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10 Simple Tips to Find Cheap Kindle Ebooks in 2024

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

I bought my Amazon Kindle more than eight years ago. First, I purchased the original Kindle. A few years later, I bought the Kindle Paperwhite. I have been delighted with both. It is fantastic to travel with all my ebooks in my pocket and not have five or more heavy books in my luggage.

Over the years, I bought and read over 150 books on my Kindle. At the time, I thought it was very cheap. And indeed, I was saving money compared to print books. I realize now that this may not have been cheap.

For frugal people, there is one big issue with Kindle Books: You cannot buy used Kindle books. In the last two years, I have almost not purchased any Kindle ebooks. Instead, I bought many used books. There is a second-hand shop near my current job. I probably bought over 40 books during this time. I bought them for less than 2 CHF each on average. And I only bought books in a great state.

The problem is the room second-hand books take! My bookshelf is full, and books are piling up! I am going to build a new bookshelf to hold them all. But after some time, the new one will be full too. I do not mind having many books at home. The main problem is when traveling. If I need several books, it is a pain to carry them.

So I mostly bought Kindle ebooks for traveling. But there are still so many advantages to my Kindle. Therefore, I have been looking for ways to find cheap Kindle books. Here are ten simple tricks to find cheap ebooks for Kindle.

1. Rent ebooks with Kindle Unlimited

One thing you can do with paper books is to rent them. Getting books from your local public library is much less expensive than if you were to buy them all. The more you read, the more interesting it is to rent books instead of buying them.

Did you know you can do the same thing with Kindle ebooks? Not many people know that, but you can rent Kindle ebooks to make it much cheaper.

Several services offer this. But the one I prefer is the Kindle Unlimited service. It is the official service of Amazon. It allows you to rent up to 10 ebooks at a time. Once you want new ebooks, you have to return another one.

It is a great service if you read a lot. You can try it for free for 30 days. After that, it will cost you 9.99 USD per month. The monthly price is about a little more than the average price of one ebook. So if you purchase more than one ebook monthly, this is the way to go!

Unfortunately, this service is not available in all countries. But it is available in the United States and Europe!

2. Track Kindle book deals with eReaderIQ

Recently, I found a few personal finance ebooks at discounts of up to 80%. I immediately bought a few. I was lucky to find these discounts. Then, I wondered if we could track these discounts. It turns out we can!

Recently, I found out about eReaderIQ. This service is pretty incredible. This website offers many things. On the home page, you can search for discounted books. For instance, you can search for books that are at least 50% cheaper than usual:

Find 50% discounts for Kindle ebooks on eReaderIQ
Find 50% discounts for Kindle ebooks on eReaderIQ

As you can see, you can even find free ebooks! There are many search options to refine your search.

And that is not all. You can also track the price of a book. For instance, you can receive an email when a book you want drops below some price or has a discount. For example, here are a few personal finance books I am waiting for a 50% discount on:

Track kindle books discounts with eReaderIQ
Track Kindle books discounts with eReaderIQ

You can also track authors to watch for all their books at once.

I cannot believe I did not find eReaderIQ before. eReaderIQ is a free service. You do not have to pay for anything. But eReaderIQ relies on donations. So try it and if you get good discounts, consider giving a bit back to them. I got a few good deals on investment books with that.

3. Kindle Daily Deals

An excellent way to save money on Kindle books is to follow the Kindle Daily Deals. Every day, there are new deals on some books. And you can register for the newsletter to never miss one!

Kindle Daily Deals
Kindle Daily Deals

You can find some nice savings here. But since it is a daily deal, you cannot wait one day to think about it. It is not the place where I found the best deals. But it is worth checking it.

Now, there is a problem with this technique if you are not an American Amazon customer. The deals are for each Amazon site. If you are with amazon.fr, like me, you will find another page with deals. But that does not prevent you from buying ones from another country. Often, the English books discounted on amazon.com are also discounted for me if I buy from amazon.fr. You have to change the website and search again. Sometimes, they may not be available in your country. It is not a big deal, but not convenient, either. I wish Amazon would unify all its websites somehow.

4. Kindle monthly deals

Amazon also offers monthly deals on Kindle ebooks. These deals last for one month. And there are a lot of them. As I write this post, there are almost 600 ebooks on discount. It is a great place to find a good deal. You can filter by category of books. For instance, here are some business books on sale:

Kindle Monthly Deals
Kindle Monthly Deals

You will see that discounts vary a lot from one book to another. It is a good idea to check this page once a month to find the right deals. You can also subscribe to the newsletter. So you will directly receive it in your inbox every month. No more excuses!

Again, if you are from another Amazon website, you must find the link in your country. I do not understand why they make it so complicated and different for each country.

5. Kindle countdown deals

Amazon offers yet another page for deals: Kindle Countdown Deals. This time, each deal has some duration. The duration can be one day or a few days; it depends. Here are a few examples:

Kindle Countdown Deals
Kindle Countdown Deals

I did not find a lot of good deals here for me. But you may be luckier than me. It is generally new writers that want to increase their audience. There are tons of deals here (more than 2000 when I checked). The problem is that you cannot subscribe. So you will have to check from time to time.

6. Kindle first reads

The last Amazon page where you can find deals is the Kindle first reads. This page has a few bargains (6 now). They are all for 1.99$. But you can only pick one each month. And they were all hand-picked by Amazon editors. They are generally great books.

Kindle First Reads
Kindle First Reads

You only have to check it once per month. If you want, you can also subscribe to their newsletter to make sure you never miss a good deal.

7. Free public domain ebooks

This tip is one of my favorite frugal tips ever. If you like some classic (and old) authors, you may be lucky. Some works are now in the public domain. It means that the intellectual property of these books is now free!

The exact time after which a work falls into the public depends on the country. For instance, in the United States, all works before 1923 are now in the public domain.  You can find some of them on the Cheap reads for Kindle page.

Kindle public domain free ebooks
Kindle public domain free ebooks

For instance, I have read many Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas books for free. These are French writers. But, you could also enjoy some Edgar Allan Poe. I am sure you can find some great books for free as well!

You will not find paperback books for free, of course, since people still must pay for the paper and printing. But for Kindle ebooks, there are many free or cheap ebooks in the public domain.

Another great place to get public domain books for free is Project Gutenberg. This website has more than 60’000 free ebooks. You can find great books from authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and Charles Dickens. Project Gutenberg is probably the best place to get classic books.

8. Read books From around the world

Most readers focus on bestsellers from the United States. But there are tons of great writers around the globe. And some of these books are often cheaper than bestsellers!

Get international ebooks with Amazon Crossing
Get international ebooks with Amazon Crossing

One great way to find cheap Kindle ebooks from international authors is to go on Amazon Crossing.

Amazon Crossing is a great way to find authors you are not used to reading. And a lot of these Kindle ebooks are very cheap. If you are an avid reader, I recommend this service to broaden your horizons.

9. Use your local library

Many libraries are starting to offer access to ebooks. If you are lucky, your local library will provide such a service. In that case, this is a great way to get your books. You can pay a subscription, and you can get many books each month.

And with this, you can also get paperback books when you like it. If you have a good local library, you will also access video games, DVDs, and audiobooks.

Getting ebooks are the local library is an option that many people (including me) often overlook. But local libraries are not always limited to paper books. Try to ask your local library for their offers before you dismiss this idea!

10. Switch to another country

This last tip is a bit less convenient. Ebooks have different prices based on each Amazon country website. Sometimes, they can be much cheaper in one country than in another.

For instance, a lot of ebooks are cheaper in India. But you can only buy ebooks in the country you have registered your Kindle to. What you can do is switch your Kindle device to another country. Then, you can buy from this other country’s Amazon website. For instance, in India, you can purchase ebooks on amazon.in. Once you want to buy again in your country, you must switch back.

I have never used this technique, but many people are using it. You can read more about it on backpack.me, for instance.

You need to be aware that if you change to another country, you may lose the connections to other accounts. For instance, if you share books with your family, you may lose the sharing when you move to a new country.

Cheap Kindle ebooks Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways to save money on Kindle ebooks. If you are patient and look around, you can find cheap Kindle Ebooks online.

The easiest way is to subscribe to all Amazon offers. There are some very nice offers, and you may get cheap books. The other way is to use eReaderIQ to get alerts. If you are patient and track the deals, you can buy Kindle ebooks at incredible prices. With these tips, I have found ebooks that are just as cheap as used books.

And if you like some classic authors such as Twain or Dickens, you can find many books for free! Books in the public domain are cheaper in digital than paperback forms!

I own the Kindle Paperwhite. But these tips will work with any Kindle you own.

Only because they are cheap does not mean that you should buy them all! Only buy good deals if you know you are going to read them. We need to stay frugal! Unless they are free, in which case you have more freedom.

What about you? How do you get cheap ebooks?

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Baptiste Wicht started thepoorswiss.com in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. This blog is relating his story and findings. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. You can send Mr. The Poor Swiss a message here.

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24 thoughts on “10 Simple Tips to Find Cheap Kindle Ebooks in 2024”

  1. Hi, thanks for this helpful article. What do you personal think of BookBub? Have you tried it before? I’m currently looking for more sites where I can subscribe and find even more discounted or free e-books. Thank you.

    1. Hi Nadine,

      I never heard of BookBub before. It looks like it’s just a search engine around various. And when I try some of the links to Amazon, the price on Amazon is actually higher than the price shown on BookBub.
      I do not really understand the purpose of BookBub.

      I’ll try to look deeper into it later.

      Are you using it?

      Thanks for sharing :)

      1. Hi. No, I’m simply searching for more sites but yours were the most useful. It is as you’ve said regarding the prices but BookBub seems to be quite popular. There is also Book Lending which I’m planning to try as well.

  2. Hi Mr Poor Swiss,

    Great and interesting post. I own a kindle paperwhite, and would say 2 things:

    – I would NOT recommend kindle as ereader in Europe, as most libraries here have ebooks collections/formats that are not compatible with Kindle

    – because I bought my kindle before European libraries started having decent ebook collections, and I don’t want to buy another ereader right now, I found that a membership of a USA library allows me to get kindle eBooks, through a service called overdrive. Not all libraries allow foreigners to open an account, and some are quite expensive, but there is one that costs just 30 USD per year: Fairfax county library. Once you have an account with them, go to fairfax.overdrive.com, and enjoy! Check before, however, that the catalogue they provide is good enough for you, because it is smaller than, say, New York Brooklyn library.

    1. Hi Greg,

      That’s a good point. If you want to rent books at the library, Kindle is probably the worst reader because of its proprietary format.

      That’s a great tip! I didn’t know you could even open an account at an US library! This is really cool and for only 30 USD a year, this is a great value! I will have to check this library out :)

      Thanks for sharing!

  3. Hi, If you live in Switzerland you have access to a lot of libraries. The yearly fee is anything from 35 to 85 a year ( I live in a “big” city in Switzerland and pay 65.-). I go weekly and get DVDs (I got a DVD player for free from a fried who thinks DVDs are out), audio books, books, magazines, games (even video games), news papers etc. there.
    I don’t pay anything for subscriptions like Netflix and the like and neither do I pay for books.
    You can download e-books for free!!! on an online library that is liked with your library account. You could even pay a fee from a “cheap” local library and just get the books online.

    All the best.

    1. Hi Cheapo :)

      Yes, we have great libraries in Switzerland, this is true! We used to go there when we were younger and we read a lot.
      However, the library we were using is really old style, no e-books or DVD, even less video games :)
      But I should check the closest local libraries again to check if any of them is a bit more modern!

      Thanks for sharing this great tip!

  4. I’m an avid reader and your list is awesome! Thanks for sharing! I would add amazon crossing, the books are really cheap and the books are divided according to the origin of the author, it’s a great way to read about different countries and backgrounds.

    1. Hi Monica,

      Thanks! I am glad you liked it!
      I didn’t know about Amazon crossing. It looks really good. We are often too focused on a few countries (France and the U.S. for me) but other countries have great books as well. I recently started reading books from a Russian author and it’s great!
      I’ll try to include this in my next update of this post!

      What kinds of books are you reading?

      Thanks for stopping by!

  5. Hi, Swiss! Amazing post. Thanks for sharing such wonderful and useful tips for cheap kindle eBooks. I always looking for such kind of eBooks because I love to read. Thanks for sharing and keep posting!

  6. Thanks for the tips! The last one, switching countries, doesn’t work neatly if you have set up an amazon “household” to share books in a family library. Switching countries will divorce you from your family and undo all shares.

    1. Hi Stephan,

      That’s a very good point! I never used this feature. I will add a note about that the next time I update this post!

      Thanks for stopping by!

    1. Hi Millionaire Mob,

      You’re welcome! I am glad people can use these tips to read more great books! I am using them all the time to find new books to read!

      Thanks for stopping by!

  7. Hi,
    Here’s another tip for free ebooks, which I use a lot : REMOVED LINK

    I usually get the epub format to read on my mobile phone…

    1. Hello Jerome,

      Thanks for sharing!
      Unfortunately, this is not a legal service, at least in most countries. Therefore, I removed the link from your comment.

      Cheers

      1. Hi,
        No problem, I understand.
        Feel free to remove the comment altogether if you wish, as it becomes a bit pointless without the links… ;-)
        Best regards

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