What’s New
Thursday and Friday mark the “Stuff Your Kindle” Days during which e-book readers can stock up on hundreds of books for free—with a catch.
Why It Matters
Everyone is on the lookout for a good deal, and readers are no different. Amazon, which started as an online bookseller, continues to dominate the e-book market.
PC Magazine‘s review of e-readers for 2025 named the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, which is the evolution of the original Kindle product line, as the best overall product and best for children. Other Kindle products ranked atop the “cheap” and “color” categories.
But these are not a Kindle-specific sales, despite the name and trend.
Newsweek reached out to Amazon by email on Thursday night for comment.
What To Know
“Stuff Your Kindle” day is at a basic level another sale: Buyers merely go on Amazon.com and type “stuff your kindle” and offerings pop up as results. However, even a cursory glance shows that virtually all of the eBooks on offer are from the romance genre as of Thursday, and that will change going into Friday when “Dark Fiction” will pop up instead.
That’s because the “Stuff Your Kindle” sale is not actually an Amazon-driven event. The event is actually two different sales promoting independent authors of specific sub-genres: The first sale is run by romance author Zoe York, who compiles lists of romance novels for the sale, which she started in 2014 – making this year the event’s tenth anniversary.
The sale is also available for readers who use the Kindle app or other e-readers, like Barnes & Noble Nook or Kobo e-readers.
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Romance novels continue to be high sellers with a cross-genre appeal: One of the most popular and best-selling series in the fantasy genre, for example, is A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Hulu in 2021 optioned the series with Ronald D. Moore of Outlander fame to adapt it.
Most of the books in the Kindle event are by independent authors and it therefore aims to promote these authors and their works. On the website RomanceBookworms.com, the FAQ about the event says that York started the event after she ran out of promotional opportunities.
York scoured Amazon for authors to participate and put them onto a list for eager readers. The first event had 35 others who each put in two books for the promotion.
The second “Stuff Your Kindle” day sale is on December 27 and is run by Dark Mode Books to promote “dark fiction,” which is another cross-genre label for books with grittier tones and more deconstructive elements.
The Dark Mode Books website says the sale covers genres “ranging from Grimdark Fantasy to Splatterpunk, and No Romance to Erotica.”
Unlike the Romance “Stuff Your Kindle” event, Dark Mode Books holds its sale bi-annually, stacking the second day of its event around the same time as the Romance one.
Jinapher J. Hoffman, the author of epic dark romantic fantasy, started the event.
While it’s not clear if she was inspired by the “Stuff Your Kindle” event, the videos and website indicate that 2024 may be the first year for the Dark Fiction version.
The website stuffyourkindle.org, which says it is owned and copyrighted by York, has promoted the Dark Fiction event.
What People Are Saying
“All books included in OUR lists are submitted by indie authors who contribute to lifting up this community event,” a description on RomanceBookworms.com says. “This is a labor of love, a celebration of reading, and an amazing opportunity to find a new-to-you author who will keep sharing free reads for years to come.”
What’s Next
The “Stuff Your Kindle” sale for Romance novels will end at midnight on December 26, and the next sale will happen on December 26, 2025 – known in the U.K. as Boxing Day. The next “Stuff Your Kindle” sale for Dark Mode Books will happen in summer 2025 – around June, based on the 2024 summer sale.
