How to Get Free Books to Read - No Gimmicks

Living costs are at an all-time high, leaving little extra money for hobbies like reading. Getting free books is a useful trick when you want to read without spending money. There are several ways to get free books. Even better, some of these five ways to get free books let you score books you can keep. Some books may be physical copies while others are e-books. It's even possible to get free books to read before the rest of the reading population. Who doesn't love early access to stuff?

So grab your reading glasses, your favorite reading beverage, and let's talk about getting free books to read.

Reading for reviewing

Do you find yourself analyzing stories as you read them? Do you enjoy sharing thoughts about the books you read with others? Are you the person who loves to leave feedback on products you've used?

Becoming a book reviewer is a great way to share your opinions on what you've read. Other readers often use book reviews as a way to decide if they want to read a story. Bad reviews can be the death of a book. Or it could spark a rebellious imagination and inspire someone to read the story to see if they agree.

There are plenty of sites that provide book promotion services like book reviewing that are in need of new reviewers. And it's a great way to grow your audience, whether you have a blog or a social media presence.

Signing up for free book sites

Did you know that there are legitimate websites where you can sign up to read free books?
Sites like Project Gutenberg and The Online Books Page offer users access to thousands of free books, from public domain works to classic stories. You can also find free books from your favorite e-book providers like Amazon Kindle Store, which offers over 80,000 free titles.

Smashwords is a great source of free books if you enjoy reading works by undiscovered authors who go the self-publishing route. Goodreads is also a great place to find free books to read and review. And it's easy to keep your books organized, from what you have read to what you want to read. Think of Goodreads as social media for authors. They love updating their profiles and communicating with their readers.

Borrow from Open Library

Open Library is a not-for-profit website that works like an online library database open to all contributors. Think of it like Wikipedia for published books. The site's goal is to have a web page dedicated to every published book ever. Quite a lofty ambition, but we're for it if it means accessing millions of books online. The catch for using Open Library is you have to "borrow" the books you want to read. Once you "borrow" a book, you have a limited time to finish reading it before you lose access. The reason Open Library is so great is that you can read books that have been published in print and converted into digital form.

Get books from Google

Google is a useful resource for nearly every aspect of our lives, from our emails to our calendars to our internet searches. You can find tons of games, music, and movies. But did you know Google also lets you read tons of books for free? With a Google account, you can access over 10 million books to download on your electronic devices with Google Books.

Become a beta reader

Do you enjoy working behind the scenes on stories, and giving your feedback to help make a book the best it can be? Before books get published, many publishers and authors use beta readers to get feedback on a story. Beta readers get access to the first draft of a story and can play a significant role in how the story turns out. You can sometimes get credit in a book after it's published too. And because you're involved in the pre-publication process, you often get free copies of the book once it's in print or digital form.

Use These Five Methods to Get Free Books

It's super-easy to get free books to read when you follow these five tips. Now is the perfect time of year to grab free books. You can save money on your reading addiction to prepare your bank account for the upcoming holiday season.