Buying textbooks can be quite the daunting task for college students of any level, from freshman to last year graduate student. They always put a drain on your money when starting the semester, without promise of actually getting use out of the book! Many college book stores no longer offer a rental program. In addition, most college bookstores only carry a limited number of used books, and offer a paltry amount on book buybacks.
You can save a lot of money if you buy used textbooks online for the semester, as long as you know where to go, and provided that you know well enough in advance what books you need. I have provided a list of websites and descriptions below where you can find cheaper than college bookstore copies.
Book price comparison
If you are intent on actually buying your book, the first place I would recommend to try is a book price comparison site. These sites search through dozens, if not more, online bookstores and return to you a list of the lowest prices available. This is much quicker and faster than going to each site individually. The downside is that sometimes the data provided to these sites is not up to date, and you may have to do a little manual tracking. Overall the best option for starting a search though. Below I have listed a suggestion based on past experience. Of course we are biased to our very own BookSpy.net, but there are many others however, just do a google search. We try to stay ahead of the game however, and will respond promptly and quickly to any suggestions you may have to improve the search service.
BookSpy.Net Your Text Book Price Comparsion Engine Search by ISBN, title, author, or other keywords. Nice, easy to use book search site. Can rate and recommend books, see previous customer reviews, details about the book, and more.
Major bookstores
The other option in buying your books is to visit all of the major online booksellers themselves. Most online book retailers have a marketplace section where third party sellers can sell used and new copies of the book you are looking for, often significantly cheaper than retail value, probably saving upwards of 80% in some cases. Keep in mind however that most book price comparison sites search through the marketplace sellers a s well! The major online booksellers are:
Amazon.com The most well known place to buy used and new books. Often very cheap, but not always the cheapest, especially on textbooks. A good starting place though.
Half.com Half.com Is quickly gaining ground on Amazon as far as number of books offered. Similar pricing to Amazon, may be able to find cheaper textbooks.
Alibris.com Another fairly large site with a high number of marketplace sellers. A lot of sellers here opt in to what is known as automatic re-pricing of their inventory. What this means is that every so often, prices will be adjusted to match the new low prices in the marketplace. Can often find good deals here.
Barnesandnobles.com I have found Barnes and Nobles marketplace sellers to be a little more pricey than others, although I have found pretty good deals via a book price comparison site a few times.
Biblio.com I do not have any purchasing experience with Biblio, but have heard good things. I have seen them pop up as the low price on book price comparison sites a few times.
Ebay.com Ebay can be tricky. Sometimes you get great deals, other times people overpay for a book. There are two formats that you can buy books via Ebay. The first is fixed price auctions, which works somewhat like Half.com. The seller lists a price for the book and a seller determined shipping charge. Often fixed priced auctions are pricey. The other option is buying on auction. The listing is active for 3, 5 or 7 days, and people are allowed to bid. Not really recommended for college students however, unless you know well in advance what book you need, since you have to wait for the auction to end, and there is no guarantee you will not be outbid at the last minute.
Book rental sites
Yet another option is renting your books online. I do not have much experience in this area so cannot make an accurate recommendation. Some sites that do offer rental programs are:
Chegg.com
Bookrenter.com
Campusbookrentals.com
Book trades
If you are feeling a little more risky, you may be able to get your book for the cost of shipping, or even free, from book trading sites. How this works is you post books that you would like to trade in exchange for a book you want. This is probably not ideal for most students, as the book you seek may not even be available. You would have to know well in advance what books you need to start looking for them. Some examples of these sites are:
Paperbackswap.com
Swaptree.com
Libraries
Finally, the ultimate FREE source for books, your library! You can search for a book at all the libraries near you at WorldCat.org. If there are no local copies of your book, most schools offer an interlibrary loan program and can most likely get you the book within a week. In addition, most schools also keep a few copies of the required books for classes, but they may get checked out early. If you can get a copy however, simply make photocopies of the relevant parts of the book, and you are on your way! This is even cheaper if you have access to a departmental copier at no cost.
Important Tips and Notes
Remember, when buying books from third party sellers, give ample time for shipping and any problems that may arise. Books are mostly shipped via media mail which can take up to two weeks to arrive, so plan accordingly. If you are on top of buying your books at a price that you are more comfortable with, you WILL be rewarded with more cash this semester. Buying books online is always cheaper than buying at your bookstore. Best of luck finding your books!
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We have a pretty major update for users of our book price comparison site BookSpy.Net. Search results and price comparison pages now include Amazon.com ratings of the book, as well as reviews of the book. Simply click on ‘Amazon.com Reviews’ to see the reviews for the book. We have also added more detailed book information including shipping weight, binding, and summaries of the book under the ‘Details’ link. See the graphic below for a visual guide:
Book reviews, book ratings, and more now at BookSpy!
We hope this benefits our users, and as always, if you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us!
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We’ve recently added a new feature here at BookSpy.Net. A gadget version of our popular book price search site is now available through Google Gadgets.
Using the BookSpy.Net Gadget
The BookSpy.Net Google gadget lets you quickly search for textbooks from your desktop, iGoogle page, or even your own web page or blog. To use the gadget, simply enter a title, author, or ISBN, and click ‘Search’. Entering an ISBN is the fastest and most accurate way to search, and you will be taken straight to the lowest four prices from dozens of vendors. From the results page you can go straight to the vendor and purchase the book for the lowest price! If you entered a title or author first, you will first be taken to a list of search results. Find the book you are looking for and either click the title or click ‘Compare Prices’ to be taken to the results page.
Here is a preview of the gadget, resized to fit this page:
Adding the Gadget to your iGoogle page or Desktop
You can add the BookSpy gadget anywhere you can place a gadget (ie iGoogle, Google Desktop) with the following link: 
. Alternatively, you can go to your iGoogle page, and add the gadget by searching through the directory.
To add a gadget the Desktop via the Desktop Sidebar:
- At the top of the Sidebar, click Add.
- Type the URL for a gadget spec into the Search gadgets text field and then click Search gadgets. If the gadget is found, its title is displayed next to an Add button. Click Add.
Adding the Gadget to your webpage or blog
You can get low book price search results on your webpage or blog by following this link. From here you can get the code for the gadget and even choose its size to match your requirements!
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I would just like to thank a user who recently contacted me about problems viewing the mobile bookscouting tools on certain cellular devices. All errors were fixed, and the site has now been verified on both older Nokia and Samsung phones, as well as Verizon smart phones with Windows 5. Please let me know if you run into any more bugs.
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