As anybody who reads my Balancing the Books posts will know, I do not spend a lot of money on books. Or rather, I do not spend a lot of money given the number of books I acquire each week. I realise that what I think is not much, might be somebody else’s idea of a lot. But, what I’m going to share over the coming posts are my tips on making your book money go further. These posts relate largely to online services for e-books and audiobooks, but not exclusively. They are also the options that I use as a UK based blogger. It’s not a blanket coverage of resources, but purely those that I use and that are freely open for anybody else to use ie no signing up for ARC’s or NetGalley for example.
For some of you, what I post will be the equivalent of teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs, but these posts are for those who perhaps haven’t got a full grasp of what we might think of as the basics. As book bloggers we interact with books all the time, we know our way around the bookish internet and we know where to look. However, a recent conversation at my local book group alerted me to the fact that there are a lot of people that don’t. So this is really for others in the same boat.
Before I do go any further I think it needs to be stated, quite clearly, I AM NOT, advocating that books should be free, or even cheap. I know that authors sweat blood and tears over their art, and they need to be paid for doing that the same as anybody else. I’m aware that some authors/publishers are happy to offer a discounted book, to attract new readers and hopefully acquire a continuing reader. That option frequently works for me, I will go on to buy more from an author and happily shout out about their books. I’m also aware that they can also be surprised (not always happily) to discover Amazon for example has offered their book on promotion. So with that said the options and methodologies I’ll refer to are all established, freely available and above all LEGAL.
Index
o-o-O-o-o
Use Your Library
As an ex librarian I would say this, but if your lucky to have a local library use it where you can. The added advantage of borrowing from your library means an author still gets paid under the Public Lending Right Scheme. This is how it works :-
The Public Lending Right (PLR) Scheme provides authors with an income of up to £6,600 a year from loans of their books from public libraries in the UK and pays out more than £6 million annually. The rate paid to authors for each loan is calculated by dividing the total money available by the estimated total annual number of loans in public libraries.
The PLR Scheme currently specifies that the number of loans is to be determined by means of a sample, with data from 30 councils used to assist payment calculations. These new changes will see the British Library move towards collecting comprehensive loans data from all library authorities in the UK to ensure authors are getting their fair share.
This means that the more of their books are loaned out by public libraries, the more income an author will receive through the Scheme.
(Gov.UK press release dated 10th Oct 2022 – Library book loan payment scheme updated to benefit authors)
So borrow from your library and it’s win/win. Where it ceases to be free, as in my authority, is when you might want to reserve a book that isn’t on your libraries shelves. In my case I have to pay £1.25, others may be less, (hopefully not more) and some enlightened authorities offer free reservations.
Register for free eBooks, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines.
Most library authorities are signed up to an online platform to offer an online service to readers. All you need to sign up is a current library card and your PIN. The most common platform for e-books and audiobooks is Borrowbox but there is also Libby which my authority uses to offer an extensive range of magazine titles. In the US Libby is the main platform for e-books and audiobooks.
With a virtual library there are no charges as you’re borrowing from a ‘virtual’ shelf that isn’t restricted by branch. Plus, there are no fines as once your loan time is up, it’s automatically returned, unless you choose to renew it. What it is restricted by though, is the licence. If the platform has only one copy of an e-book, it can still only ‘lend’ it to one person at a time. Consequently, waiting lists can get quite long for popular books. But, just as with library shelves, just find something else to keep you occupied in the meantime. Please be aware that in the UK you cannot download these to read on a Kindle eReader, you need to read via the app. Amazon do however have their own Borrowbox app for reading on a Kindle Fire tablet.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is an ongoing project that currently has over 75,000 e-books and audiobooks. It is a platform relying on volunteers to proofread and digitise older works for which the US copyright has expired. What this means is that many of the books we view as ‘classics’ are available to download or read online. The following list of the Top 100 titles over the last 7 days will give you a flavour of what’s available.
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (23588)
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville (19262)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (11934)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (11904)
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (11711)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (10217)
A Doll’s House : a play by Henrik Ibsen (8874)
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (8152)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (8030)
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster (7836)
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde (7816)
Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott (7587)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (7387)
War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (6994)
The Blue Castle: a novel by L. M. Montgomery (6874)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim (6852)
Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services (6672)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (6299)
Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (6194)
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. Smollett (6117)
History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (6023)
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. Smollett (5963)
The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. Smollett (5889)
My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner (5784)
Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet (5719)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (5641)
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (5562)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (5477)
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (5427)
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (5105)
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë (4902)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (4891)
Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (4731)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (4723)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (4711)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (4413)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (4303)
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (4223)
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (4167)
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (4166)
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (3965)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (3906)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet (3779)
Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm (3735)
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (3673)
Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (3575)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (3548)
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (3407)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain (3395)
Second Treatise of Government by John Locke (3209)
The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson (3208)
Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem (3057)
Moby Word Lists by Grady Ward (3022)
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (2928)
White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2926)
The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine (2897)
Dubliners by James Joyce (2884)
Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust (2829)
Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (2681)
The divine comedy by Dante Alighieri (2656)
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (2643)
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (2638)
The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous (2538)
Plays by Susan Glaspell (2532)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (2525)
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe (2484)
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens (2442)
The Philippines a Century Hence by José Rizal (2336)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (2314)
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (2309)
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (2308)
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (2301)
Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy (2293)
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (2276)
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (2271)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (2257)
Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius (2199)
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (2146)
Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift (2135)
History of Christian names by Charlotte M. Yonge (2125)
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana (2089)
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (2087)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (2073)
Macbeth by William Shakespeare (2056)
Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa by Cândido de Figueiredo (2014)
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (2012)
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare (1971)
Josefine Mutzenbacher by Felix Salten (1959)
Le Morte d’Arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory (1957)
Paradise Lost by John Milton (1954)
The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle (1953)
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (1953)
Using Amazon
I’m well aware that some people choose not to tangle with Amazon, and that’s fine, we all make our own choices. The reality is though, that Amazon’s Kindle e-readers hold the market share, though specific figures are hard to pin down, one media outlet estimated it to be as high as 80%. That may well reduce, as readers move away from dedicated e-readers to reading on tablets and phones. At this point I feel I should point out, what might be obvious, but you don’t need a Kindle e-reader to read Kindle e-books. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard someone say, I can’t take advantage of your bargain recommendations because I don’t have a Kindle. Simple solution – just download the Kindle app to your phone, your tablet, your PC even your iPad!
Once you’ve done that here’s the simplest way of accessing free books,
For anybody wanting to know how to find this themselves, I did start typing out the steps except I then realised that depending on what you’re using to search on, the interface changes. What I see on my PC is not what I see on my phone, and bizarrely using my phone I don’t get a list of free books at all! So I might need to re-think that.
Amazon Prime & First Reads
If you already have Amazon Prime then you can also take advantage of a revolving catalogue of over 1000 books, magazines, comics, Kindle singles and more. The titles offered cover fiction, non-fiction, children’s and short works. Simply use it as a mini-library to borrow what you want. You are limited to a maximum of 10 titles at any one time, so simply return them to borrow more. There is no limit on the number of books you can actually read. This is different from Kindle Unlimited (we’ll look at that later) as there is no charge to register/join. It comes as part of your Prime subscription.
Amazon Prime subscribers can also benefit via the Amazon First Reads program. This offers a selection of editor’s picks ahead of publication along with a short story. Prime members can download one book and the short story free (non members pay 99p). However, if you share your Prime membership with someone in your household, then you can double your book allocation. I download my choice of book, sign out, sign in with my OH’s account as he is my nominated household member and choose another so it’s possible to get two free books a month. In the month’s that Amazon allows Prime members two books, then it’s possible to download four. These books are yours to keep.
Amazon Prime is currently £8.99 per month or £95 year, so it’s not worth subscribing just for the free books, you’ll see why when I look at Kindle Unlimited.
o-o-O-o-o
I think that’s enough for starters. I’ll be coming back to Amazon and how to make the most of it for bargains. I’ll also be looking at other platforms/outlets offering free and bargain books, as well as looking at subscription models for e-books and audiobooks.
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
