Wednesday, December 30, 2015

How to read without going broke

When one reads 3ish books a week, how does one not go broke buying books?  Here is how I access books.


LIBRARY!!!!  

Now this is two fold.  I adore page turning, scented like old stuff, hard copy, books.  That said, I am perfectly happy to read via my computer or tablet (in my case Kindle).  I have legit read through the YA section of my library.  I started in the A's and went all the way through.  I work in a different town than I live, so I got a library card there too.  Many of the same books, lots of new ones.
Sometimes libraries have access to a digital book check out system.  My great and adored Hastings Public Library has Overdrive.  It goes to my phone, kindle, desktop... they sync to where I have read, it is grand.  Oh and FREEEEE!  So I would say a vast majority of my books have come from the Library.

Bookbub

This is a great service that is free and allows you to search for books that are free or dramatically price reduced.  Some of the books offered are gateway drug books, in that they offer the first book to a series free hoping you will get hooked on the series and buy the rest.  Others are actual classics or great read steals.  You can create an account and limit the number of emails that they send.  I get a weekly email with books that fit in my reading criteria range.


Amazon/Google Books/Apple

So anywhere you can buy e-books usually has searchable parameters.  Here I did a search for books released in the last 90 days, teens and YA, then organized from cost: low to high.  I've got 10+ pages of free books.  Now, I'm not particularly picky about what I read.  I will start about anything.  My favorite series (after HP of course) I found while procrastinating writing a paper in school... the book cover had shiny on it.  If my blog title doesn't explain, glitter is my favorite color and I love shiny.  (The Stravaganza series btw).  Try a book, give it a chapter to pull you in.  If no love, no problem...it was free.

Project Gutenberg

This offers tons upon tons of books.  Many are transcribed using volunteers and that is magic.  This is a free site.  Just check it out.


Goodreads

The more you read, the more you may forget what you read.  Goodreads is a fantastic website with book tracking, listing, following groups or authors, finding or saving book quotes, TONS.


Calibre

This is useful for when the book you found for free isn't in the format you want/need.  It is an e-book manager, and may be useful to you.

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