Book Hunting

If you're in college or grad school, this post is a MUST READ.

i spent most of College trying to figure out the best way to buy books cheaply. Amazon frequently didn't have the books i needed 6 years ago or they took so long to arrive that it wasn't worth it. Our reading lists weren't always available until right before classes started. In addition, my parents gave me book money the first couple of years of college and they put it in my student account instead of giving me the cash, so online wouldn't have worked.

i typically rushed over to the student book store as soon as they listed all the books, then wrote them all down with their prices. Then i'd run to the other bookstore in town, compare prices and buy the cheaper ones. Then i'd head back and buy what was left at the student store, hedging my bets on the used ones. It was pretty crazy.

The internet is slowly catching up with the needs of students. This year's book buying was aided largely by the extreme ingenuity of my fiscally savvy wife.

Option 1
To begin with, Ashley posted all my needed books on Paper Back Swap. This is a particularly good site for those of you with mounds of books you are looking to get out of the house or access to mounds of books you're trying to get rid of. It works like this... you join and list all the books you're trying to get rid of. This gives you a certain amount of credits. Every book is worth 1 and every audiobook is 2. For every book requested from you, you get a credit to spend. So each time someone asks for your book, you get a chance to ask for others. It's not your best bet for time crunch, but if you know any ahead of time or they're not being used until later in the semester, free is cheapest.

Option 2
We all know and love Amazon for the used and new for dirt cheap. Most of us also have gone to Half.com and AbeBooks. However, the best option is www.AddAll.com. Why? You plug in the title or ISBN or anything else, just like those other guys and it searches through 30 or 40 sites and finds the lowest price (including the shipping and handling).

Option 3
Many of you may not be aware, but there are free bookstores where you can borrow books for a couple of weeks. You can't write in them and you have to return them, but this is a good option for you if you have no desire to highlight or keep the book. They are called libraries. Check it out.