As an author, I spend more money than I would like to admit on ebooks, books and audio books. I enjoy reading them and they help me hone my skills as a writer too.
But recently I discovered a couple ways in which you can legally download free kindle books, including how you can get the new or popular ones as well. It will save me a bunch of money and I hope it can save you money too.
These methods for how to download eBooks for free (or practically free) are legitimate and explained in detail below.
1. Get Unlimited Free Ebooks or Audiobooks From Playster for a Month
Playster is like Audible–but better! Playster has a monthly ebook or audiobook subscription that comes with unlimited ebooks or audiobooks every month. There are no limits or credits to mess with, which I love.
You can try out it out for completely free for an entire month and if you don’t like it, you can cancel your subscription before having to pay…but you still got one full month of ebook reading under you belt for absolutely free. You will need an email address and PayPal or credit card information to sign up, but you are free to cancel anytime.
2. Get Free eBook from Kobo
Kobo eBook readersJust for creating an account, Kobo will give you $5 towards your first book (that costs greater than $5.01), including new releases and bestsellers. They have over 5 million books to choose from, including my all-time favorite book: Ready Player One. You can search by genre, new release, or see what’s trending now to pick out your practically free book from Kobo.
This Kobo deal is a serious opportunity for you to make money too. If you join their referral program, like I did, you can earn a commission just by sharing this awesome deal with others. That’s what any smart authorpreneur would do, so enjoy!
3. Audible Free Audiobook Downloads
The other big player in audiobooks is Audible, a great service through Amazon that allows you to download and listen to audiobooks. Like Playster, Audible also offers a completely free trial. And Audible has just about every audiobook you can imagine in their library.
Take advantage of this free offer so you can get 2 more audiobooks for free simply by signing up for Audible’s free 1-month trial. Then, after your trial is over, if you don’t want to pay for the audiobook service, you can simply cancel and you owe them nothing.
4. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is an online community organization that finds legitimate ebooks online and publishes them on their site.
You can choose from over 56,000 free ebooks to download or read online.
Most of their collection includes classics and ebooks who either have no copyright or those books that lost their copyright over the years. Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and The World’s Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents are among the Top 100 downloaded.
5. Permafree and Promotional Free Offers on Big Sites
Amazon Kindle Free Popular Classics
Big sites like Amazon, Google Play, and Kobo have sections in their store where they highlight both permanently free ebooks, known as permafree, and also those books that are currently at the price of zero for promotional purposes.
Using this method you can find a ton of non-fiction and fiction, including popular books looking to make that ‘push’ up in the sales metrics.
6. Free Ebook Trial Through Amazon Prime
If you already have an Amazon Prime membership, the service known for shipping over 100 million products directly to your doorstep in two days or less, you can read free books too.
Through Amazon Prime Reading, prime members have unlimited access to thousands of books, magazines, comics, and books with audible narration. Even if you don’t have a Kindle device, you can access Amazon’s free Kindle books with the Kindle apps for iOS and Android.
If you don’t have Amazon Prime, you can get a free trial for 30 days to enjoy all the benefits, including borrowing free kindle books for a month.
7. Check Out Online Libraries
Believe it or not, but public libraries are changing with the times.
Most libraries now feature on online electronic book section where you can check out an ebook with your library card, just like you would a paper version.
Just jump online, search for an available ebook, click and read. Then after a predetermined amount of time, the library will remove the book from your ebook device. It’s pretty simple and completely free. Just check out your local libraries and see which ebooks you can borrow for free.
Best Ways to Get Free Ebooks Legitimately
As you can see, there are many ways to find excellent books online, ranging from new and developing works of art to New York Times bestsellers.
You can get unlimited free books for a month from Playster, access your local library online, use one of the many legitimate directories for free Ebooks, or just hit up the promotional deals from big vendors like Amazon and Google Play.
You can also make a few bucks yourself after you use your free $5 on Kobo by signing up and sharing the offer with other book lovers you know.
Over To You
What are your favorite ways to get free ebooks online? Are there any other ways? Add your comment below!
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I Enjoyed Your Website! I Love Books & You Offered In Depth Ways To Read Books. You Gave Great Stores I Could Go To, Or Use An E-Book On The Go. You Gave A Great Tutorial On How To Read E-Books For New Users. Overall, The Site Has Very Informative Information.
Hi, Kierra!
Thanks for your kind words. I am glad you liked the post, and the blog in general.
Please let me know If you would like to see anything specific
Regards,
Marios
Ah, this is exactly what I needed.
I’m a newbie writer in the middle of writing my first novel, and I love to read to learn how other authors craft their manuscript.
But between financing my novel for publishing in the future, and buying books to read, it’s really taking a toll on my wallet.
Playster is something I will definitely check out. Thanks for the awesome list of alternatives for getting e-books.
Hi Kashia!
I’m glad I could help 🙂 Yes, Playster is a great source of free books, as is Kindle Unlimited.
Good luck with your writing. Is there anything you want to see on the blog that will help you with your writing?
Marios
Love, your article. It helped me tremendously. It was to the point and it opened my eyes to some really exciting ways on how to get free ebooks.
I can see my collection really growing here.Playster looks like an attractive option for me, as there is one one fee involvled.
The only problem now, is that I need to fine the time to read all of these books.
Thanks for the help.
Regards
Roopesh
Hi Roopesh!
Yup, Playster is a great idea, as is Kindle Unlimited. You can also find free books on other sites as well.
As for the time, If you find a way to increase it, let me know 🙂
Marios
Wow, I did not know that there was such a variety of ways to get free ebooks. Everybody loves free stuff. Out of all the offers you provided Us in this review I particularly like the one from the public library. It seems to be the simplest way to go. I just hope they have ebooks with business and marketing. Could you answer the following question by email I’m curious as to out of all the office you have shown are any of the books available to giveaway?
Hey Maurice,
This is a great question! I’ll answer this one here, as well as by email. You can start by searching Google for books in your public library. Then, you can use Libby or this chrome browser extension to buy or borrow the book from your public library.
Thanks for stopping by!
Marios
This is a great list for book lovers! Ebooks and ebook subscriptions can get expensive so it’s really nice to know that there are ways to get books for free.
Do these options include textbooks because textbooks, especially hard cover ones, are incredibly expensive. When I was a student, I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for the best deal I could find on a book. Sometimes I was lucky enough to find a full pdf online for free, but that was rare. If these sites included textbooks in these deals, that would be a game changer!
Hey Taylor,
I’m not sure if these options cover textbooks. Indeed, textbooks, as well as good business books, are quite expensive and don’t get to be on sale often. You can always use your local library though. Libby and Google Search are good ways to start exploiting the libraries. Also, if you buy books on Amazon, you can use this great browser extension to save money.
Thanks for stopping by!
Marios
This is a great article because I have been looking into getting free Ebooks for my students. I really like that you give details about the products and the ways people can get these free Ebooks. I will bookmark your post because I need to share this with my colleagues because unfortunately our students don’t have access to as much technology as we would like them to during class and after school.
Thank you for gathering such a value information!
Hey Victor,
I’m really glad you’ve found this post helpful. I think that, for you, Project Gutenberg might be very, very, useful.
Thanks for stopping by!
Marios
Hey, Marios! I too am a total sucker for books. Judging by your liking of Ready Player One I assume you’re into all kinds of them, I’m more of a self-help oriented type of book lover. For me the fact that knowledgeful people that have put their entire lives into mastering one craft provides you with the essentials of their knowledge within a 200-300 page book is just mind boggling.
In that sense e-books are such a good way to be able to acquire any book in the world in a matter of minutes or even seconds. I do live in a lonely part of Europe, so for me focusing my attention more on to e-books is only of great benefit. 🙂
I have heard of Playster before, will definitely check out what it has to offer. Feeling excited.
Thank you for all the knowledge shared and all the insights, I truly appreciate all of it!
Cheers and have a Great One!
Matiss
Hey Matiss,
I can empathize with you. Living in European island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it was difficult for me to have access in all the books I wanted to. Luckily, the Internet and the rise of eBooks, made that possible.
Check out some other ways to Find Free Kindle eBooks, easily! It might help you!
Thanks,
Marios
I love getting free ebooks.I have been reading books from the library for years.
Now I just get the ebooks so that I no longer have to go to the library to get them or to return them. They also have a ton of audiobooks that you can listen to for free, as well. I love being able to listen to the free audiobooks while going out.
They always have a great selection but sometimes you just have to wait for the book that you want because other people want it too, but It’s worth waiting to get it for free.
Hey Shy,
If you are a library fun, check Libby, as well as Google search. It shows eBooks in local libraries.
Glad you are a bibliophile, like me!
Marios
hello, I love your website and the information you provide on the ebooks . I am a lover of books and I love reading online. Resdily I will check all the ways you suggested and I will get in touch..
In the meantime, lets do some readings. You are doing great.
Hey there,
I’m glad you liked the post. If there is anything I can help you with, please let me know!
Marios
Hi Marios,
I’ve been an avid fan of ebooks since the Nook was first released back in 2009. I spent a fair amount of money supporting my reading habit for years because it took a long time before public libraries started lending ebooks. But that has changed dramatically and for the past three years or so I’ve been able to borrow all the free ebooks I want through my local library and it’s wonderful.
I recommend downloading the Libby app to your tablet. You’ll need to sign up for a card at your local library. From there, you simply jump online, enter your library card number and browse the tens of thousands of titles on hand. Borrowing a book can be done with a click and downloading takes seconds. You may have to place best sellers on Hold and wait a while until a copy frees up but I’m OK with that. The library emails me when my titles are available and the convenience is amazing.
I had to share my favorite way of accessing free ebooks because i know there are still people who don’t realize that the public library is an excellent source. Thanks for sharing this post!
Linda
Hey Linda,
Yes, Libby is also great, I mention it in another post for the best free eBook reader apps. I’m not sure whether it works worldwide, though.
Thanks for a very helpful mini-review! 🙂
Marios
The variety of the ways in getting free ebooks shown in this review, was eye-opening for me. The added bonus was the detailed description given for each of the suggested ways your reviews offers are done with clarity. However, I think it would nice to know in terms of using the word “free,” does that mean one can use the ebook as a give-away?
Hi there,
Thanks for the question. Some of them are really free, like Project Gutenberg. Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited gove you free access to books, with a monthly subscription. Audible gives 2 free Audiobooks with its trial – which you can keep even if you cancel the trial fore the 30-day period. This is also what Playster does.
Kobo gives you a virtually free book. A $5 discount for a book costing $5.01 and more. So, virtually, you can buy a book for $0.01. You can also find free books on Kindle, Kobo, Nook and other platforms
Hope I’ve answered your question. Thanks for stopping by!
Marios