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You would think doing things legally and ethically would be common sense to people, but considering the state of the world, maybe some of us could use a refresher.
Lately I have been seeing a lot of talk on social media about influencers who are telling their followers how to get books for free… by pirating them.
Now, I think almost all of us can agree that piracy is wrong, bad, frowned upon, etc. And those who don’t agree can go sit in the corner and wait for karma to come visit.
I can hear you now asking, “Jess, if pirating books isn’t ok, then how can I possibly get FREE books to read?” and the answer to that is, MANY places!
Here are a few of my favorite ways to get free books!
- Freebooksy – Sign up for their emails and select your preferred genres and get an email every morning with free books that authors have agreed to send out to readers!
- Bookbub– Sign up for their emails and select your preferred genres and get an email every morning with free books that authors have agreed to send out to readers!
- “Stuff Your Kindle” events – Authors coordinate to mark their books down to be free on a specific day or over a period of time and then they work together to market the event to readers
- Amazon – Even when there isn’t a “Stuff Your Kindle” event going on, there are SO many books that are available for free on Amazon, you just need to search for them!
- Library – This one might surprise you, but did you know that your local library can also loan out ebooks? And with a library card, my next recommendation becomes available to you too!
- Open Library – Not all countries have access to libraries, but this is an online library that gives you access to many books right in your browser!
- Libby – Sign up with your library card and you can access even MORE ebooks that you can legally borrow for free!
- Author’s newsletters – Did you know that a LOT of your favorite authors will sometimes have free books or bonus scenes/chapters available for you to download just by joining their mailing list? Check out the back pages of your favorite ebooks to see if there are links there!
- Giveaways – This sort of goes along with author’s newsletters, but a lot of authors will do giveaways on their social media and you can get free books that way (these are not strictly ebooks!)
- Becoming an ARC reader – ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy, meaning you get a copy of the book before it’s released to the public. The generally accepted practice is that once someone receives and reads a book that they’ve gotten as an ARC reader, they will then leave a review. This helps authors promote their new releases (however it is against the law in the US for authors to REQUIRE reviews from ARC readers, and the author could be fined by the FTC) – You can find ARC opportunities by joining your favorite authors newsletters, following them on social media, or by joining one of the many websites dedicated to connecting ARC readers with authors.
I am sure there are many, many others out there, but these are the methods I am the most familiar with.
Let me know in the comments if you know of any other legal ways to get free romance ebooks!