Give Me Discount Textbooks
Or Give Me Bankruptcy!-Patrick Henry Poorstudent

Discount Textbooks: Because the price of textbooks is ridiculous!

Sample book List price $130.95 Amazon new $93.74 e-textbook $65.49 used textbook $53.49 [includes $3.49 shipping] textbook rental $46.88 [includes $6.99 shipping] College students, college parents... Discount Textbooks are a necessity! Learn more about: Electronic | Used | Rental and Giving textbooks as gifts this page and send it to someone who needs it!

I have some great ideas if you're looking for textbook bargains.

Well, bargain might be the wrong word. But the internet and entrepreneurialism are giving us more affordable textbook options.

So if you want to know how to save on textbooks, keep reading!

New, Used, Electronic and Rental...Starting with New

Amazon sells new discount textbooks at price reductions up to 30%. They have a nice convenient interface (you can search for a bunch of books at once), and you can even sell your books back from the same page!

Also, it usually only takes $25 in purchases to score free shipping from Amazon on new stuff, and textbooks weigh a ton. Amazon can be your best option for cheap textbooks new.

Your Amazon searches will also bring back options for discount used textbooks, but beware: most of the used textbook sellers on Amazon do not state what edition they're selling!

Remember: you're eager to save money, but make sure you're getting a textbook edition that the instructor approves of! You can get some amazing prices on older editions, but if the book is on the 12th edition and you just bought the 2nd (printed in 1814!), well, you might be out of luck.

Speaking of used...

Textbook Discounts - Used

If there's one thing the internet is good for, it's for creating marketplaces for used goods! (Think Craigslist and .) Visit my used textbooks online page for great ways to save that you might not have known about.

Digital textbooks: always new!

Digital, i.e. electronic textbooks, are an exciting development. Currently selling for about one half the price of a new textbook, they're a decent deal. (My expectation is that prices will come down over time, and I'll keep an eye on that.)

E-textbooks are of course searchable and go anywhere your computer goes. (Currently, they tend to be more for computer viewing than for a dedicated reader.)

Learn more at my electronic textbooks page.

Textbook rentals: an exciting new development

Companies are now renting good condition used textbooks to students by the semester or quarter. They provide you an easy mailing box for returns, and the prices are a fraction of new textbooks.

If you don't keep textbooks, why should you have to buy them? Learn more about this exciting option at my rental textbooks page.

Semester's over: selling textbooks online

I've got you covered! I'll introduce you to a crazy buybot who finds the most generous buyer for your book. I'll also tell you how my favorite rental company has a guaranteed buyback option. See the textbook selling page.

Discount textbooks online: the lowdown

Because of piracy fears, the number of available electronic textbooks is only a fraction of all titles in print. Because textbook rental is a new concept, the companies don't have as many books in stock as there is demand.

Unless you're willing to buy new, the nature of things at this point in time is that to save the most money you're probably going to have to get your textbooks from multiple sources. Use the links on this page to find the best ones!

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