How to Get Free Books on Your Kindle in Australia

You bought the Kindle. Now you would like to read on it without spending twenty dollars a book. Here is every legal way to get free books on a Kindle in Australia.

1. Your Local Library, via BorrowBox

The most underused trick in Australian reading, and the only genuinely free one on this list. BorrowBox lends e-books and audiobooks from your local library with nothing but a library card.

Get a card from your council library, download the BorrowBox app, log in with your library credentials, then browse, borrow and send to Kindle. Almost every metropolitan and regional library in Australia runs BorrowBox or something like it. You are already paying for it in your rates.

2. Project Gutenberg, for the Classics

A non-profit that has digitised books in the public domain. Austen, Dickens, Conan Doyle, the Brontës, all free and all legal.

Go to gutenberg.org, search the title, download the ePub, then email it to your Kindle's own @kindle.com address, which lives under Settings then Your Account.

3. Amazon's Free Kindle Books Section

Most readers do not know this exists. Amazon AU has a standing section of free Kindle books: mostly classics, plus promotional giveaways from authors building an audience. Search Free Kindle Books on Amazon AU and sort by price.

For a shortlist rather than a search, see our top 10 free Kindle e-books.

4. Kindle First Reads, if You Have Prime

Prime members get one free Kindle book a month, ahead of its official release date. Usually emerging authors. Sometimes excellent, sometimes not, always free.

5. Author Newsletters

Small but reliable. Plenty of indie romance authors give away e-books to newsletter subscribers. Sign up to three or four in your genre and something free arrives most months.

6. NetGalley, for Advance Copies

If you review books anywhere, on a blog, a podcast or Bookstagram, NetGalley provides advance reader copies free in exchange for honest reviews. Worth the effort if you are serious about it.

7. Kindle Unlimited, the Not-Quite-Free One

$13.99 a month, and unlimited rather than free. The catalogue is enormous and strongest on indie authors, romantasy debuts, BookTok bestsellers and backlist. The catch is that most major new releases from the biggest names are not in it.

Worth it if you read two or more books a month. Skip it if you only read big-name new releases. We went through the maths properly in our honest Kindle Unlimited review.

8. Daily Deals

Not free, but the $0.99 to $2.99 specials on Amazon AU's Kindle Deals page turn up every day. Stack one or two a week and you are reading for almost nothing.

What It Adds Up To

Put BorrowBox, Project Gutenberg and the daily deals together and thirty-odd books a year costs about as much as one subscription. The books get cheap fast. The device does not.

That is the part worth protecting. Browse the Kindle case collection for something that lasts as long as the Kindle does.