One of my favorite things to do in all of the world is to sit back in my recliner and read a good book. I have books all over the house (much to the chagrin of my lovely wife). If I had to guess, I probably read between 40-50 books a year. As you can imagine, that can get very expensive over time. If the average book costs $20, that would be close to $1000 in yearly expenses (ouch).
My first attempt to curb some of these expenses was to spend more time at the library checking out some of these books instead of buying them. That isn’t a bad plan and I still do that from time to time. There is one major problem with this plan: I can’t underline, highlight, and write notes in these books. Now, this was okay for those books that I really wan’t all that into, but when you come across one of those life changing books this just will not work!
One of my favorite habits is to mark, underline, and highlight in books. I love to do this when I read an awesome story, illustration, or powerful truth. In order to make these easily accessible to me in the future, I take a picture of those special pages with my Evernote app on my iPhone. I can then upload it automatically into Evernote and all of the text on those pages are “keyword searchable.” I love that.
How to Get Free Books Online
Many of you may or may not realize this, but there are ways that you can get free books online. I am not talking about out-of-print or even those that have fallen into the creative common license category. The books that I am talking about our brand new books by established authors (many times even before they are delivered to the public). Here are three ways to help you get free books.
1. Write to publishing companies and let them know that you are a blogger.
Obviously, for this to work you will need to have a somewhat established blog (If you do not have a blog, keep reading). You do not need 1,000 of monthly readers to get a publisher to send you free “review copies.” All you need to do is write to them letting them know that you would be happy to review any recent books on both your blog and on a site like Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. This is essentially free/low-cost advertisement for them . You should give it a try.
2. Apply for an account with BookSneeze.com.
This is one of my favorite sources for free books and I have been using them for a long time. You will need to have a blog in order to get approved. I already had several established blogs so approval for me was a simple process. My wife really wanted to get some free books so what we did was opened a free blogger account. She took out about 3 or 4 of her favorite books and wrote a 200 to 300 word review article. We did all of this before we tried applying for an account. Once approved, you can select as many categories as you have an interest for. Some of the categories include fiction, non-fiction, Christian Living, Inspirational, Business, Money, etc. You can also select whether you want an electronic copy or a physical copy in the mail. There is nothing like getting a free book sent to your address! After you read the book, you have to write a simple review on your blog and at retailer like Amazon.com.
3. Apply for an account with Blogging for Books.
Blogging for Books is another free book program for bloggers. I just recently signed up with them, but I am pleased with the site so far. Blogging for Books is run by a publisher called Waterbrook Multnomah. They produce may top-selling books every year as well. The sign-up process is essentially the same as above.
As you can see there are many ways that you can get access to free books. If you enjoy reading, then fill your craving with the free route for awhile. Many of these books would have been ones I would have purchased from many of my favorite authors such as John Maxwell, Max Lucado, Andy Andrews and many others.
If you are a blogger and receive free books, where do you get them from?