Reading Without Boundaries: How Scribd Changed My Reading Habits

Warning: This post is all about books and reading!

                                            The last titles I bought prior to switching to Scribd

If you are like me whose secret dream is to hoard books and read as many book  titles as possible but who, in real life, has a book budget that´s really pitiful, then read on!  Maybe you´d also benefit from a recent discovery of mine.

But no, this isn´t about downloading books illegally.  And yes, I hate Amazon Kindle´s book library and Apple´s iBooks store.  Because, really, why would I buy an ebook for 10€  when I can read all the books I want, synced to all my devices, for a monthly subscription fee of only 9US$?

Yes 9 US$ a month allows me to read all the  books  I want, in all the genres possible.  This is heaven for a book hoarder like me. It means that I can start as many books as I want and switch from one book to another depending on my mood. And I only have to pay a small monthly fee  for this indulgence.

Last year,  I ordered books from  Amazon UK  a couple of times.  English books in Spain are expensive and it was still cheaper to buy from Amazon UK  even with the additional shipping fee.  I would buy 2-3 books at a time and have them shipped to Madrid.  With most books costing at least 10€ each,  I think I spent close to 150€ last year just on my Amazon book purchases  and that only corresponds to the twelve books I could afford to buy.  But what can a book lover do? Beggars can´t be choosers :-(.



Ah but my reading life has changed  oh so gloriously.

                                               Oh there are so many fishes in the ocean!



Thanks to  Scribd´s digital book subscription,  my world of reading is now filled with infinite possibilities, limited only by the time I have for reading.  After three months of being a Scribd digital book subscriber,  I now fill small gaps of time with precious reading rituals:

In the morning, before I prepare for work, I spend thirty minutes reading books on writing.

                                            Stephen King´s On Writing


My travel time from my flat to the office takes forty minutes.  That´s forty minutes of reading mostly business and entrepreneur-slanted books.  These titles inspire me to think up of possible small ventures; soul food for  the hungry wannabe-entrepreneur in me.

Gary Vaynerchuk´s totally fun and irreverent book on finding your niche in business



My closet foodie gourmet self has her fill of foodie-related titles too.  I usually read food and travel titles on my way home from work.  There are titles from Anthony Bourdain,  Mario Batalli and Rachael Ray (if you like her,  I don´t).  Through Scribd, I have read books on how  big food brands such as Hershey´s and Mars,  In-N-Out Burgers and Ben and Jerry´s started from small, backyard businesses into what they are now.   At the moment though,  I am preoccupied with Rick Bayless´s Mexican Cookbook.  Here´s me hoping to make  authentic mexican tacos and mole soon!

And then of course, there are  the book titles we have long wanted to read but could not find:

                        I have finally read this book. It is  book that´s funny, sad and a little frustrating at times. But yeah,  it deserves all the praises that´s been heaped upon it.


And there´s no shortage of chick flicks, historical romance novels (if that´s your thing), and those laugh out loud reads  that are not really good for the mind but are oh so enjoyable:

Yes!  I am beyond happy (try ecstatic) with Scribd´s book subscription service.

You do need to know a couple of things before you decide if this service is for you:

-Because all the titles are in electronic form, you need a compatible reader/tablet/phone to use this service.  I use an iPad Mini  but I know it also works on iPhones and Android devices.  Note that for Kindle devices, only Kindle Fire models can use the Scribd subscription service.

-While  the 9$ monthly subscription fee isn´t that expensive,  you have to at least read two or three books a month to  make this service really cost-effective for you.  For heavy readers like me, this is a value for money service.  So assess your reading needs first and make sure that you will have the time to read books.  The good thing is, you can always cancel your Scribd subscription anytime.

-Scribd offers a month-long free trial of its subscription service so you can check if it´s for you.  They will request for a credit or debit card though but it will not be charged until after the month-long trial is over.  Here´s the link to the Scribd free trial offer:  http://www.scribd.com/subscribe


So that´s it!  Try Scribd and happy reading!


P.S.  I do sound like a sales rep for Scribd, no?  But  hey, I get nothing for promoting their subscription service.  I am just an extremely pleased bookworm who thinks  I need to spread the good word about their awesome service and let people know that there´s an alternative to Amazon´s Kindle Library and Apple´s iBooks.