6 secrets to getting books for free or cheap without violating anyone’s intellectual property

If you're an avid reader, you're probably looking for ways to stretch your dollars and get the maximum amount of books for your money.

Levels of affordability are different for everyone, and only you can determine how long you want to wait for a book, or how much you want to spend. Before you go railing about supporting authors’ work, please know that I AM willing to spend money on books that I know I like. For example, after I listened to “Spinning Silver” by Naomi Novik (which I only got by paying money for an Audible subscription,) I went out and bought my own hard copy of the book. Not only that, but some indie books are tough to find in a library, so I might buy an electronic copy if reviews are good.

If I bought every book I ever read for full price I would be in utter financial ruin. Thank goodness for the ways you can get books for free or cheap with minimal effort. Here are my secrets:

I went to the library for one book and I left with six.

1. Go to the library 

This seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but a lot of people don’t know that you can just drive to a building, walk inside, and borrow all of the books therein for free! Not only can you borrow books, but libraries sometimes have a section of books for sale. At my library, hard cover books are $1 and paperbacks are 50 cents.

Pros: You have unlimited access to more books than you could ever read, including new releases. Wandering around a library and discovering new books is fun, And if the library doesn’t have a book you want, you can always ask them if they can get it!

Cons: There’s a limit on the amount of time you can keep a book. My library only lets me keep books for 2 weeks at a time, and then I must renew them, and I can only renew them 3 times before I have to take them back. Newer books might have long wait lists.

2. Libby, Overdrive and cloudLibrary 

These are all apps that do the same thing: They’re an extension of your library where you can check out audiobooks and ebooks, and then return them when you’re done with them. You still need to input the data on your library card to access the books.

Pros: You don’t have to drive to a building to select books. There are no library fines because the books are automatically returned when your loan expires.

Cons: The ebook and audiobook selection through your library might be limited, but again, you can always ask your library to carry a book if you can’t find it. You might wait weeks or months to check out a popular book, but if you have a long book queue like I do, the wait feels like nothing at all, and it’s a pleasant surprise when a book you’ve waited a long time for is finally loaned to you!

3. Sign up to be a volunteer reviewer 

I write for City Book Review in my spare time. Every two weeks, I’m sent a list of hundreds of books, most of which haven’t even been published yet. I can select up to 4 books on the list, and they’re mailed to me to read. After I’ve read them, I have to write between 150 to 200 words about each of them. Different review services have their own sets of rules about writing reviews.

Pros: You can get books from your favorite authors before anyone else does. You have a creative outlet and a platform for your opinions if you like to write.

Cons: Sometimes you don’t get the books you ask for if someone else has requested them before you. I use the book list mainly for discovery, so if I find a book whose title sounds interesting, I’ll go to the Goodreads page and read the synopsis. If that sounds cool, I’ll request the book. Sometimes that assessment is hit-or-miss. The worst is when I read a middling, mediocre book and I must find 200 words to say about it. You MUST review the book within a deadline. It’s very poor etiquette to swipe books from a book review service and not review them. Some of the books you get are specifically advance review copies, which cannot be resold.

4. Start a book blog and use NetGalley 

NetGalley is an ebook service publishers and authors use to generate buzz about books through online reviews. On a lot of Goodreads reviews, you might see someone say “This book was given to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.”

Pros: You can request books to read in advance of their publish dates. I’ve found some REALLY good books on NetGalley.

 Cons: You’re not guaranteed the books you ask for. Sometimes you’ll get rejected by different publishing places for different reasons. Bigger publishing houses might reject you if you don’t have a big enough social media presence, or if you have a low review percentage. Once you reach about 10 reviews almost everyone approves you, though. Getting there is the challenge.

The inside of the book exchange down the road from my house

5. Used bookstores, thrift stores and book exchanges

I’ve talked before about how I regularly purge books from my house with the Konmari method. My mindset is that once I’ve read a book, the story is in my head and I can pass it along to someone else to enjoy. One of the places I take the books I purge is a book center in Vero Beach that sells used and new books.

Pros: Used bookstores will offer you a dollar or so in store credit for each book they take from you. You can use that store credit toward new book purchases. The last time I went to a used bookstore, I traded in a handful of books for about $10, which I used toward the purchase of a new book I had on my to-read list. Obviously it’s not going to be a book-for-book exchange, but for me, a new story I’ve never read before is worth more than a bunch of stories I’ve already enjoyed. Book exchanges let you use your store credit for half of the cost of your purchase, and they normally only deal in cash.

Cons: Some book exchanges sell used books exclusively. Newer releases are difficult to find, but if there are older books you want to read, you’ll probably be able to find a copy (or several) at a used bookstore. Used bookstores don’t accept advance review copies of books.

6. Share books with your friends 

Lots of my friends live far away, and I love mailing things to them. I enjoy having impromptu Facebook book clubs with friends after I’ve shared a book I’ve read.

Pros: If you have a book you've already read, why not swap it with a friend for a new book? Do you have a teacher in your life? See if your books would be good for their classroom library. If you’re looking for a book, do a social media call-out to see if anyone would be able to lend you a copy. You get to talk about books with your friends who also have read them. Your friends probably have more books than you think.

Cons: You can't stuff your face with nachos while reading a friend's book. I mean, you COULD, but it wouldn't be very nice to return a friend's book in worse condition than when you received it. I am much more careful with my friends’ books than I am with my own. With my own books, I crack the spine, dog-ear pages, scribble in the margins, eat snacks and use my own books as drink coasters. It’s a mess. With my friends’ books, I sit perfectly still, turn the pages as delicately as possible, never crack the spine, don’t eat or drink while reading, and ALWAYS use a bookmark.

What's your favorite way to save money on books? Leave a comment or drop me a line at carynsbeachreads@gmail.com.

The 8 books I read in August, ranked

So, super cool of Neil Gaiman to retweet me last month. That was wild. Hello, new readers. Glad to hear you liked "The Unwritten" as much as I did! And "American Gods," of course.

Hurricane Dorian is banging down my door, and here I am writing about books. You know, the usual.

8. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi: This was the first book I did not finish this year because it was just so awful. It was supposed to be YA dystopian romance. The thing I find most interesting about dystopian novels is… well, the dystopia. Good or bad, I’m curious about how authors construct their dystopian society. For this one, it seemed the flimsy setting was wrapped around an even flimsier love triangle. I wasn’t into the bizarre, stream-of-consciousness whiny garbage with weird strikethrough text that's supposed to reveal the trembling inner heart of the main character. And I don’t care how pretty the covers are, they will not tempt me into reading the rest of this series.

7. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: I picked away at this book for MONTHS and I had A LOT of feelings about it. I didn’t know if I would finish it, either! First, the good: I appreciated how it seemed to predict the way anonymous bots dictate the social discourse online. The bad: I felt like Valentine got the shaft when she was one of the most brilliant characters in the book. She was called upon to nudge Ender (who got chance after chance to be brilliant and failed) in the right direction like a glorified door opener. She was forced to retire her online persona at the end because of reasons. I hated the way Valentine was treated! Her story was more interesting than whatever Ender was doing! The ugly: Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe (it’s well documented, I’m not going to Google it for you, we’re all adults) and I don’t need that regressive nonsense all up in my sci-fi, thanks.

6. Umami Bomb: 75 Vegetarian Recipes That Explode With Flavor by Raquel Pelzel: I got a copy of this cookbook on NetGalley, and the food photography is so beautiful, but I could have used some more of it! I’m eager to try some of the recipes. Meat eaters who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint through diet would enjoy this book to help transition to vegetarianism. It has a recipe for breakfast spaghetti, for crying out loud! Who wouldn't want to eat spaghetti for breakfast?

5. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon: This YA romance was constructed like a romantic comedy, and I really enjoyed listening to an audiobook of it. The awkwardness of young love made me giggle. Some of the parts where the heroes were teenager-petty made me cringe a bit. I was pleased it had a happy ending.

4. I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly: This graphic novel was recommended to me when I visited a comic book store in April in Philadelphia. It reminded me a lot of the movie plot of “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness (I want to read the book, but I haven’t yet, whoops) with a hint of “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson, which you know we all read and cried over around fourth grade or so.

3. The Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook (5th Edition) by James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb and Bruce R. Cordell: I was going to write my lengthy backstory about how I’ve wanted to learn how to play D&D for more than a decade, but that’s a lot less exciting than the lengthy backstory of my very first D&D character. Since this is "Caryn's Beach Reads" and not "Caryn's Elaborately Constructed D&D Characters," we won't get into it on this blog (yet.)

2. A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill: This is a very surprising debut book that actually comes out later this month. I read an advance copy of it, and it’s very creepy in time for fall and Halloween! If you like cosmic horror, check it out (or I’ll lend you my copy.)

1. Circe by Madeline Miller: This was the empowering story about the ancient Greek demigoddess and sorceress, Circe, who lived on one of the islands Odysseus visited in “The Odyssey.” It's an older book that I'm pretty sure everyone has read already. I'm just late to the party. I listened to the audiobook, and the woman who narrates it has a lovely speaking voice. The writing was just gorgeous. I was a little weirded out by the ending, but I appreciated some of the themes.

I’m 6 books behind my 200-book goal at this time of the year, according to Goodreads. Better step it up, Caryn, or you’ll never make your goal!