Textbooks on the Cheap/A Look Into eTextbooks

The semester's not over yet.  But if you're a student who doesn't  qualify for a SPAL and you don't want to pay the outrageous school bookstore prices, you'd better get shopping for next semester now.  Buying books online is a great option, but sometimes the shipping time can interfere with your studying at the beginning of the course.  Here's a list of websites that offer cheaper textbooks to get you started:

Amazon:  Obviously.

Back to College:  A website for an aggregate of information for adult students, they offer a search engine to help you find books drawing from a couple of websites.  Their textbook page also provides links to a BUNCH of other online bookstores and price comparison websites.

BigWords:  This one's great.  They allow you to search for your book and draw information from a TON of different websites, finding you the best deal and giving you tips on ways to save even more money (such as membership benefit discounts if you sign up with your email on the seller's site.)

CampusBooks:  This site is just like the rest.  Nothing too special.  EXCEPT for this interesting article I found for an app they have.  Once you download the app, it looks for the textbook in your area.  It will tell you if a local bookstore has it, or, even more interestingly, if your LIBRARY has it.  I feel like the odds are slim, but if they do, you could be renting your textbook all semester for free.  This is another reason to start looking now.  I'm sure if it is available, it's going to go fast and the person who gets it will just renew it until the end of the semester, leaving you paying tons of money for something you could be getting for free.

eTextbooks?

With the rise of Kindles and nooks, you'd think eTextbooks would be a great way to go.  Cheaper.  Lighter.   Easier.  I've done some research.  And decided I'm just going to stick with traditional paper.  First of all, if you have a nook, you should know that while Barnes and Noble does sell some eTextbooks, the nook does not support them (while the Kindle does.)  You will be able to access them on your PC (Windows XP, Vista & 7) or Mac (OS X,) but not on your nook.  This may not be a problem for you if you take your laptop to class, anyways.  If anything, it opens up Barnes and Noble's eTextbooks to even more  users.  But here's the problem:  the reason these books cost so much is not the sole fault of your greedy university.  Mostly it's the fault of greedy publishers.  And while eTextbooks cut out the cost of raw material, shipping, manufacturers, and transportation, the price difference is not reflected in the cost of eTextbooks.  Greed still rules, so the savings is truly negligible.  It's only a few to ten dollars cheaper than the paper version, so I think I'm going to keep going used and save closer to around 50%.

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