Let us help you decide if you should rent vs buying and selling college textbooks. We will give you real life examples that should help you learn how to find the best deals on buying college textbooks. If you are an online shopper you can save yourself a ton of money when you are buying college textbooks. we have compiled a list of keywords you should use when you are doing your college textbook searches. And always remember rent or buy a college textbook is not as simple as you think it is.

Use these search terms to help you find book rental sites: textbooks, college textbooks, used textbooks, renting college textbooks, cheap textbooks, sell textbooks, cheap college textbooks. Use these words to help you search for the answers you want. You can also consider buying and selling from one online rental store because they usually give you a discount if you purchase and sell from them. We have also found a lot of local college kids renting from chegg.com but on the other side of the state that is not true. So you can see one online site is popular in an area but not others.  Chegg.com always has something up their sleeve so always stop by that site first before you move on to other book rental sites.

Rent vs Buying and Selling College Textbooks Checklist

Below we list in order the best methods to dealing with college textbooks. The absolute cheapest way to buy and sell college textbooks is:

1. buy used textbooks if at all possible and then sell them after you are finished with this class
2. renting textbooks is your second best choice (renting instead of buying. new textbooks)
3. buying college textbooks and then selling them to the same place you purchased online for a 10% discount or addition

by opensourceway

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This kind of surprised me a little bit because we were always told to rent your college textbooks and there was a lot of literature discussing renting books in college at all the places we visited. However, to get the skinny on any of this talk to a kid who is a junior or senior in college and they are having to work to help pay their way through college. These college students are savvy and they will tell you exactly what you should be doing: renting vs buying and selling college textbooks. I know back in the late 70′s and early 80′s we never had the option of renting instead of buying. We had to buy from the bookie and if we wanted any money at all we had to sell to them as well.

Rent vs Buying and Selling College Textbooks Buying Tips and Top 5 Sites

The top 5 sites that will help you search for your answers to rent vs buy and selling college textbooks are in no particular order:

1. chegg.com
2. campusbooks.com
3. textbooks.com
4. amazon.com
5. cheaptextbooks.com

The top 5 buy back college textbook sites are:

1. moneyforbooks.com
2. campusbooks.com
3. textbooks.com
4. moneyforbooks.com
5. amazon.com (sell them yourself)

If you spend a few minutes researching for books and textbooks you will be rewarded with prices that are lower than most. Textbook rental is not your only option for cheaper textbooks so explore the options listed above. Not everyone can save money when you rent textbooks so shop around and do make sure you read the customer reviews on each site before you make a final decision. These customer reviews will give you a good idea on who and what you will be dealing with.

Just remember if you do end up with book rentals you will have a different rental period depending upon if your college or university is on semesters or quarters. In fact some available book rentals sites might charge you a little more for semester rentals so check into that as well. We will be adding more information as it comes into this webpage: Rent vs Buying and Selling College Textbooks.

Let us help you with all your college book rental needs. When you are paying upwards of $900 per year or more for college books it does make sense to look for ways to lower your textbook costs. My daughter decided to get some really cheap text books through Amazon only to find out that half her order was dropped and then the other half arrived after her semester started. Thinking her text books were never going to arrive, she purchased them at her university at twice the amount she would have paid at Amazon. Finally to add insult to injury her one lone college textbook arrived 10 days after she started. Not only did we have to pay for the textbooks she purchased at college we also had to pay for the textbook from Amazon. Trying to get a refund got messy because the person selling was a scammer.

by opensourceway

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We started looking into renting college textbooks about this time and found that you do have options if you are willing to ship the books back exactly when the company wants them back. Most college textbook rental companies will ship the books for free to you, but you will need to pay shipping costs back to them. You do have a grace period some make sure in your rental agreement you understand the dates they need to be shipped. They will have a clearly defined rental return date. Most reputable text book rental sites will offer a 15 day grace period so be smart with how you set these up.

How About a College Book Rental in EBooks

Another form of textbook rentals is the ebook readers. With the massive sale of kindles this past holiday season a lot of textbook rental sites are offering this as an option. Instead of downloading the textbook, you have access to it online so if you have an internet connection you can quickly access your textbook via phone, laptop or ebook reader. There are some worries with this type of system so be careful. Obviously the best way is to download the textbook directly into your ipad, ebook, kindle or whatever so take a serious look.

Keep in mind all college professors make money by having students purchase their books. College professors will write a book and get it published. Then in their coarse handouts they will include their book as one of the main books needed for the course. It only makes sense they teach out of the book they write so they get an added income from that. If they do not write books they will still receive a kickback from a author if they work out some arrangement on using that authors book for their class.

Ok back to ebook rentals for a quick minute. Again, this is a great way to save a few dollars but realize that at the moment not to many college textbooks are in ebook form. That could change rather quickly as the kindle has slammed the market hard. The Galaxy is another reader that has see higher profit sales of late as well.

Be Smart And Organized With Your College Book Rental Returns

I know my daughter hates the time element. She will order her books about 2 weeks before everyone else does and she does not want to have to worry about her books arriving late or never. She is a great shopper and will find the lowest purchase price anywhere. A lot of her college friends are now coming to her for help in purchasing college textbooks. However, she is now learning a lot about textbook rentals and purchased her first rental this semester. If that goes well she will purchase as many books this route as possible because she can save 30% or more each semester and that includes shipping and handling.

What you will need to keep in mind when you are going to rent online are these keys:

• rental fees you have above and beyond the time stamps
• rental period must be postmarked by what date after the semester is over
• defined textbook rental period (online companies have clearly stated rental periods)
• how much will you be charged for late arrival books or damaged books
• grace period or days from the original order date do you have before they start charging fees

As you can see, this is a great way to save money on your textbooks but if you are not a organized student these fees could be more than you bargained for. For some college students they will want to keep “some” of their textbooks for future reference but for others the sooner they can get rid of them the better. College book rental is a smart choice if you are looking to save money on your college expenses.

Keep in mind that sometimes purchasing cheap textbooks and then doing the textbook buyback might be cheaper that the route of rent textbooks.  That would also apply to used textbooks as well.  However, a lot of college textbook rentals will do whatever it takes to get your money and they will lower the costs to rent books from them.  Just watch out for people who sell textbooks on Amazon, our experience was not good at all.  Digital textbooks are on the rise and places like chegg.com will have a great supply of ecollege textbooks.

There have been times when a bunch of college students wanted to buy textbooks but couldn’t because everyone was sold out. When that happens it is best to talk to your professor and see if he or she knows of anyone who might rent college textbooks to you from the previous class.  Usually these types of books are upper level books and not the common undergraduate GUR’s everyone needs.  This will be a thing of the past when eTextbooks are more available.

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