Inexpensive College Textbooks

As most college students and even some teachers will tell you, textbooks are extremely overpriced. The most expensive books seem to be the hard sciences (physics, biology, chemistry) and math books. Publishing companies need to create new material so as to maintain their profit margins. Now you know why there are twenty editions of your math book. If your campus bookstore is anything like mine, they will sell the most current edition of the book you’re going to need. Some teachers are considerate, and let you purchase an older edition, but this is somewhat rare. You can also buy a used textbook from your college, but they don't always have these available, and they aren't as cheap as they could be. This may be a nice little discount, but you might get lost when readings are assigned, because when editions change the page numbers do as well. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the current edition AND still save a wad of cash?

What you can do instead of visiting the bookstore, is find out what books are required ahead of time. They may be listed on your class homepage, or you may have to email your professor. Either way, just figure out what books you will need. Then log on to the World Wide Web (which you obviously already know how to do) and find your books! Here are the places I like to look.

1.  Craigslist - Craigslist is a little hit or miss. Sometimes you find amazing deals, but often your search will turn up empty. This is because you are only searching locally and shipping is not involved. I always check here first because the books are usually the cheapest if they are there at all.
2.  Amazon - Amazon is where I have purchased almost all of my books. They have always got the book you’re looking for and it’s usually cheaper than Ebay or Overstock. It’s easy to find books because people are selling them all across the country.
3. Ebay - I have purchased several books from Ebay, simply because they were cheaper than Amazon. It’s always good to compare prices.
4. Overstock - I have actually never purchased a book from Overstock, because they are consistently more expensive. However, I like to check it out every once in a while, because I could be wrong.

The beauty of this strategy is that at the end of the term you can take these books back to your bookstore and sell them there! On rare occasions I have even turned a profit! I sold a book back for more than what I bought it for on Amazon! One thing you need to watch out for if you want to sell your books back is that you need to buy the exact same edition that the store was selling at the beginning of the term. It is really tempting to buy the international edition of a book from some other country, but you need to know that your school will not buy it back from you. If you are scared of buying the wrong book, all you have to do is search for the book’s ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Type the number in your search bar and you’ll be golden!

You might be thinking, “Tomorrow is my first day of class! I don’t have time to wait for shipping!” I’ve been in this situation before, and what you can do is buy the books at your bookstore and then return them when the ones from Amazon, Ebay, or wherever arrive. Make sure you check the return policy. I was always given two weeks to return the books.

Purchasing my books online has saved me hundreds of dollars and usually gets me the books at half price. It is something that everyone can do, and is super easy.