and do you rent? What is your preferred "retailer" for books and rentals and such?
Any reason to really keep the textbooks? I didn't keep any of my books for my bio degree and never saw a need for it. My first set of books I did a combo of ebooks, ebook rentals, amazon, amazon rental and bookstore rental. I won't know until after this semester what will be my preference.
Wondering what you all experienced. The bookstore at my school doesn't order enough for all students, they do have rental options for some and they give you the ISBN number so you can find it on your own. It was a pain in the derriere because funds are tight right now and I couldn't afford $1250 in textbooks. With the way I did it, I got by with just over $500 for 13 books.
Our school PGCC, finally got wise and started to match Amazon and any other retailer and then give 10% off that price. They were hardly selling any books because of the online retailers being much cheaper. I have eBooks. I purchased those directly from the publishers website. After adding the sale discount, I came out cheaper than Amazon. My school doesn't offer eBooks at this time. I checked the publisher websites daily to catch the sales. There were a couple of books that I had to purchase to carry to clinical. I didn't get the eBook version of those because some of the facilities we do clinicals at don't allow you to carry a phone or a tablet. Since you don't really know what facility you're going to from one semester to the next, I opted for the physical books. I supported my school bookstore on those books thanks to that price matching and the extra 10% off. We only have to buy one book for the next semester. The bookstore and Amazon have it for about $108. The eBook on the publisher's website is $71. I just love my eBooks :-)[/quote']
Awesome! I will have to check the publishers websites too next time. I prefer ebook myself and have been thinking about buying mosby's in the electronic version as we'll so I have it at all times. Thank you everyone!
Amazon Prime. They have a college student edition and it includes free shipping. I saved around $500 on all of my nursing books for the entire program.
I happen to live in the headquarters city for bookbyte.com, so they have an awesome option to pick up at their office and avoid shipping costs, entirely. I use them whenever I can and use Amazon and craigslist for everything else.
I haven't started my nursing program yet but for my bio major I would buy my books through half.com and sell them after every semester if they were no longer needed. I would usually end up breaking even ( unless a new edition came out dropping the book value). They tend to be cheaper than Amazon even with shipping. The only downside to half.com is the shipping time... the books are generally sent via the cheapest method so expect the books around 1-2 weeks.
bigwords.com It compares over 20 online places that takes into account available promotions and shipping to give you the best deal. You can choose if you want to buy new, used, or rent and it will compare everywhere including amazon, half.com, abebooks, valore, etc. Some books are cheaper at amazon, some at half.com, some at abebooks, etc.
I google the ISBN and am not afraid to go an edition back. While everyone spent 150+ on their nursing books, I paid 17 bucks and the only change is a table or two and the pages numbers. I can't recommend renting nursing books because they'll come in handy to study for the NCLEX. I hold onto all of mine.
I had a friend who was a year ahead of me and I bought any book she was willing to part with---which was almost all of them! I did buy current drug books though. Even if a professor went to a newer edition, it was pretty rare that it didn't work out!
maj0079
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