Blue Sky Bookshelf: treasures

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For bloggers, not every single one of us will be accepted by the publisher to read an ARC of an upcoming book we're just dying to read. I bet that not all of us will get every book on our Christmas or birthday list and not every one of us will go out and buy every book we want. If I was rich, I would start expanding my shelves more, but since that's not the case, I can only fantasize.

So what do you do when you're a reader and you love books, but you don't have much money to spend? Here's the list.

For bloggers:

1. NetGalley. Netgalley is a wonderful place. If you have good stats (sometimes that doesn't even matter), the publisher will accept you via NetGalley to read an e-galley of whatever ARC you request. The catch? In exchange of reading an ARC that isn't out yet, you must review it. It's only fair.

2. ARCycling. On their website, it clearly states that you must be an active reviewer and can be a book blogger, librarian, and a bookseller. Get that? Must review. How does it work? Well, every Sunday, for a limited time, they post a list. On the list are books that kind people have donated. You fill out the form they put it up as fast as you can to request said books. You can only get a maximum of two at a time, but you can fill up the form to your heart's content, because you might not get the first two that you wanted. There's other rules in there, but you can just look at their website for more information.

For anyone:

1. YA Book Exchange. Like ARCycling and as implied in the name of this organization, you trade or exchange books. Traders will post what they are willing to trade in exchange for whatever book is on their wishlist. Some even say that non-wishlist books are negotiable. That new book that just got released? Somebody might have it and be willing to trade with you!

2. Thrift stores. This past Saturday, I experienced my first time thrift store book shopping experience. I know, first time? Say what now? In one day, I got NINE books for under $10. You might ask me, "Well, are they even good books?" Three of them were Sarah Dessen novels, one was a HARDCOVER Gallagher Girl book (I was ecstatic since I only had paperback in this one), and one was The Princess Diaries. So to answer your question, yes. I also saw The Maze Runner, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, City of Ashes, tons of Nicholas Sparks', and Kate Brian novels. Amazing!

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3. The clearance section in your bookstore. In my Books-A-Million, they have a nice size section devoted to books under $4. A nice chunk of that section is all YA books. For $3.97, I got Heist Society for one of my friends for Christmas. It's a lovely part of the store.

4. The library. While yes, you can't own them, you can be in possession of a book for a certain amount of time. You don't know how many times I checked out one of my favorite books or roamed the aisles for new titles or squealed with joy when I saw a book I had been waiting for that became available. There's also the power of interlibrary loans. Check them out.

5. Amazon. I'm all for supporting book stores, but unless it's in the clearance section or I have a gift card, I probably won't shop at them. Why? Because their hardcovers are no less than $18 and their paperbacks are $10. I love my hardcovers so why not pay almost half that at Amazon? Plus, if you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping!

6. The Book Depository. Like Amazon, they have cheap books. Unlike Amazon, you don't have to pay a fee every month or be a member to get free shipping. Just click on their button on my sidebar or down below to go to their site and search for cheap books!

7. Giveaways. I'll be putting up a post of all the giveaways I have found soon so you can start entering, but do you know how many blogs have giveaways? There's Twitter giveaways, blogoversary giveaways, giveaway hops...it's endless! I personally recommend giveaway hops since those are the best places to win because you just go down the list and keep entering. To find them, I recommend starting at I Am A Reader Not A Writer because they host giveaways on a weekly basis.

8. Free books. Freebooks.com is only for ebooks, but they're FREE!

9. Half.com. Half.com is a branch of eBay and has great prices for a variety of things. What's in that variety? Books! I'm not sure about shipping, but it's worth checking out.

10. Garage sales. I had come up with nine places for this anyone section, but I wanted an even number. Why stop at nine when good, ole ten is right there? I know I sound like Monk (what a great character and show), but even so, I googled another way to find cheap books. Several places suggested garage sales. I haven't been to a lot of them, but the ones I have been to has never been successful. So it definitely depends on where you live and how many you go to and how good of an eye you have. While I'm not a big supporter of garage sales, it doesn't hurt to go check them out.

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I know there are lots of lovers of reading out there so I hope this list helps your passion and entertainment pastime. As I discovered while thrift store shopping, if you're patient and look carefully, there are some great treasures out there just begging to be discovered.

Think of it as an adventure and go find books!