Tag: Textbooks

Buying textbooks? Book.ly is the bomb!

With school back in session and the economy still in its rut, most students are sharing a similar concern.  How on earth are they going to be able to afford those pricey textbooks?  From living in closets to subsisting on ramen noodles, folks are desperate to lessen the pain of textbook buying.  Luckily, they have an ally in the fight.  Have you been to Book.ly?

Book.ly tags itself as “The Better Way to Buy Textbooks”.  They are certainly onto something hot and useful.  Using Book.ly, students can buy, rent, and even sell textbooks without the painful markup  of college bookstores.  In fact, the site currenty estimates that its users are saving about 60% on their book purchases!  That adds up to a VERY healthy savings when you consider how many books the average student purchases in just one school year!

Using Book.ly can hardly be easier.  You simply go to the site and search for either the book title or your school.  In it’s databanks, Book.ly has up-to-date syllabus information from over 1,500 colleges and universities!  Students can actually buy their books before they even have their syllabi in hand.  At the end of the semester, students can then use Book.ly to sell their books back for top dollar.  Talk about a total solution!

Book.ly is barely a year old, but has already attracted a huge fan base.  You can look at the main page to see just how much the students at particular colleges and universities have saved.  The leader board is impressive!  Best of all . . . it is not just for students.  Anyone can use Book.ly and reap its rewards.

Need Back to School Books? Check Em Out on Chegg!

There are few certainties in life.  However, among the known definites are death, taxes, and the mark-up on text books.  Anyone going to school to these days knows just how expensive school books can be.  One almost needs to take out a separate loan to just buy texts.  Chegg is a hot new site that actually lets you “rent” the books you need for the semester at great rates.  In today’s economy, this is a true back-to-school boon!

Chegg’s model is simple.  Go to their site, search for the textbooks you need, and then rent the ones that are available for just the semester.  Why rent, you ask?  Have you seen the prices of new textbooks these days?  With Chegg, a one semester rental costs a fraction – yes, A FRACTION – of the cost of buying that textbook new.  Most of the titles the iBraryGuy team tested came in at less than a third of the retail buying price.  That is some serious savings!

Chegg not only ships you the books directly, but even sends you the return label to send your books back at the end of the semester.  It does not get much easier than that!  Chegg also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.  Return your books within the first 30 days of receiving them, for any reason, and Chegg will refund every penny.  Pretty cool.

Chegg accounts are free to create.  You only pay when you rent.  For those of you using iPhones, the company offers an app that lets you search and rent textbooks while on the go.  Oh!  And for those of you with old college textbooks sitting around . . . Chegg also buys used books.  Not a bad proposition in today’s economy!