How to Save Money on Textbooks

Anyone who has taken a college course within the last 10 years knows that college textbooks are expensive and it's hard to get a good deal on textbooks, even used ones. With the boom of e-businesses and e-commerce, students now have many more options to buy textbooks for lower prices. Many websites, including Amazon.com and Half.com, have begun to advertise their low prices on books. Many of these sites do indeed have low textbook prices, but one site cannot always have the lowest price on books. That's where Bigwords comes in.

At Bigwords.com, students search for the book that they need using the Title, Author, or ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Bigwords searches its database of thousands of books and brings up a list of books matching the search. The student chooses the one he or she needs and adds it to their "bookbag." After repeating this for as many books as the student needs, he or she starts a price comparison. Bigwords compares prices for these books at many of the top online bookstores and finds the cheapest price for each book. Bigwords also adds the price of shipping, coupons, and any multibook discounts. Bigwords shows the lowest price possible on the books that the student has searched. They even give links and instructions on how to buy these books. By using Bigwords, students save an average of $45 per book. As most college books cost around $110 and most students buy 5-6 books per semester, students save $225-270 per semester. $200 can buy a lot of pizza, soda, gas, and phone cards.

Bigwords also has a feature that helps students sell their books back at the end of the semester. Students do the same search they did before, using the Title, Author, and/or ISBN, and add the books to a sellback bookbag. When they are done, Bigwords searches the internet for the best sellback prices and also shows where students can list their books for the most money. According to past experience and Bigwords' website, you can get around 75% of your original purchase price back by using their buyback feature.