impossibleholmesian replied to your post: dude.

Hey! I’m going into Uni next year and I know that the campus bookstore is going to make me broke, so can you tell me what site/shop/store you used to get your textbooks?

Yeah, of course! So, if you don’t mind PDF versions of books (and it won’t hinder how you’re going to use the material), remember to search online for free PDFs of whatever books you need first. I use filestube to search for free PDFs. If a book is very new, you might not find it there, but it’s always good to try.Also remember that even if you don’t like looking at ebooks a lot, it’s alright because professors often put the textbooks you need for their class on reserve at the campus library. So, if you need to read long passages or something you can always head over to the library and check the book out for 2 hours (or however long they allow you to for reserves) and you can just use your pdf for reference and problem sets and stuff.

And then if you want or need (or you just can’t find a PDF) a physical copy of the book, I like to use bigwords. You just type in a name or ISBN and the rest is pretty self-explanatory (you can always ask me if you need help though!). It gives you a lot of options, like, if you want them to include rentals (and then if you want rentals by quarter or semester), international editions, etc. Rentals are often cheaper, but there are some books you might want to keep (books for your major, things you think might be useful for more than just one class, so uncheck that box for those). International editions are cheaper, so always keep that checked. They have all the same material, but the binding might be different and stuff. Just read all the info over a few times to make sure it’s the right one you want and all that.

And! If you’re in college and you sign up for an Amazon account with your university email, you’re eligible for six free months of Amazon Prime (if they’re still doing this, hopefully they are!). So remember that you can check prices on here as well, and if you have Prime, you get free two-day shipping. When you check on Amazon, remember to check out the used listings as well, and see if a used copy + the shipping is less than the listed new price on Amazon, and if it is, go for the used one.

And if you want to check out more resources, check out my textbooks tag. My first two reblogs on that page/last two posts down on the page have a lot of links you might want to look at.

But yeah, what I used this time was just a combination of filestube, Amazon, bigwords, and a LOT of thinking lol. One of the PDFs that filestube directed me to was on Scribd but I could only download the PDF if I was a premium member BUT Scribd allows you to get a “day pass” premium membership for only $9 (so you’re paying nine dollars for 24 hours of access to premium membership materials). And nine dollars is WAY cheaper than what you’d usually pay for a textbook so it’s worth it haha.

For buying textbooks, check out bigwords first. For like, non-textbook books that are sometims required in certain classes, Amazon might be better sometimes (or the difference between Amazon and bigwords isn’t that big). Just remember to check everything!

Getting a good deal takes some work, but it’s worth it because.. well, you shouldn’t be paying hundreds of dollars for a textbook you might never use again.

Sometimes you HAVE to buy new editions of things though because they come with access codes and you can’t get it separately or something. They do that so you’ll buy the new textbook instead of getting it from someone else. Hopefully they offer a ebook version for cheaper or something and you could get that. I don’t really know how to get around that. Or sometimes it’s a school edition or something that your professor wrote that’s only available in the campus bookstore or a packet your professor put together.. and hopefully it doesn’t cost too much or maybe you know an older student that can sell their used copy to you.

I wrote a lot lol. Good luck!! And good luck on your apps if you’re still doing them!

i already saved more than 100 on one textbook that i found. ridic, that’s used too

textbooks are ridic