Cheap Books? Yes, guaranteed.

Yes, my fellow friends, you read right. Everyone knows that easily the biggest cost of college besides tuition is the cost of books. These overpriced and often POS stacks of paper bounded for our enjoyment are nothing less than a nightmare for the average income'd college pupil. Most of these books that we are forced to buy are only sellable for little or nothing of the resale... The cost of the spit that you wish you could wipe in the Nazi bookstore's (and manufacturer's) face. Even worse, some of these two ton headaches are un-sellable. I mean, who would want the flawed first edition paperback from a class that just tried the book "as an experiment". I'd appreciate it if you didn't "experiment" with my money. What I have for you, here, though, is an excellent compilation of campus-external book resources. I've saved approximately 800$ in two semesters with no repercussions. Sure, I may have to deal with a used book, but who hasn't? Most come in near new condition and I've paid more for shipping than for the book itself. The shipping was only 3.49$.

The main way I am able to save all of this money is through a taboo concept in Bookstores on campuses all over... "Old-Edition". Please don't draw and quarter me, it's not really that evil. That's just what they want you to believe. (If that is still too revolutionary for you, and you want to stick with your current edition books, read on, still, I've got something for you.) Old-Editions can come at drastic savings, some under a dollar, and I'm not talking about the edition from 1970, I'm talking about the previous editions. Most of them look exactly the same, save the cover which may not fit the eye aesthetics of the current year. They sure do fit the wallet-aesthetics of my budget, though. I'd rather spend my hard earned cash on video games and eating dinner out. Wouldn't you?
These Previous Editions may not be available at your favorite local bookstore, but they are in abundance all over the Internet at savings of up to 99% I've seen. Although, sometimes, if you're lucky, you can find the current edition of your required textbook at a savings of up to and not limited to 80% off the bookstore price. I can pretty much guarantee you if you buy a book online, you will save money. Here is the steps that you should go through in order to save the optimal amount of money for your new semester:

1. Register for classes. This step is obvious, but it gives us a starting reference point.
2. Once you have solidified your schedule, go to the bookstore. No, you won't be buying anything, and just to keep your financial wellbeing intact, leave the wallet at home, but bring a pen and paper.
   
3. You may wander the aisles looking for your classes and the new semester's required books. You can ask the bookstore employees to assist you via their computers.
• If your classes' book requirements are not in yet, inquire as to when they will be and repeat step 3 on that date.
4. Once you have located your books on the shelves, take out your handy dandy notebook and pen and write down the following information for all of the books:
• "Name of Book": ISBN#0-536-63241-3, $69.99
5. Grin and leave the bookstore and head back home. If you're a radical, mention to the employees or yell aloud that you're going to save a ton of money elsewhere. That'll make you feel better.
6. We're going to use the name of the book to search for other editions, the ISBN to search for the exact book and the price to comparison shop and compute savings.
   
7. Fire up your favorite computing device and connect to the World Wide Web. My favorite and first choice when saving money is to click over to Amazon.
8. In the search box, enter only the ISBN# without the "-" dashes. Up will come the exact match of your book. This price may be staggering. Don't fear. If it is you have a few options:
1. Using the example ISBN from above, we can see a good looking line:
• 16 used & new available from $0.75
• This looks good to me, I can deal with used. Especially when the bookstore is charging more that 70 times that. We also see that the new books are only 59.65$ with free shipping, wow, we've already got potential.
  
2. Are used books just as expensive? Time to look at the previous edition. Let's use the ISBN# 0321145720. Follow along at Amazon if you like.
• Under the line boasting the used book price, there is a box containing some more data:
  
  Whoa, by switching to the previous edition, we can save exponentially!
• Using this box may get a little confusing, so the way I like to search for previous editions is just by entering the book title in the search box and remove any references to the edition.
  
3. You may also want to choose to repeat the above steps with another online book seller such as Half.
4. Don't forget about international editions. They're exactly the same as their American counterparts, except they only come in paperback and for some reason, the pages feel different.
   
5. Last and certainly not least, try eBay. You may laugh, but I purchased a Spanish book on there for 12$ (hardback, yes). It came with the workbook, manuals, CDs, etc. The best part was, at the end of the semester, I sold it to the bookstore and made 37$. Wow.
9. Make sure you allot plenty of time for your book to arrive for the new semester, even though, it's normally ok for you not to have the book for the first few days of class. Just don't procrastinate, or it'll cost you. In this case, it actually does.

Don't be forced to buy your books from the hellish-ly over priced bookstore ever again. Just follow these few simple steps and you'll be on your way to financing that new Xbox 360, big screen TV, car, or other large item you could buy with these savings.

I posted this blog for the world to learn on ehow.com. Here it is.