ibis

Hey - I've been doing this for a few semesters now and thought I should share it with everyone else here.

If your in school, or have been you know about university textbook stores. They'll sell you a used book for $60, buy it back for $20, then turn around and sell it for $60 again.

My bookstore is this way, but I know not all of them are. If you're unlucky enough, like me, to only have access to a "stick it to 'ya" bookstore, try doing the folloowing. Since I've been buying my books like this I've been able to cut my cost of books for 15 hours from an average of $400 to about $150.

1). Go to the college bookstore, find your books, and copy down the ISBN number (it's usually above the barcode). It will be a ten digit, numeric number such as 0-13-033996-2 (sometimes the last digit will be a "x").

2). Search for the book used on ebay.com, half.com , and amazon.com.
3). Buy. (be sure to be aware of advertised condition) Don't worry much about shipping costs, because shipping books usually falls under a seperate, super low rate from USPS (called Media mail rate).

4). Use.

5). Sell back to the bookstore on campus. (make sure you've removed any kind of labels that make it look like you didn't buy it there, mine doesn't care, but some may)

For example, I bought a book of of of half.com for $18, plus $1.55 for shipping. The bookstore on campus wanted $58 for the same book. When I go to sell it back, I figure I'll get something between $15 and $20 for it.

~ibis

DelayedReaction

Make sure you get the right edition; most of the cheaper versions are older textbooks. Usually you can get away with using an older version (most updates are just problem revisions and typo corrections), but make sure.

Incidentally, why sell your textbooks? I often find myself going back to them for reference in later classes, particularly with my topic-specific stuff like thermodynamics and calculus.

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la petite moi

Great idea! I'll have to keep it in mind!

ibis

True. There's alot of books I don't sell back. THey're mostly related to my major (finance) and I know I'll need to reference them later on.

But my geology book? That had to go!

Bigwahzoo

Here are a couple of other places to get cheap books.

Once you have the isbn number go to addall.com. It will search 40 online bookstores and will give you the best price with shipping included.



Now here is the real secret to buying cheap books online. Go to firstandsecond.com This is a bookstore based in India. They have the same books as in the US but they are sold at a fraction of the price. Often they are reprinted on thinner paper and the graphics are usually black and white but it has the same page numbers and every other detail is exactly like the version sold in university bookstore. The main drawback is that the books can take a couple of weeks to arrive from India.

Here is how one of my books break down.
Heat Transfer: A pratical approach
Yunus Cengal

Amazon.com (new) $156
Addall.com (used) $70
Firstandsecond.com (new) 880 Rupees = $19.56

DelayedReaction

Heh. I keep reminding myself that I don't need this Archaeology book...

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laconic1

Dammit, I wish I knew about this stuff when I went to college

MSD

Is it just me or does this scream, "bootleg"?

ibis

I tried "firstandsecond.com" for the isbn I used in my example and it costed $90, while the one I bought online was $18. For my managerial communication book they wanted about $110 - I bought this one on campus for $35.

Mabye it depends on the subject of the book. I didn't have much luck with "firstandsecond.com"

nanofever

Hmmm, knowledge I can use come Fall.

Thanks.

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oblar

be careful with the International editions (what you get from India and such).

I generally try to buy them in the US editions because I plan to keep them longer. however, occassionally I will buy one and it will say it is the US edition and it turns out to be the international edition.

another reason I steer clear of intl. editions is because sometimes the ink will smear across a page, rendering it useless and if it is a book that uses many small diagrams then the ink may smear there causing it to be unreadable.

however, I have only gotten 1 intl. book out of the 15 or so I have bought so far. Generally I get exactly what I expect, or something that far exceeds my expectations (as far as condition)

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punx1325

Something else I found useful, for those books that the bookstore doesn't take back, most JC's will take any book back, even if they don't use it. I didn't ask why, I just happily took my money and ran...

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k1ng

Another tip: My school has a box that people put books in that the store book store won't buy back. If your school has such a box, just go through and pick out books that are in good shape and sell them on ebay/half/amazon.

I had two books that I used last semester that my school book store wouldn't buy back and sold them on ebay for $25 each. Better than nothing.

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Tirian

I have been buying books on ebay too - I don't even care if their two editions old, it's not like our understanding of romantic or classical music has changed in the last couple of years. I find it rather funny in fact where the publishers just change a few musical samples (for example) and call it a new edition.
Sometimes I think all they change is the page numbers.

Probably depends on the course how much of this you can get away with, but I've been saving huge!

ForgottenKnight

Edit: Bigwahzoo beat me to it. Addall.com is a good one.

Plus some students at my university started their own version of a half.com site for students at that university only. That's a good way for us to buy and sell our books from/to people that will be taking/have taken the same classes.

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SlackrJon

I work at a college bookstore. Buying your books online is cheaper,but as for the international books not every bookstore will buy them back. So you will have to keep selling them online or just throw them away. Also with that box idea we had one of those. It was a donation for "books for africa" and it sickened me that people would come up take books from people who really could not afford it just to sell them online and go buy beer.

Spartak

What I absolutely hate is how the "course text" is often completely useless.

eg for one of my economics subjects the textbook is so fucking stupid and uses these halfassed examples to explain things and it cost me $NZ 98. I don't think I'm even going to refer to it for the exam, just stick to the lecture notes.

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ibis

Dang, good idea. Gonna have to try that

That's just wrong. If my school had such a book, I'd surely grab some books out of it, but only to read on the side. Then I'd throw 'em back when I was done.

Like mentioned above, those books could be going elsewhere, for people that *need* them

Tirian

They may have been selling them online so they could afford to come back next term to buy a book they needed from your store too.

Aletheia

I only use amazon for my books, then at the end of the year I sell some of them back to the bookstore.

mingusfingers

Thanks! That is useful.

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