Cheap Text Books

How to Save on Text Books

After tuition and living expenses, text books can be the next biggest expense every student will face.  Text books can not only give students but also their parents a sticker shock.  Some text books may cover only a portion of the course but the price may be more $100.  Some classes may require students to have more than one text book.   

While the text book cost is inevitable, students can still use some strategies to reduce the cost of books. The best way to save money on text books is by buying or borrowing Used Text Books.  Below is a discussion of the few:

Borrow from Friends and Relatives

If you have friends and/or siblings who have taken the same course and were required to buy the same text books, you should borrow those from them.  The only cost is that you will probably have to take a good care of the books and not write all over them.

Borrow from a Library

Sometimes a local public or college library may carry the text book you are looking for.  You should borrow the book and keep on extending if possible to go through the entire quarter or semester.  The only risk you are carrying here is that if the book doesn’t get extended, you may have to buy one later.

Text Book Rental

Several companies rent new and used text books.  You can search online to find the names of a few.

Campus Used Book Store

The campus book store is another great place to save on books. They may have plenty of used copies of the titles that you need.  A word of caution is that before buying it, make sure you check with your professor that s/he doesn’t require a newer edition of the book.

Non-Campus Used Book Store

Some used book stores near your college may also carry the titles you are looking for.  Since they are not the campus shops, not only their prices may be lower but also it is possible to negotiate a lower price.  The trick is to wait for a week or two into the semester and then buy them.  Usually they will have automatic price reductions once they know that most of the students have already bought the books.

Current and Graduating Students

You will possibly see posters at various places on campus where current and graduating students may be exchanging, selling or giving away their books.  If they are giving away their books, make sure to buy them coffee or lunch to thank them.  If they are exchanging then make sure to come up with a book they are looking for an exchange.  If they are selling their books, then you may be able to negotiate a much lower price than any of the book stores.  This is because books stores buy books from students for really cheap.  And if a student can get anything higher than that, they will be more than happy to get that.

Local Classifieds

“Books for Sale” is a very common title to be found in both University student papers and local community newspapers.  Most of the times these newspapers can be obtained for free.  Make sure to check them out for any listing of books you are looking for.  You can also run an advertisement for a few dollars with a title, “Books Wanted”.

Text Books Online

You can also find text books online.  There are several places to find text books online.  Some companies offer Online Textbooks which students can download for a small fee.  Another way is to search various classifieds sites such as CraigsList.com Kijji.com and classifieds section of this site.  You can also put a "Books Wanted" ad online.  Other places to look for are online retailers such as Bookbyte.com,www.ecampus.com, and Phat Campus which specialize in cheap textbooks.  There are some textbook torrents available online which can help you download text books as well.  However you should make sure that you are not downloading any copyrighted material as you may get into trrouble with law.