• Google Buzz

If you’re an avid reader, there’s a good chance that you could be spending a lot of money on books that you really don’t have to. Through some smart money saving-tips and a bit of discipline, you can easily cut your reading bill in half.

1. Avoid Recently Released Books – When a book has just come out for the first time, it’s going to be sold at all of the major books stores online for the full retail price of pretty close to it. Don’t pay $20.00 for a book today that you’ll be able to get in 6 months for $5.00 online. If you absolutely need to read a new book, try to get it at the library.

2. Read the Classics for Free – A lot of classic works which are outside the realm of copyright can be found online for free. If you’re interested in reading Plato, Nietzsche, and the like, head on over to the Gutenberg project to pull down a free copy of those works.

3. The Library Book Sale – Libraries have a tendency to buy a lot of new books when they first come out and then sell some of the copies later at a great discount. When a new edition of a book comes out, they’ll sell the old one off. Usually you can get great books for less than $1.00 if you’re willing to look through their selection.

4. The Amazon Marketplace – Conventional wisdom would say that buying books online would cost more because you have to pay for shipping, but this is not the case. When you go to Amazon, there are so many sellers trying to get rid of the same books that even with the cost of shipping you’ll still be getting a great deal. You can find a lot of great works for less than a dollar and only have to pay $3.00 for shipping.

5. Don’t Buy Bad Books – Before picking up a book, be sure to head over to Amazon and make sure the book is worth reading. There’s no reason to waste time or money if the book is a flop.

6. Frequent the Library – You can borrow books for free, what’s better than that? Public libraries are a great resource, but they are very underutilized. You’ll be able to find books on just about every topic there. I figured there would be no way that the local library had anything on advanced database management, but sure enough it did.

7. Get Big Bargains – Once every 6 months or so, take a morning and go out to a bunch of different garage sales and see what you can find. Visit a used bookstore at this time if one’s available to you.

Bonus Tip: Use the internet. – There are plenty of services online such as TitleTrader, Bookins, BookSwim, and PaperBackSwap which allow you to trade books with other people just by paying the cost of shipping.



 Related Content: