Are you a fan of reading books? Do you like free and cheap ebooks? Then, you should definitely read on!
Your local library is likely the number one place to go if you want to read books for free, but there are other places as well. As follows, we have listed six places where you can find free and cheap ebooks, which you can read conveniently on the go with your phones, tablets, and e-readers.
Do you have a subscription to Amazon Prime? If so, you will have access to more than just free 2-day shipping and Prime Instant Video streaming. Your subscription to Amazon Prime also gives you several free ebook choices.
First, you get access to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, which allows you to borrow one ebook each month and be able to read that book on any Kindle e-reader or Fire tablet. The drawback is that this library has a relatively small selection of books, so do not expect to find many new titles or bestsellers.
Next, there is the Kindle First program: Every month, Amazon editors curate six new, yet-to-be-released books and allow their Prime subscribers to choose one of them to read for free. And you get to keep the book as well. You are not just borrowing the book.
Lastly, there is Prime Reading, which is not the same as the Lending Library in a few main ways. First, it is not limited to Kindles: You are given access to their selection of free ebooks on phones, tablets, and any place that is capable of running a Kindle app. Second, the selection includes not just books, but also a rotating catalog of magazines, comics, travel guides, Kindle Singles, and others.
BookBub is primarily used by readers to inform them of free and discounted ebooks. You start by signing up for an account. Then, you choose one or more of your preferred genre categories, such as crime fiction, romantic suspense, literary fiction, sci-fi, and more. Lastly, you will be able to receive a daily or weekly email listing that highlights new deals that correspond to your preferences. You can also browse the site to find good free and cheap ebook deals.
If you have a library card, you may be able to sign up for Hoopla Digital, which allows you to borrow a fixed number of ebooks each month. You will need the Hoopla app to read these books. This is available for Android, iOS and Fire, and it allows you to browse and borrow books directly. There is a nice selection of books for teenagers and young adults, along with some contemporary bestsellers.
As an added bonus, Hoopla also allows you to borrow audiobooks, movies and music soundtracks.
OverDrive typically has a great selection of titles, but you likely have to wait to get the ones you want.
If your library does not offer Hoopla, there is a good chance it is has OverDrive instead. They are similar services. OverDrive offers audiobooks as well as ebooks. However, its catalog is decided by your library, which means it might offer fewer titles overall, but possibly more current ones.
As with a library's physical copies of books, there is only a fixed number of each ebook title that can be borrowed at one time. You might have to get on a waitlist to borrow the specific title you are looking for. You typically have the option of getting an EPUB copy or downloading it to your Kindle library to read using the app or device of your choice.
There are thousands of ebooks that you can find in the public domain. This means that their copyrights have expired and thus you can download them for free. Project Gutenberg is one place among many that digitizes and catalogs these books. It currently has a collection of over 55,000 titles.
You can start by reading the most popular public-domain books there, which includes Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Many books can be downloaded in various formats, such as EPUB, HTML, and Kindle.
Riffle is a book-discovery service similar to GoodReads, but it also has an optional daily email digest which you can sign up for. Through this avenue, you can receive email listings for free or discounted books based on your preferences. If you are interested in more than just book deals, such as wanting to discover a book's community and recommendations, then Riffle is worth checking out.
Do you know of other places to find free and cheap ebooks? Share in the comments below!