10 Ways To Get Paid to Read Books at Home Dollarsanity

If you love to read and wish that you could make your hobby more profitable, here’s how to get paid to read books online.

Do you love to read? Want to put your passion for books to good use and help you make some extra money?

Reading is an entertaining and rewarding hobby that can easily be done on a budget. Thousands of new books are published every year and readers are needed to help review and promote these books online.

Whether you read one book a month or one a day, you may be wondering if you can turn your love of books into a way to make money. The good news is that you can! Here is how to get paid to read books, record audiobooks, proofread and more.

How To Make Money Reading Books

You may be surprised to learn that your love of reading can be turned into a profitable side hustle that you can earn money as you get paid to read books!

Many companies need reviewers of new books and manuscripts and are willing to pay for your time and feedback. Here’s how to get started on these perfect side hustles for book lovers!

Read New Manuscripts

Want the opportunity to read new authors that may not have ever been read before? Freelance readers are paid to read new manuscripts.

Literary agents receive more material than they can ever possibly read and freelance readers are often contracted to help them make their way through potential new books and make recommendations on whether or not to pursue.

With the potential to make as much as $25 to $100 per hour, freelance readers read new manuscripts and provide reports on what they read.

Recommended:

Become an Editor

Do you have mad grammar skills and want to put them to good use? You may be able to use your editing skills to help others.

Websites like Fiverr and FlexJobs have opportunities for editors to assist others by becoming a virtual assistant and helping edit everything from full books to blog articles.

Review Books for Money

If you like to review books, becoming an online book reviewer may be for you! Many websites will offer free books plus a paid amount for reviewing books.

Online Book Club – This well established free online community targeted towards booklovers has been around for over a decade. The pay is between $5-$60 for a review. You can make even a couple of hundred bucks per month when you establish your reviewer position.

Goodreads – Get paid for submitting book reviews and proofreading articles with Goodreads.

Publishers Weekly – This weekly news magazine looks for book and article reviewers. Publishers Weekly prefer freelance book reviewers with experience, but newbies can also get a chance. Book enthusiasts will get paid to read and review books in categories such as economics, law, self-help, mystery, spirituality, and all types of religion, sports, memoirs and others.

To apply, send a resume and a sample review of about 200 words to [email protected]. You’ll find editorial formatting examples in the released Publishers Weekly reviews. In the email subject heading, write “Book Reviewing” and then the category of your interest.

Booklist – Find paid book review gigs and freelance opportunities.

Scribd – Scribd has paid gig opportunities for book reviewers and proofreaders.

Women’s Review of Books – Editorial writing opportunities are available. Writing samples and pitch may be required.

Reedsy – Get new books to read for free and earn tips for reading them.

The US Review of Books – If you’ve done professional reviews in the past and have a resume and references that can attest to your capabilities, you may qualify to do paid book reviews or even blog articles.

GetAbstract – This service pays readers to write abstracts on different pieces.

Writerful Books – Have the opportunity to review books from all over the world. The amount paid depends on the length of the books.

BookBrowse – If you have sample book reviews that you’ve done in the past, you may qualify to do paid book reviews with BookBrowse.

You apply for the position of BookBrowse.com reviewer by filling in the application form. But to save you time, before you apply, go to their site and read some of their reviews to make sure you can present an equal standard of writing. You will also have to prove this by submitting a review of at least 300 words.

Book Browse reviewers receive modest compensation for their work as well as a byline. Usually, they write about one review per month. If you are not a resident of the U.S., you can also apply, but you have to be comfortable with reading ebooks instead of print copies.

Publishers Marketplace – Check the job board for paid book reviewer opportunities.

Kirkus Media Reviews – Book reviewers in both English and Spanish are needed. A resume and writing samples are needed to apply.

Kirkus Media focuses on reviewing books from all genres. With 10,000 books reviewed or edited per year, they have plenty of work to be done. Now and then, they enrol reviewers to read and evaluate books. Their reviews are typically about 350 words.

How to become a book reviewer for Kirkus? Submit your writing samples together with your resume and a list of genres you want to review at [email protected]. If you have any previous experience, don’t forget to mention it in your email.

Writers Work – This writers website is not only willing to hire writers, they are willing to train you too! Full-time, part-time and contract work is available and they have tools and resources to help you become successful.

Narrate Audiobooks

Do you have a great voice and love to read aloud? If so, you may be a great candidate to narrate audiobooks. A small investment in equipment such as headphones, a microphone, and editing and recording software is needed, as well as a quiet space to record.

Narrating audiobooks can pay well and many experienced individuals can make as much as $100 to $300 per hour, and those who are members of the SAG-AFTRA guild can ask even larger rates starting at $225 per hour. Learn more about how to get started and check out these audiobook narration opportunities below.

Bunny Studio – This freelance service for audiobooks and voice over narration opportunities has thousands of opportunities.

The Voices – Find voice over and audiobook narration opportunities, as well as many other voice acting opportunities.

ACX – The Audio Creative Exchange of Amazon is a place for book narrators to find new paid opportunities and to submit auditions. Gigs can not only pay an hourly rate, but some may offer royalties from book sales as well.

Proofreading

Online proofreading jobs can pay up to $50 an hour. Usually, these jobs do not require experience or any kind of expertise.

All you have to know is proper grammar to earn money by editing and reading books.

Get Paid To Design Book Covers

Today there is a growing number of authors who decide to self publish their books. Many of them publish solely in ebook formats, due to the lower costs of electronic publishing.

It is not uncommon that a writer publishes several books every year. All these books need covers and someone who will design them. With basic design skills, using low cost or even free programs, you can offer book covers for self-publishing authors.

Here are some free programs you could try:

You can offer your services on freelancing sites like Upwork, Fiverr, Design Crowd, or Freelancer.

Websites like Self Pub Book Covers are also worth checking. There, authors choose a premade book cover from among 30,000 unique book covers. Once the book cover sells from the service, it is never offered for sale again.

It even happens that authors, fascinated by the look of a book cover, buy it, and only then they start to write a book inspired by the cover. You can learn a lot about book covers just by analyzing books from a library, bookshop, or even your bookshelf.

There are many artistic book covers, a bunch of them are minimalist in style, and still, a vast number of them are utterly pathetic. That’s why you should change the world with your designs.

If you feel that designing book covers might be something for you, why not start right now? You’ll get confidence with time, and your designs will become better and better.

It’s risk-free: there’s no charge for uploading your work on the sites.

Copyediting

How about being paid to read books while making suggestions on how to improve the text?

If you have excellent grammar and spelling skills, you can try your hand at working as a copyeditor.

After its author finishes a book, it needs someone with a fresh eye who will read it and see whether there are any errors, repetitions, omissions, or inconsistencies. In general, someone who will improve the overall readability and accuracy of the copy.

Copyediting jobs get outsourced by big and small publishers, magazines, websites, or indie authors. To increase your chances of getting hired, consider obtaining a Copyediting Certificate.

You can learn a lot about the profession from The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn. Anyone who wants to work as a copy editor should also know The Chicago Manual of Style.

As The Boston Globe wrote, it’s a “guiding light for almost all published writing in America today.”

Being good at both writing and editing makes you an excellent potential author of books. There’s probably a seed of a new book in you.

Get Free Books For Review

Even if you don’t find a job as a book reviewer, you can still get some free books for review. It’s a good starting point.

Many job offers for reviewers require having some experience. So why not start with writing reviews in exchange for a free book then?

Here are some of the options:

Baker Publishing

Do you enjoy Christian fiction and non-fiction books? Do you have an active book blog or a Youtube review channel that you can use to help authors promote books?

If so, you are a good match for Baker Publishing reviewer.

To join the program, fill out the application form. When you get accepted, you will receive a monthly newsletter where you can sign up for books to review.

Moody Publishers

Apply to Moody Publishers program by filling out the registration form. After you join, you will be able to see books available for review.

Pick the one you are interested in, and they will send it to you within 7-10 days. You have 60 days to write an honest review of the entire book and post it on your blog and a consumer retail site.

Net Galley

Being a member of Net Galley allows you to read galleys digitally on reading devices and platforms. And what are galleys? In the book trade, this is the name for new books that are not published yet.

Ready to read and recommend such books? If so, Net Galley is open to you for free.

My Reader Review Club

As a member of the My Reader Review Club, you can earn points. Later you can redeem them for books and bibles.

Signing up already gives you 25 points for a good start. You can earn more points when you write reviews, invite friends, take surveys, shop at Tyndale.com or NavPress.com, and more.

It’s a great way to earn free books not only for yourself but also for your family and friends.

Springer

You can get a free book when you write a review for Springer. After you log into your account, you get access to a list of books that are available for review.

It is also possible to reserve books that are not available at the moment. When you select an available book, you get immediate access to it and can read it online using Online-Reader.

How to get a “thank you” copy from Springer? You must have a review published in an international magazine or newspaper, online speciality media, or speciality journal.

You need to provide the information where the review appears. If the book you reviewed were new (not older than three years when you obtained it online), you would get a free hard copy of the book.

Library Thing

The Library Thing membership is free, and you don’t have to buy anything to become a member.

Every month, Library Thing announces new batches of books available for review. You have time to apply before the given date.

Winners are chosen when the giveaway period comes to an end. You will learn whether you won a book or not from your profile page.

There are no strict deadlines for submitting a review, though you are expected to deliver one as soon as possible. If, after 90 days from winning the book, you still haven’t written a review, it may count against you.

10 Ways To Get Paid to Read Books at Home