{UPDATED FOR 2016 as I wanted to add in some more places you can find free kindle books}
According to the date I first published this post, I’ve had my Kindle for coming up to four years now and it’s still going strong despite being used on a daily basis. Mr Frugal has tried to get me to replace it so many times to one of the newer models but I love the basic one that I have so there’s no point upgrading it when I only want to use it to read my books!
If you don’t have a Kindle but you’re interested in getting one then their cheapest new one is this one here at £59.99 but there are refurbs showing in the Kindle store for less than that so it’s worth having a look around if you’re not bothered about the latest model.
Before I got my Kindle I used to have boxes of books sitting in the garage, some more piled under my bed and that’s on top of an overflowing bookcase. I also used to be quite limited to the authors that I would read and tended to stick to the same authors and book genres.
These days, the books are all long gone and I find time to read in bed almost every night before I go to sleep which I couldn’t do comfortably before as I like to lie on my side when I read in bed and actual books make it difficult to get comfortable. I can easily go through four books a week as I’m quite a quick reader so some of the resources for free kindle books that I first shared here in 2012 have been invaluable to me over the years as I worked my way through a library’s worth of books.
My Kindle is also pretty well travelled having been on every trip that I’ve taken since I got it. Here it is enjoying itself with a Pina Colada in Cyprus earlier this year….
Thanks to all of the free kindle books I’ve discovered, I’ve tried lots of new authors and read books that I never would have read before having my Kindle – mainly because I don’t mind taking a chance downloading free kindle books that I’m not sure I’ll like but I wouldn’t pay for one.
I still only use the Kindle book store to download books as that’s all I’m really familiar with and I’ve never ran out of choice on there yet so I haven’t had to explore the other sites that offer free kindle books. You can find books by all of your favourite authors in the Kindle book store but the newer books are priced quite closely to shop prices if you ask me. The older books by popular authors are also quite expensive considering you could pick a copy up in a charity shop for not much more than a pound.
I like to keep my Kindle well stocked with books so I use a mixture of the free kindle books that I’ll go into below as well as having a Kindle Unlimited membership which I pay monthly for and gives me access to so many more books. I’d say this is only worth it if you read as much as I do
Anyway, on to the free kindle books I promised….
* I find most of my free books by looking for them myself on the Kindle Book store. I start by looking at the Kindle 100 Bestsellers lists – there’s the top 100 free list and the top 100 paid for and there’s often some really good books in the free list. Have a quick look at the paid for list as well because you might find some really good books that cost 20p for a limited time. Once I’ve checked there I do the same in the Romance category as I love a bit of a romantic escape. 😉
* The Amazon Kindle discussions threads are a great source of free books. Among all of the query and question threads on there, you’ll find at least one thread a day where some lovely people have combed the Kindle book store and listed lots of interesting freebies.
* Facebook Groups like this one often come up with some good free reads so they’re worth checking every couple of days.
* If you’re a member of Amazon Prime, one of the benefits is now access to the Kindle lending library. I’m not sure what other benefits you get with Amazon Prime but I definitely wouldn’t join just for this service as it costs £79.00!
* The sites I’ve never used but have heard a lot about are Bookbub, Project Gutenberg and Open Library which have many thousands of books to download completely free of charge. Some you can download straight to your Kindle and some will need to be downloaded to your PC or laptop and then transferred to your Kindle using a USB cable.
* Not free but don’t forget to check out the Kindle Daily Deal – you can find the link to it on the Kindle book store page each day. The books featured here are usually reduced to under a pound and they’re often more recently released books or books by more popular authors. I just bought the new Marian Keyes book for 99p as a Daily Deal!
I hope you find lots of free kindle books and that you find the time to relax and simply enjoy reading. 😉
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