Are you an avid reader?
A Bibliophile? Do you own a private library?
Or are you raising bookworms?
Well buying books and arranging your bookshelves does make you a Tsundoku (An Japanese term for a Book Hoarder).
But what happens when we run out of cash? Or the books are simply too expensive?
Here I'm sharing my favourite money to save money on buying books. You'll love them!
For any bibliophile, collecting books and reading them is like a dream.
I love reading. You can travel the world from your living room. Except for the part where I have to open my wallet and pay.
All the books that we want or the world is currently reading is not affordable and it can get really expensive to keep our bookworms fed!
So here are some tips and tricks to save money on buying books:
1. E-books
While on the go or just traveling, you get way more freedom to walk with several books in your pocket without the need to carry them.
E-books are comparatively cheaper than physical copies and also gives you the advantage of having multiple books at the same time.
E-books can be a bit uncomfortable for the eyes, but many people love it for the flexibility it offers.
- Kindle: A myth that spreads is we need to buy a kindle device to read a kindle book.
- Well it’s not the case, just download the kindle application on your Android/iPhone and you are good to go.
- This free app from Amazon allows you to read e-books on your computer, tablet, kindle or phone.
You can find a ton of great kindle books for free on Amazon.
Also, from my personal experience, there are often great deals on kindle E-books than physical copies.
- Netgalley: It a website that helps readers to get an advanced reader copy of a book which is not yet released. Sounds fun right??? Yes, we can read books before it’s release date and just for free. All we need to do is create an account in Netgalley website and download the Netgalley shelf application on to our phone.
Here we need to request books to the publishers and maintain a reading ratio which helps our future request to get approved faster.
So read more and spend less by hoarding your bookshelf less.
- Bookboon: Bookboon is currently the world's largest online publishing company of E-books with over 75 million downloads of e-books every year. It is focused on publishing student literature for engineering, IT and business students as well as short and practical business books. You can download 1000 free e-books here in PDF format.
- Bookyards: is a free on-line library with thousands of E-books. It's goal is to be 'The Library to the World', in which books, education materials, and content can be downloaded in PDF format for free that will be both easy to use, useful and interesting.
- Free ebooks: Register to this site and you get to download 5 e-books Free every month. It covers genres like fiction, non fiction, romance, sci-fi, self help, business and so much more. Discover the rising stars of the writing world, & give yourself the gift of some of the best books you can find.
2. Second hand books
Second hand books or rather used books are another great way to save money on buying books.
Nowadays we have websites that offer books based on its quality and usage.
So try out the thrift stores and online second hand bookstores for the same.
Few of my favourites with best quality and delivery are listed below:
- BookChor: An online bookstore that delivers all over India and have an amazing book collection. Their books are categorised as New, Almost New, Good and Readable based on their quality. Check them out during their sale period to get the best deals.
- Worthing: Yet another online bookstore that sell amazing books with great quality at a very affordable price. They have books categorised into Cost to Cost Sale, Books by Weight, Book Boxes, etc.
3. Audiobooks
Audiobooks are not only cheaper than physical copies of books, you also get the perfect format to appreciate a few chapters during a busy commute or while working on other tasks.
But what’s the best place to find your next audiobook?
Thanks to its enormous advertising budget, Amazon’s Audible site remains the best-known name in the industry. However, there are lots of other great places to find audiobooks. Other amazing audiobook sites are like Google audiobooks, Kobo audiobooks and libriVox, each of them have their limitations as well in lacking modern titles or being not so pocket friendly.
The one that I recently found which had amazing quality of audio narration of books with the cheapest subscription was Storytel.
It just costs ₹299 per month with a 14 day free trial and gives you access to more than 500000 books narrated in engaging voices.
4. Local Libraries
Libraries have come a long way since days of being quiet tombs.
Now a central part of our community and a buzz of amazing activities for all kids we can easily forget that they are still a great place to get books for free!
A few of my favorite features of our library is being able to reserve the books online making picking them up a snap! And the inter-library loaning system, where you can borrow books from other libraries.
I am an active member of my local library and even though we do not get to buy books, we still can read them.
I highly recommend if you use Library extension for Chrome as it will tell you if your local library will have the book.
5. Amazon
The website that every book lover is familiar with and is one of the best homes for every book nerd.
But are you aware that you can shop wisely through Amazon?
This website is the site for not just variety of books but also for a load of sellers.
Thus if you wish to make a purchase from Amazon, check different sellers under each item and you could see amazing discounts from different sellers.
6. Self Control to Saving!
Book-hoarders have this urge to buy books immediately and thus end up spending a great amount.
So learn self control and start saving.
Saving every month till a particular sale or festive time could help us buy more.
As festive time approach, we could see many bookshops and online stores provide a great deals on books.
Thus saving up to those times can help us buy more books at a very reasonable price.
7. Lock the Box
Now, last but not the least, it’s the Lock the Box events which is a trend today.
Almost every website is holding a Lock the Box event in various districts where you could buy a box priced so and so and fill the box with your desired number of books.
The only rule is the Box should be filled.
Book hoarders dive into these events and collect their favourites at very reasonable rates.
A Bonus Tip:
I have seen many book lovers read and then discard their books.
They go for Unhauling their books.
So if you have bookish friends then check their Unhauling events.
Nobody knows when we get lucky.
Happy Reading folks!!!!
About Our Star Author
Sandhya Nair
Sandhya is based in Kerala, India.
While working in the IT sector for 5 years, she found her passion for books and decided to dedicate all her time reading and educating, after which there was no looking back.
Connect with her at