.
Have you ever in your life felt like you were sitting in the middle of such a perfect storm as you are right now?
In almost every direction there seems to be some kind of threat to the familiar functioning of a free society and without naming them (you already know what they are!), it's not hard to see why interest in self-sufficiency and survival is at an all-time high.
Of course, it doesn't matter the why…it just matters that you know the how.
- How can you keep your home warm if disaster strikes?
- How can you feed your family if supply chains break down?
- How can you survive if the worst comes to pass?
You see, your grandparents knew how to do all of these things. Somehow though, you and I were duped along the way to where we are now and we've forgotten a lot of it. I've been trying to remember it all since 2010!
But that's OK, there are plenty of free survival resources online to help you stack your self-sufficiency and survival knowledge and (aside from this extremely jam-packed website, of course!) here are a few of them.
Free Online Survival Resources
There are 3 types of survival resources you can find and access for free online:
- eBooks
- Videos
- Podcasts
They're each better for different times of day or activity based on how much of your attention you can give them.
For example; I listen to podcasts when I'm out driving or whilst I'm in the garden sweeping leaves, pulling weeds etc.
I watch videos whilst I cook, wash or do some other household chore and I read a book when I have more attention to give, like when I'm about to go to bed and the winter chill demands I wrap myself up beneath a blanket with a good book.
You shouldn't restrict yourself to only one method because you're ‘traditional' or you ‘don't like YouTube' etc…I mean, you could, but trust me, whatever you're afraid of if you use those resources is not worth the cost of not knowing the information available!
I'll make a list of my recommended podcasts and youtube channels in another post but for now, I want to focus on helping you get your hands on some free downloadable survival books!
17 Websites Where You Can Download Survival Books For Free
Here are 19 websites that offer free downloadable survival books. I'll keep this list up to date every month and make sure that the links are still live or I'll add more if I find them.
There are a lot of files here, and they take a lot of time to go through; so, if you'd rather have all of the best and most practical information in a single download that I've already prepared for you, you can grab it here.
- SCP Survival (website)
Direct downloads to over 600 free survival books either as word processing documents or as PDFs. - TruePrepper (website)
A comprehensive collection of live links to the latest updated prepping and survival books and documents. - Survivor Library (website)
A simple alphabetically sorted list of free downloadable survival books for individuals. - InfoBooks (website)
A large collection of survival books that can either be read directly online or downloaded directly. - Survival Supplies UK (website)
12 books about survival and prepping including wild hunting and knots. - Reddit Thread Full of Survival Books (website)
A thread full of links to download survival books for free including some of the most highly-rated in the community. - InternetArchive (website)
105 books about survival, homesteading and self sufficiency available to view online or to download for free. - Bushcraft USA (website)
A huge list of survival books available from trapping to building. This is a forum so some of the links may have moved or died. - ThePrepperJournal (website)
Another great online resource to download survival books as PDFs. Lots of choices. - Amazon Kindle Store (website)
A huge list of free survival books available directly from the Amazon Kindle store. - Internet Archive – Military & Survival (website)
Another entry from the Internet Archive, this time focussing in on militia-orientated books with a heavy bias towards survival. - PDFDrive (website)
A list of free survival and self sufficiency PDF files available to download directly. - SurvivalSullivan (website)
A list of free disaster preparedness resources you can download and learn from, most from public and official sources. - Modern Survival Online (website)
19 free to download survival books that will help you prepare for any disaster. - Scribd (website)
100 survival books to download. - American Survivalist (website)
A huge collection of free book PDFs. Simply add to your cart for free and get the download link sent to you. - Walkerland (website)
A selection of free-to-download homesteading books to help you get started on your journey to becoming more self-sufficient and ready to survive anything that lies ahead.
Find Free Downloadable Survival Books Faster
There are some shortcuts to finding free downloadable survival books online (or any book for that matter), that can help you cut out a lot of the chafe so you don't end up wasting your time visiting sites with dead links or loads of spammy ads.
Using google, you can search for:
free downloadable survival books -sponsored -buy now
The addition of -sponsored will not return results that have the word sponsored on the page (ads) and the -buy now operator will prevent pages with buy now options from showing.
Once the results are presented, you can then narrow them down further by clicking on ‘tools' and then selecting the date range ‘within the last year' or '12 months'.
This will only show pages that have been updated within the last 12 months – thus reducing the possibility of you landing on old pages with dead links.
You could also throw in ‘PDF' to the original search query to refine it even further.
Open Source Survival Books
There are some official ‘free' resources available as well, the two most prominent being ‘Project Gutenberg‘ and the ‘Open Library‘.
Both host a huge online catalogue of expired copyright books available free for anyone who wants to take the time to look.
Both websites have a simple search function and you can search in either for a subject area, say for example, ‘trapping', and be presented with loads of books to read.
You may need to filter the results by ‘subject' though, otherwise they may return any book with the word ‘trapping' in them anywhere.
Different Types of Downloadable Survival Books
Although they're all ‘books,' it's worth noting that there are different types of files that can be used for ‘books,' the 3 most common being PDF, epub or DOC.
How To Read PDF Books
You can read PDF books in most modern internet browsers so you're very unlikely to run into any trouble if the book you're downloading is a PDF file.
How To Read ePUB Books
ePub files are a little less known and require a special ‘epub' file reader to read. I use the free, open source, Calibre to read my epubs. There are other free and paid for options out there but I've not found a good enough reason to change yet.
How To Read DOC Books
This one almost everyone should know by now but it's basically a word processing file; the kind you create/open in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
You'll need one of these apps to open it. Google Docs is free (not counting what they do with your data), so again, there's no real need to put up any money upfront to gain the survival knowledge you need to thrive in trying times.
Download Over 900 Survival Books In A Single File
Having done all the downloading and sorting myself for the last 10 years or so, I know how time-consuming it can be to find what you need and organise it.
So, if you're short on time and you just want the best of the knowledge quickly, with all the best books available in easy-to-read PDF format, I made a downloadable survival books product, already pre-sorted into easily searchable categories to help you get the knowledge you need fast.
The file contains over 1.6gb of everything you need to become more self sufficient and ready for survival no matter what.
Reading Downloaded Survival Books Offline
One of the most common questions I get asked downloadable survival books is, “what if the internet goes down?”
Well, if you've downloaded books to your PC or phone then as long as you have power to turn your device on, you'll be able to read them offline – in other words, if the internet or power grid goes down.
The best way to do this is to have an off-grid source of electric generation, like a jackery solar generator or similar, or make sure you have enough batteries ready to go should things go down.
A quick way to prepare for a grid-down situation is to download all the survival books now and store them on a USB drive that you can plug directly into your PC or phone if the power goes out. This way you always have the knowledge you could need in such a situation.
Where Do You Get Your Survival & Self Sufficiency Books?
Do you have a great resource for downloadable survival books for free? Please share it in the comments below.
What's your favourite survival book?
I have a few but my two most practical favourites are John Seymour's Self Sufficient Gardener and David Hoffmann's Holistic Herbal.
Not exactly what you'd think of as ‘surviving the apocalypse' material but, in my opinion, fundamental knowledge for looking after yourself from the ground up.
Let me know what you think in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe to the mailing list, magazine or youtube channel if you'd like to read, see or hear more information like this as I publish it.
