How To Buy Textbooks Online
Sell your textbooks:Before you go to the college bookstore and get only a fraction of what you paid, check BookFinder.com's buyback price comparison to sell your textbooks for the most money.You can even sell novels, cookbooks and other types of books; our partners buy up to 1 million titles.
how to buy textbooks online
Find new and used textbooks for your college course, including reference books, study guides, key texts, academic journals, test prep books, and classic literature. AbeBooks offers thousands of textbooks at cheap prices - from biology to calculus and law - for students and academics everywhere. Remember to search by ISBN to find the exact edition that you need.
Famous for selling used books, AbeBooks has helped school, college and university students find and buy cheap textbooks online since 1996. Thousands of independent booksellers - many of them bricks and mortar bookstores - list their new and used textbooks for sale on our site.
There are books from all the major publishers including McGraw Hill and Pearson. The sellers ship the books straight to the buyers. Used copies include older editions and are usually available at the cheapest prices online - even as cheap as $1 plus shipping.
When looking for bargains, consider international editions - these are books that have been published outside the US, and they are usually significantly more affordable than textbooks published in the United States.
In 2014, research(Opens in a new window) found that students with iPads were split 50-50 on whether they liked their tablet or paper books better. A further study(Opens in a new window) by the University of Washington showed a quarter of students who got free e-textbooks still bought the paper versions.
But e-textbooks have their benefits. College textbook costs rose 87.5 percent between 2006 and 2016, outpacing even tuition and fee increases, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics(Opens in a new window).
The College Board suggests(Opens in a new window) undergraduate students at four-year, in-state schools for the 2016-2017 school year budget as much as $1,250 a year for books and supplies. US PIRG(Opens in a new window), a public interest research group, finds that "65 percent of students said that they had decided against buying a textbook because it was too expensive" and 82 percent believe they'd do better if the textbook was free online. Switching to open-source books can save as much as $128 per course, according to Bloomberg Business(Opens in a new window), or as much as a billion dollars a year(Opens in a new window).
Publishers are feeling the scorn. Pearson, one of the major textbook publishers, had the biggest loss in its history in 2016(Opens in a new window). Wiley had similar issues due to shrinking textbook sales(Opens in a new window). (Both have launched online libraries and courses as a solution.)
So maybe it's time to ditch the papyrus books for good. Just about every student has a tablet or ebook reader or laptop along with their smartphones; all feel the pinch of higher costs. It's clearly the (inexpensive) e-textbook's time. So where does a thrifty student go to get the ebooks he or she needs at prices that won't deplete all the funds for beer cultural events on campus? The key is to shop around. Not every online book store has every single obscure text you may need or desire, especially in an electronic edition, so embrace multiple platforms and apps to save money. That's because there are several major vendors vying to be your digital college bookstore of choice.
If you go with Kindle e-textbooks(Opens in a new window), it's 80 percent off the list price on rentals for 30 days, which you can extend any time; there are seven-day trials on purchases. Students can also trade in(Opens in a new window) their print textbooks back to Amazon, even if they were purchased elsewhere, for up to 80 percent of the purchase price. E-textbooks can also be rented(Opens in a new window).
Amazon isn't just waiting for students to come to its site, however. The mega-retailer has also taken to helping the stores at several colleges with websites that provide limited same-day delivery of more than just books. They've also set up "pickup center" lockers at some campuses, and a few even have full physical stores: Purdue University(Opens in a new window) was Amazon's first staffed college store location in 2015, but it's since expanded to 17 others, though some are pick-up only spots for online orders.
Apple works with major textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson, plus some open-source providers like OpenStax, to offer textbooks on the iPad, sold via iBooks or iTunes. Because it's Apple, e-textbooks made with the iBooks Author publishing tool(Opens in a new window) get extras like image galleries and fully rendered 3D images, but those are the exception. All e-textbooks on iPad get the ability to take notes and highlight passages and share with your fellow students.
Google sells books to Android users via Google Play, so it makes sense it would get into e-textbook sales(Opens in a new window) as well. Google has titles from the biggest educational publishers, including Houghton-Mifflin, Cengage, Wiley, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Macmillan. Select e-textbooks are rentable.
Barnes & Noble(Opens in a new window) is still chugging away, and sells textbooks up to 90 percent off if you rent or get them used. Of course, B&N will buy them back and provide free shipping if you buy a print text over $25 (try to find a textbook that costs less).
BNED also includes Yuzu(Opens in a new window), a digital "learning platform" with apps for iOS and Android to let students read and annotate e-textbooks. It's affiliated with specific schools and promises up to 80 percent off e-texts. Just be aware: it is not universally loved(Opens in a new window).
You don't get an e-textbook from Boundless(Opens in a new window), but for $20 you get a reasonable facsimile, created by essentially mapping open-source content that matches a textbook a student might be assigned. Sure, it's not the same info exactly, but it's close enough in most cases. (So much so that Boundless got sued by many big-name textbook publishers upon its launch in 2012; it has since settled(Opens in a new window).) In 2015, the company was acquired(Opens in a new window) by Valore, itself an online textbook marketplace(Opens in a new window) runner that promises 90 percent off select books and anyone can sell their used texts.
Chegg's e-textbooks are readable on the web for desktop or via Chegg's apps for iOS(Opens in a new window) and Android(Opens in a new window). It will even give you seven days of reading the e-textbook version of a physical book you've purchased while you wait for delivery. It also hosts test prep for the ACT and SAT, offers a scholarship search engine, and provides tutors(Opens in a new window) via text, audio, and video, to help with "homework" and assist in locating internships.
VitalSource(Opens in a new window) (once called CourseSmart) has a great selection of mobile apps and desktop options(Opens in a new window), a big selection that it claims encompasses 90 percent of the core books used in higher ed, and prices up to 70 percent lower than the print versions when renting. The apps allow you to read offline, and most e-textbooks look identical to the print versions.
CourseSmart was originally co-founded by major textbooks makers Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, MacMillan, and John Wiley & Sons, then integrated with the learning management systems at over 100 institutions. It was then acquired by VitalSource Technologies (hence the name change), which is itself owned by Ingram Content Group, which also works with Chegg.
We work directly with OSU faculty members to make sure we have in stock exactly what you need to be successful in your classes. If convenience is your thing, ordering your textbooks from the University Store online is easy, plus you can have them delivered for a minimal shipping fee or choose our fast, free and convenient in-store pickup option.
Unlike shopping anywhere else, students who are enrolled for the current academic term and who do not have a hold on their bursar account may charge up to $1,500 per semester at the University Store for textbooks and other academically-related materials. Charges for the fall semester begin Monday, August 2, 2022, and charges for the spring semester begin Monday, December 19, 2022. Students have the option of charging textbooks to their bursar account both in store and online. If you are purchasing your textbooks online and meet the requirements for charging, the bursar charge button will automatically be displayed as an option at checkout once students have logged in with their O-Key credentials.
Drop a class? Need to return a book? If you purchase your textbooks from the University Store and later find you don't actually need that textbook for whatever reason you can return it within the first 10 days of the semester during the fall or spring, or within the first five days of the semester during the summer, for a full refund as long as you have your receipt. Therefore, we recommend you not write in or unwrap any book until you are sure you will be keeping it for the semester, just in case you need to return it. Don't forget, the last day for full textbook refunds during the spring semester at the University Store is Monday, January 30, 2023. All refunds will be given according to the initial method of payment only.
Why should you buy your textbooks from the University Store? Because the University Store goes beyond the classroom. When you shop at the University Store 100% of your purchases benefit Oklahoma State University and its students. The University Store is owned and operated by Oklahoma State University, and unlike other privately-owned bookstores or online retailers, every purchase made in the University Store stays on campus to fund student programs and services, keeping student fees to a minimum. For instance, the University Store funds almost 75% of the operations of the OSU Student Union, which was recently named the #1 Most Amazing Campus Student Union by bestcollegereviews.org. 041b061a72