Between library lending, public domain titles, and authors giving away free ebooks to encourage interest in a series or to boost reviews, it’s entirely possible to read ebooks every day and never pay a dime for them.
You can build up an entire library of good quality free ebooks if you’re willing to put in a little work and wade through some slush. And public libraries have a lot of best sellers and popular titles from well-known authors so it’s pretty easy to find something good to read.
One of the advantages of ebooks is they are readily available in an instant from a variety of sources, and some of those sources are completely free to use. You can also get access to certain catalogs of ebooks for free for a limited time—string the free trials together and you can read ebooks for free for several months.
Free eBooks – Virtually every website that sells ebooks also has a section for free ebooks. These can either be public domain books, or promotional titles that are free for a limited time, or the first book in a series, and yes, there’s a lot of AI-generated garbage and poorly-written books among them. But there’s also some hidden gems waiting to be discovered too.
Free Kindle eBooks (the free list only appears on the desktop version of Amazon’s website)
Free Kobo eBooks
Project Gutenberg
Standard eBooks
Baen Free Library
Borrow Library eBooks – One of the great things about the digital age is you can often borrow ebooks for free from public libraries just like paper books. There are different services available in different locations, but Libby is probably the most widely-available option. The amount of content you can get for free from libraries is amazing, but location determines access so it’s not something everyone has access to unfortunately.
First Reads – Amazon Prime members get 1 free ebook per month (sometimes 2) through Amazon’s First Reads program. You get to keep these ebooks in your library as if you purchased them.
Prime eBooks – In addition to First Reads, Prime members get unlimited access to a catalog of Prime ebooks that they can read for free. These ebooks are on loan in the sense that don’t own them but you can keep them in your library and read them until you return the book or cancel your Prime membership. It’s basically Kindle Unlimited lite.
Kindle Unlimited Free Trial – You can get a 30-day free trial to access a fairly large catalog of ebooks through Kindle Unlimited at Amazon. Sometimes Amazon has a special offer to get 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for free.
Kobo Plus Free Trial – Kobo offers a 30-day free trial for their Kobo Plus subscription, which is similar to Kindle Unlimited. You get access to a library of 1.5 million ebooks and/or 150,000 audiobooks.
Everand Free Trial – Everand is a subscription service for ebooks and audiobooks similar to Kindle Unlimited and Kobo Plus that offers a 30-day free trial so you can read ebooks for free for a month.
One good thing about Kindle Unlimited and the free ebooks is that I’ve discovered great books and genres that I didn’t realize I’d enjoy reading. I’ve found that I like the “cozy mystery” books that are light reading for at night. Nothing too scary or deep so that I fall asleep fairly quickly. (Waking up later with my eyeglasses still on and the remote control still strapped on my wrist.)