Finding Cheap Textbooks

Perhaps you are a college student. Perhaps you are supporting a college student. In either case you are well acquainted with the daunting cost of college textbooks. This is even more accute for people who attend schools online because a new set of books must be ordered for each new class, which often means shelling out a painful amount of cash every five weeks! This guide is intended to help anyone find college textbooks for much cheaper than their usual retail value.

Before you begin shopping for your books, it is important to know how to find the CORRECT book. Simply entering the title could result in a list of dozens of different editions of a book- having the wrong edition could cause some trouble! To combat this issue, there is a system of coding books. Each text has an ISBN, or international standard book number, that can be found near the barcode of the book. Any decent online bookstore will have an option to search by the ISBN, which is the quickest and most accurate way of locating the exact book the you need. You may have to contact an advisor or professor to get the ISBN of the text, but it is well worth the trouble.

The next step in finding a good deal is knowing where to look! The following is a short list of websites where you can find your books at much more reasonable prices:

scholar.google.com
www.amazon.com
www.comparetextbook.com
www.ebay.com
www.affordabook.com
www.gutenberg.org
www.ipl.org
www.bartleby.com
www.half.com
www.textbookx.com
www.BestBookBuys.com
www.comparetextbook.com
www.CheapestTextbooks.com
www.bookbyte.com

Be sure to start searching plenty of time in advance because it may take a while to receive a textbook shipped from a website, particularly if you are bidding on Ebay or having your book shipped directly from an individual to your address. Also, starting in advance will give you time to shop around! It is important to bear in mind that if you have found your book at only a slightly reduced price, the cost of shipping may outweigh the potential savings.

Quick Recap:

Start shopping early!
Always search by the ISBN if possible.
Compare prices on different websites.
Make sure to factor in time for shipping.
Good luck!