A Vast Personal Library Doesn't Have To Be Expensive

Sixteen years ago today, on November 4, 2010, I made my very first Kindle book purchase (well, to be explicitly clear, “limited content license” purchase ;) ) - and since then I’ve built a rather sizeable library across most all of my very wide ranging interests. To the level that I often make the comment that my library has both more books and a wider range of books than many libraries I’ve lived near over my life (including these last 16 years!)… and if I’m off, it certainly isn’t by much. (I’m near 100% certain on the “wider range” bit. ;) )

As you can see below, over that period I’ve bought over 9,100 books, and while I’ve spent over $15,000 in that period, it only comes out to about $1.69 per book, with nearly one in three books I’ve bought over this period being free. (Which are now harder to find on Amazon, but I’ll say more about that in a moment.) Honestly, a lot of the 84 books at $10 or above I’ve bought have been for my wife or have been technical or otherwise professional level books. At less than 10% of my total, it is quite clear I don’t often spend that amount on any book.

Here’s the actual data, as I have it in my spreadsheet. Note that for the percentage column, I have it in its decimal form - so move the decimal two places to the right to get it into actual percent form.

Yes, this means that I’m rarely buying the latest best sellers or the most popular authors. Even Lee Child, whose Reacher books I LOVE (when he was writing them, at least), I could rarely bring myself to spend the $14.99+ for the newest book on release day and instead would wait sometimes a few years for it to go on sale before picking it up. So if you’re a reader who only reads the newest, most in-demand authors from the Big 5 publishers (or even some indies with similar pricing models)… ok, yeah, I don’t have much for you here. There may be some stuff a bit lower that may help on the fringes, but we have such wildly divergent reading habits that I’m not sure how much of it will work for you.

Also, just because there are almost half as many “unique authors” in the data here doesn’t mean that I haven’t bought a lot of books from some of the same authors. In fact, another view of the data shows that I’ve bought 97 books from Jeremy Robinson (shocker, for those who have been here much at all ;) ), two dozen or more books from 28 different authors, and 10 or more books from over 130 different authors. Now, that particular view does list multi-author books under each author and therefore is more than my actual total number of books, but it does give you an idea of the variety here.

Tips For Building A Library While Keeping A Budget

1. Set a budget… but be flexible, within reason.
   

   In all honesty, the main reason you see in the data that 89% of my purchases are at or under the $2.99 price point is because that is the price I set for myself long ago, near the beginning. At or below that point, if it looks interesting I’m likely picking it up. Above that point, I have to want it. Way above that point, I have to need it right this second. (Or my wife wants a particular book. :D) This noted, I do in fact buy some books from long time friends even above this point, specifically because they are a friend. (So authors, those parasocial online relationships can in fact lead to more sales. Just saying.)

2. BookBub is your friend.
   

   As I mentioned above, it is getting harder to find free books directly on Amazon. Which is a shame, because I picked up a lot of free books over the years because they were showing on the Kindle Deals pages. But BookBub has been a thing for a few years now, and while authors have their issues with its pricing models to get on its Daily Deals email blasts, listing your book there at all seems to be free, and for readers this is a very solid place to find legitimate free books or books on various sales. You can follow authors to get alerted when their books are on a deal, or you can select any of several genres to see what books within those genres are on a deal. Which leads me to…

3. Flexibility is key.
   

   If you only read certain authors… well, you’re at the mercy of their pricing model and business decisions re: deals. If they never price a book below $14.99 no matter what, you’re either going to pay that or not read, and there isn’t anything you or I will ever do to change that. This also applies to if you only read books from certain publishers or, to a lesser extent, even within certain genres. The more you limit yourself, the more you’re at the mercy of the decisions of those you limit yourself to. But if you’re more open to new-to-you authors - even within preferred genres and even tropes within those genres, you can almost always find someone offering some deal on a book that may in fact become your next favorite book ever. You can also build quite a library by being more open and experimental than you ever will sticking to only certain things.

4. Use your public (or other you have access to, such as school or professional association) libraries in addition to your own.
   

   Because of the size of my own Kindle library, I rarely need to step outside it. But particularly professionally, as an experienced software developer… those books are rarely if ever within my price point, and change as techs change every few years. So a professional library like Plural Sight offered by some employers is an awesome perk there. Otherwise and more generally, public libraries do in fact have a decent selection of books. Not as much as you’ll find in the overall Kindle/ eBook ecosystem outside of them, but enough that most readers will have more than enough reading material. The major drawback here is, again, the same as the point about the flexibility discussion above: If you limit yourself to a given (library/ library system), you limit yourself to its decisions and limitations. Meaning that yes, you will have free access to that brand new latest book from the mega-popular author… but you may yet be waiting quite a while to actually access it, and then you have a limited time to read it. (And apparently the “wifi off” loophole that had existed with Kindles has recently been corrected?)

5. Diversify your ecosystem.
   

   This is one even I need to do more than I have been, and if I were starting out or still small in 2026 I likely would do much more than I do. Namely, even I am limited to Amazon’s decisions. Which have worked out well for me so far… but there is no guarantee they will continue to do so. For example, while their Fire series of tablets were a great tablet for the price that I’ve used for many years, their recent decision to discontinue that line and try to compete with at least the more budget-friendly options from Apple and Samsung (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab A11, which I also have) via the new Alexa Tablet line… meh, I already have the Samsung. I’m not as impressed with the Alexa. But in terms of books, I’m seeing more and more chatter of authors attempting to “go wide” and diversify their options outside of Amazon, so while in say 2016 my options on markets other than Kindle may have been (were) very limited… that may not be as much the case in 2026. There may in fact be better or easier to find deals in other eBook markets, and there are now devices (such as the aforementioned Galaxy Tab, but also pretty well every product Onyx Boox makes, which are all eInk tablets of some form) that are capable of accessing many different marketplaces… via the very apps those marketplaces produce. So you’re still limited by say Amazon’s policies and procedures within the Kindle app, but these devices (including your smart phone, for the most part) can access any market with an app, including Kobo, Google Play, Apple iBooks, Bookshop.org, and any others. The challenge here will be to make sure you don’t buy the same book in multiple markets… unintentionally, at least, as the markets won’t talk to each other to warn you that you’ve already bought that book over in the other place

So those are my tips and a look at my own data. What about you? What is your price point? Did I miss any major tips here? Let me know!