Save Big On Books

I've been called on "avid reader". I don't know about the "avid" part, but I do frequently devour a novel within a couple of days. All of that reading quickly adds up to big bucks, and without some creative solutions, can quickly eat a big chunk out of my budget.

The most obvious solution is to make use of your local public library. They have a large selection of books, including the newest and best of the current "Have-to-Reads" lists. My local library even lets me go online to request materials and notifies me via email when they are available.

But since this blog is not about the obvious, I want to explore some of the not-so-obvious solutions that I have discovered...

Buying and selling books on eBay and Amazon are fantastic options for the budget buyer or rare book collector. Both of these venues allow you to pick up books at below retail prices while simultaneously selling your "used" collection at a fair price. At this writing, eBay has nearly 4.25 million books available for sale, and Amazon has over 27.7 million. The odds are pretty good that one of these two sights will have what you're looking for at the right price. I highly recommend that you check new and used books at both sights before buying to get the best price. I have seen a used book selling for a low of $9.95 on eBay when the same new book was available in the used section at Amazon for 1¢.

Book trading stores were pretty popular in the late 80's and early 90's. Most moderately sized towns still have a book trading store or two around. Again, these are great venues for buying books at a discount. If you have books to trade, the business model generally is to give you a book credit that you can then use to "buy" a book. Almost without exceptions, book trading stores charge a small per book transaction fee to help offset their overhead costs. This charge applies to each book that you are buying or trading.

There are a number of website out there that advertise that they buy books. (My Google search this morning came back with 238 million hits.) Most of the popular websites only buy textbooks. However, there is a site called cash4books.com that buys other books. I personally have used this service, and was quite pleased with it. You simply enter the ISBN numbers for the books you want to sell to see if how much cash you can get for them. Complete the transaction online, print the prepaid mailing label, and send in your books. In a few days you will receive either a check in the mail or a deposit in your PayPal account. The whole process was simple and straightforward. The only catch is that they will not buy most books that more than a few years old.

And finally, my latest and greatest find for controlling my book budget is a website called paperbackswap.com. To get started at paperbackswap.com, list all books that you are willing to swap out. If you list a minimum of 10 books you will automatically receive 2 books credits to use immediately. The trade process works like this...

Someone will notify you if you have a book that they want. You can then either accept or deny the transaction. If you accept, you pay the postage to ship the book to that person. You then receive 1 book credit - two if it's an audio book. You may then redeem your book credit for a book that you want, regardless of who owns the book. That person then pays the postage to send the book to you. The book credits do not expire, so you can use them whenever you want. You can also set up a "wish list" for books that are not currently available, and receive an email when someone lists that book. You are even able to specify if you want an audio or hardback book. (Despite the name, it's not just paperback books.)

The system works to a certain extent on an honor system. This may sound a little scary at first given all of the dishonesty that prevails in our society, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I've been participating in paperbackswap.com for nearly a year and have completed dozens are transactions with satisfactory results. Nearly all of the books that I have received are in "like new" condition, and I have never been "ripped off". I highly recommend PaperbackSwap.com!

Good reading, my fellow bookworms! And, good savings, my fellow frugalists!