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234 Comments
- shifty2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+156This is great news for current and future college students! Its ridiculous to pay money for "College Algebra 57th Edition"... WTF has changed in algebra that warrants another edition? Has Quadratic Equations changed since last semester?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+146I'm in college right now, and NOTHING beats Ebay or half.com. I bought 5 books for $180. I checked the pricing at the bookstore and it would have been close to $500.
- glock22ownr, on 10/12/2007, -8/+75At the risk of screwing myself and getting burried for spam... I've been working on http://www.tradeyourtextbook.com for a while now, idea being the local students hooking up and just trading. No shipping and other such crap. I've gotten screwed on Amazon b4 when the ***** didnt ship me my book at all and I ended up having to buy it late and for way more. I've had some good responses for the idea(although not that new) but the problem I keep running into is that peeps are much more willing to head to the bookstore and get ripped off cause its faster/easier.
- AgentAnderson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+62New editions are made so that word problems are changed to be more ethnically diverse:
"Farmer Jones needs to fence an area x meters long by ln(x) meters wide..."
becomes "Farmer Nahasapeemapetilon needs to fence an area x meters long by ln(x) meters wide..." - tritium, on 10/12/2007, -5/+53Check the submitter's profile out -- he only digs stories about this book web site. Digg, you are being played!
http://digg.com/users/dotmatrix22/news/dugg - mistarojaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+48definitely, i just checked this website out, and buying from half.com is WAY cheaper.
- MikeDawg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+44Crappy time for this post, would have been nice about 2+ weeks ago, BEFORE this semester started.
- hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30It generally isn't the bookstores that are screwing the students, it is the book publishers.
dotmatrix22 has dugg three stories, all promoting Chegg.com
cognizo is an account that was just created today and this is the only story that he has Dugg or commented on.
joejoe94014 -- was also created today. This is the only story he has commented on.
This smells like spam. Buried. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -22/+49i dont know about you guys but to me this is just spam... check out how old the submitters account is... and honestly.. I'm in college right now and i've never spent 900 on books for a semester...
- BionicBeefpile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27jgtito, cognizo, and joejoe are comment spammers, and submitter has only dugg stories related to this site. Buried as spam
- cius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23The real humor here is that this person (like the majority who bitch about textbook prices) obviously doesn't know the first thing about college bookstores. I work at a college bookstore. They're not the ones screwing you on textbook prices. The ones screwing you are the publishers and the professors that accept nice checks in exchange for adopting these overpriced books. The manager of the book department here is a great guy, honest to the bone, and even he bitches about the prices. But he can't do anything about it. The publishers market to the professors. The professors accept payment and adopt the book. The bookstore must order the book, pay the publishers price, and then charge the publisher's msrp. Its in the contract. So, if you wanna bitch, bitch to your professors. Tell them to adopt cheaper books.
- Pimptastic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21hell i just paid 210 bucks for a chemistry book. and 180 for a stinking math book. At least 2 of my classes the professors said "screw books, Ill put what you need to know online"
last semester I was at about 700 and my sister toped 1500, but then again she is in law school. - Xeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I think that's called shoplifting.
- nalf38, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"I'm in college right now and i've never spent 900 on books for a semester... "
I HAVE.....several semesters in a row. It's not as uncommon as you think. - cruelpupet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Also check out http://www.valorebooks.com
Ive used them in the past, and they are pretty good.
There was an old coupon code ' VICTORY ' that gave 5% off purchases and paid 5% more on sell backs - Ascus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Amazon is already a good source of Books as well, my daughter picked up over half her books this semester there. My question is why can't the sell electronic version of the books, the students already haul there laptop to every class now anyway.
- scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Enjoy being expelled when they review the security tapes.
- sancho320, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15All of the sudden, BusinessWeek is Spam!? I'm a college student, and I don't spend $900, but close—usually around $400-500 per semester. If chegg.com can cut that bill at all I'm happy!
- crexor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9damn, this site just saved me 20 dollars over half.com, im guessing because the supply was tapped at half.com, either way, and the code saved me another 7 dollars.
- Personatech, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18Yep, nothing warms the soul more than blatant copyright violation...
I'm not a big fan of college bookstore prices (I have two kids in college) but I do what I can - we buy (and sell) on Half.com. Furthermore, I teach at a small college and have adopted an online free textbook for my introductory programming class in an effort to help them out a bit. We'll see how it works out. My point is, there are ways to stick it to the man without breaking valid and necessary laws. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Those are simply not that great of prices. Big deal. Try any number of price comparison sites to find better:
http://www.directtextbook.com
http://www.allbookstores.com
http://www.addall.com
There are endless numbers of them, the bottom line is usually Half, Amazon Marketplace, or eBay has the best prices.
Chegg is waaay nothing new. Nice work on getting the article but this is LAME. - dcheesman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7i always used www.bookfinder.com. It crawls all the book websites. Sometimes things are cheaper on Amazon than on Half and this saves you the time of looking at both.
- kaidovak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I have a different method: set up a tripod on a slant with a 6 megapixel or better camera on top. It takes 45 minutes on average to capture every page in the book, and maybe another 10 to dump a book to PDF. The trick is to do it before the full refund period on the book is up. (assuming your school does that)
- ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9spam, buried.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Lots of schools don't get a cut of book sales at all. The bookstores are frequently run by third parties.
- geoncoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6 I use www.bigwords.com for finding the best deals on books. The site searches Amazon, half.com etc.. for the best price. I don't work for them just trying to help a brother out.
- Civil44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I spent $523.41 on text books this year. my 200 page paperback programming book was 117$...total bs. Im heading online from now on.
- manova, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5One way to get around this stuff is to actually talk to the professor. Send them an email and ask which text they are going to use next semester. Another way to save money is to ask the prof if they could choose a cheaper text. Professors have no idea how much the books costs, the publishers give them a free copy. For 2 different classes I have taught, students have complained about the cost of a book and I changed (well, for one I switched to the paperback version which was $30-40 savings and the other was a supplemental book that I just cut and handed out notes on important parts). In both cases, I had no idea how much the students paid for the books. Some profs will not care, but many will.
- theGrue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Thanks, VERIZON WIRELESS.
- Tourney3p0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I just checked my books against their inventory. Every one of the books I need this semester are considerably cheaper on half.com.
This website brings nothing to the consumer. - driftwood07, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5thank you impartial bystander
- bobandshawn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Not trying to rip off students...obviously someone who hasn't spent six years dealing with the Book Mafia!
- lalusr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5omg try not to make it so obvious that you are spamming
- ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5how many spam accounts do you own, asshat?
- et_nyc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Here comes the even higher tuition hikes to cover for the decline of book sales.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That website is blocked at Drexel.
- ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4SPAM NEEDS TO DIE
- theutopian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I have a good little tip for saving money on textbooks. Your school library should have access to Worldcat -- in index of every book in like very library in the world. Type in the ISBN and see how many libraries have the book. If one nearby has it, go check it out, otherwise do an interlibrary loan and have it sent to your school for free. I did this last semester and saved a ton of money. I also learned that most of the time you don't really even need the textbook. I had a intro psychology course last semester and the book was like $150. I never bought it and did fine in the class. Most professors don't even refer to a text during their lectures. Wikipedia and Britannica are also your friend.
- BenFaist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Thank God...anyone in college knows that college book stores are coporate criminals.
- Keiera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What's sad is that it's cheaper to get the book shipped from overseas to your doorstep than to purchase it at the bookstore. US versions of the books are priced around 50% higher than their international edition dopplegangers. You can find these easily on half.com, amazon, probably wherever you like to do your book shopping. I doubt any student in the US has ever gotten into trouble for their book saying "Not for sale in the US" on the cover.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Marked inaccurate, but this should really be marked as spam.
Bookstores do not screw over the students, textbook publishers are the ones that screw students over.
Other bookstores generally get lower-quality copies, international editions, or are part of chains that can command lower prices than singleton bookstores (like campus bookstores). - ldkronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I agree it's not the bookstores doing the screwing but the publishers and sometimes the professors.
I one of my science classes, it had a lab portion where we did an experiment each week. The lab packet (including the instructions and questions) was designed by the professor himself. He said he had been approached MANY times by publishers wanting to turn it into a published lab book. He refused over and over because he knew if he did, we'd have to pay $30+ for the lab pack. Instead, it was sold through the bookstore for $5. How many professors would have that kind of integrity?
I've also seen instructors who use textbooks that they've written themselves. They then release new editions as often as possible and always upgrade to the newest addition (of course). The end result is that you often either can't find used books (since its usually a new edition used for the first time) or can't sell it back (since they plan to upgrade to newest edition next semester). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4atleast someone else can spot spam...
- hootpie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I just checked the prices for all of my books this semester. 5 classes total.
School bookstore: $526
Chegg.com: $615
Net savings: -$89.00 (yes, that's a negative savings)
I think I'll stick with my school's bookstore. - praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+4compaqnigg, I agree...at half.com I can usually get books for 70% or more off list price. It's also a good resource for finding some obscure CDs. The other day I got one for $3.
- shadowsurfr1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"prices for new textbooks can easily climb to $100"
The past two semester's books (not even all of them):
Calculus: 219
Physics: 179
Chemistry: 179
French: 211
Easily climb to 100? Try 200. - SmokeyB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Personatech does have a good point, but when tuition is extremely high to begin with and you can barely afford Mr. Noodles for dinner, you do what you gotta do to get by. In fact, I see it as a team building exercise! :P
- jk_baller23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3they fix their errors they made, then up the edition and jack the price.
- tacotacotaco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This article pretty much sums up the concept of book exchanges.
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/2006/05/8_stupid_frat-b.html
Here are the worst stupid frat-boy business ideas:
Book exchanges. Without fail, college students love to complain about textbook prices. Also without fail, some joker on every campus in America will start a book-exchange service this week. Saving money and screwing the bookstore sounds nice, except for a few problems: Book exchanges are worthless unless there are a lot of people on it; this chicken-and-egg problem is really hard. Developing a website for this isn't trivial. And although the creators love to proclaim this a "company" instead of just a project, they usually forget to create a way to make money. Finally, one minor point: NO BOOK EXCHANGE HAS EVER REALLY SUCCEEDED. I HATE TO CRUSH DREAMS BUT PLEASE FORGET ABOUT THIS. -
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