Books on a Budget: Top 9 Sites for Getting Books on the Cheap
Campus bookstores are easily the most convenient place to get college textbooks – and they know it. They’re there to attract the lazy college student who doesn’t want to buy a book until he or she really needs it (the night before the first exam) and they’re there to make it easy for a new student to wander in with a class list and stagger out with an unnerving receipt. But in reality, whatever your reasoning may be for buying a book new and on-campus, it’s not a good enough reason.
Sites offering used books, rental books, and even completely digital books have all played their part in rendering the in-person textbook store an old school, overpriced obscurity that is surely on it’s way into history books. Even selling your books when you’re done with them is no longer a bookstore chore that returns the equivalent of a finger and toe of the initial arm and leg you spent on them. With the used market that textbook sites have created, you can get a return on your old books that makes sense, as well as affordable new books, all thanks to the elimination of the bookstore middleman. To put it frankly, book-buying has become just the latest textbook example of the Internet’s ability to save you money.
A few sites to help you get your semester off to an affordable start:
Buy or sell affordable new and used books
http://www.mycollegetextbooks.com/
http://www.greentextbooks.com/
Compare book prices among several other sites:
Trade books you no longer need for ones you do with other students
http://www.bookgator.com/Trade-TextBooks
Buy, sell, even rent
http://www.ecampus.com/default.asp?A=1172
eBay sister-site without the bidding – offers an iPhone app
Download available eBooks for free
Groups become makeshift book-swapping sites for thousands of schools