How to Save Money on College Textbooks. Photo Santa Monica College Bookstore. Purple62/v4/cf/7f/ea/cf7fea51-ba7f-1632-9415-5c9e0ef75149/source/392x696bb.jpg' alt='How To Save Ebook From Chegg Bookstore' title='How To Save Ebook From Chegg Bookstore' />Over the last few days, Ive heard from a handful of college students that are facing the start of their fall semester in college and are looking for smart strategies for trimming their expenses when it comes to textbooks. Heres an example message from Jen I just priced out my books for fall semester and the total was 9. Even on Amazon they are really expensive. How To Save Ebook From Chegg Bookstore Full' title='How To Save Ebook From Chegg Bookstore Full' />There has to be a better way to do this. Youre right, Jen. There is a better way to do this. Over the past few years, Ive had a lot of younger friends and family members ask me for help in finding cheap textbooks for them and here are the strategies weve used that have really worked. Follet, a distributor of textbooks to many college bookstores, provides efollet to link students to their colleges online bookstore, RentAText for print book. Connect with an online tutor instantly or get stepbystep Textbook Solutions for your hard classes. As always, save up to 90 on textbook rentals. Ashford University written by students. Express Helpline Get answer of your question fast from real experts. Check Your Syllabus First. The usual routine that people go through when buying college textbooks is that they head to their university bookstore or, more often these days, the online bookstore for their university and search for each of their classes. For each, theres likely a book or two or three listed, so youll just add them to the shopping cart and pay. Thats a mistake. The first place you should look is at your class syllabus that lists the textbooks for the class. Why look for the syllabus The syllabus will usually indicate which books are actually required and which ones are optional. How To Save Ebook From Chegg Bookstore EbooksIt will also usually indicate whether the most current version of the book is necessary or whether older versions are clearly acceptable. Just by looking at the syllabus, you might cut the number of books you need to buy and, at the same time, expand the number of editions that can fulfill your needs, making it easier to find used books. Ask the Professor if Older Editions Are Acceptable. If a professor has a syllabus that lists a specific version of a textbook, send your professor a quick email or, if youre in class on the first day, raise your hand. Simply ask whether previous versions of the textbook are acceptable and, if so, which versions. In many of my classes, previous versions of a textbook were perfectly acceptable, up to a certain point. Usually, each version of a book has a few changes, but over a number of editions, those changes accumulate and significantly alter the textbook. Most professors are fine with the students using the previous version of the book or even an earlier version than that. You just need to make sure what versions actually work for the class. Check the University and Community Libraries. Once youre certain that you know what books are needed for the class, start checking the university and community libraries. For a lot of classes, this wont be helpful, but for some classes, such as literature classes or some history classes, the library may in fact have the book that youre looking for. If you can find books you need from the library, the book becomes free, at least for a while. A friend of mine was able to check out a book for his English Lit course from the community library and renewed it twice, meaning that he was able to keep it for the full time that he needed it for the course. So, youve finally realized that you do have to pay for some of your books. If thats your situation, I highly recommend using Occupy the Bookstore, a free Google Chrome add on that will make this whole process much, much easier. Just add the extension to your browser at the link above, then head to the website of your university bookstore. Look up the books you need for your classes. As you visit the page for each specific book you need, the extension will pop up, giving you a long list of options for other places to buy the book and that list is sorted by price by default. What I usually suggest that people do is use Occupy the Bookstore, find the book they want, then browse the list for the first store that they trust like, say, Amazon and buy from there. Rent, Dont Buy, Most of Your Books. Many online sources for textbooks, such as Chegg, offer rentals rather than purchases. Its a simple process, really you pay a lower price than you otherwise would, they send you the book, and you have to send it back at the end of the semester. Then, theyre likely to rent that book again to someone else at the start of the next semester. Vibe Confessions Rapidshare Files. Most of these stores usually have a buy option if you realize that youll actually need the book beyond the semester. For most of your classes, you wont actually need or want that book for longer than a semester, so this kind of service not only saves you something like 6. I actually rented a couple of textbooks using a very early textbook rental service near the end of my college career and found it to be very useful and a great money saver. If You Must Buy, Try to Buy Used. If, for some reason, you have to buy a textbook instead of simply renting one, try to find a used version of that textbook. Most online textbook sellers Amazon included offer used versions of the textbook at a discounted price. Sure, sometimes youll get a book with margin notes and highlights in them, but those things are pretty easily ignored, especially since youre really just after the text and images of the book. Buying a used version of a textbook will save you a surprising amount of money. I was largely a used textbook buyer in college and I often found that I was saving as much as 6. Of course, back then, I mostly had to rely on notes tacked onto bulletin boards around campus rather than the Internet. If You Must Buy New, Try an e. Book. Sometimes, the worst possible scenario happens. A class requires a brand new version of a textbook. Used ones arent available. The professor will not allow older editions of the book and has assignments requiring the new edition. It happens. Its frustrating. Its going to wallop your pocketbook, no matter what you do. The solution here is also pretty simple. If you find yourself in that kind of situation, just buy the electronic version of the textbook. The electronic versions are usually substantially cheaper than the print version of the book and its far easier to search through it for specific terms when youre studying. Im old school when Im studying, I still prefer print. However, Ive also studied using electronic sources and, honestly, if youre in a studying mindset and know how to turn off distractions, they work fine. Share Books with Friends. Another approach worth considering is sharing a textbook with a friend who is taking the same class as you. If youre both taking that class, you can just buy one textbook and share it, splitting the cost. The biggest problem with this approach is that there will probably be a key point or two during the semester where you both want to use that textbook at the same time. For example, the night before a test, you both may want to use that book. The solution here is to study together, so if you consider following this kind of plan, make sure that the person youre sharing the textbook purchase with is a person you can study with in a conducive fashion. Sell Your Unnecessary Books at Semesters End. At the end of the semester, provided you didnt buy an ebook or rent a textbook, youre going to be facing a decision. Do I need to keep this textbook or notWill it help with my future classes or with my career If you decide to keep it, good. I found several textbooks to be useful references during my early career and was glad that I kept them around. If you decide not to keep them, sell them during that gap between semesters. There are a lot of avenues for selling books, but it makes sense to go where the people are and sell in a high traffic place like Amazon or Craigslist. You wont recoup all of your investment, but you will recoup some of it, and that money will come in just in time to buy the next semesters books. Final Thoughts. College textbook buying is an expensive routine for every student. Textbook manufacturers charge ridiculous prices which can really add to the financial burden of postsecondary education. Barnes Noble Launches New e Textbook App Yuzu. Barnes Noble quietly launched the beta version of a new digital textbook app earlier this month. Its called Yuzu, and it is currently available for the i. Pad and for web browsers. Yuzu is a digital education platform that Barnes Noble says is going to make the everyday learning experience remarkably gratifying. Few details are available at this time, but B N says that the new platform will support the collaborative, free flow of information between learners and educators. When it officially launches this summer Yuzu is going to be B Ns replacement for Nook. Study, which according to the website has already been retired. At this point it looks like Yuzu is an entirely new platform, and it would appear that Yuzu does not share the same accounts as the Nook Store or Nook. Study. In fact, one of the FAQs I found says that Yuzu is not compatible with Nook. Study textbooks. The app is currently only available for Internet Explorer and Safari 6. Firefox, and for i. Pads running i. OS7, and it is far from complete. While the app does run in IE, all I can do is play around with the set up process. I can create terms and add courses to a term, but I cannot actually read any content. Theres no option for uploading my own files, and Yuzus bookstore has not yet been enabled. At this point we have little more to go on than B Ns own description, and it makes Yuzu sound more like a digital textbook app like i. Books or Nook Study than an educational and academic app like i. Tunes U. Like its predecessor Nook. Study, Yuzu offers students a next generation reading and note taking experience in a simple app, but it also improves on Nook. Study by making it easier for educators to provide course materials. In addition to launching the Yuzu platform, B N is also tying in Faculty. Enlight. This is a website where educators can assemble academic materials into course packs, and from what I can tell B N launched it in 2. Educators  can search for the textbooks and other academic material they need, and then build a required and recommended textbook list for a class. Faculty. Enlight is very much focused on the college market, so I would bet that it is also tied in to the 6. B N College. On a related note, the site also prompts educators to sell their original course materials via Nook Press, where they will end up in the Nook Store and probably Yuzu as well. Yuzu is only available for IE, Safari, and the i. Pad, but I have been told that B N plans to have a Yuzu Android app and support for more web browsers by the time the platform launches this summer. The Digital Reader was the first to report earlier this year that Barnes Noble was turning their attention to the digital education market I scooped the official announcement by about 3 weeks. At the time I was hopeful that this pivot could save B Ns digital division, but now I am not so sure that it will. Everything I have read today suggests that Barnes Noble is pursuing a retail strategy where they will sell or rent digital textbooks to students. Given the general failure of the digital textbook market, this does not bode well for B N. Over the past six months we have seen several digital textbook providers go bankrupt, sell out to their competition, or pivot to serve a new market. Kno was acquired out of bankruptcy by Intel, Coursesmart was sold off to its competitor, and Inkling pivoted to a new business model based on licensing its tech to publishers. I predicted about a month ago that the future of digital textbooks is in publishers selling to schools, not retail. If B N is going to ignore that trend then I expect that Yuzu is even more doomed than the Nook platform. On the other hand, B N does have an advantage that none of the startups could claim B N runs over 6. This gives them a market presence that few other than Follett which also runs college bookstores can match. And in any case, it is too early to say for sure how B N will generate revenue they might be planning to use a different model than selling digital textbooks to cash strapped students. We shall have to wait and see.