15 Ways To Find Cheap College Textbooks
A huge cost for students every semester is book buying. How about we find some cheap college textbooks to ease that financial burden?
We have a lot of ways to get our hands on some books, so here are some strategies and websites that can help.
Buying On The Cheap
Ebay.com
Bid on auctions or Buy It Now! Ebay has so many booksellers that you’ll find new and used textbooks, especially older editions if you can use them. Plus, you get the excitement of an auction if you’re bidding. The drawbacks are the time commitment if you do auctions and possibly long shipping times. The amount you save depends on the seller pricing.
AbeBooks.com
This site sells both new and used textbooks. You can search for textbooks that have free shipping, too. They guarantee savings of 50–90%. Also helpful is their explanation of what the heck an ISBN is for those first-time online book searchers.
Better World Books
If you’re feeling charitable, Better World Books accepts used book donations to eliminate trash and resells them at a discount. For every book you buy, they donate a book to someone in need. They also offer literacy grants.
Rakuten.com
This site has got everything, really, so it’s just another place to search for cheap college textbooks. You can search by free shipping, price range, genre, subject, and publisher, which helps to narrow down the overwhelming number of books they offer.
Textbooks.com
Well, this seems obvious. Textbooks.com deals in new and used cheap textbooks. You can get free shipping on orders over $25. No shipping is needed if you buy something from their ebook catalog. They accept 30-day returns, which is a great option if you decide to drop a class.
Buy or Rent Cheap College Textbooks
Amazon.com
You’ve probably heard of Amazon. Their motto for cheap college textbooks is Rent. Buy. Sell. They offer up to 90% savings for most textbooks. If you own a Kindle, some texts are available as ebooks. For hard copy books, you can choose free 2-day shipping if you sign up for Prime Student, which is 50% off regular Prime.
Chegg.com
Chegg is another popular site that again offers up to 90% off textbook prices if you’re buying. They also offer ebooks and a huge rental program. Additionally, if you need some help with studying, you can ask a quick question or find an online tutor (it’s free for 30 minutes, and then you have to pay 50¢ a minute, so maybe go with the tutoring centers on campus).
ecampus
This site has a lot of options and offers, so it might be a bit too confusing. However, here’s the overview. You can buy cheap books or ebooks. If you want to rent, they offer different prices for semesters, quarters, and shorter amounts of time. Shipping can be free both ways if your books cost more than $59. Otherwise, you need to pay a flat $3 plus 99¢ per book. But wait, there’s more! If you sign up for eWards, you get a $1 for every 3 points you earn, and you can get discount codes for like $5 off your first order. It probably gets easier to understand once you’re signed up, and the discounts seem to add up if you continue to use them and earn points.
knetbooks
Knetbook offers only rentals and promises up to 85% off regular pricing. Shipping is free both ways, and you can sign up for text message updates to track shipping and get due date reminders. They allow you to extend your due date, too. They also text you discount codes occasionally.
Borrow Your Textbooks
If you need a book for only a short period of time, check out the local library or campus library. Campus libraries sometimes have textbooks on reserve that you need to use in the library. These libraries might also offer ebooks in Overdrive (by Rakuten, the same company as above). Overdrive might sound familiar if you’ve been using the Libby app. That’s where you can also find Book Riot’s Reader Harder recs for when you’re done with reading for classes. Or maybe you’ve been assigned to read Frankenstein or Fahrenheit 451. Those are on the Read Harder list!
Try An Aggregator To Compare Textbook Prices
Allbookstores.com
Again, this seems obvious. Allbookstores searches three dozen online bookstores for the lowest prices in buying and renting textbooks. You can also sell your college texts here.
DealOz.com
This site compares textbook prices across 200 online bookstores. You can search for books to buy or rent, and you can sell your own books. They offer 97% savings and a free coupon search. Use their mobile app on the go. You can also create an account for double cash back and $5 DealOz Rewards.
BIGWORDS
BIGWORDS also compares textbook prices across online stores and promises 35–45% cheaper textbooks than other sites. The site can get a little overwhelming because they also do price comparisons for just about anything: barstools! nail repair! refinements!
Sign Up For A Membership
Scribd.com
Scribd offers more than cheap college textbooks. It has a world of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, news, sheet music, articles, and other documents. Sign up for a free trial to read as many books as possible in a month. Be sure to mark your calendar to remember to cancel if you don’t want to continue—otherwise, you get charged $8.99 a month. You can cancel any time.
Perlego.com
This site offers unlimited access to their ebook catalog. They offer a free 14-day trial for students, and then you pay £12 monthly (they’re based out of the UK). The app allows highlighting, bookmarking, and annotating. However, you can’t read anything offline.
Once the semester is over, return your rentals and hop onto any sites above to sell your books back. Also, try selling used book here. And if you want more than just text books on the cheap, check this out for all the free books.
