I used to spend $15 to $20 a month on ebooks I would read once and never open again. Then I tried the library apps, the public domain sites, and one or two digital lending projects I had not heard of before, and the math collapsed. I have not paid for an ebook in eleven months. I read more now than I did when I was paying.
Here is the part most people do not know: the ebooks I am reading are not pirated. They are not scraped from upload sites. They are not grey market. They are borrowed, in the same legal sense a paperback is borrowed from a brick and mortar branch, and the only reason I did not try them sooner is that nobody told me they existed.
What the “ownership” problem actually is
The first time I realized something was off, I was looking at my Kindle library and counting how many books I had paid for. The number was higher than I expected. The number I could actually open on any device, in any country, ten years from now, was much lower.
That gap is DRM, which is Digital Rights Management software that controls how you can use a file you paid for. The book is sold to you as a license, not as a file. The license can be revoked. The terms you agreed to are long, and almost nobody reads them. If Amazon decides to pull a title, it can vanish from your library. If the publisher updates the DRM scheme, your old files stop opening. The file is yours in the way a rental car is yours.
Kindle Unlimited is worse, in the same way a gym membership is worse than a purchase. You get access to a million books, and the catch is that they all disappear if you cancel. I had been paying $9.99 a month for the privilege of renting, and I was not even using the catalog.
The three free tiers I use now
Once I accepted that I was renting, the question became: which rent is the cheapest, and which has the lowest switching cost? The answer turned out to be three layers, each covering a different kind of book.
Public domain for the classics. Anything published before 1929 in the US is in the public domain, which means the copyright has expired and the work can be redistributed freely by anyone. The two sites I use are Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive’s Open Library. Between them, I can find almost every novel from the 19th and early 20th century in EPUB and PDF, with no DRM, no account, no app. I downloaded the complete Aubrey-Maturin series in twenty minutes and read it on a Boox Palma over the summer.
Controlled digital lending for modern books. Open Library also lends newer titles under a scheme called controlled digital lending, where the library buys a license, lends it to one reader at a time, and the file stops working when the loan expires. I get a 14 day loan, I can read in browser or download an EPUB, and the file disables itself. It is the same idea as a paperback from a physical branch, just delivered over a network. The selection is smaller than the Kindle Store, but the cost is zero.
Libby for new releases. For anything I cannot find at Open Library, I use Libby, which is OverDrive’s app that connects to my local public library. All I needed was a library card. The catalog is large. To date the platform has loaned over a billion titles, and the agreement between my library and the platform covers most new releases I actually want to read. Loan periods are 7, 14, or 21 days depending on the title. When the loan ends, the file locks itself, which is fair because I did not pay for it.
The parts nobody tells you
The library app requires a library card, but the card is not as local as you would think. Many state library systems offer out of state cards for a small annual fee, usually between $25 and $50, and that fee covers an entire household. If you live in a state that does not have a useful digital collection, the right out of state card is the cheapest subscription you will ever buy. I pay $40 a year for a card that gives me access to a million titles. Compared to Kindle Unlimited at $120 a year, the math is not close.
The other part nobody tells you is that the EPUB files from Open Library and Libby do open on a Kindle, with some friction. I send them through Amazon’s Send to Kindle service, which accepts EPUBs and converts them for the device. The file lives in my Kindle library the same way a paid book would, except when the loan expires it gets removed automatically. I have not seen this fail in eleven months.
Worth mentioning: the Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro I bought for $400 is the only eReader I have used that opens every format, including the DRM-free EPUBs from Gutenberg and the loaned files from Libby, with no conversion step. If you are on a Kindle and you only read Amazon books, the device is fine. If you want the full free tier, the Boox is the cleanest option I have found.
If you are picking an eReader to use with the free tier, here is what I have learned from eleven months of reading:
- Pick the device based on which tier you will use, not the other way around. The Kindle hardware is fine, but it is built to feed you Amazon’s store. If you want a generic EPUB reader that handles library loans and Gutenberg files without conversion, the Boox is the cleanest option.
- Out-of-state library cards are the cheapest subscription you will ever buy. I pay $40 a year for access to a million titles. The math against Kindle Unlimited at $120 a year is not close.
- Send to Kindle works for the loaned files. Amazon’s service accepts EPUBs and converts them, and the loan expiry removes the file automatically. I have not seen this fail.
- The setup is the only real cost. Four hours the first time, normal after that. The catalog is the only other cost, and for most readers, it is smaller than they expect.
Trade-offs
Time is the first cost. Setting up the three accounts, getting the library card, learning how to send a file to a Kindle, and figuring out which titles are available where takes about four hours the first time. After that, it is normal. The catalog is the real cost. Libby has maybe 60% of what I would have bought on the Kindle Store. Open Library has maybe 20%. For the remaining 20%, I either buy the paperback from a used bookstore for $4, or I skip it.
The social side of Kindle is the second cost. Highlights are not synced, I cannot see what other people are reading, and there is no Goodreads integration on the free side. I did not realize how much I leaned on that until I switched, and I have not missed it enough to go back.
The mobile experience is the third cost. Libby is fine on a phone. Open Library’s BookReader is fine. Gutenberg’s reader is fine. None of them are as polished as the Kindle app. If you read exclusively on a phone, the difference in polish is the thing that will push you back to a subscription.
For anyone who reads ten or more books a year, this is a clear win. For anyone who reads two or three, the math still works if you skip one paid ebook per year, which is the breakeven point. For anyone who reads less than that, the setup cost is not worth it.
Bottom line
If you read more than two ebooks a year, your library card and Project Gutenberg will save you hundreds of dollars a year. The setup is four hours. The savings start on day one.