Here’s a great Christmas present from the lovely people at Random House. For a limited time (until Feb 28th, 2009) they are giving away nine free ebooks in a variety of formats from a variety of ebook retailers.

New York, NY – December 8, 2008 — The Random House Publishing Group and Lexcycle, Inc., jointly announced today that Random House and Ballantine will be the first major book publishers to make full-length books available for free on iPhone through Lexcycle Stanza, the most popular electronic book reader for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

This promotion will allow over 500,000 Stanza users to enjoy free eBooks from a varied list of authors including Alan Furst, Julie Garwood, Charlie Huston, David Liss, Laurie Notaro, Arthur Phillips and Simon Rich. The initial offerings will be drawn from each author’s backlist and will include excerpts for any new hardcovers coming in 2009. Random House is providing links to retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, Powells.com and IndieBound.org to encourage readers to purchase more books by these authors.

However, the promotion is not just for iphone users. The books are available in a range of different formats all free of charge from your favourite ebook retailer. I got mine from Books on Board but you can also get them from Amazon, Fictionwise and a few others.  Titles include three by Charlie Huston so if you are a fan, get on over there and get yourself some free books!

“A free eBook is a great way to sample a new writer, and help spread the word,” says Charlie Huston, whose novels ‘Caught Stealing’, ‘Six Bad Things’, and ‘A Dangerous Man’ will all be available on Stanza. “Besides, it’s good to give things away. They’re books. We write them for people to read them.”

The full list of titles is below:

Picture of Cover of The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst - Thriller eBooks Picture of Cover of The Whiskey Rebels<br /> by David Liss - Thriller eBooks Picture of Cover of Caught Stealing<br /> by Charlie Huston - Thriller eBooks
Picture of Cover of Prague<br /> by Arthur Phillips - Thriller eBooksPicture of Cover of Murder List<br /> by JULIE GARWOOD  - Thriller eBooks Picture of Cover of Six Bad Things<br /> by Charlie Huston - Thriller eBooks
Picture of Cover of The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death<br /> by Laurie Notaro - Humor eBooks Picture of Cover of A Dangerous Man<br /> by Charlie Huston - Thriller eBooks Picture of Cover of Free-Range Chickens<br /> by Simon Rich - Thriller eBooks