Free Books Anyone?

OMG you guys, I have a new addiction in life, and I wanted to share it with all of you. After all, who doesn’t love free books?

So a couple of weeks ago I was reading some international relations related article on foreignpolicy.com, when I saw a link to another article called “Librarians Love this Website”. I immediately thought, mkay what the hell kind of click-bait scam article is this gonna be? This, ladies and gents, is how I was introduced to the wonderful world of BookBub, and life will never be the same again!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the site, it’s something you might want to try out. Basically, you sign up using your preferred e-mail address, indicate your favorite authors and genres, and then you let the free digital books come to you. Every day you get an e-mail from BookBub with a list of free and discounted books based on your individual preferences, which you can then purchase from Amazon, B & N, Apple, Google, or Kobo.

Now let’s get down to the pros and cons here.

• You only receive notifications on free books or discounted books based on your preferences. When I signed up I was able to indicate which romance categories I preferred, and those are the only ones I get an e-mail about. So, I get all my juicy contemporary, new adult, and historical romances without having to weed through those with vampires and werewolves. You can also visit bookbub.com at any time and look at a ton of other genres for daily deals and free books.

• I personally thought getting a daily e-mail would get really old, really fast. However, I’ve actually managed to keep up with it, and there’s an unsubscribe button if you get overwhelmed. Each e-mail only has about 5-6 book blurbs listed, and honestly I ignore all the ones that cost money. Therefore, I’m really only looking at about 3 free book options a day, and it’s a great way to take a break in the middle of a busy work day. You can also change your e-mail preferences so that you only get one e-mail a week, or so you never receive e-mails at all.
• Although I personally don’t look at the books that cost money (because I am the cheapest person ever!), I think the highest cost of a book I’ve seen so far is $2.99. You really can be notified of some great book deals, but I could also see this as a con in that by spending $0.99 here, and $1.99 there, it could probably build up cost-wise if you weren’t careful. I’ve also tried to ignore the fact that so many of these free books have an audible add-on option for only $1.99. Just look the other way!

• Since signing up for BookBub I’ve finished reading 4 of the free books I’ve purchased. I really enjoyed 2 of them, and disliked the other 2. Therefore, when it comes to quality I wouldn’t say you’re guaranteed an amazing read every time, although there are a lot of bestsellers on there. Then again, I literally paid zero dollars for any of these books, so I’m not gonna complain.
• And now, for the biggest con of all. I would say I’m averaging about 1-2 free book “purchases” a day. A total of 29 books in the last 2 weeks. At this rate, I’m gonna need to buy a new Kindle sooner rather than later just to store them all.