By: Michael Mould
There are legitimate resources for buying college textbooks that are priced at a fraction of the university bookstore prices and there is absolutely no reason for you to be paying the full suggested
There are legitimate resources for buying college textbooks that are priced at a fraction of the university bookstore prices and there is absolutely no reason for you to be paying the full suggested list price for a book when you can get the same book, by the same publisher, in the same edition, i.e., the exact same book for 15% - 35% of the bookstore price. In many cases, that is exactly the kind of savings you can realize by purchasing your textbooks online.
I am a licensed professional engineer, I know how expensive college textbooks can be even though it has been 17 years since I went to school because I have a son working on his engineering doctorate right now. I am also an online bookseller and have sold thousands of books through the online marketplaces over the past five years. This is how I became aware of the phenomenal savings that can be had by buying college textbooks online.
If you are a college student, a parent of a college student, a teacher, or someone that is interested in saving some real money, you really should investigate buying your books online. There are many online marketplaces and finding the right one to buy your books from is the real secret to saving money on your purchases, so do a little research and don't settle for the first price from the first marketplace you look. Then, after you have finished with your textbooks, finding the right marketplace to sell them on can even fetch more than you paid for it in the first place.
The buying and selling of books is easy, the process of buying them cheap and selling them for a profit is only a little harder, but the real secret is knowing where to make the buying and selling transactions is the key to making a real profit or saving a lot of money. Check out Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Half.com, abebooks.com, and some of the other lesser known marketplaces. You will see that the prices vary dramatically. Pick the lowest priced one when you buy, and if you decide to resell your books when you are done, pick one of the marketplaces that leans toward higher prices.
In most university bookstores, the new textbooks are priced at full suggested retail prices and used textbooks are discounted according to their respective conditions. The same is true with many of the online marketplaces, but if you know where to look, and what to look for, in many cases you can buy that new textbook for over 50% less than the suggested retail price. If you are willing to use a book that is in "As New" condition, which for all practical and aesthetic purposes is a new book, you might just save 70%, and if you don't mind a minor bump to the cover corner, or maybe a couple of pages with minor highlighting, you might just save 80% or more. If you could locate copies of your
required textbooks for $40 + $25 for shipping, would you rather pay that or the $600 to pick them up at the university bookstore.
Suppose you are taking six classes that require nine textbooks. Further suppose that the required textbooks cost an average of $89.99 each (this is probably a low estimate for many of today's college textbooks). That means you need to come up with $809.91 for ONE semester's worth of textbooks. If you could find these exact textbooks online and buy them from a reputable online booksellers in varying conditions for 65% less, would you be interested? I'll bet you could find something to do with the $626.44 you would save - couldn't you? Maybe put it aside and have your textbook money for the next two semesters as well.
Well, how much you can save really depends on the availability of the same books online, but I think you will find it worth your time to do a little online research to find them at lower prices than you find in the typical university bookstore.
Michael E. Mould is the author of "Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips," [Paperback ISBN 1427600708, CD-ROM ISBN 1599714876] and developer of "Bookkeeping for Booksellers," [CD ISBN 1427600694] a 19 sheet linked and tabbed Excel Workbook designed to assist online booksellers with the calculation of their in-state retail sales tax obligations and the preparation of their Schedule C tax forms. "Bookkeeping for Booksellers" also provides 55 integrated graphs to visually show an online bookseller just how their business is performing.
If you would like to learn more about online bookselling and the various online marketplaces for buying and selling your books, please visit:
http://www.online-bookselling.com
or send Mike an email at:
mike@online-bookselling.com
