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I bought my kindle from amazon over six years ago. First, I bought the original kindle. A few years later, I bought the Kindle Paperwhite. I have been delighted with both. it’s great to travel with all my e-books in my pocket and not have five or more heavy books in my luggage.
You are reading: Cheap books on kindle
Over the years, I’ve bought and read over 150 books on my kindle. At the time, I thought it was very cheap. and, in fact, I was saving money compared to printed books. I now realize this may not have been cheap.
For the frugal folks, there’s a big problem with kindle books: you can’t buy used kindle books. In the last two years, I have hardly bought any kindle ebooks. instead, I bought a lot of used books. there’s a thrift store near my current job. I probably bought over 40 books during this time. i bought them for less than 2chf each on average. and I only bought books in very good condition.
The problem is the space used by second-hand books! my library is full and the books are piling up! I’m going to build a new shelf to store them all. but after a while, the new one will also be full. I really don’t mind having a lot of books at home. the main problem is when traveling. If I need several books, it’s a hassle to carry them.
so I mainly bought kindle ebooks for travel. but there are still so many advantages for my kindle. therefore i have been looking for ways to find cheap kindle books. here are ten simple tricks to find cheap ebooks for kindle.
1. rent ebooks with kindle unlimited
One thing you can do with paper books is to rent them. Obtaining books from your local public library is much less expensive than if you had to buy them all. in fact, the more you read, the more interesting it is to rent books instead of buying them.
Did you know you can do the same thing with Kindle eBooks? not many people know about it, but you can rent kindle ebooks for much cheaper.
several services offer this. but the one i prefer is kindle unlimited service. It is the official service of amazon. allows you to rent up to 10 e-books at a time. once you want new ebooks, you have to return another one.
It’s a great service if you read a lot. you can try it free for 30 days. after that, it will cost you $9.99 per month. the monthly price is a little more than the average price of an electronic book. so if you buy more than one eBook a month, this is the way to go!
Unfortunately, this service is not available in all countries. But it’s available in the US and Europe!
2. tracking kindle book deals with ereaderiq
Recently, I found some personal finance e-books with discounts of up to 80%. I immediately bought some. I was lucky to find these discounts. So, I was wondering if we could track these discounts? turns out we can!
Recently, I found out about ereaderiq. this service is pretty amazing. this website offers many things. On the home page, you can search for discounted books. for example, you can find books that are at least 50% cheaper than usual:
As you can see, you can even find free ebooks! There are many search options to refine your search.
And that’s not all. you can also track the price of a book. for example, you can receive an email when a book you want is below a certain price or has a discount. For example, here are some personal finance books I’m expecting a 50% discount on:
You can also track authors to watch for all their books at once.
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I can’t believe I haven’t found ereaderiq before. ereaderiq is a free service. You do not have to pay anything. but ereaderiq relies on donations. so give it a try and if you get good discounts, consider giving them back a bit. I got some good deals on investment books with it.
3. kindle daily deals
a great way to save money on kindle books is to follow daily kindle deals. Every day, there are new deals on some books. And you can sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss any!
You can find some nice savings here. But since it is a daily deal, you cannot wait one day to think about it. It is not the place where I found the best deals. But it is worth checking it.
now, there is a problem with this technique if you are not an american amazon customer. offers are for each amazon site. if you are on amazon.fr, like me, you will find another page with offers. but, that does not prevent you from buying one from another country. often discounted english books on amazon.com are also discounted for me if i buy on amazon.fr. you have to change the website and search again. sometimes they may not be available in your country. It’s not a big deal, but it’s not convenient either. I wish amazon would unify all of their websites somehow.
4. kindle monthly deals
amazon also offers monthly deals on kindle e-books. These offers last one month. and there are a lot of them. As I write this post, there are nearly 600 discounted e-books out there. It is a great place to find a good deal. you can filter by category of books. For example, here are some business books for sale:
You will see that discounts vary a lot from one book to another. It is a good idea to check this page once a month to find the right deals. You can also subscribe to the newsletter. So you will directly receive it in your inbox every month. No more excuses!
again, if you’re from another amazon website, you’ll need to find the link in your country. I don’t understand why they make it so complicated and different for each country.
5. kindle countdown deals
amazon offers yet another page for deals: kindle countdown deals. this time, each agreement has a duration. the duration can be one day or several days; depends. here are some examples:
I did not find a lot of good deals here for me. But you may be luckier than me. It is generally new writers that want to increase their audience. There are tons of deals here (more than 2000 when I checked). The problem is that you cannot subscribe. So you will have to check from time to time.
6. kindle read first
the last page on amazon where you can find deals is kindle first read. this page has some offers (6 now). they are all for $1.99. but you can only choose one each month. And they were all hand-picked by Amazon editors. they are generally great books.
You only have to check it once per month. If you want, you can also subscribe to their newsletter to make sure you never miss a good deal.
7. free public domain e-books
This tip is one of my favorite frugal tips. if you like some classic (and old) authors, you might be in luck. some works are now in the public domain. it means that the intellectual property of these books is now free!
The exact time after which a work is released to the public depends on the country. For example, in the United States, all works prior to 1923 are now in the public domain. you can find some of them on the cheap reads for kindle page.
For instance, I have read many Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas books for free. These are French writers. But, you could also enjoy some Edgar Allan Poe. I am sure you can find some great books for free as well!
Of course, you won’t find free paperbacks, as people still have to pay for paper and printing. but for kindle ebooks, there are many free or very cheap ebooks in the public domain.
another great place to get public domain books for free is project gutenberg. this website has more than 60’000 free e-books. you can find great books by authors like arthur conan doyle, bram stoker or charles dickens. project gutenberg is probably the best place to get classic books.
8. read books from around the world
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Most readers focus on US bestsellers. but there are tons of great writers all over the world. And some of these books are often cheaper than the best sellers!
One great way to find cheap Kindle ebooks from international authors is to go on Amazon Crossing.
amazon crossing is a great way to find authors you’re not used to reading. And many of these kindle ebooks are very cheap. If you are an avid reader, I would recommend this service to broaden your horizons.
9. use your local library
Many libraries are starting to offer access to e-books. if you’re lucky, your local library will provide such a service. In that case, this is a great way to get your books. you can pay a subscription and you can get many books every month.
and with this, you can also get paperback whenever you want. If you have a good local library, you’ll also have access to video games, DVDs, and audiobooks.
Getting e-books from your local library is an option that many people (including me) often overlook. But local libraries aren’t always limited to paper books. try asking your local library for their offerings before you dismiss this idea!
10. change to another country
This last tip is a bit less convenient. e-books are priced differently depending on each country’s amazon website. sometimes they can be much cheaper in one country than another.
for example, many e-books are cheaper in india. but you can only buy e-books in the country where you have registered your kindle. what you can do is change your kindle device to another country. then you can buy from the amazon website of this other country. For example, for India, you can buy e-books on Amazon.in. once you want to buy again in your country, you have to change back.
I’ve never used this technique, but a lot of people are using it. you can read more about it on backpack.me, for example.
You should be aware that if you move to another country, you may lose connections to other accounts. For example, if you share books with your family, you can stop sharing when you move to a new country.
cheap kindle ebooks conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to save money on Kindle eBooks. If you’re patient and look around, you can find cheap kindle ebooks online.
The easiest way is to subscribe to all amazon offers. there are some very good deals and you may end up buying cheap books. the other way is to use ereaderiq to receive alerts. if you are patient and follow the different offers, you can buy kindle ebooks at incredible prices. With these tips, I’ve found eBooks that are as cheap as used books.
and if you like some classic authors like twain or dickens, you can find lots of free books! Public domain books are cheaper digital than paperback!
I have the kindle paperwhite. but these tips will work with any kindle you have.
Just because they’re cheap doesn’t mean you should buy them all! only buy good deals if you know you’re going to read them. we have to be frugal! unless they’re free, in which case you have more freedom.
and you? how do you get cheap e-books?
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