Get Paid to Read Books: Work At Home Ideas for People Who Love to Read

One of the benefits of designing a home-based career is to get paid doing something you love. If you love reading, there are several ways you can get paid to read.

Note: While these companies pay people to read, they may or may not be hiring at this time. Visit each site to get complete details and terms of the job.

Get Paid to Read & Review Books

If you like reading, and creating summaries or reviews of the books you read, there are companies that will pay you to write about books. While some of these review jobs are for the company’s media outlets, some will want you to have accounts at the online book retailers (i.e. Amazon), at Goodreads, or to have your own book review blog.

Any Subject Books – Any Subject Books offers services to authors, including reviews. It pays readers to read and write honest review of books on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. The pay varies depending on the length of the book and the amount of time you have in which to read and review it.

Instaread – Instaread is an app that provides book summaries. The company pays $100 for book summaries, plus 6 months access to it’s app. To get started, visit Instaread, and select a book from it’s list of most-desired titles. It’s looking for “pithy, punchy summary” written according to Instaread’s instructions.

Kirkus (scroll down for review job)- Kirkus is looking for English and Spanish speaking readers to write 350 word reviews of indie books.

Online Book Club – Online Book Club is another review service for authors. It provides free books and pays $5 to $60 for reviews.

U.S. Review of Books – U.S. Review of Books pays for 250-300 word book reviews. If approved, you’ll be given access to it’s list of currently available books for review. The site doesn’t indicated amount of pay, but does say it pays monthly.

Get Paid to Read & Record Audio Books 

If you like to read, and have a voice suitable for recording, you can get paid to read audiobooks.

ACX – Owned by Amazon, ACX is where indie authors can get their books into audio format for Audible. Readers have two ways they can request payment. One is an hourly rate (per finished audio hour) or through royalties on the sale of the audiobook. To get hired, you need submit your “audition” and be selected by authors. For more information, check out this article at The Penny Horder on getting started as an audio book reader.

Brilliance Audio (scroll down to “Narration Opportunities”) – Brilliance Audio produces many best-selling audio books, and indicates it accepts samples for narration work consideration. It’s unclear if you’d have to go to their studio to record, although it does indicate you’d need to fit into its schedule for recording.

Upwork – For other audio book reading or voice over opportunities, check out Upwork, which lists many voice jobs.

Get Paid to Read & Edit/Proofread Books

If you have a great command of English writing, including grammar, you can get paid to edit and/or proofread books. Some editing positions include providing feedback on content and flow. Other jobs are line editing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. In most cases, knowledge of Chicago Manual of Style, and experience is required. Note that there are many opportunities to work-at-home as an editor for articles  and academic papers, but this list is for book editors only.

Kirkus (scroll down to Book Editor) – Kirkus is looking for book editors with copy edit experience.

Publishers – While it can be difficult to get an editing job with a big 5 publisher, there are many smaller presses that hire freelance and home-based editing jobs. For example, Penner Publishing, a woman’s fiction book publisher has openings for developmental and line editors. Here is a list of small and academic press you can checkout.

Writing Job Sites – The best place to look for book editing jobs is on writing job sites such as Media Bistro (under “Location” choose “work at home”), Journalism Jobs (under “Location” choose “Telecommute”), and Writers Weekly. Freelance sites like Upwork, are a good place to check as well. Finally, networking in writing groups and with self-publishers is a great place to find authors who need editing services.

For more ideas on home-based work for book lovers, read 6 Home Business Ideas for People who Love Books.

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