How to read ebooks for free (without resorting to piracy)

Let’s be honest, books are expensive. I’ve heard this as an excuse for why readers need to pirate books, but pirates are only attractive in fiction, not when they’re stealing fiction. And authors work hard enough, you do not need to be stealing their work! (Says the newbie author who’s been figuring out exactly how hard the whole process is.)

But what if I told you you could read ebooks for FREE without resorting to piracy? My Kindle is stuffed with books, and I’ve only spent my own money on an ebook once (and that was an emergency XD).

Criminally underrated Prime feature

First of all, get a trial of Amazon Prime or Prime Young Adult. (If you can do Prime Student, go for it because it’s half the price if you don’t cancel the subscription).

When you have Prime, you get faster shipping from Amazon. But there’s also an option to get your orders shipped slightly less quickly (like a day or two later) as part of their like climate initiative stuff, and get money to use toward online Amazon purchases! When you go to check out, you will see options for when your items can be shipped, and all you have to do is click the option for Amazon Day Delivery to get the rewards. These rewards can then be used to buy books!!!!

Amazon offers a free trial of up to six months of Prime and Prime Young Adult, and once your trial has finished, it is pretty easy to cancel your membership if you don’t want to pay for it!

Prime young adultAmazon primeKindle Rewards

Did you know that Amazon can give you reward points when you buy books from them? Once you have 300 points, you can redeem it for $3 to go toward an ebook! Amazon also counts using your Amazon Delivery Day rewards towards your Kindle rewards, so that’ll get you free books even faster!

Kindle rewardsKindle Unlimited Trial

This one I feel like is the most well-known, but I’ll share it anyway. You can try a free trial of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited! In Kindle Unlimited you can borrow ebooks like from a library (except with zero wait times!). Once your trial has ended, you can cancel your membership. I know I’ve done the trial of KU, and then when I have a less busy month, I’ve restarted my membership just for that month.

Kindle unlimitedSales and author newsletters

My final tip: if you don’t like the price of an ebook, wait and follow the author’s newsletter and social media in the meantime (especially if the author is an indie author).

Authors put their books (ebooks especially) on sale fairly frequently. If you don’t like the price of an author’s ebook, wait. Authors will announce when their books go on sale, and when they do, take advantage of the sales! Lots of my favorite authors will put their books on sale for 99¢ (or even free) on Amazon!

Coupled with the other strategies, you will maximize how many ebooks you can acquire legally without paying a dime!

What did I miss? Are there any other ways you know of (legally) to save money on ebooks? Let me know in the comments!

This post contains affiliate links. If you use one of my links, I will receive a percentage of the sale, at no extra cost to you! Essentially, you can buy a book, and support my blog at the same time!!!

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