Reading Options on a Budget

As the fall semester approaches again, my reading rate will usually slow because of school, work, and available cash. On the realistic priority list, books do rank a bit lower than food, rent, and gas. A lack of money, however, should not stop you from reading. Escapism and self-care are still important.

I have talked about Project Gutenberg on here before, but if you are not familiar with it, Project Gutenberg offers ebook that are free to download. Basically, when the copyright runs out on a story, the people with Project Gutenberg digitize the works and make it legally available to the public.

Online reading/writing communities such as Wattpad are another good source of free reading material. Writers can publish their own work, and you can read at your pleasure. Some are good, and some are not exactly the best obviously. They will likely be spotted with typos, so if you know that’s something that will distract and bother you, it could get bothersome. I previously used Figment, but I believe they deleted the stuff at their site and moved to Underline. If you use the Wattpad app on your phone, you can download the stories to read them even if you don’t have Internet connection without using data.

Though I currently only use Wattpad, you could also check out Commaful, Tumblr, and Archive of Our Own. The work can be touch and go. For starters, if there’s a story you really like, there’s no guarantee that the writer won’t just drop it midway through or almost near the end for whatever reason. You could also waste time reading some rather poorly written stories before finding one you enjoy. However, it’s free. If you have the time, I definitely recommend trying out these communities. This is actually one of the reasons why my posts on here are more scarce sometimes. I decided not to put reviews of officially published material on this blog.

If you have other options for how to not let being low on cash hinder you from reading, please share them. I would love to hear your ideas.