Textbook Guide for Students

How to buy textbooks
 
The first week of the new semester consists of lineups, and lots of them as well as buying textbooks for all of your courses. Here are a few tips I like to follow when it comes to buying textbooks and saving money – since they are so expensive!
  • Check out the University’s main bookstore, take your schedule and find out all the textbooks you need for the semester. These are the textbooks you will actually need since most often the professors have told the university bookstore what the required books are for their courses
  • While at the bookstore, find out the editions of the books, how much they cost and figure out if there are any additional e-books or codes that you need to purchase
  • Make sure to write all of this information down somewhere, now you’re ready to check out online classifieds
  • Which classified site you use depends on your university, but these are most often the best way to get deals on textbooks
  • Make sure to get the price that you want, within reason obviously, barter negotiate a little bit with the people selling these textbooks
  • Make sure to have a lot of cash on you during the first week of school in order to pay for the textbooks you wish to purchase
  •  Find a convenient location for the both of you to meet and purchase your textbooks, it’s usually best to meet on campus
How to sell your textbooks
 
Another way to fund the purchase of textbooks for the current semester of school is to sell your textbooks from the previous semester. This requires a bit of time and effort but you will make a ton more money than if you were to trade them in when your university bookstores do buy backs.
Go on the most used classified site for your university and post your textbooks, make sure to provide a lot of contact information (or as much as you’re comfortable with) to make it as easy as possible for potential buyers to reach you and ask questions.
Make sure to post as much information as possible including;
·         Title of the textbook
·         Authors name
·         Edition
·         Condition of book, if there isn’t any highlighting make sure to emphasize this!
Determine a price for your textbooks based on the prices listed for similar books on the classifieds, as well as using the prices listed at your school bookstore as a guideline.
  • Price high based on the condition of your textbook and/or scarcity of similar textbooks
  • Price low to sell quickly or because the textbook isn’t in great condition
If you have any questions make sure to post comments on this blog post. I will be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.
Helpful online classifieds
www.kijiji.ca
www.craigslist.ca
 
Ontario
University of Guelph
www.thecannon.ca
 
Nationwide
http://www.locazu.com/buy-sell-trade-exchange-textbooks