Discussion: Where To Buy (Cheap) Books

Books.

As book bloggers, we love them, and often times, hoard them like dragons hoarding gold.

We all want to be like those book bloggers with endless shelves, and massive frequent book hauls, but it can be hard when you don’t have much in the way in disposable income for buying books.

Books are EXPENSIVE.

I’m 17, I may get an allowance, but not nearly enough to buy all the books I would want to (which is why I have 2-3 book hauls a year, generally from birthday/christmas gifts).

Without further ado, here are some of the places I find cheap books, to help you out in your book blogging, or just reading, adventures.

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Local Used Bookstores

To me, this is the most fun option, because it means you get to go exploring.

If you google “used bookstores + city name” you’ll find at least one, unless your in a really small town or something (and my grandma lives in Tryon, a town so small everything is on a single street – and they have a used bookstore so…).

Exploring a second hand bookstore is super fun, especially when you find a gem hidden in the trash.

We used to have two near where I live, but both closed down recently and it makes me sad…

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Book Outlet

Book Outlet is famous in the book blog world.

Basically, Book Outlet is a website where, while the selection isn’t everything/recent, it is pretty large, easy to sort through, and books – even hardcovers – can range from $1-$10 dollars.

And now they have flat rate shipping for the US and Canada!

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The Strand

The Strand is a famous independent bookstore in New York (and its large and epic in person!) that has an online store.

While they do have full priced books, they have a clearance section, book sales, and the intriguing, mystical phenomenon known as “books by the foot” that I’ve never tried but I want to.

Its worth checking out.

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AbeBooks

A site where people and stores can sell old books – some new, some used.

You can find some cheap copies every once in a while, and the site has a good reputation when it comes to antique and/or signed books.

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Biblio

Basically the same idea as AbeBooks, but I prefer the Biblio site personally.

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Half Price Books

Another famous site. As the name would suggest, they offer a pretty wide array of discounted books.

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Project Gutenburg

Now, this one is a little different.

Project Gutenberg isn’t for buying books, but reading e-books for free.

Here’s their self description: “Project Gutenberg offers over 54,000 free eBooks: Choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, especially older works for which copyright has expired. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers.”

Its a free site, and if you like classics and e-books, its great!

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Kindle Deals

If you have a Kindle e-reader from Amazon, Amazon has deals, discounts, book on sale, etc. that changes pretty often, but is worth checking out if your looking for something new to read.

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Thrift Books

Another site, similar to Half Price, etc.

You can buy both new and used copies here, and prices can vary wildly (as stores can sell old copies here like Biblio but more organized), but you can find pretty cheap copies of even popular or newer YA books here every so often.

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I’m sure there are other sites like these, but these are the ones I use.

I hope this helps some of you out and that you enjoyed this!