Book Cave sends notices to your email inbox about free or discounted ebooks according to your chosen genres and content preferences (also called content ratings: All, Mild, Mild+ Moderate, Moderate+, Adult). All offered books are reviewed by us to assure quality reads. We also put promotions on Twitter and Facebook, so look for us there.
We use the My Book Rating system, which has been unique to our site and My Book Ratings site. We hope you enjoy the concept of content ratings for books as much as we do. You choose your movies with content ratings, and it's time we have some kind of idea what we're reading before we crack a book!
Absolutely. All our deals are offered by the authors and/or publishers and are carried on major ebook retailers.
Our Book Cave Direct deals (downloadable from that site) are offered by the authors who have the copyright. We never support anyone who steals or plagiarizes books.
We offer deals on all retailers, but sometimes authors or publishers have chosen only to list their books on certain retailers. We cannot control that, but we try to bring you as many deals as possible on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, iTunes, Kobo, Google, and Smashwords.
Absolutely. We never charge you to receive notices about discounted or free books. For our retailer deals, you'll receive links to retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google, or Smashwords to buy the books. For free books, you'll pay nothing on those sites when you download them. For 99 cent books, that's what you'll pay those retailers. You never, ever pay us anything.
We also offer free books that can be downloaded directly from our site on Book Cave Direct in return for signing up for the author's newsletter. Again, this service is completely free!
So how do we pay the bills? Authors and publishers are the ones who pay us to let you know about these deals. Join tens of thousands of readers who are getting great deals (and knowing what's in the books before they download)!
Authors and publishers offer free books through Book Cave so they can reach new readers. If you love a free book they offer, you will find new authors to love and follow. With a free book, you don't have worry about spending money for an author's books until you know you enjoy his or her writing.
Ever heard of buy one get one free? Well, it's a similar concept where they hope you'll love what you see and want more.
Absolutely. Unlike most ebook discount sites, we read parts of every book we promote, check the language content to be sure it's rated appropriately, and check and read reviews. Our editors choose the best of the books that authors and publishers submit to us so you won't have to deal with poorly-formatted books, books with excessive typos, or annoying plot lines. That doesn't mean we pick only the highest-rated books. If a book grabs us, we're pretty sure it'll grab you. So no more wading through the overload of books that flood ebook retailers. We do the work finding you great content-rated books, so you can spend your time reading instead of book shopping. We want you to find authors you'll love and follow. So hop on for the ride—and please pass this site along. The more readers we have, the more people we can hire, and the more books we can offer you. Happy reading!
There are many advantages to being able to choose the level of heat, violence, and other content. While many great books offered for every content rating, too often readers find their enjoyment of a book halted because of unexpected scenes, or content that doesn’t live up to reader expectation. With Book Cave, you choose your level of comfort, so there is less wasted time with books that are too mild/racy or too tame/violent for your expectations. Book ratings is long overdue, and we hope you will support us!
On Book Cave, we use the ebook content rating system from our sister site My Book Ratings (or MBR). MBR ratings are a somewhat like movie ratings, and they're divided into six groups: All Ages, Mild, Mild+, Moderate, Moderate+, and Adult.
Books are assigned ratings based on seven categories: crude humor/language, profanity, drug and alcohol use, kissing, nudity, sex and intimacy, and violence and horror. Within each of these categories there are levels of varying degrees, which are assigned a rating (All Ages, Mild, Mild+, Moderate, Moderate+, Adult, and Adult+). The book itself is assigned an overall rating in relation to the highest level across all categories, and the individual rating level for each of the categories is also listed in the daily deals email and on the book's page.
Book Cave doesn't have a LGBT genre for our discounted book notifications because we know there are LGBT historical, mainstream, science-fiction, etc., books, and that you may not enjoy all those genres. So simply choose all the genres you want and then click the button at the end of the signup form that indicates you would like to receive books with LGBT themes. The books you receive will state the level of LGBT included in the book (main character or minor characters).
You can also check out the thousands of permanent book listings on our sister site My Book Ratings, which has far more detailed genres.
You can think of our content ratings like movie ratings. However, the GENRES you choose also have a lot to do with the rating. Remember to choose ALL the ratings you are interested in, not just one. The ratings say "may contain," which means quite often there is only one or two things that might push the book to that rating. So, not all Moderate+ books will contain swearing or even kissing, but it might be the alcohol use or violence that makes them that rating. Below are some examples of ratings, but we also have a detailed post with screenshots of actual books and how our content ratings work in specific cases.
Example 1: If you're looking for Romance and you don't want intimacy, you'll need to choose ALL or some of the following ratings: All Ages, Mild, Mild+. If you prefer heat in your romances with closed-door or fade-out scenes, you'll choose Moderate or Moderate+. Adult will contain up to graphic three sex scenes. For instance, if a couple heads off to the bedroom and there's heat, but it closes before any details, that will still be a Moderate. Once a few names of intimate body parts are added, it's a Moderate+ and if there is onscreen sex, the books are rated Adult. Within the Adult rating, there is non-graphic and graphic sex (email labels will identify which). Also profanity, alcohol use, descriptions of nudity, crude humor, and violence will be a factor in the rating.
Example 2: If you love Adventure or Science Fiction and Fantasy, these typically don't have as much heat, but they generally contain more violence. So maybe a Moderate+ or Adult will be of interest to you because you expect that level of violence.
Example 3: If nonfiction is one category you love, many of the warnings that are typical for fiction won't apply.
Generally, to compared to a movie rating, both Mild+ and Moderate will be somewhere around a PG or a PG-13 rating, with the moderate having slightly more intense language, heat, and violence. All Ages is good for children and adults, with Mild being similar to a very "mild" PG, If you are not receiving enough books that match your criteria, please adjust your preferences to include more ratings and see if that helps (and read on, because we have more ways to help you find good books).
We List All Content, Not Just the Rating
With each content rating, we will tell you specifically what book attribute(s) pushed the book rating up from a lower one, and also what else it contains from the lower ratings. This way even if you choose a higher content rating but dislike one attribute, you can still decide not to read the books containing that single attribute. (Books with the All Ages rating will have no warnings, and books with the Mild rating have very few.) Here are some examples of the content ratings:
Genre: Children's and Middle Grade Fiction. Rating: All Ages. (No warnings here, but keep in mind that this rating will mostly be children's titles, some very sweet romances, or nonfiction).
Genre: Paranormal Romance. Rating: Mild for mild kissing. (Means this book would have been All Ages, but it has a bit of mild kissing.)
Genre: Mysteries and Thrillers. Rating: Mild+ for mild language; also contains mild kissing. (This was rated Mild+ instead of mild because in contains a few mild swear words.)
Genre: General Nonfiction. Rating: Mild for mild sensuality. (This would have been All Ages, but there is some mild mention of sex, sexual tension, or sexual innuendo.)
Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy. Rating: Mild+ for mild substance use; also contains mild kissing. (This book would have been mild, but it had either some negative use of alcohol by minors or mild use by adults.)
Genre: Christian Romance. Rating: Moderate+ for substance use; also contains mild violence and mild kissing. (This Christian romance deals with substance abuse or it would have a mild rating.)
Genre: Historical Fiction. Rating: Moderate+ for moderate profanity; also contains moderate violence and brief nudity. (This book would have been moderate because of violence and a bit of nudity, but the swearing kicked it up a rating.)
Genre: Advice and How-To. Rating Moderate+ for substantial violence.
Genre: Contemporary Romance: Rating: Moderate+ for moderate profanity; also contains mild (non-sexual) violence. (This book is moderate because of the language. The only other warning is that it had moderate violence.)
Genre: Contemporary Romance: Rating: Adult for graphic sex; also contains significant violence and moderate profanity. (So some sex scenes with details made this adult, but it also has violence and language from lower ratings.)
Genre: Mysteries and Thrillers. Rating: Adult for extensive profanity; also contains nudity, passionate kissing, and non-detailed sensuality. (A lot of swearing make this adult, but the other warnings are from mild+ and moderate.)
Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy. Rating: Adult for extensive violence; also contains brief nudity, passionate kissing, and mild sensuality. (The violence is what kicked in this to the adult rating. Otherwise it would have been Mild+)
You get the idea! Choose ALL the book ratings you would like sent to you, and we’ll start emailing you discounted rated ebook deals!
We check all prices at the time we send the emails about our content-rated book deals, however, you should always check the prices before you buy because mistakes do happen. Please let us know here if a book that should be on sale isn’t discounted, and we'll pull it from the site until the author can correct the problem. You can report the wrong price on each book's listing page.
If you accidentally buy a book that wasn't discounted, you can return it to the vendor where you purchased it. Just do it as soon as you can because the various vendors have different rules on the return of ebooks.
Note that the pricing we send in our emails is current for the US only. We urge authors to discount everywhere their book is listed, but sometimes they don't or can't (like on Kindle Countdown deals that are only available in the US and the UK).
Thank you for understanding. We promise, we're doing our very best!
You can report obvious miscategorizations here. We are always working to make our system more accurate, and we carefully review each rated book we approve. Authors who repeatedly misreport their content will not be permitted to list their books with us. If you continue to receive rated books that you feel do not meet your preferences, please visit the preference page (by logging in) and review your choices and the specifics of each book rating. You may need to pick higher or lower preferences.
With each content rating, we will tell you specifically what book attribute(s) pushed the book rating up from a lower one, and also what else it contains from the lower content ratings. This way even if you choose a higher content rating but dislike one attribute with in that rating, you can still decide not to read the rated books containing that single attribute. (Books with the All Ages rating will have no warnings, and books with the Mild rating have very few.) Here are some examples of the book ratings:
Genre: Children's and Middle Grade Fiction. Rating: All Ages. (No warnings here, but keep in mind that this rating will mostly be children's titles, some very sweet romances, or nonfiction).
Genre: Paranormal Romance. Rating: Mild for mild kissing. (Means this book would have been All Ages, but it has a bit of mild kissing.)
Genre: Mysteries and Thrillers. Rating: Mild+ for mild language; also contains mild kissing. (This was rated Mild+ instead of mild because in contains a few mild swear words.)
Genre: General Nonfiction. Rating: Mild for mild sensuality.
Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy. Rating: Mild+ for mild substance use; also contains mild kissing. (This book would have been mild, but it had either some negative use of alcohol by minors or mild use by adults.)
Genre: Christian Romance. Rating: Moderate+ for substance use; also contains mild violence and mild kissing. (This Christian romance deals with alcoholism or it would have a mild rating.)
Genre: Historical Fiction. Rating: Moderate+ for substantial language; also contains moderate violence and brief nudity. (This book would have been moderate because of violence and a bit of nudity, but the swearing kicked it up a rating.)
Genre: Advice and How-To. Rating Moderate+ for substantial violence.
Genre: Contemporary Romance: Rating: Moderate+ for substantial language; also contains moderate (non-sexual) violence. (This book is moderate because of the language. The only other warning is that it had moderate violence.)
Genre: Contemporary Romance: Rating: Adult for detailed intimacy; also contains significant violence and moderate language. (So some sex scenes with details made this adult, but it also has violence and language from lower ratings.)
Genre: Mysteries and Thrillers. Rating: Adult for extensive language; also contains nudity, passionate kissing, and closed-door or fade-out intimacy. (A lot of swearing make this adult, but the other warnings are from mild+ and moderate.)
Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy. Rating: Adult for extensive violence; also contains brief nudity, passionate kissing, and closed-door or fade-out intimacy. (The violence is what kicked in this to the adult rating. Otherwise it would have been Mild+)
You get the idea! Keep in mind that you must choose all the content ratings you think you might like. None are pre-selected for you. If you choose moderate, you will not receive All Ages, Mild, and Mild+ unless you also click those. Choose ALL the ratings you would like sent to you, and we’ll do the rest!
