Buy Books Cheap: How To Save 24% When Buying Books Online

If you’re an obsessive reader like me, yet hate to spend unnecessary money, it makes perfect sense to try and buy books cheap. Oh sure, hardcore frugal fanatics may balk at buying anything – instead relying on the public library system.

But my more “niche” tastes are never satisfied by the relatively limited selection of titles in my local library – forcing me to look for alternative solutions to my addiction.

Fortunately – as you’re about to see – there is a simple yet effective way to buy books cheaply online and save a surprising amount of money on what you would have spent shopping elsewhere.

Onwards…

Like many men of my age, I have a fascination with technology. Fortunately as a naturally frugal individual I normally manage to control my spending in this department.

However over the last year or so I must admit a growing desire to purchase a Kindle – most specifically a Kindle Fire.

However in order to make my purchasing decision with my head rather than my heart, I thought it would be a useful exercise to work out how cost-effective owning a Kindle really is.

Is owning a Kindle really an effective way to buy books cheap or are we all being fooled by Amazon’s marketing department?

After all, we all know that Kindle books are cheaper than physical books (don’t we?!). But what are the actual savings likely, and how does this compare to the cost of actually buying a Kindle in the first place?

And just as importantly, how long will it take for your Kindle to pay for itself (if at all)?

In order to make a fair assessment of the situation, I decided to comb through my Amazon purchase history and pick out the last 15 books that I actually bought from them.

I then selected another 15 books at random from the “top 100” best-selling books at the time of writing and examined whether you can really buy books cheaper in Kindle format rather than their physical counter-parts.

What follows then my list of sample books, showing the book title, the Kindle price and the price for a physical copy of each title. For a fair comparison, I have recorded only the paperback price (as opposed to hard back prices), as these tend to be cheaper (far more tempting for frugal-minded individuals) and have omitted any publication available only in hard-back format.

Also appreciate that I am taking these figures from Amazon.co.uk and that book prices change regularly so the figures listed below may not represent current prices. Having said that, all were correct at the time of writing and recorded on a single day for fairness.

Sample Prices For Kindle Ebooks Vs Paperback Books

Book Title	Paperback Price (£)	Kindle Price (£)	Saving (£)	Saving (%)
Be a Free Range Human: Escape the 9-5, Create a Life You Love and Still Pay the Bills	9.59	7.64	1.95	20
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life	18.69	7.79	10.90	58
Forgotten Fruits: The Stories Behind Britain's Traditional Fruit And Vegetables	6.74	6.17	0.57	8
House Share Hero	8.99	6.04	2.95	33
The Corn Snake Manual	10.91	7.19	3.72	34
The Butterfly Isles: A Summer In Search Of Our Emperors And Admirals	6.39	5.15	1.24	19
The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and Overworked	9.65	6.77	2.88	30
Dublin (Lonely Planet Encounter Guide)	5.99	-	-	-
Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition	10.87	9.78	1.09	10
Collins Gem - Carbon Counter	4.83	2.99	1.84	38
The 100 Thing Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul	6.89	6.55	0.34	5
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence	13.17	8.51	4.66	35
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us	5.89	5.15	0.74	13
Don't Own Don't Rent Live Well	17.89	13.38	4.51	25
The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to be Happy	6.74	6.40	0.34	5
The Fast Diet: The Secret of Intermittent Fasting	4.49	2.36	2.13	47
A Street Cat Named Bob	3.85	3.49	0.36	9
Gone Girl	3.85	3.49	0.36	9
The Fast Diet Recipe Book	6.99	5.59	1.40	20
The Fault in Our Stars	3.49	4.99	-1.50	-43
Entwined With You	3.85	3.99	-0.14	-4
The Great Gatsby	1.99	0.38	1.61	81
The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry	3.85	2.69	1.16	30
A Song of Ice and Fire	3.99	3.49	0.50	13
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War	3.85	3.46	0.39	10
The Official Highway Code	1.99	1.40	0.59	30
Philosophy for Life	6.74	6.17	0.57	8
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared	6.74	3.08	3.66	54
The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight	7.00	6.49	0.51	7
A Storm of Swords, Part 2: Blood and Gold	3.85	3.49	0.36	9
Average	6.99	5.31	1.68	24

Conclusions: Does Kindle = Cheap Books?

Now we’ve gathered some data, let’s do some basic “number crunching” to get a better idea of whether owning a Kindle is an effective way to buy books cheap, and if so, what are the real-world savings you can expect?

Some of the most intriguing findings are:

1. Some Kindle books are actually more expensive than buying a paperback copy.
2. Newer “top seller” titles (titles 16-30) generally offer fewer savings than older titles (titles 1-15).
3. The average Kindle ebook is 24% cheaper than the paperback equivalent though these savings vary considerably between titles.
4. The average saving per title in our chart was £1.68.

The next obvious question is that if we save an average of £1.68 per book when buying it in Kindle format versus paperback, how many books would we need to buy in order for a Kindle to pay for itself?

The following table shows exactly that…

Kindle Model	Price (£)	Number Of Books Purchased Before Break-even Point
Kindle	69	42
Kindle Paperwhite	109	65
Kindle Fire	129	77
Kindle Fire HD	159	95

So while saving 24% on the average book purchase, I’d need to buy at least 77 books in order to break even with my beloved Kindle Fire. Not only is that far, far more than I buy in a year (I love using the library whenever possible) but it would cost an awful lot of money to get to that break-even point (£408.87 based on the average Kindle book price calculated earlier).

So Kindles do offer a way to buy books cheap – but the initial hardware costs are prohibitive.

So are Kindle’s Bad Value?

In terms of buying books alone with your Kindle, the facts seem to suggest that while Kindle books are on average far cheaper than buying physical books it’s going to be a long time before you actually make back your initial investment.

Purchasing a Kindle solely with the aim of buying books cheap therefore seems like a pretty fool-hardy venture.

That said, there are a few additional points worth bearing in mind which may, or may not, help to sway your decision one way or another when it comes to whether a Kindle is right for your situation…

Second Hand Paperbacks

Whenever I buy a book from Amazon, I aim to look at the other buying options, to see if anyone is selling a decent-quality second hand copy for considerably less.

By doing this I consistently save a surprising amount of money, making my paperback purchases equal to – or less than – buying a Kindle edition. As a result, I would likely see no savings whatsoever in buying a Kindle purely in terms of book purchases.

Resale Value

While one cannot resell a Kindle ebook, I do regularly resell unwanted books of mine on Amazon and bring in a steady stream of income doing so. I’ve had most luck with hardback books rather than paperbacks (they seem to hold their value far better) but this too means that the savings I would get from owning a Kindle would likely be cancelled out.

Postage/Shipping

The figures stated above for physical books exclude postage or shipping charges. While many people like myself are happy to wait for our package to arrive – so use the free delivery option on Amazon – if you’re impatient and regularly pay for shipping then you may find your Kindle purchases offer larger savings than the table above suggests.

Kindle Loan Library

As a Kindle owner, it’s possible to “borrow” books to read for a limited time-period. Depending on your circumstances and mindset, these “loans” may satisfy many of your reading needs, reducing the total number of books that you end up actually buying. In this respect, some considerable savings as a Kindle owner may be experienced.

Free Kindle Ebooks

There is an ever-changing list of books which Kindle owners can download free of charge. Granted, if you’re looking for a specific title you may be disappointed, but if you’re a more general reader, simply looking to learn more about a specific topic, then it’s entirely possible that you’ll find yourself the proud owner of an ever-growing digital library that has cost you nothing (but the cost of your Kindle) to build. Once again, viewed from this perspective, a Kindle may prove excellent value for money.

The Perfect Solution: How To Really Buy Books Cheap And Save 24% On Every Purchase

As we’ve seen, overall buying Kindle books are far cheaper than buying physical books. We’ve also discussed the additional savings of owning a Kindle with regards to no shipping charges and the wealth of free Kindle ebooks available.

But we’ve also seen that actually buying a Kindle in order to receive these benefits isn’t a very tempting idea from a purely financial perspective.

However there is a way to get those juicy savings and buy books cheap without having to fork out for a Kindle. How? Quite simply there are Kindle apps available for virtually every device out there – for Windows, for Macs, for iPhones and for tablets. In essence the device you’re using to read this article right now can be used as a Kindle with the right software.

So how do you save 24% on all your book purchases from now on? Simply download the Kindle app for your computer, set up a Kindle account, and start enjoying all those savings without the cost of buying a dedicated Kindle.

Simply click here now to download your free Kindle app and start saving!