Used textbooks are a cheaper alternative to new textbooks and are in high demand by most students who shop at their local college booksellers. Used textbooks are also sold on a national and even global scale through online merchant and auction websites which allow shoppers to search many major new and used book sellers at a time for specific titles.

Used textbooks are 25% off the price of new, but they may contain notes or highlighting and could show wear. Used textbooks generally sell out quickly; often getting these low priced books is quite an ordeal for the inexperienced college student. Used textbooks are marked with a "USED" sticker and they will usually be gone after the mad rush of the first day that the book lists are issued by the professors, especially if the original cost of the book is high, like in the science fields, or if a new edition of the text book has not come out that year. So shop early to save the most money.

Used textbooks are the core of every college and university bookstore operation in both buying back the books at the end of the semester and reselling them at a profit the following term. Prices for used textbooks are determined by anticipated store need and/or national demand. Sales of used textbooks are soaring now that students can buy online from around the country. Textbooks that were purchased at the "used price" are often sold back for 30% of the original new list price. Students can make even more by skipping the middle man and reselling the books directly to another student online the next term.

Used Textbooks Drive Up Prices of New Books

Textbooks are usually published by one of the four major publishing companies. These books serve as "tools of the trade" for the student and inform and guide students toward subject matter mastery and classroom success. Textbooks provide them with a 24-hour-a-day resource that gives them access to the knowledge, insights, and experience of authors who are subject matter experts and outstanding teachers. Textbooks are thoughtfully written and carefully developed to distill large amounts of often complex information in an organized format that is logical, readable, and appealing. Textbooks provide the core written material for a course, serve as foundation for the professor's overall lesson plan, and set forth the framework for class discussions. Textbooks go to a new edition every few years as new ideas become popular or new research is developed. For all these reasons, new textbook prices are very high compared with other types of books. Most people feel that textbooks are expensive, but that they represent a good investment. Textbooks are not the place to scrimp if you want to get the most from your education dollars, but rather are just part of the cost of being a student that needs to be factored into the overall cost of college.

One controversial idea is that prices of the books are set by the publisher and they have to sell textbooks at an insanely high price in order to capture the profits from the additional sales afterwards.

Many university students complain of unreasonably high textbook costs, but if they buy and sell used textbooks online, they may have less to complain about.