Reading - How to Make it a Less Expensive Hobby

If you are like me, you are an avid reader & collector of books. Fantasy,Science Fiction, Western,.Military fiction or history all grist for the reading mill.
But it can be an expensive hobby, most local libraries don't take long to read through & inter library loans take forever. Ask your Liberian to do an interlibrary loan from the library of congress for an out of print book & most likely she will look at you with a blank expression because she did not know she could borrow from the library of congress. It can be done just takes special paperwork & lots of time.

Lets say you are among the many on a budget, or fixed income you have read all your local library has & your book loans are not here yet, what can you do?
Used book stores & flea markets & thrift stores are all low cost options but what if there are none in your area or they have nothing you wish to or can afford to buy?

I have recently made 2 discoveries that allow me to enjoy my hobby at a very low cost. The first is totally FREE!!!
For those of us that read Science fiction & fantasy Baen Publishing has established the following site: Baenfreelibrary.com Here you can download or read on line dozens of books by David Drake,Mercedes Lackey,Elizabeth Moon and many others new books are added as available so it is an ongoing resource of free reading.

Discovery 2 costs a little not much & in the long run saves you money. Paperbackswap.com lets you trade books via mail for just the cost of postage.
Right now Paperbackswap is free to join. Once you join you post all the books you have that you are willing to swap,after you post the first 9 books you get 3 free credits this allows you to order3 books on any subject fiction-technical-homeschooling and more.

The person who has the book you want pays the postage to send you the book (usually $1.59 per book) you let the site know when the book arrives.
Once you say you have received the book the person who sent it gets a book credit. You in return will pay the postage when someone wants one of your books.
Extra book credits can be purchased & you can post as many books as you like . So far this site has provided hours of pleasure and saved me more than $100 if you figure a used book price of half the cover price.So in a way because of the saving this site pays you to read.

Due to the wide variety of subjects available everything from Astrophysics- Zoology with more added all the time you will almost never run out of things to read.
It is also a good source for out of print books, audio books and they have just added a sister site that allows you to trade CDs & DVDs as well so it has become a one stop shop of entertainment.