<p>Is there any place on the web where you can buy college texts at reasonable prices?</p>
<p>Yes there are many that are subsets of Amazon.com, but private sellers. They go by many names. The problem with buying books online is if you change a class - usually the money is not refundable or you have to send it back and wait for a new book to arrive and by then you are two weeks into the semester. I tried doing it one semester. It was more trouble than it was worth. Most books come from different dealers and it is complicated keeping it all straight.</p>
<p>half.com? may be the place i have heard about.
however, you need to make sure of the edition....most can't return.
My favorite trick was to scout out people selling books at the end of the quarter....where you can get them very cheap.</p>
<p>I second Amazon. I just got a textbook for my summer Community College course which is $60 new, for $10 with shipping. I'd advise you to check the reported "condition" of the book in the context the seller's credibility rating and number of sales. :)</p>
<p>It is incredibly easy to buy decent-condition used and discount new textbooks on the web. Amazon and half.com do a great job, and there are others, too (alibris, for one, and AddAll, which purports to do price comparisons). I have gotten 95% of my kid's college books that way.</p>
<p>The disadvantages, other than non-returnability, are that delivery sometimes takes a week or two, and you have to pay careful attention to which edition you are buying. Delivery is often piecemeal, too, because they come from different sellers. But even with shipping we have probably saved $80-$100 per quarter this way.</p>
<p>In the town where my son goes to college, there are several independent book stores that sell used texts. It's almost turned into an industry. The kids learn very quickly how to save $.</p>
<p>The edition issue is solved if you have the ISBN. Half.com, amazon, ebay and b & n all allow the search option for ISBN.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>OK...I realize this topic has not been discussed lately...but it now a little more relavent for incoming freshmen....I understand D signs up for classes in her freshmen orientation-which is only a week before school starts. If this is the case, is she stuck having to buy her textbooks at the university bookstore? (d plans to atttend Northwestern) Can sites such as half.com take an order-and ship it/deliver w/in one week?</p>
<p>I like using the website <a href="http://www.cheapesttextbooks.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cheapesttextbooks.com/</a> which automatically compares pricing on many online sites (Amazon, Half, Abebooks, etc.), it really helps you find the cheapest option available. You can also read reviews of the latest edition online - many times the information isn't different enough to warrant purchasing the latest edition. Emailing professors before the semester starts keeps you from being too inconvenienced by the shipping, and most professors have a copy of the textbooks for their course available in the library if you should need it. In the event that a copy isn't on reserve, just send out an email to your classmates to see if you can skim the book while you're waiting. I've never had a major problem with waiting for a book to arrive, and the savings are well worth the minor inconvenience (last semester I spent about $60 for all 5 for my humanities courses, many of which required several books. Friends of mine spent up to $500 buying books from the book store).</p>
<p>For incoming freshmen, I'd suggest contacting the professors after signing up for class to see which books were needed the first week or two of class, and whether or not they'd be on reserve. Based upon that information, I'd buy what I needed from the bookstore and order the rest.</p>
<p>My experience with our two kids who attend separate colleges is that the college bookstores usually post way in advance which textbooks are needed for which classes. The problem is that they DON'T publish the ISBN, which is really what you need to insure getting the right edition. I'm sure they do this to get kids to buy from the higher priced bookstore.</p>
<p>I resigned myself to having to buy the first freshman semester for each kid through the bookstore, especially for S who registered for classes just days before they started. Not enough time to order books and have them shipped.</p>
<p>Since then, they usually do a combination of buying online, through the bookstore, or from acquantainces. </p>
<p>I will say that buying online does seem to offer significant price savings. However, the downsides not only include the occasional return policy problem, but also getting the books at all. Be careful that you only deal with sellers that have reputable feedback. Just recently, I ordered a summer textbook for D and was waiting for it. Only to find out that my order had been "refunded" over two weeks ago, the book never shipped, and we'd never been advised. We had to scramble to find another one.</p>
<p>D also does a mix. Sometimes the books she needs aren't available online anywhere, so she has to buy from the bookstore. She has found that usually she gets better deals on amazon or B&N. Her school has a used bookstore run by students for students. Students set the prices they want for them. She sells her books back there, and has purchased some there. It's a matter of spending a little time to find the best deal each semester. We haven't spent over 100 a semester after her fist semester when we couldn't find most of the books online or used anywhere.</p>
<p>On thing my son mentioned is that students(him too) can save tremendously by buying earlier editions of the assigned text. Typically there are insignificant changes in the text material so that the only issue is getting the proper problem sets at the end of the chapters and often this involves only a renumbering of the problems.</p>
<p>One professor let him take photos of his problem set pages and for others he has just used classmates texts. </p>
<p>He has found that he is saving about 85% using this method and it has not created a single problem thus far.</p>
<p>BTW he buys his used texts on Amazon usually. Like egj1, he has not spent more than $100/semester since frosh year.</p>
<p>Speaking of ISBNs, please be aware that they are converting to a new 13 digit ISBN number format this year. You'll see some books with both formats on them (usually on the back cover of paperbacks and dust jackets). Some websites (Half.com being one of them) have not yet converted to the new ISBN 13 format. It will get confusing until everyone converts to the new format. I have gone searching for a book using the new format and haven't been able to find it anywhere.</p>
<p>Some tidbits from the ISBN.org website:</p>
<p>
[quote]
What is the format of the new ISBN-13?
Every ISBN will consist of thirteen digits in 2007. The thirteen digit number is divided into five parts of variable length, each part separated by a hyphen.</p>
<p>Does the ISBN-13 have any meaning imbedded in the numbers?
The five parts of an ISBN are as follows:
1. The current ISBN-13 will be prefixed by "978"
2. Group or country identifier which identifies a national or geographic grouping of publishers;
3. Publisher identifier which identifies a particular publisher within a group;
4. Title identifier which identifies a particular title or edition of a title;
5. Check digit is the single digit at the end of the ISBN which validates the ISBN.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is probably more than you'll ever need to know about ISBNs but if you're really looking for a book, it might be worth it to search under the old and new ISBN number.</p>
<p>also it can be worth checking out the local bookstore-- my college bookstore used to honor all prices from amazon, b&n etc (not the individual sellers, just amazon.com) Also, when buying used books I'm a bit picky about the condition, so I can buy used books at the bookstore so that I'm sure that I dont get a highlighted, underlined, or written in book, while if I order from half.com I always order new.</p>