Web page-one lists of free books by mail nonetheless identify book websites and packages that stopped mailing, so each entry beneath was checked in opposition to its personal guidelines in October 2026. Every says who qualifies, what arrives and the catch, from infants to readers who can’t maintain a print guide, adopted by swaps that value postage.
Key takeaways
4 of the 14 packages are for youths: Creativeness Library mailed about 40.4 million books in 2025, 38.3 million of them to US kids.
Adults win books in giveaways: Goodreads attracts winners at random, and 57 of LibraryThing’s 301 October 2026 titles have been print.
If print is tough to learn, the Library of Congress lends at no cost: speaking books, braille and a participant, postage-free, over 20 million gadgets in fiscal 2025.
Spiritual gives are free however come from ministries: Bibles for America sends one New Testomony per particular person, and IslamiCity’s Quran is for non-Muslims.
Swaps will not be free: a 1-pound guide prices $4.39 by Media Mail, and PaperBackSwap provides 99 cents a request until you pay $15 or $25 a yr.
Web page one nonetheless lists 6 gives that received’t mail a guide: NetGalley is digital solely, and Pure Inquirer paused mailing on September 25, 2026.
Each free guide program at a look
4 free guide packages that mail to youngsters
Dolly Parton’s Creativeness Library
Dolly Parton’s Creativeness Library mails a guide each month, addressed to your baby, “for gratis to the kid’s household.” Its phrases cowl kids “from delivery to 5 (5) years previous,” registered by an grownup aged 18 or over.
The catch is your tackle. The library says it “will need to have an area associate to cowl the guide and mailing value,” so begin on its program finder. It takes a map, a menu or your ZIP code. The place no associate exists, you may depart your particulars for an alert when one begins.
Funding may also cease. In December 2025, LEX 18 reported that Fayette County, Kentucky, would pause books to almost 8,000 enrolled households after January 2026. Its native basis needed to increase $8,000 to $10,000 a month.
As soon as you might be in, the primary guide “could take as much as eight to 12 weeks,” its assist web page says.
Books gifted annually by Dolly Parton’s Creativeness Library, worldwide (US, Canada, UK, Australia, Eire); 38,310,564 of 2025’s 40,356,668 went to US kids. Learn October 16, 2026.
Its 12 months in Overview counts 40,356,668 books gifted in 2025, about 40.4 million. That’s up from 24.7 million in 2022, 29.5 million in 2023 and 36.7 million in 2024, and 38.3 million of 2025’s books went to US kids.
Different free mail for younger kids, from magazines to Santa letters, is on our free stuff for youths listing.
Price it? Sure, for any baby underneath 5 whose space has a associate: twelve books a yr with nothing to purchase.
PJ Library
PJ Library “sends free high-quality Jewish storybooks every month.” Ages 0 to eight get board books, image books and early chapter books. Children 9 to 12 select their very own middle-grade guide every month by means of PJ Our Method.
Who qualifies, in its FAQ’s phrases: “All households elevating Jewish kids are eligible,” although households figuring out as Messianic Jewish will not be. The sign-up web page asks you to affirm that your loved ones “contains a minimum of one Jewish member.”
You enroll by means of a local people, and “every group determines how lengthy they are going to run PJ Library,” most as much as about age 9. PJ Our Method takes youngsters from 8½ by means of the day earlier than their thirteenth birthday. Its packages in 40 international locations ship over seven million books a yr.
Price it? Sure, for Jewish households: a guide a month, and from 8½ the kid picks it.
Braille Books Program (American Motion Fund)
The American Motion Fund’s Braille Books Program sends “blind kids a free Braille guide each month from a well-liked kids’s studying sequence.” To enroll, “every applicant should be blind or low imaginative and prescient, and be a Braille reader.” The books are the kid’s to maintain.
The 2026 listing runs January to December, in UEB braille. The fund’s annual report says it “distributed greater than 22,500 free Braille books.” Modifications “could take as much as two months,” so join effectively earlier than a sequence you need begins.
Price it? Sure, for any baby who reads braille: free, month-to-month, and the books keep.
New Worlds Studying (Florida)
New Worlds Studying is Florida’s state-funded program, run by the College of Florida’s Lastinger Middle. It mails 9 free books and actions a college yr to youngsters from VPK to fifth grade. They should be kids “who’ve examined beneath grade degree in studying at any level since August 2021,” with “no revenue requirement.”
Eligibility comes from faculty data, so that you apply and wait: the FAQ says the wait “could take a number of months,” and books begin about 8 weeks after the eligibility e mail. Functions have been open in October 2026, and a baby stays in by means of fifth grade, as much as 63 books.
Price it? Sure, for Florida households whose baby has examined beneath grade degree. No one else qualifies.
Collectively, the 4 cowl a baby from delivery to 13. Creativeness Library stops at 5, New Worlds Studying after fifth grade, and PJ Our Method the day earlier than 13.
When every youngsters’ program begins and stops, from Creativeness Library’s phrases, PJ Our Method and New Worlds Studying’s eligibility web page, learn October 15-16, 2026. The Braille Books Program states no age restrict.
3 free guide packages for adults who assessment
Authors and publishers give away print copies to construct early readers and evaluations. You enter, and a draw or an algorithm picks the winners.
Goodreads Giveaways
Goodreads Giveaways lets authors and publishers give away print copies, and getting into is free. Its phrases open print giveaways to grownup residents of the US, DC and Canada. Entrants want “a Goodreads and an Amazon.com or Amazon.ca account.”
Winners “will probably be chosen at random from amongst all eligible entries,” one entry per particular person and family. Coming into provides the guide to your Wish to Learn shelf, and it should keep there till the giveaway ends. The phrases don’t make winners assessment, and the creator or writer ships the guide.
The percentages are lengthy. Goodreads informed authors in September 2025 that 3,250 to five,223 customers enter a mean Customary giveaway, a bundle that prices the creator $119 ($599 for Premium). One indie creator’s 2018 weblog submit recorded 50 print copies given away and, months later, one assessment and one ranking from the winners.
From Goodreads’ giveaway phrases, its bundle web page and its September 2025 submit to authors, learn October 15-16, 2026. The entrant vary is Goodreads’ personal, with no pattern given.
Price it? Sure, as a lottery: it prices a click on, however 1000’s enter every giveaway.
LibraryThing Early Reviewers
LibraryThing Early Reviewers is “a free program”: publishers listing advance copies every month, and members request them. Below its guidelines, members “should be a minimum of 13 years of age,” and you’ll win as much as 4 books a month-to-month batch.
It’s not a pure draw. LibraryThing picks winners with “an algorithm” weighing your historical past with this system, your catalog and “random likelihood.” Skipping a assessment “will strongly have an effect on your probabilities of successful future giveaways.” Critiques should run a minimum of 25 phrases, and AI-written ones are banned.
Most of what it provides away is digital. The October 2026 batch, counted on October 16, held 301 titles and three,301 copies. Print was 57 titles (529 copies), ebooks 237 titles (2,688 copies) and audiobooks 7 titles (84 copies).
Each itemizing within the October 2026 Early Reviewers batch, counted by format on October 16, 2026: 57 of 301 titles and 529 of three,301 copies have been print; audiobooks have been 7 titles and 84 copies.
Price it? Sure, if you’ll assessment: about 1 in 5 titles is print, and evaluations maintain your odds up.
Baker Publishing Group reviewer packages
Baker Publishing Group, the Christian writer behind the Bethany Home and Revell imprints, runs two reviewer packages that mail print books. Its fiction program asks for “a robust platform that may assist authors,” comparable to a guide weblog or a YouTube channel. You need to additionally have the opportunity “to assessment, promote, and help the books.”
Accepted reviewers be part of an e mail listing the place they “request books to assessment every month.” Print fiction goes to US and Canada residents solely. The nonfiction Reader Ambassador program, for readers of Christian nonfiction, mails print to US residents solely, and everybody else will get ebooks by means of NetGalley.
Spots “are restricted,” and neither web page units a follower minimal or a assessment deadline.
Price it? Provided that you already submit evaluations folks learn. It’s an software, not a giveaway.
3 free guide companies for readers who can’t get to a library
Speaking books from the Library of Congress (NLS)
The Nationwide Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) lends audiobooks, braille books and the participant for them, free. It serves any US resident or US citizen overseas “who’s unable to learn or use common print supplies” due to a visible or bodily limitation. A studying incapacity counts too.
A “competent authority,” comparable to a health care provider, certifies the applying, which fits to your state’s community library. Books are then “mailed to your door at no cost” or downloaded, and NLS says “there’s no waitlist for titles.”
Postage is free each methods underneath the USPS Free Matter for the Blind rule, which covers braille, 14-point or bigger sort and sound recordings. NLS circulated greater than 20 million gadgets in fiscal 2025, “a mean of greater than 90 gadgets per patron,” and Congress gave it $66.13 million for fiscal 2026.
Circulation from the NLS e-newsletter of April 2026; funding from Home report 119-666; postage from USPS DMM 703. Learn October 15-16, 2026.
Heavy readers use it laborious. In 2002 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin profiled a legally blind reader of 77 who received by means of about 20 speaking books a month. The supervisor of Hawaii’s library for the blind known as the service “the most effective stored secret.”
Price it? Sure, for anybody print shuts out, at any age: the books, the participant and the postage are all free.
Public library books by mail
Many public libraries mail books to cardholders who can’t get to a department, and every units its personal guidelines. Three revealed examples, learn in October 2026:
Louisville Free Public Library (Kentucky), Books To You: you have to “be unable to learn common print” and “have problem bodily coming in to the Library.” Baggage of 1 to three books exit and again postage-free. You get one bag at a time, with no overdue fines (reality sheet).
LA County Library (California), Books by Mail: for homebound folks, folks in convalescent properties and rural residents of its service space. You’ll be able to have as much as 4 books at a time with a library card. “Delivery is free,” and books return inside a month (its web page).
Stark Library (Ohio), Books by Mail: for homebound readers in its “designated service space.” Deliveries come “each 4 weeks.” You name 330-458-2828, and employees select by your favourite authors and genres (its web page).
Louisville Free Public Library’s Books To You reality sheet (February 2026), web page 1, learn October 15, 2026.
The postage rule explains the variations. Free Matter for the Blind covers solely large-type, braille and audio gadgets for licensed readers, so a library that mails common print pays the postage itself.
Price it? Sure, in case you can’t get to a department: name your library and ask for its homebound or books-by-mail service.
Books to prisoners
Volunteer teams mail free books to folks in jail, and the particular person inside normally writes the request. Every jail units its personal limits. The federal rule, 28 CFR 540.71, lets hardcovers come “solely from the writer, from a guide membership, or from a bookstore.” Used paperbacks from any supply attain solely minimal and low safety federal prisons.
Seattle’s Books to Prisoners sends 1 to 2 kilos of books “for gratis,” as soon as each 5 months. A reply “could take as much as 4 months.” Jail E book Program in Quincy, Massachusetts, despatched almost 65,000 books to greater than 18,500 folks in 2025.
Three volunteer guide tasks, from their very own pages, learn October 16, 2026. Every solutions letters from folks in jail; some prisons refuse books fully.
In Florida, WUSF reported in August 2024 that Gainesville volunteers mail softcovers twice a month. One incarcerated author stated Florida’s free guide packages take “4 to 6 months.” Jail E book Program warns that some amenities “merely won’t settle for books,” so verify the jail’s mail guidelines first.
Price it? Sure: it’s free to the reader inside, however sluggish, so ask for a style reasonably than one title.
3 free spiritual books by mail (and what follows)
These come from ministries that hope you’ll learn additional. Not one of the gives beneath asks for cash.
Bibles for America
Bibles for America mails a free New Testomony Restoration Model, a examine version. Its FAQ says “all the things, together with delivery, is totally free.” It’s “restricted to 1 copy per particular person,” goes solely to US, territory and APO addresses, and “now not ships to jail inmates.”
It provides away solely the New Testomony “due to value.” The nonprofit, based in 2000 in Southern California, buys them in bulk from the writer, Residing Stream Ministry. Its About web page counts 2,580,090 Bibles and 5,866,295 Christian books given away.
What follows: its privateness coverage retains the identify, tackle, cellphone and e mail out of your order, and sends its emails solely “to customers who subscribe.”
Price it? Sure, if you would like a examine New Testomony. A full Bible isn’t supplied.
A free Quran (IslamiCity or WhyIslam)
Two US Muslim teams mail a Quran translation free. IslamiCity sends an English or Spanish copy “inside the USA. No obligation. Utterly free,” however limits requests to “folks of faiths apart from Islam,” despatched to the requester’s personal tackle.
WhyIslam, run by ICNA, mails an English or Spanish translation and different literature from a web based kind. The shape requires your e mail and cellphone quantity, and its containers for a mosque go to, mentoring and newsletters are optionally available.
Price it? Sure, if you’re interested in Islam. Depart WhyIslam’s follow-up containers empty in case you solely need the guide.
Our Each day Bread devotional
Our Each day Bread Ministries mails its quarterly devotional “for gratis to readers”: 4 booklets a yr, in eight languages, with giant print in English. “A donation is optionally available, by no means required.”
The month-to-month version is totally different: it “features a donation of any quantity at checkout,” so solely the quarterly is free. The ministry, which started in 1938 as a radio Bible class, says it distributes greater than 60 million sources in 150 international locations.
Price it? Sure, for a day by day devotional, and the large-print version fits readers who wrestle with small sort.
The 4 spiritual gives facet by facet, from every group’s personal order web page and FAQ, learn October 15-16, 2026.
A free cookbook that also mails
JIFFY Combine recipe guide
JIFFY, the baking-mix model of Chelsea Milling Firm, mails its recipe guide free: “one request per customer, continental US solely,” with 2 to three weeks for supply. The shape asks to your identify and tackle, and e mail is optionally available.
It’s a model’s recipe guide constructed round its personal mixes. The web page providing it was dated August 7, 2026.
Price it? Sure: a free cookbook within the mail for the worth of your tackle.
Near free: swaps and “free guide” golf equipment that value cash
Web page one lists these as free. Every prices postage, a charge or a subscription.
PaperBackSwap
PaperBackSwap provides you two startup credit after you listing 10 books, and every guide you request prices one credit score. You earn extra by mailing your books to different members “at your expense,” normally by Media Mail.
Every request additionally prices a 99-cent swap charge, until you pay $15 a yr (30 books) or $25 a yr (limitless), underneath its phrases since July 24, 2025. Members should be 18, and the location bars shipments to or from prisons.
Media Mail retail costs from USPS Discover 123, learn October 16, 2026. On PaperBackSwap and BookMooch, the one who sends the guide pays this.
At USPS’s 2026 Media Mail costs, sending a guide prices $4.39 as much as 1 pound, $5.13 as much as 2 kilos and $5.86 as much as 3.
BookMooch
BookMooch runs on factors: by its FAQ, as archived in 2019, giving a guide away within the US earns 1 level and requesting one prices 1 level. You pay to mail what you give, and its FAQ suggests Media Mail. Its dwell web site confirmed solely a bot verify in October 2026, so whether or not swaps nonetheless run couldn’t be confirmed.
Harlequin Reader Service
Harlequin’s “2 free books” is a subscription. The E book Field welcome provide says “Solely pay delivery upfront, then $27.98/month” for 4 books a month, and you’ll cancel on-line, by e mail or at 1-800-873-8635.
The web page doesn’t state the transportation charge, or whether or not you retain the 2 books in case you cancel earlier than the subsequent field. Its Love Impressed Christmas set spells out the mannequin: 4 shipments at $35.96 plus $3.99 delivery every, until you cancel.
On BBB, Harlequin Gross sales Company has an A ranking and 23 complaints in three years. Of the 21 seen in October 2026, 10 described a free-books or trial provide adopted by costs or books they didn’t count on. One other 7 stated they by no means signed up, 3 couldn’t cancel or log in, and 1 was unclear. Complaints are allegations, and the corporate answered all 21.
Our studying of the 21 complaints seen on BBB’s Harlequin Gross sales Company profile (23 filed in three years), learn October 15, 2026. A pattern; complaints are allegations, and the corporate answered all 21.
Below the federal legislation often known as ROSCA, a membership that turns a free trial into costs should disclose its phrases and get your consent earlier than billing, the FTC says. It should additionally provide a easy technique to cancel.
Backside line: None of those is free. A swap prices about one Media Mail charge per guide you get, and Harlequin’s books value $27.98 a month as soon as the welcome field has shipped.
Earn guide cash as an alternative
If you happen to would reasonably purchase the precise guide you need, reward apps can cowl it. Swagbucks pays factors for procuring, video games and surveys that you simply commerce for reward playing cards. Freecash pays for video games and surveys, and its first cash-out wants an ID verify and $5 to $20, relying in your area.
Swagbucks Abstract
Some ways to earn cash and e-gift playing cards
$10 welcome bonus after a $25 store buy
As much as 10% cashback when procuring on-line
$3 minimal e-gift card withdrawal
Play video games and enter tournaments for SB
Legit platform run by Prodege
Extra apps that pay in Amazon credit score are on our free Amazon reward card listing, and different playing cards on our free reward playing cards listing.
Web page-one “free guide” gives that received’t mail you a guide
Six gives that page-one lists for “free books by mail” nonetheless identify, checked in opposition to every one’s personal web page on October 15-16, 2026.
Why these packages give books away
Each free guide right here has a payer. Creativeness Library’s 2024 funder sheet says its titles retail at about $14, however shopping for in quantity, it mails them “for about $2.20 per baby per thirty days,” which native companions cowl.
The funding components on web page 2 of Creativeness Library’s funders and coverage makers sheet (September 2024), learn October 16, 2026. Households pay nothing; the native associate covers guide and mailing prices.
When native cash runs out, the books cease, as Fayette County’s pause confirmed. Authors pay Goodreads $119 or extra a giveaway to get onto readers’ cabinets, and Goodreads says giveaways convey over 300,000 Wish to Learn marks a yr. LibraryThing’s publishers commerce copies for evaluations.
Taxpayers fund NLS, ministries depend on donations, and Jail E book Program says mailing a 3-pound bundle prices it $6.18 on common.
Backside line: A free guide is somebody’s advertising and marketing, mission or tax cash, so the catch is normally who qualifies, not a invoice.
Which free guide program suits you
A child or preschooler: Creativeness Library first, and PJ Library too if your loved ones is Jewish.
A baby who reads braille or can’t learn print: the Braille Books Program and NLS.
An grownup who likes new releases: Goodreads for a free entry, LibraryThing if you’ll assessment.
Homebound, or print is simply too small: your library’s books by mail, then NLS. Our free stuff for seniors listing covers extra.
Somebody in jail: the volunteer venture that serves that state.
Price doing
Creativeness Library, in case your ZIP code has a partnerNLS, if common print is tough to readGoodreads and LibraryThing giveawaysYour library’s books by mail
Skip
Harlequin’s “free books,” until you desire a $27.98 month-to-month boxNetGalley, if you would like printLists that rely book websites as books by mail
For used books from neighbors, our websites like Freecycle listing covers native giveaways, and 400 web sites to get free stuff has extra free mail.
How we researched this
We learn every program’s personal guidelines, assist pages and phrases on October 15 and 16, 2026, and quoted who qualifies reasonably than paraphrasing it. We counted LibraryThing’s October 2026 batch and the 21 seen BBB complaints about Harlequin, and credited folks’s outcomes to the reporters and authors who revealed them. Presents whose personal websites now not again web page one’s claims are within the desk above.
Free books by mail FAQ
How can adults get free books by mail?
Enter Goodreads Giveaways and LibraryThing Early Reviewers, which mail print copies to winners. If common print is tough to learn, the Library of Congress’s NLS lends audio and braille books by free mail, and lots of libraries mail books to homebound cardholders.
Who’s eligible for Dolly Parton’s Creativeness Library?
Kids from delivery to age 5 who dwell the place an area associate pays for the books. An grownup aged 18 or over registers them, and this system finder on its web site tells you whether or not your space is roofed.
How can I get a free Bible by mail?
Bibles for America mails one free New Testomony Restoration Model per particular person to US addresses, delivery included. It doesn’t give away full Bibles, and it now not ships to prisons.
The place can I get free books by mail with free delivery?
The 14 numbered packages above value nothing to obtain. Swap websites comparable to PaperBackSwap are totally different: you pay to mail the books you ship, and a 1-pound guide prices $4.39 by Media Mail.
Can teenagers get free books by mail?
Sure. LibraryThing Early Reviewers accepts members from age 13, and NLS indicators up readers underneath 18 who can’t learn common print, with a dad or mum’s acknowledgment.
Can I get a free devotional guide by mail?
Our Each day Bread Ministries mails its quarterly devotional booklet free, 4 a yr, with giant print in English. Its month-to-month version asks for a donation at checkout.
