A reader rec­om­mended this link to me, Books​free​.com which seems sim­i­lar to Net​flix​.com where instead of rent­ing movies, you’re rent­ing as many paper­back books or audio­books as you want accord­ing to your mem­ber­ship plan. I’d never heard of this site before now but it looks like it was launched in 2000 and is still grow­ing strong (they deliv­ered their 2 mil­lionth book in Feb).

I quickly scanned the web­site and it seems like another viable choice for those read­ers who are look­ing to save $$ on books. Mem­bers have 24/7 access to cat­a­log and sup­pos­edly, all you have to do is add books to your que and your books are sent to you within 14 days via media mail (or sooner depend­ing on where you live). Mem­bers are even allowed to donate books for credit toward pur­chase (haven’t read all the deets on that).

Book Rentals R Us?

The prices for plans range from $9.99/month to $47.99/month. There are no late fees and you’re free to keep your books as long as you like but you must return either 2 or 3 books, depend­ing on your plan, before you are allowed to receive any more books in return. Mail­ers are free as is ship­ping “both ways” and like Net­flix, if you like the book you’ve read, you have the option to buy (unless the title is rare or lim­ited availability).

The Cat­a­log

The cat­a­log boasts of hav­ing new and OOP books. Of course I went straight to the cat­a­log and selected “Romance” and had 18356 matches. The cat­e­gories are nicely bro­ken down and I did a search on “Anne Stu­art” and saw that her May release, Sil­ver Falls, will be avail­able to rent and you can save it for your que, too. Also, I like this website’s func­tion­al­ity. You can browse by pop­u­lar­ity, author (first name or last name) and pub date (newest and old­est). Most estab­lished and well known web­sites can’t even do that much. Looks like a great web­site over­all, but those prices…

My Thoughts

I don’t know. Book rentals? I already have a stock­pile that I am actively try­ing to get rid of at the moment and I don’t need the extra added expense. I per­son­ally think the prices are too steep. I had mis­tak­enly thought the prices were per year not per month. Well, I like using my local library and luck­ily that’s free and I can wait. Book rentals? One reader said it saves her a ton of money which is all to the good. With every­body cut­ting cor­ners on spend­ing, book rentals just might be the right choice for you (or not).

Con­clud­ing Thoughts

In clos­ing, I am not review­ing this web­site. More like bring­ing it to your atten­tion (if you’ve lived under a rock like me). Also is the name “Books­free” a mis­nomer since you’re pay­ing each month for these books? Just to play dev­ils’ advo­cate here, are mem­bers required to make sure the books are returned in a “like new” con­di­tion (as I am com­pletely anal about my books). What would make you want to pay to rent a book ver­sus own­ing it, buy­ing it from a used book­store or if risk is what you’re wor­ried about, check it out from the library?