College Textbooks

[LivingtheWDWdream]

I am curious if anyone has recommendations for websites I could try and find the College Textbooks I need for my classes at a discount. I am going back to school after being out for 8 years and while I got some grant money for classes I don't have any left for books.

I guess its my frugal self but I hate paying full price for anything and would like to try and find the books cheaper. My College doesn't have any used ones in stock as I would have done that already!

Thanks for any help you could pass along!

 

[Christine]

I had a lot of good luck with using half.com. That was about the cheapest I found.

 

[mandanjeremy]

I use Amazon.com mostly and I can say most times there is a considerable difference compared to the bookstore on campus.Try Half.com too, I've gotten a few good deals on there as well, but I'm always a little scared not really knowing what Im getting, so be careful.

Theres also a website some of my classmates use that let you rent books for a few weeks or a few semesters...seems crazy to me, but you might want to check that out too.

 

[ElizK]

you can rent books from chegg.com. I did that for two of the 4 that I needed (they didn't have the other 2). It was lot less than buying used, even.

 

[Christine]

.

Theres also a website some of my classmates use that let you rent books for a few weeks or a few semesters...seems crazy to me, but you might want to check that out too.

Are you talking about www.chegg.com? I looked into that and I just didn't find their prices to be worth it at all but maybe it varies from book to book.

 

[FireDancer]

I graduated in 2003 and every semester I looked everywhere to get the best price. I often found the best price at Books-A-Million.

 

[Deb in IA]

How about cheaptextbooks.com?

http://www.cheaptextbooks.com/

 

[Geoff_M]

We had hoped to use such sites for our daughter's book last Fall, but we learned that you need to be careful. Major textbook publishers now offer custom versions of many of their materials. University departments can pick and choose which chapters they want in the books they will teach from. They've also in some cases started "shrink wrapping" access codes to special supplemental content (which also may be customized) to the books. We got the list of ISBN numbers for her required textbooks from the university web site, but in the end I was only able to locate ONE matching ISBN# from a discount site even though I could find books with the same title, author, and edition number. It was only later that we realized is was because the other books were all customized. We ended up buying all of her books on-site.

 

[Christine]

We had hoped to use such sites for our daughter's book last Fall, but we learned that you need to be careful. Major textbook publishers now offer custom versions of many of their materials. University departments can pick and choose which chapters they want in the books they will teach from. They've also in some cases started "shrink wrapping" access codes to special supplemental content (which also may be customized) to the books. We got the list of ISBN numbers for her required textbooks from the university web site, but in the end I was only able to locate ONE matching ISBN# from a discount site even though I could find books with the same title, author, and edition number. It was only later that we realized is was because the other books were all customized. We ended up buying all of her books on-site.

I agree. I've had this happen with just a couple of books, fortunately, but it is very frustrating.

 

[HsvTeacher]

We also use Chegg to rent my DH's textbooks. We've saved hundreds each semester over what the college bookstores in our area charge.