If you’ll take a moment, please note that the title of this tip is “Rent Some Textbooks” not “Rent Your Textbooks” and especially not “Rent All Your Textbooks.” Here’s why: every time I write about renting textbooks, someone comes along and says “But Stephanie! I actually want to keep most of my textbooks! They’re for my major and they’ll be helpful in a later class, or after college!”
I know this. I still have several books from several classes in college, even though I walked the stage and got my diploma in May. I’ve got some film textbooks to help me make better movies, and I’ve got my personal finance textbook to refer to while writing this site. And I’ve got Randy Pauch’s The Last Lecture — yes, that was an assigned textbook for a class!
So yeah, there are some books you just shouldn’t rent, because you’ll want them later. But you’ll take some general education or liberal arts classes, too. And while those classes may indeed be interesting, you can usually tell from the name of the book whether or not it’s something you’ll want to keep past finals week. Chemistry in Context? While I admit this was one of the more interesting science textbooks I’ve read, I really didn’t need it when I was done. It was nice to be able to just send it back, rather than trying to sell it after finals.
Again, renting is not the best practice for every single textbook you need. It’s just for the ones you’re reasonably sure you won’t need after the class is over. And for those books, renting can save you a bundle.
I’ll give you some real-life examples. Because I’m a nut, I still have a worksheet lying around from when I bought textbooks last spring:
Fundamentals of Financial Management, Concise Edition (a book I totally knew I wouldn’t want after the class was over!)
Bookstore used: $95.50
Bookmaid: $40 – $85
Chegg rental: $46.42
Bookmaid is a website specifically for my school (RIT) which allows RIT students to buy and sell books to each other. So in this case, the best action for me to take was to buy one of the used copies being sold by another student through Bookmaid. Not only was it the cheapest price, but no shipping or shipping cost! So that was an easy choice.
Another example:
Internet Marketing and e-Commerce (probably not a book I would want after the class)
Bookstore used: $107.25
Amazon.com used: $84 (with shipping)
Chegg rental: $51.61
In this case, I went with Chegg. I could have gone with the Amazon.com used price, which would have been a savings compared to the bookstore, and tried to sell the book on Bookmaid when I was done. But the next offering of that class wasn’t until spring of the next year. I didn’t want to wait a year and then try to sell the book! Chegg was the clear choice for me here.
There are other books on the worksheet, but they all demonstrate the same principle: there’s no end-all-be-all-perfect place to get all of your textbooks. Yes, you can simplify the process by getting all of your textbooks from one place but that’s going to cost you. In the case of the bookstore, it’s going to cost you a lot.
If renting some of your textbooks sounds like a good deal to you, I highly recommend Chegg. There are other textbook rental websites, but Chegg is the only one I can honestly recommend, because it’s the only one I’ve used. But having used Chegg for two years out of my college career (for some of my books), I can say that I’ve been thoroughly pleased with their prices, their customer service, and their speed in getting books to me.
And they plant a tree for every book you rent, which I think is pretty awesome. If you decide to go with Chegg, use the coupon code press09 when you check out. It’ll give you 10% off of any rental order. (Expires 12/31/2009)
I just heard about book rentals for college textbooks last month while reading an article titled “We rent movies, so why not textbooks” on Nytimes. After doing some research, I concluded that it’s not a good fit for me. I think I can save a little bit more money by buying and selling of textbooks.
If you rent a textbook, you lose a fixed amount of money for that book (The fee you pay to the rental company). However when you buy a book, the amount you lose depends on how low of a price you can get for that book and how high you can sell it, plus the transaction fee. The trouble with that is you have to time the market, know the best time to buy and sell textbooks and which sites to use. And if you do it right, you can actually sell your textbooks higher than what you bought them. How? By bundling answer keys to the end-of-the-chapter questions that your teacher might have given to you, study guides, your classwork, Powerpoint presentations, etc. Yes, people are willing to pay more for those conveniences. I managed to make couple dollars for two books that way. 🙂
Oh one more thing. Chegg is the contraction of “Chicken” and “egg”. That explains their mascot design.
Thanks for your toughts, Winston. It’s true that textbook rental may not be appropriate for every book, or for every person. I found it useful and found that it saved me money on books that I thought would be hard to resell later on, but that’s just my experience.
For the record, to do not advocate your practice of selling textbooks with all of those extras. Unless you have the permission of the professor and the publishing company, selling answer keys, study guides, powerpoints, and notes could be a violation of copyright law, and may also be a violation of school policy.
For students who want to rent college textbooks and save money. Do your research before you rent textbooks because not all companies offer the same great service. See what other students have said about the different companies. In the long run, if you decide to rent college textbooks, you will save yourself a lot of money!
I wish I knew about renting textbooks when I attended college. Buying some of my textbooks wasn’t an ideal decision when I wasn’t so interested in the class. I probably could have saved a lot of money renting.
You know what, if u really do need some quick cash, why don’t u sell the textbooks ur not using anymore. I know of a couple of people that did that and they said everything worked out. It’s better than them sitting around ur house collecting dust know what I mean. As a matter of fact u should check out Cash4BooksNow.net
Can’t hurt
We love using Chegg.com to rent texts and save a lot of money. I wanted to share a promotional code for a discount on your text order. Put in the code when ordering and hit the “apply” button. The code also gives you back an additional $5 when selling Chegg your used texts.
The code does NOT have an expiration date so it can be used every time you order. Here it is:
CC123047
Feel free to pass this code to others to save money.
eCampus.com offers rentals and eBooks, along with new and used titles. they also have a marketplace like amazon so you can sell your books to other book lovers or buy some books super cheap.
Check them out: http://www.eCampus.com
Try coupon code: GOLDFISH for 5% off of your order total
I save more money by buying my textbooks used online and then reselling them to http://www.mybookcart.com. It’s cheaper than renting.
I like renting it’s less of a hassle than trying to sell it back to the bookstore, you never know if they’re going to even want to buy your book back anyway.