Buy Cheap Books

Are you looking to buy cheap books? Of course you are! Why spend more on books than you have to?

The people who really get hammered by book cost, and thus have the greatest need to buy cheap books more than anyone else, are college students. According to Wikipedia, textbook cost is going up at a rate four times faster than inflation and the average college student may spend $900 to $1000 or more on books and supplies each year. Of course, some spend a lot more.

And if you’re thinking that electronic textbooks are going to be a great new way to buy cheap books in the future, think again. It seems like not having to print and ship books would make for a great way to buy cheap books, right? Nope! By consolidating sales through a handful E-Readers, textbook publishers probably hope to kill the used textbook market which does not profit them. It’s our opinion that used textbooks are about the only opportunity for students to buy cheap books.

We believe that the best way to lower your net cost is to buy cheap books (used) and then sell them back at the right time. You can take that one step further and try to play the seasonal price game. College books, like everything else, react to supply and demand. Right around the start of the semester demand to buy cheap books is highest. In the middle of the semester, demand is lowest. So, if you can sell back a Fall Semester book sometime in mid December, you stand a good chance of getting a good price, provided that no new editions have hurt demand and that your book happens to be in widespread ongoing use. We’ve actually made money buy buying when books are cheapest and selling at the top of the market. To really play this game, you’d have to keep a close watch on the buyback value of your books, be a little flexible about when you buy and sell. Additionally, it never hurts to get lucky.

What about book rental? Rental seems cheaper, right? For instance, it’s cheaper to rent a boat than own a boat, right? Not exactly. It could be potentially cheaper. In many cases the difference between buying the cheapest used copy you can find at the right time and then selling it back is actually less than renting a textbook. Especially if you start getting hit with late fees or they finally hammer you with the full purchase price of the unreturned book.