How to Get Romance Books for Free or Low Cost

Does the book haul culture of social media make you feel like your shelves (or your wallet) aren't enough? While curated, exclusive hardcovers are beautiful, romance is for everyone, regardless of your budget. This week on We Read Smut, Alesia breaks down a complete toolkit for keeping your TBR full and your joy high without breaking the bank. From insider digital strategies to maximizing your library card, learn how to access thousands of stories at little to no cost.

Key Takeaways

• The Digital Goldmine: Your library card is essentially a free subscription to nearly every book ever through the Libby and Hoopla apps. For public domain or historical classics, check out Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks.
• Stuff Your Kindle (SYK) 101: Learn how to navigate massive 24-hour events where authors discount books to $0.00. Alesia highlights the best events for 2026, including the Black Readers Appreciation Event (BRAE) and Romance Bookworms.
• Follow the Curators: Save hours of scouring lists by following "bookish besties" like Kayla @BookBabeHub and @BestieAndTheBookish, who curate the best deals so you don’t have to.
• The Reviewer’s Path: Discover how to use NetGalley to access Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) or Advanced Listener Copies (ALCs). Remember: an honest review is the "currency" that pays for these early copies.
• Community Swaps: Use local "Buy Nothing" Facebook groups or find Little Free Libraries in your neighborhood to swap physical books with fellow readers.

The 2026 "Stuff Your Kindle" Roadmap. Mark your calendars for these upcoming free book events:

• Dark Romance Stuff Your Kindle Day - This is specifically around Dark Romance and is hosted from Feb 13-15, 2026. You can find more information on their website.
• Romance Bookworms - This includes about 2000 free books with filters for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors. Hosting on April 28th and July 28th in 2026. You can learn more on their website.
• BRAE - The Black Readers Appreciation Event focuses on Black authors. You will want to check out their website for when the next stuff your kindle day is being hosted.

Your time is the only thing you're paying with, so don't waste it on a story that you are not actually enjoying. If a free book isn't sparking joy, give yourself permission to DNF (Did Not Finish) and move on to the next one in your pile!

I want to hear from you! What is your favorite way to snag a free book? Send me a DM on Instagram @wereadsmut or leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube!

BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

Episode with Medium Lady Reads

Dark Romance Stuff Your Kindle: Website

Romance Bookworms: Website

BRAE (Black Readers Appreciation Event): Website 

BookBub

Freebooksy

Transcript

Intro: Romance is for everyone (regardless of budget)

Alesia Galati 0:00

Not everyone has the ability to afford to have the perfect bookshelf or have a curated group of paperbacks or even hardcover books. Today we're going to be talking about how to get books at free or low cost. So if you are someone who is a romance reader on a budget, this episode is for you. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hey friends, it's Alicia. I know I said that this episode is for you if you're on a budget, but honestly, I think that this episode is for anyone who enjoys reading romance and wants to find ways to support their favorite authors. Today we're going to be talking about some low-cost as well as free ways to get books. I understand that so often we see the curated bookshelves, and I am definitely guilty of it. You can even see if you're watching the video behind me. I have my curated shelf. I have some exclusive hardcovers. I have some things that I decided to drop a nice pretty penny on. And while I don't regret that, I do see that there is immense value in getting books at lower cost, especially as someone who has gone on and bought all these books, but I haven't read probably half of them. Even beyond that, I understand that there might be financial barriers for a lot of folks right now. And so I want to make sure that I have accessible and free ways that you can access some of your favorite author's books. All right, let's go ahead and get into the very first one. And that is the traditional ones, which is your library.

The Digital Goldmine: Libraries, Libby, and Hoopla

Alesia Galati 1:52

There is so much value in getting books from your library. If you are someone who reads physical books, and I understand that some people might have disabilities or might not have access to transportation to be able to get to their local library. And so if you are not able to get the physical books, and also noting that you can request books from your library, there's just so much that goes into your library. Go check out the episode I did with the hosts of Medium Lady Reads, Gillian and Erin. They have tons of resources specifically around the library, and they are both huge library fans. So go check out that episode for more on how to make the most of your library. But if you are someone who maybe doesn't have access to go to your library, then the digital versions are fantastic as well. You can use the Libby app, and I know there are some concerns with AI right now. So just look into that and see if it aligns with your values. Hoopla is another app that allows you to access books from your library. You can get a lot of potentially free things from your library, even on the digital front. There are two very legitimate free websites as well. Now, my concern with this one is that they're not very diverse. So you have to look at the emails every day or make sure it's tailored to what you like to read to get access to exactly what books are free that day. And I don't know how the back end works. If the authors have to pay to actually have their book listed on this email that goes out, I'm not entirely sure of what these business models are. And it's something that I've been thinking about of like, if I were to ever stop working with podcasts, I think I'd want to do something like that. Create something that was like a bookish website where people could access free resources, they could access tons of information, authors could promote their stuff, almost like a matchmaking service. Anyway, I digress. Lots of ideas over here. But the two websites that I have seen that work fairly well, Book Bub is one of them, and

Daily Deals: BookBub and Freebooksy

Alesia Galati 4:00

then FreeBooksy. You can look those up. We'll also have links for them in the show notes and the YouTube description. So you can go check those out there. So that's Book Bub and Free Booksy. And you get a daily email curated specifically around what categories you select. And they're anything from $0 to about 99 cents. And it's usually $0. And then there's maybe one or two that are 99 cents. So just make sure that you check those out. And you can specifically request books in the romance genre. Now, again, my concern with this is that there's not a lot of diversity in those romance ones. So just be on the lookout for that. Another resource is Project Gutenberg and standard ebooks. For if you are looking for something that is technically considered public domain at this point, those are great places to get more information on those books. All right, next let's go into Stuff Your Kindle Days, which if you are unfamiliar with that, and I know not everyone knows about Stuff Your Kindle Days, it's usually a 24-hour or a few-day event where thousands, and I do mean thousands sometimes, sometimes it's hundreds, but usually it's thousands, of authors have put their books on sale

Stuff Your Kindle Schedule: BRAE & Romance Bookworms

Alesia Galati 5:17

via Amazon or maybe it is through some other resource, but it's usually through Amazon and they have discounted their book to zero dollars. Now, here you have to double check it as you're going through it, but let's go ahead and get into some of the ones that are coming up very soon. The first that I want to mention is actually happening next week, and that is the dark romance stuff your kindle. So if you are someone who likes dark romance, now again, I don't know how diverse this selection is going to be. We'll have some options for diversity as well in this discussion. But this is hosted by the dark romance team. You can go to drtstuffyourkindle.com. Again, we'll have links for all of this stuff in the show notes, as well as the YouTube description if you're looking for access for that. But if you're after the fact, if you are listening to this after February 15th, then you will have missed this specific one. You can still go to drtstuffyourkindle.com and you should be able to see when the next one is happening. Now, there are two sites that I definitely check out every time that these websites have Stuff Your Kindle Days. The first is probably the most well known, and that is Romance Bookworms. Free Romance Book Blast. There's typically about 2,000 free books available. They categorize them by LGBTQIA plus authors and BIPOC authors. They make the categorizations so easy. They also have disabled authors. They just, it's fantastic. I like how they have it organized. I like how it's very easy to find the things that I'm looking for. And as a mood reader, this is especially helpful for me because it'll have the list of the book, like the title, it'll have a short description, and then it'll have the tropes that are involved in that book. And I'm someone who I base a lot of my reading off of the tropes that I'm feeling. And so this is a great resource for me to be able to find free books, new authors, and like a low-stakes way to find new authors. Now, the goal here, and and maybe we just need to have another episode on this, is to actually read what you own. So once you do download these books, check out these authors, actually read the books, and then leave ratings and reviews to support these indie authors who have gifted you these books for free. So the next stuff your Kindle Day via Romance Bookworms, which again is probably the most predominantly known one, is April 28th, 2026. And then there is another one on July 28th, 2026. So just be looking out for those. And again, if you're following me on Instagram at WeReadSmut, I'm usually posting about these events as they're happening and as I see them, which we'll get into in a second. And then the last event that is a stuff you're Kindle that I absolutely love is the Black Readers Appreciation Event or B-R-A-E. And you can go to BRAE.website and that will have all of the information. This is specifically books by black authors. Now, this is probably the best one that I have found. Romance Bookworms, while it is a fantastic site and they have lots of resources and they have everything categorized really well, it can be a little overwhelming. Like there are a lot. But B R A E, I feel like it's just small enough to allow me to kind of look through and actually enjoy looking through, but also big enough where I'm like, oh my goodness, I downloaded 40 new books. What in the world? So definitely check that out. And again, we'll have links for all that in the show notes. And for a lot of these, I do want to make sure that I note that you will most likely need a Kindle app, whether that is an actual Kindle device or the Kindle app on your phone or some other way to read these books. So just keep that in mind. Stuff your earbud days. There are those as well for those who love audiobooks. I don't know a lot of those because while I enjoy audio, I work in audio. So I don't listen to a ton of audiobooks. So just be on the lookout for those. You can always go into Instagram and search, stuff your earbuds, and you should be able to find some really good resources that way. Now, here is like the insider strategy to be able to figure out when these events are happening because they are

Insider Strategy: Following Curators & Newsletters

Alesia Galati 10:03

pretty prevalent. There are, I want to say there were like five just in January that happened. I did not participate in any of them. I have enough books to read. But there's lots of these. So the first thing you can do is follow people who are curating these lists, like myself, people who are letting you know, hey, this event is happening, go check it out. And then there are two other people that I recommend following that specifically talk about the stuff your Kindle days and have specific dates, specific links, and so much more. These are people that I follow to get this information. The first is Kayla at Bookbabe Hub on Instagram. I don't know if either of these folks have a TikTok because I'm not on TikTok, but you could probably find them that way. But Instagram, Kayla at Book Babe Hub. And then the second one is at bestie and the bookish. And both of these people have lots of resources where they'll have here's the stuff your Kindle days for February or for March. And then they kind of go through every section of however they plan on categorizing it, they have those resources to you. The second way to know if there are free books is by going directly to the author. Authors' newsletters are usually a gold mine, especially if you are someone who is looking for advanced reader copies of books or you are looking for discounts on books. Follow the authors, subscribe to their emails. They are constantly giving flash sales or letting you know about exclusive freebies that they have. Another insider strategy is if you are someone who interviews authors, so if you have an interview series for authors, or if you are someone like me who has a podcast that's specifically for authors, get in with the publishers. And I know that might sound like, whoa, I don't know that I can ask that. I do not have a ton of followers on Instagram. I'm at just over 3,000 followers, but I do have this podcast and I have 10,000 over on Substack, which I don't even know how that happened, but it happened. And so I use all of that collective information to pitch myself to publishers. And having a podcast helps with my email attached to the podcast. So then publishers see, hey, this person has a bookish podcast. It's about romance. I'm going to send them information. I have actually gotten to the point where it's maybe two or three times a week that I am getting an email from a publisher pitching me their author or pitching me their book and saying, hey, we'd love to send you a free copy of this book. So that is always a great way to one, being community in the book of space, to have conversations with the authors that you love and adore, and also to get free access to some of these books. And yes,

Community Swaps: Little Free Libraries & Reviewer Paths

Alesia Galati 13:00

it does take work and effort, but I think that it's worth it, especially because I one, I get to have these incredible conversations with people, but two, I get to get access to books before they're even released. Which leads me to the community and the reviewing. Communities are a great place to get access to free books. Little free libraries are incredible. And I keep like honestly, I think I just need to tell my husband that for this year, for my birthday, I want a little free library outside my house because that is something that I've been really wanting to do for my neighborhood. The school bus goes right down my street. I live right outside of a military town. So there's like tons of kids around. And I think that it would be a great way to give access to books, not just obviously romance books, but also kids books for kids who maybe are lower income or can't afford to get those books otherwise. And then, of course, there is the ARCS or advanced reader copies. There are also advanced listener copies if you are someone who prefers audiobooks. NetGalley is the main place to get those. You can sign up to be a reviewer. Make sure that you are leaving an honest review and that you are following the policies of getting an advanced reader copy. There's certain verbiage and they'll tell you in their like how to, and frequently asked questions, how to make sure that you are getting access to these. And then finally, free local networking groups. So if you are part of a local Facebook group where there are romance readers, you can ask them who's decluttering or who's getting rid of stuff or who wants to swap books. And that could be a really great way to meet other romance readers in your community, but also get some new free books.

Reclaim Your Joy: The Power of the DNF

Alesia Galati 14:50

As we wrap up, there's one thing that I really want to make sure that I drive home on this topic. Don't let the free book become a source of stress for you. If you are not enjoying a book, it's okay to DNF it. It is okay to say, nope, this is not for me right now, or meh, I know I got it for free, but I'm actually not going to read this. That's okay. Your time is the only thing that you're paying with. So don't waste it on a story that you're not actually enjoying. All right, I want to know what your favorite ways to get free books is. Send me a DM on Instagram, or you can leave a comment on YouTube, Spotify. There's a few other podcast listening apps that allow you to leave comments. I would love to hear from you. All right, we have some incredible authors and co hosted episodes coming up that I cannot wait for. Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast. Stay tuned, and I will catch you next time.