Anyone have good sources for cheap college textbooks online?
I dont know… but it sure as hell isnt the college bookstore.
amazon and half.com is where i do most of my business. i made 100 bucks selling books this semester. fuck your college bookstore, fuck them up their stupid asses.
College textbooks are a HUGE racket.
It’s such crap, avoid the bookstores like a plague. I’ve only found one that I’ll buy books from and there are 20 around campus.
I dunno about your college, but my university provides a link to a store called buyback on the internet. There you can set up meetings with students to buy/sell books. Look for one that operates in your college and you’re set.
And not to break your bubble, but you’re kinda late at it.
[quote]lynxx wrote:
Anyone have good sources for cheap college textbooks online?[/quote]
Amazon.com by far. You can even get used books there.
half.com for used
amazon.com for new
barnes and noble special site that offers 5% off all the time, and a speical 10% off through 9/11.
I saved $45 this year on Textbooks ordering through them.
I always busy my texts on amazon.com used, and resell them at the end of the semester (unless, for some reason, i feel compelled to keep them). initial investment of about 250 bucks, but i’ve made it back after every semester, too.
half.com is the cheapest I’ve seen. I usually get an even older edition just to save a few bucks.
What pisses me off is that these publishers are always coming out with a new edition every year when 99% of the content remains the same. Which will always keep the book at $100+.
Some text books are such crap.
Statistics I had to buy new for triple digits and I have yet to even open it, yet its required to buy… Wish the professor would of sent out mass emails on how he has all the problems from the book he wants us to do online.
History of Civilization…not even opened yet, even with 2 essays done. The teachers lectures encompass more then you could get from the book. Luckily used.
Human Evolution, used twice and bought used.
Native American Culture/Archeology, 4 books, 2 have been used. All bought used.
Its crap I spent 394 dollars on books and haven’t used half of them yet.
[quote]jm85 wrote:
What pisses me off is that these publishers are always coming out with a new edition every year when 99% of the content remains the same. Which will always keep the book at $100+.[/quote]
That is why I ended up borrowing many of my text books in college from the library for the semester. Most were old editions but there was little to no change in the info. It was either that or borrow them from some girl taking the class at the same time and offer to tutor her. Being broke in school sucks.
Try to see if your school has anything like a swap type site mentioned above. You might also check out sites that search for you (bigwords, allbooks). Normally amazon and half come back with the best deals but sometimes you can find a steal on a smaller site.
bigwords.com is pretty cool. It searched all the online books stores for the cheapest prices. I saved like 120 this year.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
jm85 wrote:
What pisses me off is that these publishers are always coming out with a new edition every year when 99% of the content remains the same. Which will always keep the book at $100+.
That is why I ended up borrowing many of my text books in college from the library for the semester. Most were old editions but there was little to no change in the info. It was either that or borrow them from some girl taking the class at the same time and offer to tutor her. Being broke in school sucks.[/quote]
That’s what I do. Typically I only have to buy one or two textbooks a semester, this year it was biochem and last it was organic. It’s pretty pointless to buy a book for a jerkoff class like stat 101 or psych 101. I figured that out after I transferred into a new department and found I didn’t use even one of my $400+ worth of books.
Even if you’re library doesn’t have one and you need it to do homework or something, either 1) make friends with a classmate of the opposite sex and use their book or 2) request a copy from interlibrary loan and copy the homework problems.
My only other advice is to wait as long as you feel comfortable to buy books, that way you know which ones you really need. Especially if it’s after the last day to return books at the bookstore, because then you have a better chance of scoring one from someone who can’t return it.