If you love to read like me, then you wouldn’t mind getting some free books! First off you can always take a book out from your local library for free; only thing is you have to give it back eventually. Some people (like me) love to keep the books they read, especially if they are phenomenal! You might also want to keep your book because you may have written some notes in it, highlighted some passages, want to keep it for reference, etc… The first website I recommend to get some free books is www.bookmooch.com.
Bookmooch is a free book swapping site. You basically register for free and make an inventory of all of the books you have (and are willing to part with), then you also make a wish list where you list all of the books you want. Bookmooch will notify you when one of your books is available, and once it is you ‘mooch’ off of the person who has it, but you can only ‘mooch’ if you have points to do so. You earn points by people mooching off of your list, and you ship the books to them (you pay for shipping). It’s free and easy. If you choose to you can also donate some (or all) of your points to charity. The only downside to this site is that you can only get a book from your wish list if someone else has it listed on their inventory, so you may have to wait a while, but since it’s an easy way to get free books, it’s worth it to try.
Swap.com is another book swapping site, but they also have other categories which can be traded such as CD’s, Games, and DVD’s. This service used to be free but now they charge a nominal fee per transaction. The good thing is that this site does all of the work for you and you can get items from your wish list much quicker than on Bookmooch. You just make a list of all of the items you have to trade and a list of the items you want, and Swap.com performs a search for you then notifies you once the item is available. In essence you end up saving a lot of money on books, especially the more expensive hardcover ones because you’re only paying the Swap.com service fee and shipping at your own expense, so a book which would cost $20 to buy at a bookstore will only cost you about $5 to get there.
There are also tons of ways to get free books all over NYC and other states. Many community-based organizations/agencies, and churches have flea markets or book fairs, where they sell everything super cheap or give items away for free. These events take place year-round but especially in the warmer months. Visit or call your local organizations for their calendars of events, or check on their websites. Many organizations which collect books often host free book fairs, so just be on the lookout for those.
You can also try joining a book club for the types of books you like to read, and host your own swapping event. You can get a group together on Facebook or Yahoo Groups, or try a website like Meetup.com where you can meet people who share the same interests as you.
There are so many other options to get free books, but the ones mentioned here have worked for me. Feel free to add any other suggestions!
