Discounted Children's Books
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First off, I'm embarrassed that the subject of discounted children's books gets me excited. But I'll admit it: I love getting a deal.
Second off, I'm embarrassed that I'm going to recommend one children's bookseller so highly. Usually I like to find fault. Usually I like to point out the benefits of each of a number of vendors.
But this is my internet children's book closeouts page...
...and after a few hours of research, I can tell you that there's one site I'm always going to check first from now on for discounted children's books.
BookCloseouts.com - The Best Seller In Bargain Books
You know what book closeouts are, don't you?
Closeouts, also called remainders, are unused children's books that children's book publishers have stopped publishing.
Some have been returned by retailers who over-ordered. Some were never even distributed.
The book publisher has a bunch lying around and they're willing to sell them at a bulk discount to retailers.
The retailers sell them, as discounted children's books, to you.
Closeout books often feature a mark - a corner clipped off the cover, a slash mark written with marker - to designate them as such. They're still new, but the publisher marks them to let retailers know they were sold as is. No returns.
Don't think of closeouts as "loser" books
This company I'm recommending has 16,000 discounted children's books in stock, in quantity. What was most interesting to me was that there were plenty of classics among the titles.
Black Beauty. Gulliver's Travels. Goodnight Moon... The list is endless.
It's not that these books are going out of print. It's that a particular edition goes out of print. So if you're willing to buy your child an edition of the book that doesn't have a scene from the latest movie version on the cover, this is the place to shop!
The site is searchable
That's an advantage over shopping discounted children's books locally.
You can search by:
- subject
- author
- age
- grade
- format
- price
Price was what sold me on BookCloseouts.com. I compared prices on three random books against Overstock.com and Amazon (new).
| Retail | BookCloseouts.com | Overstock.com | Amazon | |
| Diary of a Spider | 15.99 | 7.99 | 9.87 | 10.39 |
| Agapanthus Hum and Major Bark | 13.99 | 5.99 | 11.89 | 9.74 |
| 10 Little Rubber Ducks | 19.99 | 7.99 | 12.34 | 12.99 |
Do you find that as dramatic as I do? (Amazon didn't even bother mentioning that these were children's book closeouts.)
The shipping and handling catch
Of course, all the online booksellers nail you on shipping and handling. I priced BookCloseouts.com for one picture book and it came in at $3.25 for shipping and $1.00 for handling. Pretty hefty.
Then I priced it for 3 picture books, and it came in at the same price. Moral of the story? Buy in quantity. Pretty much the same moral for any online bookseller.
Are you convinced yet? Visit BookCloseouts.com.
If you need reviews...
BookCloseouts doesn't have them, though they do have an overview description of each title. If you want to read reviews before you buy an unfamiliar book, use your usual resources or visit my children's book reviews page for how to go about it.
Now remember: BookCloseouts.com doesn't have everything, so you'll still need other resources when you're looking for something in particular and BCO doesn't have it.
Of course, there are other ways to score discounted children's books
The place to start to explore those options is my low-price children's books page. From there you can learn about used children's books - online and local - as well as some fascinating book-swapping options.
