How to Buy Textbooks Online

Guide Note: College textbooks can be prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, there are alternatives to marching down to your campus book store credit card in hand. There are textbook swapping services and sites which specialize in finding used textbooks from campuses around the country.

How to Buy Textbooks Online will introduce you to some of the best online resources for finding and purchasing textbooks for your next college class.

Introduction

  • As any college student (or parent of a college student) will tell you, textbooks are criminally expensive. Fortunately, the internet has made the textbook market more competitive. Students are no longer forced to stock up at their campus bookstore. Instead, they can comparison shop online for the best deals and turn in their own used textbooks for credit.

Buy Textbooks

(Creative Commons photo by Logan Ingalls)
(Creative Commons photo by Logan Ingalls)
  • Before buying a textbook online, be sure that you've found the edition specified by your professor. It also never hurts to be sure that the book will be delivered on time for your first class.

Online Textbook Retailers

Online Textbook Finder and Price Comparison

eTextbooks

  • eTextbooks are textbooks available in downloadable digital formats. Unfortunately, very few textbooks are currently available online for free. What is available can be found via the following sites:
  • CafeScribe
  • CafeScribe is an eTextbook service with a social component. The service is free, but you must download the CafeScribe reader to make the texts readable. Books are organized by title, author, major and university.

Facebook Textbook Exchanges

  • Popular social networking service Facebook offers several homegrown college textbook exchanges. You need to be a Facebook member to access the following book exchanges:

Find Books in the Public Domain

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Project Gutenberg has many public domain classics.
  • Many classic books are now in the public domain—meaning that they are free to use, reproduce, distribute and remix. These books include everything from the work of Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud to dancing and etiquette instruction manuals from the late 19th century. You can find these books online at one of many public domain search engines and online libraries.
  • If you are using one of these books for a class, remember that the edition and translation may matter. Your teacher may refer to a passage by page number or want you to read the work of a certain translator. If you don't have the right edition, you'll be lost.
  • Check with your professor to be sure that using a text downloaded from one of the following websites will be alright to use in class.

Online Buying Safety Tips

  • Whether you are buying from a trusted retailer like Amazon or a small independent publisher using PayPal to process transactions, some internet buying safety tips apply across the board when it comes to protecting you from identity theft.
Check that the site is secure before entering your credit card number. (Photo by Steve Woods)
Check that the site is secure before entering your credit card number. (Photo by Steve Woods)
  1. Use the most recent version of your Internet browser. It will usually update automatically, but you can check for updates under the Help menu.
  2. Check to see what the web site's security policies are. They should be easy to find. If they're not, that's a red flag about the retailer's trustworthiness!
  3. Look for a little lock symbol at the bottom of your browser when you are submitting your information.
  4. The letters "https" should appear at the beginning of the URL if you are on a page where you will submit your personal and credit card information.
  5. Make sure to keep the receipt for what you purchased. You should be able to print one out at the end of your transaction.
  6. Check your credit card statement for any errors.
  7. Don't ever give out your credit card information by instant messaging service or email.
  8. Notify your credit card company immediately if anything fishy happens.
Check the seller's history and customer ratings before making a purchase. (Screenshot from Alibris.com by Mahalo)
Check the seller's history and customer ratings before making a purchase. (Screenshot from Alibris.com by Mahalo)

How Do You Know if a Seller is Trustworthy?

  • Whether you're buying used books from an independent seller on Amazon or a new book from an author's personal website, take some time to investigate the seller before making your purchase.
  1. If you are buying used books from an independent seller on major sites like Amazon or Alibris, check the seller's history, customer feedback rating and return policy.
  2. Check to see if a smaller retailer's site is secure. Does it have emblems that say "Hacker Safe", "Verisign Secure" or "BBB Reliability Program"? Then it has been approved by a trustworthy organization. Retailers without these emblems often are not trustworthy.
  3. A trustworthy retailer will have a 1-800 or 1-888 number for you to call in order to reach their customer service. If they don't provide any phone number, that is cause for suspicion; if they don't provide any contact information at all, they are certainly not trustworthy.
  4. Look for a good "About Us" section that includes information on the company's policies, features, and even a brief history. If they're not giving you that information, you probably don't want to give them your money.
  5. What is the site's return policy? Reputable sellers stand by their products, and offer customers the opportunity to return items that aren't up to par. If the return policy is restrictive or non-existent, caveat emptor!

Resources for How to Buy Textbooks Online

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Have any great tips on How to Buy Textbooks Online? Post your thoughts to the discussion board or email them to Julia: Julia at mahalo dot com.