World Book Day: cheapest ways to read a book
Get into the spirit of World Book Day for less, as we look at the cheapest ways to read a book.
Today is World Book Day.
It’s the 17th annual celebration of reading books and is being marked in over 100 countries across the globe.
In the UK those under 18 will be encouraged to explore the joys of reading with a £1 book token, which is distributed through every school in the country.
This year there are eight exclusive £1 books specially written for World Book Day that you can swap the token for, but you can also exchange the voucher in participating bookstores for any other title or audio book over £2.99. You’ll need to be quick though as the £1 book token is only valid until 30th March 2014.
World Book Day is a cheap way to encourage young people to get into reading, but how else can we drive down the cost of such an enjoyable past time?
Buy second-hand
There are loads of places you can get second-hand books online like Alibris, Oxfam or Abe Books, but Amazon Marketplace is probably the most well-known. Some paperbacks go for as little as a penny with only the delivery to pay.
Trawling car boot and jumble sales require a bit more dedication, but you can often find children’s books and other gems for as little as 10p.
Charity shops are also a good source and some like Oxfam have stores just for second-hand books. People donate anything from the odd book here and there to full collections, so you get a good turnaround of titles and a wide range to choose from.
Swap at book exchanges
If you’ve exhausted your collection and are looking for something new to read, a community book exchange is a great way to do it for free and help the environment at the same time.
All you need to do is swap an old title for something else that takes your fancy.
You can do this informally with friends, co-workers, family and neighbours. But some old BT payphone boxes have been turned into official community book exchanges, while some pubs and other spaces allow you to do this as well.
Swapping can even be done on the internet, albeit with a delivery charge to fork out. Read it Swap it is an online book sharing community where you can swap books you don’t want any more for some you do. It has over 324,000 books available from users and swaps are rated using feedback.
Borrow from a library
Your local library is the best place to enjoy books for free.
Libraries are free to join and as well as borrowing books you can borrow DVDs and music. Most also have newspapers and access to the internet.
You can now even adopt this principle online. Kindle users can get access to the Amazon Kindle Owners’ Lending Library with Amazon Prime membership, which costs £79 a year. This gives you access to one free e-Book a month from a range of 350,000 titles with no due date to worry about. Considering it usually costs around £5 to purchase an e-Book you could save £60 over a year.
Find free e-Books
If you’re prepared to get over the initial cost of an e-Reader you can save money on reading by accessing free e-Books.
These usually come in the form of popular classics and older reads rather than new titles.
Kobo has over one million free e-Books, while the Kindle store and Google Books also have a range for you to choose from.
Elsewhere Project Gutenberg is also worth a look. It’s a website that offers over 42,000 e-Books for free - made possible because the copyright has run out on them. You can download the copies onto your e-Reader or just use your laptop or PC to view them.
Other sites to search through include Open Library, Audible (you pay a small subscription for audio books) and Adobe Digital Editions.
Hunt down cheaper editions and deals
You can save a lot of money by going for the paperback version of a book or choosing different editions. Wordsworth editions tend to be cheaper for example.
And for newer titles keep an eye out for deals in supermarkets and special offers in book stores like Waterstones, Blackwell’s and WHSmith.
Don’t forget you can compare book prices online. Find-book.com is a good one to try.
More on saving money:
How online videos can save you money
How to get free and cheap cinema tickets
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Russbiker said: [B]"Most of them look like junk, but buried amongst them are most of the classics - I'm currently re-reading [I] Lady Chatterley's Lover [/I] (I'd forgotten what a great book it is)," [/B] Classic? Great Book? [B] "The public canonisation of that insignificant, dirty little book [I] Lady Chatterley’s Lover [/I] was a signal to persons who wish to unload the filth of their minds on the British public....I do not wish to spend the rest of my life with my nose nailed to other people’s lavatories." [/B] Dame Edith Sitwell, [I] Times Literary Supplement[/I] 28 Nov 1963 No wonder they're giving out that thing for free. And here was I thinking that so many people have nose studs because they're fashionable.
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I can't stress enough the value of Public Libraries. Probably even better 'value' now that they have all had savage funding cuts under the current government. Not only are they full of exciting books, the staff will happily give you free advice on suitable reading material for your whole family. You don't have the problem of what to do with your books once you have finished with them either. If you have a local library USE IT, if you don't your hard pressed local council will certainly do away with it. Your only problem will be :- Is it still there, can they still afford to buy new stock, is it now being staffed with well meaning but untrained volunteers? If the service is not up to scratch find out why and badger your local councillors until things improve. Libraries also run loads of book related, free, fun events for kids during the school holidays. What are you waiting for. I speak as a former Professional Librarian who was old enough to take the redundancy money and retire when I got the chance. This was in an authority that has since contracted out its service to a private sector company that knew nothing about libraries and rapidly sold it on to another that is just as ignorant, but knew how to butcher the service in order to make money. Am I bitter? On a personal level no, but I am dismayed at how the few remaining staff are being treated and the poor level of service they can now offer. This appears to be common to nearly all privatised services. Don't expect quality and professionalism on the cheap.
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[i]If you’re prepared to get over the initial cost of an e-Reader you can save money on reading by accessing free e-Books.[/i] Kindle Apps are available for free, for just about anything that can access the web. So if you are reading this you can most likely read Kindle books with no 'initial cost'.
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08 March 2014