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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Louisiana Tech chapter.

If you are anything like me, you probably have an ever-growing To-Be-Read list and want to read them as soon as humanly possible. Also, if you are like me, you are attracted to all the books that are $30 on sale at the bookstore and you refuse to buy them on principle. I want to support authors, but I also really like a deal, so I quickly discovered many not-so-secret ways to be able to read as many stories as I want without accidentally spending my rent money. Here are my three favorites:

 

Libraries/online libraries

I believe that libraries are the purest gift to humanity and that they are not appreciated enough. You can easily get a library card, borrow anything you want, use their internet, and ask them to get any book for you they may not have. It is genuinely the ultimate way to be an avid and resourceful reader. Also, many libraries are digitizing their stock and have apps for you to borrow ebooks for up to two weeks. This has saved me on many late nights when I found a book on Goodreads that I had to read IMMEDIATELY.

https://www.overdrive.com ← Access your local library’s ebook and audiobook selection.

Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev from Unsplash

Use your student discount

Many services offer a discount for students if you sign up with your school email. Amazon offers a discounted price for Prime and gives you two months of Kindle Unlimited for free. Audible also offers a new member discount when you first sign up and then it applies a student discount to your bill for the remainder of your membership. These are both great for primarily electronic users who want a good deal!

Prime Student – Amazon.comwww.amazon.com › Amazon-Student ← sign up for Prime Student.

https://www.audible.com/ep/students ← sign up for a student version of audible.

 

Subscription services

There are many book subscription services out there that are absolutely wonderful. With Book of the Month, for $15 a month, you can get a newly released and popular hardback book. You also get the option of adding up to two extra books for only $10 a piece. This is an amazing price for good quality hardback books and they go out of their way to make sure their picks represent a diverse set of authors, genres, and audiences. I have been a member for over a year and have rarely been disappointed.

https://www.mybotm.com/mljwt4m58jh ← This is my referral code if you want to sign up and get a book free!

poetry book & tea
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My bank account and I have been extremely grateful for an alternative to buying $30 books in big bookstores. Besides the three resources I listed, there are Facebook book swap pages, Little Free Libraries, and Authors who send free stuff when you subscribe to their email list. Reading has become extremely more accessible as we become more digitized as a society. My advice to you is to take advantage of this accessibility and read everything.

 

**Remember: make sure you are respecting authors by getting their works honestly and then consider giving them a good review on Goodreads. 

Mandilyn McMillan

Louisiana Tech '20

I am a Senior at Louisiana Tech University and I have spent my years studying Literature and trying to learn some Spanish. I enjoy sneaking around with 'non-scholarly' books in my purse wherever I go and having strong opinions where they matter.
As a little girl, I spent hours writing stories. Obviously they weren't exactly bestsellers, but it was my passion nevertheless. I would fill up my notebooks with everything I didn't know how to say out loud, and anything I could imagine. Now, as a college student, I'm chasing my dream one word at a time. I'm currently studying English and Marketing, with the intention of becoming an editor.