Unhaul Unwanted Books
A lot of used bookstores will buy books off of you either for cash money or for store credit! It is basically trading books you have already read in for shiny new books! I would recommend checking out a couple different places before you do this to make sure the bookstore has books you would actually want to purchase if they only do store credit! You don’t want to have $50 to a place that you may only spend $5 at! You can also sell your books on Ebay and Amazon, but remember ARCs ARE NOT FOR SALE.Library!
Your library should become your new best friend. A lot of libraries will order in titles if you request them, so if you have an upcoming release you want to read but can't shell out the cash for, request your library to get a copy in! If you want to be the FIRST to read a new release, make sure you put your name on the hold list. This will allow you to read the book soon after it releases so you can chat with all your friends about the title!Discount Book Stores
One of the biggest ones is BookOutlet which has a physical store if you are in the Niagara Region in Ontario, Canada or has an online store if you are everywhere else! They have some fairly new releases in stock and a lot of great backlist titles! I think the most expensive book I've purchased from them was $15 -- and it was signed! Thriftbooks is also a good site to use as well as Books A Million. Just be careful with shipping costs -- you want to make sure you are getting enough books that the shipping is justified but you don't want to spend $40 on shipping! Think of all the books you could buy with $40!Watch For Sales
A lot of major retailers will have sales for new releases or have them a bit discounted when they are first released. Wait for this! There may be a time when they have a coupon for double points or an extra 10% off YA titles, so spend your money at this time when you can get more for less. Amazon and Kobo both do pre-order guarantee where they charge you the lowest price for your pre-orders so if you do pre-order a book, do it early! You never know how much you may save!Limit Your Spendings
Budget your money. Can you afford to spend $50 a month on books? Then only spend $50 a month on books and once it's gone, it's gone. You can always fill your cart for next month, but don't check out! I would recommend spreading out your purchases so that you aren't purchasing a lot of books on the 1st and then waiting for the next month to come around to buy more books.Gift Cards Are Your Best Friend
Gift cards are basically free books because you aren't REALLY spending your own money. But you don't need to use them right away! Save them for a time you are really desperate for a new book but don't have the extra money in your budget to buy one!Buy Paperback & eBooks
I used to be really good at this and would wait for a book to come out in paperback before buying it. They are almost half the price! You can basically get two paperbacks for the price of ONE hardcover. I will be talking about the merits of paperbacks in a future discussion post but really you save lots by purchasing paperbacks instead of hardcovers! If you don't need a physical copy and like reading ebooks, purchasing them saves you a lot of money as well. Especially if you watit about six months because they are usually discounted by then!
And that's it! Of course you are probably going to have months where you spend too much, but make sure you can still pay your bills and don't have to build a house out of your books to survive.
Do you have any other tips for people that I didn't think of?
I think these are great tips (: The library is my #1!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great list! I ended up selling a lot of my physical books for cash and starting using a Kindle. eBooks are so much cheaper and it's easy to get sales so you can grab titles for $5.
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