Four Reasons Textbook Costs Will Drop

Bigwords.com does it for me

I like BIGWORDS.com for textbooks. The reason they're the best is that they compare many items at once, and calculate the best combination of stores to buy at, including coupons and shipping. They also let you include or exclude international editions, and they let you choose the ship time and then calculate the lowest price using the right shipping type at every store. Pretty neat! http://www.bigwords.com/

Helpineedbooks.com

Only searches the sites that carry cheap textbooks. Unlike engines who search the sites with best commissions to make money. Search here and you'll find really cheap textbooks.

Very helpful article

Thanks for writing this. I will search some of these websites to find better deals.

mybooksforcheap.com

I use http://www.mybooksforcheap.com its nice because it searches all the major websites at one time, saving me lots of time and money.

Flat World Knowledge?

The website only features videos on convenience textbooks, but NO membership signups or links to access textbooks...?

I want to see results.

Cheggs.com and Bookrenter.com

I have rented my textbooks for about a year now from Chegg.com. I have also recently began renting from bookrenter.com as well. It is great! Huge cost savings and you don't have to be bothered with the hassle of trying to sell books at the end of the semester.

The books are in great condition and you don't pay for postage to return the books. I have saved hundreds of dollars renting my books.

www.MyBooksForCheap.com

Try www.MyBooksForCheap.com! It compares book prices from Half.com, AbeBooks.com, and Amazon and shows students who has the lowest textbook price for the textbooks they need.

no free textbooks on google books

there is NO free textbook material on google books; the only free texts there are in the public domain (no copyright or copyright expired). as the site explains, google books is meant to help people find texts they wish to purchase, and does not provide any copyright material (though one can get special deals on texts from publishers that participate with google).

Half.com

The BEST method of buying books is getting them used from Half.com. It is a site powered by eBay that has person to person transactions. The books have ratings and a maximum shipping price of $5-6. Depending on the popularity of the specific book, I have spent as little $25 on a BRAND NEW Calculus book with shipping included (orig. $130). That was my best experience, but I have never spent over $42 otherwise. Look into it!!

Student-to-Student Exchanging on Uloop.com

Students also have the option to exchange or trade their books with one another on Uloop.com (nationwide website). This is a free online website that is available to any student that has a .EDU email address.

www.uloop.com

Book rentals and buy-back services are helpful; however, the majority of the profit in these transactions goes to businesses rather than struggling students.

Uloop makes sure that every penny of profit made on a book goes to students. Here is an illustrative example:

Without Uloop

1) Student buys a new textbook for $100

2) Student sells the book back to the book store for $30

3) Next student pays $80 for that used book

4) The bookstore makes $50

With Uloop

1) Student buys a new textbook for $100

2) Student sells that book to another student for $55 on Uloop

3) Buyer gets the book for $55

4) Both students save $50

Uloop is totally free and students have saved over $500,000 using the site.