Where to Buy Cheap College Textbooks - 29 Nifty Websites
Classes are starting up for me this week, so that means I need to start ordering my textbooks.
Buying textbooks is always a pain because of the inflated costs involved.
Last semester, I had to buy a 150-page textbook written by my professor that cost $97 used. And I’m sure that cost doesn’t surprise you.
Textbook prices are out of control - especially after reading on Digg.com that textbook prices have risen almost 186% since 1986.
However, there are plenty of places online to buy textbooks on the cheap.
Here are 29 places to buy cheap textbooks:
Abebooks.com
Free shipping and a way to shop 13,500 online booksellers at once.
Addall.com
Addall.com compares textbook prices across the web. It provides you with all the fine details - like taxes and shipping involved for each store.
Affordabook.com
Find discounted textbooks and novels.
Alibris.com
Alibris will connect you to independent booksellers across the United States. You can find some great deals here.
Allbookstores.com
Compare prices across hundreds of bookstores affiliated with Allbookstores.com - which looks a bit like Amazon.com.
Amazon.com
I’ve bought and sold my textbooks through Amazon.com many times. You can get connected to some independent sellers who offer great rates on used textbooks.
BetterWorld.com
Fund literacy, care for the environment, and save money on textbooks with BetterWorld.com. They even offer free shipping. Check out their prices.
Bigwords.com
This website is a book search engine that aggregates prices of textbooks across the web.
Bookbyte.com
Another website that allows you to buy and sell used textbooks.
BookCloseouts.com
Cross your fingers and pray that you can find a discounted textbook here. You can find some amazing deals.
BookFinder.com
Lifehacker.com recommends this book search engine to find cheap textbooks.
Books-A-Million.com
A site similar to half.com - which allows you to buy discounted textbooks and novels.
BuyUsedTextbooks.com
Buy and sell used textbooks
CampusBooks.com
CampusBooks.com claims to save students 58% on average on textbooks. Prices include tax, shipping and coupons.
CampusBooks4Less.com
Another bookstore search engine to find cheap books.
Campusi.com
This search engine compares textbook prices on over 200 online bookstores.
CollegeSwapShop.com
This nifty website allows you to buy, sell, or swap used textbooks.
CompareTextbooks.com
A cool spot to get price comparisons on your textbooks at different websites.
Chegg.com
Chegg.com allows students to rent college textbooks - instead of paying the high cost of buying them at your campus bookstore.
DirectTextBook.com
This websites compares textbook prices across a bunch of popular online stores like Ebay.com, Half.com, and Amazon.com.
Ebay.com
You might be surprised to find your textbooks on sale at Ebay.
eCampus.com
eCampus.com provides a place to buy and sell discounted textbooks. You’ve probably seen their ads in your campus newspaper.
FreeloadPress.com
I’ve never used this service, but they offer free textbooks in return for completed surveys. These textbooks have ads in them - which help pay the cost. Leave a comment if this service is legit or not.
Half.com
I’ve found some great discounted textbooks here.
Halfvalue.com
This is a typical buy & sell used textbook website.
iChapters.com
Save the environment and your money by purchasing only the book chapters you need to read as an eBook.
Textbookrevolution.org
A website that’s beginning to archive links to free textbooks across the web. A very cool project!
TextbookX.com
You may have heard of TextBookX.com because they have a handy Facebook app that allows students to buy and sell directly through your profile. I’ve never used this service, but leave a comment if you have. I’m curious if it worked for you.
ValoreBooks.com
ValoreBooks.com promises cheap textbooks for students.
And don’t forget about these free online textbook resources:
- Bartleby
- Internet Public Library
- Google Scholar
- Online Mathematics Textbooks
- Project Gutenburg
- Wikibooks OpenSource Textbooks
Any other websites you recommend should get added to this list?
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January 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Have u try the online bookstore Cocomartini
http://www.cocomartini.com/
I get all my textbooks for this semester from this bookstore. All are brand new and 60%off discount from normal price. See if any help.
hehe ^_^
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
How about http://www.coursesmart.com?
Buy access to most popular textbooks at a fraction of new or used prices.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I have used a number of these. Amazon, Abebooks, half, etc, but then I started using the textbook price comparision site http://www.CampusBooks4Less.com , which is also listed above and I love it! It compares prices on textbooks from a ton of online bookstores and tells you who has the cheapest prices. I haven’t figured out how much I’ve saved this semester, but fall semester I saved $110 on 4 textbooks! Can’t complain about that!
January 30th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Hey, here is another site for your list. I think its pretty new, I just found it this year. Its http://www.college-etrade.com and you make an account under your college for free and you can either buy, sell, or trade with others around the your campus. The best part is you don’t have to pay for shipping, since it is at your school. I recommend everyone to at least check it out!
January 30th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I really like BIGWORDS.com for finding my textbooks! The site is quick & easy and they ALWAYS find the best deals!
February 4th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Thanks Jessica, I finally get 3 textbooks from Cocomartini.com
Great. Save alot and all are Brand new.
thanks.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I can’t believe http://www.CheapestTextbooks.com is missing from this list. It’s where i always get a cheap textbook.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
You could also go to discount bookstores. There are usually located near the “official” bookstore.
You can also find a student exchange website. For the University of Toronto, it’s tusbe.com for example.
Or find students exchanging their books on craigslist or facebook market.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Very good adivce, but you left out a very important cheap book resource, a textbook price comparison site known as we compare books. This site has helped me save hundreds of dollars on my textbooks
August 24th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Cheap textbook at http://www.whereismybook.com
Get additional $5 off with coupon code MKTCODE
September 7th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I use http://www.helpineedbooks.com Its like a search engine for textbooks, it finds the cheapest textbooks for you and its free. I bought my textbooks through this site for this semester and saved like 190$ dollars.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
With the economy what it is I am glad I have been using computers and the internet for sometime. My daughter needed some textbooks that were so outragously priced I decided to search online to see what I could find. I found this site called “whereismybook dot com”, she said the price was the same as what she had seen for used books. We got her books and got a coupon for free shipping off the next order, (which will be in a couple of weeks) It came on a mass printed coupon so the code should work for anyone. Pass the information on to anyone who may be able to use this, we are all in this together. Coupon code: BGSHIP
March 9th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Hello. Great job. I did not expect to come across this on a Friday. This is a great story. Thanks!
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I use http://bookbear.org
It’s local and free.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:57 am
You forgot about http://booklookr.com I go there for all my books I saved about $100 so far just today, highly recommend it for college textbooks!!
September 11th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I was just looking at my courses and found that the University of Toronto bookstore has a lot of discount textbooks. They’re even cheaper than on amazon.ca. Here’s the link for the discounted books, there’s even the course name next to them. http://www.uoftbookstore.com/online/discount_textbooks.ihtml#AER