Textbook Guide for Students
Unfortunately one of the most frustrating costs as a university/college student (aside from tuition that is), are textbooks. Costing sometimes at least a few hundred dollars and then losing their value makes purchasing these books at the lowest price possible is definitely very important. This inspired me to assembling this short but sweet textbook guide for students, to help you save dollars on one of the more expensive purchases as a university/college student.
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
- eBooks are now often more the norm than in the past-check out Torrent websites and you may be able to find your textbook for free.
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
Some great websites to check out for purchases outside of your university/college bookstore
Kijiji
Craigslist
Amazon
What are your favourite tips on how to buy/sell textbooks?
