025: How to Get Free Amazon Kindle Ebooks

Hey, I'm Chris.

I'm a former Analyst, Podcaster, and Producer. My goal is to help you understand your finances better in about the time it takes to make a bag of popcorn!

I found a new fortress of solitude & it’s called the public library. Little did I know that it would come with free Kindle books. Listen to find out how you can get access to thousands of free Kindle ebooks.

A Quiet Place

I was using the Anchor app one day and I got in to a conversation with a friend of the show, Fifi, about her recent trips to her local library.  This was a cool coincidence because I too had just recently started visiting a library in my city.  I hadn’t been to the library since my days in college.  After graduation I didn’t really have a need for one anymore.

Enter Popcorn Finance, and now all of a sudden I need a quiet place to get some work done.  I can’t trust myself at home because I know that I am going to end up watching Netflix or going on Instagram.  Coffee shops were no good because I would just end up spending money that I hadn’t planned on coffee and pastries.

Duh, The Library

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it, but the library was the perfect quiet place to get some work done.  I signed up for a library card just so I could get full access to what I needed.  I didn’t really have any plans to check out a book. 

But then I remembered hearing that some libraries were participating in a program that would allow you to check out ebooks.  I had a kindle that wasn’t getting much use so I figured why not give it a try.

How to Get Free Amazon Kindle Ebooks

The magic of how all of this works is OverDrive. OverDrive is the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools worldwide. They work with over 30,000 libraries in over 40 countries to make available more 2,000,000 ebooks and audiobooks.

When I followed through to the OverDrive page from my library’s website I found out about and app called Libby.  Libby allows you to not only check out ebooks from your phone, but also have them pushed directly to your kindle.  It just takes a few quick steps to get everything setup.

One thing to note is that book availability varies by library system.  I did find was that if you have library cards from multiple systems you can add all of them to your Libby profile and gain access to a greater inventory of books.

How Libby Works

Once you get all setup you will probably want to check out your first ebook.  You can checkout an ebook for 7, 14 or 21 days.  Once your time period is up the book will automatically be returned to the library.  However, when you are in the final few days of your lending period you can request to extend your time.

From time to time you may go to checkout a book and find that it is unavailable and that there is a waitlist.  It is important point out that each library system does not have an unlimited supply of ebooks.  Each one has a limited number of copies. 

Typically the bigger the system the more copies are available.  This is why you have to return an ebook so that others can have an opportunity to check it out.  The good thing is that the app does a great job of letting you know how long your wait will be. 

To download the Libby app so that you can check out free ebooks visit meet.libbyapp.com

For more information on the Libby app & the OverDrive program visit www.overdrive.com

Libby instructional video coming soon

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