Hey - I've been doing this for a few semesters now and thought I should share it with everyone else here.
If your in school, or have been you know about university textbook stores. They'll sell you a
used book for $60, buy it back for $20, then turn around and sell it for $60 again.
My bookstore is this way, but I know not all of them are. If you're unlucky enough, like me, to only have access to a "stick it to 'ya" bookstore, try doing the folloowing. Since I've been buying my books like this I've been able to cut my cost of books for 15 hours from an average of $400 to about $150.
1). Go to the college bookstore, find your books, and copy down the ISBN number (it's usually above the barcode). It will be a ten digit, numeric number such as 0-13-033996-2 (sometimes the last digit will be a "x").
2). Search for the book used on
ebay.com,
half.com , and
amazon.com.
3). Buy. (be sure to be aware of advertised condition) Don't worry much about shipping costs, because shipping books usually falls under a seperate, super low rate from USPS (called Media mail rate).
4). Use.
5). Sell back to the bookstore on campus. (make sure you've removed any kind of labels that make it look like you didn't buy it there, mine doesn't care, but some may)
For example, I bought a book of of of half.com for $18, plus $1.55 for shipping. The bookstore on campus wanted $58 for the same book. When I go to sell it back, I figure I'll get something between $15 and $20 for it.
~ibis