My wife and I recently purchased Kindles. I’ve always enjoyed reading, so books are something I would purchase occasionally or perhaps check out at the library. Shortly before I got my Kindle, I discovered several websites that provide access to free and reduced price ebooks. This got my attention because many of the bestselling books or popular books that I would want to read would go on sale, and there would be no way to know about it. Often times, our local library’s digital ebook collection through Overdrive would be backed up with weeks of holds, so being able to grab a book I wanted to read for $2-$5 was very attractive.
Once I got my Kindle, these services became even more useful. I was able to grab many great books for $2 or less, even some for free. I wanted to share these websites and email lists with you in case you are an avid reader and are always looking for new books to add to your collection.
1. BookBub
This one is probably my favorite. The main service BookBub offers is a daily email with free and reduced price ebooks. They provide links to where the books are on sale, usually Amazon, but often times they will be available via Barnes and Noble or Google Play if you have a Nook device or other tablet. When you sign up for an account, you indicate which genres of books that you enjoy reading. BookBub then personalizes your daily email with books from those genres that are either on sale for $5 or less, or are free that day. Many times it will promote lesser known and upcoming authors, so if you enjoy finding new authors to read, BookBub may be for you.
However, my favorite feature of BookBub is that you can follow specific authors. This is helpful because whenever a book by any of the authors you follow goes on sale, you’ll get a specialized email letting you know about the sale. I’ve been able to grab many great books by my favorite authors this way. If you’re in no rush to purchase a book, this can be a great tool to snatch a good deal.
You can login to BookBub and change your author and genre preferences at any time, so if the emails get annoying, you can decrease their frequency. If you’re interested, you can sign up here!
2. BookGorilla
BookGorilla is another service that sends personalized emails based on the genres you choose. It’s not very different from BookBub, except that the variety of books are different than the ones BookBub usually displays. I’m not sure how they choose their algorithms or search for book deals, but BookGorilla has shown me some of the best ones that I’ve purchased. BookGorilla also hosts contests and giveaways on Amazon, so they will often include links to those in their emails as well.
Like BookBub, BookGorilla also promotes upcoming authors, so you may find new and exciting novels or novellas by authors who haven’t yet hit the big time. Reviews and snippets about the book are also included, so you can get an idea how other readers feel about the book, especially if it’s one you’ve never heard of. If you like the idea of having BookGorilla in addition to BookBub, you can sign up here!
3. Early Bird Books
Early Bird Books was the first daily ebook email service I signed up for. It consistently provided good titles, many of them free, that I added to my Kindle library. The interface is very similar to the previous two email services and includes a heading for each book that lets you know if it’s a bestseller, etc. I like Early Bird Books’ email formatting the best out of the services I’ve listed in this post. It’s simple and easy to read, plus you can read a quick summary of the book and see the cover art.
There isn’t much else to say since the sign up process is very similar. Pick some genres, and the next day, you’ll have an email in your inbox from them! You can sign up for Early Bird Books here.
4. EReaderIQ Daily
Finally, EReaderIQ Daily is another similar service that works almost exactly the same way. Sign up with your email address, enter your preferences, and get a daily email with book deals. EReaderIQ Daily also has a feature which lets you add books to a watchlist, and the filtering options on its website give you more control over searching for books which are on sale.
Again, many times their algorithm will return different books than you’d see with the other three services, so it might be worthwhile to sign up for this one also. You can sign up for EReader IQ Daily here!
I hope you enjoy using these services and that they help you build a great ebook library!
Be sure to let me know what kinds of books you get on sale, or if you have other suggestions for picking up free or cheap books!
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Featured image courtesy of Pixabay.com. All logos are property of their respective services. Other images are screenshots of emails I have received from these services.