Google Friend Connect in Internet Explorer
Jun/090
Bad news everyone. It appears that google friend connect has some trouble with internet explorer. If you are an internet explorer user, please hold tight, as we try to find a workaround to this problem. All of your book reviews and book recommendations have been saved, and we hopefully should have a fix by the end of the week. If you have not tried it already, I also suggest trying another browser like Firefox, which is more secure.
New Book Search Features at BookSpy.Net
Jun/090
The first order of business is the introduction of your new extensive help wiki. This will allow us to upload useful tips and hints for both book buyers and book scouts. We will be filling the pages with tips for scouting for books in the near future, so be sure to check back often! The help section is already well populates, so if you have not already, go check it out.
The second order of business is that we have made some improvements to our mobile book scout tools. First, the pages load 20% faster, which is great for rural areas. Second, we rearranged the price comparison and amazon rank after entering an ISBN. The sales rank is now shown first on the page, followed by prices, so users of older mobile phones can see that information first without scrolling down, making book price comparison a bit easier.
Finally, we would just like to remind our users that we would love to hear of suggestions or features that they would like implemented. Either leave a comment here, or send us an e-mail at oxfordbooks@gmail.com letting us know what you think!
Where to Buy Cheap College Textbooks?
Jun/090
Summer classes are starting up for many this week, so that means people need to start ordering my textbooks. Buying textbooks is always a big drain on a students money because of the inflated costs involved. During my undergraduate years, I would often spend upwards of $400 on textbooks every semester. Occassionally, I would get a book written by my professor that cost $97 used. Big surprise isn’t it?
Textbook prices are out of control – however, there are plenty of places online to buy textbooks on the cheap. Below is a list of places to buy cheap textbooks that have proven useful:
- BookSpy.net – BookSpy is a book price comparison site. What this means is that you search by title, author, or ISBN, and get back a list of the lowest prices from dozens of online retailers. This includes both used and new books. I would recommend a price comparison site as one of the first places you go if you need to actually buy the book.
- Amazon
, Half.com
, Alibris
, eCampus
– These are the major players in places to buy cheap books. They are searched by BookSpy, but in the event that the website is down, these are the first places I would recommend.
- Craigslist – Try your local craigslist, a lot of college students sell textbooks via this method. Moderately reliable, you just have to keep searching every day.
- PaperBackSwap – Not as reliable, but I did get one schoolbook this way. Basically you put up copies of your books you don’t want, and you can swap for a book someone else has. Not very reliable.
- Your LIBRARY! – Yes, your library. Most school libraries have stocks of books that are needed for your class, you just need to reserve the copy early. You can then copy the book. This is by far the cheapest method. If you cannot get your book at your library, try WorldCat.org. It searches all the libraries near you to see if the book is available. Finally, you could utilize your libraries interlibrary loan system, and request a book be sent. Most of the time this service is also free.
Book Scouting
Jun/090
Book scouting can be a profitable business, either buying for yourself to resell, or working for someone else. The tools of the trade can be quite expensive however, and may put a few first time book scouts off. You may see such tools as hand held bar code scanners that look up the price of the book. These scanners generally come in two flavors, the standalone version (very expensive) or the kind that attaches to your cell phone (less expensive, but still pricey). There is, however, a third option that you may not know about:
You can look up book prices right from your web enabled phone.
If you have internet access on your phone you can simply go to your favorite site and look up the book of interest. The problem with this approach has been that generally, it takes a long time for a web page to load on your phone. Also, if you do not have a phone with a full featured web browser, you were generally out of luck.
At BookSpy.net we have implemented a search feature just for book scouts that alleviates this problem. In addition, most mobile phones with data access should work. Just point your mobile device to http://scout.bookspy.net/ to access the mobile version of our site. You can enter an ISBN, Title or Author and get concise, easy to read results. You will receive the Amazon Sales Rank
, and the lowest prices from a number of vendors including Amazon, eBay, Half.com, Alibris and more. Best of all, as part of our grand opening, we are providing this service for FREE to users of our site.
Hopefully this will help prospective book sellers get up and running, and keep your business profitable!