Cheap Books on the Web
Thu, 2006-02-23 23:03
#1
Cheap Books on the Web
Where's the best place to buy cheap books on the web. There is, of course, the ever popular Amazon, and of course ebay. And I've also discovered:
and
Out of all of them I've found abebooks to be the most reasonable, and they don't charge extortianate s&h like some other sites. (I hate it when an ebay seller wants to charge £4 postage, or an Amazon seller charges £3 on top of a 10p book).
I'm searching for a few classic authors such as Harry Crews, Dan Fante, Richard Jessup, but some of the books are extortianate. Some people are asking hundreds of pounds for a Crews book.
Anywhere else I can look? Any suggestions?
justyn_thyme
You have to be careful with abebooks. They have no feedback system for the sellers and they appear not to screen the sellers. I ordered something through them not long ago. The seller was in the UK someplac, I forget where, but he lied about having the book, he lied about having shipped it, and when I questioned all of this, he sent me an extremely abusive email. In the end, I simply reported him to ABEbooks and, more importantly, to PayPal. It was obvious he was engaged in a fraud, or at least gross stupidity and negligence, so I received a refund in full within four hours of my complaint, and an admission that he could not supply the book, even though he had previously claimed to have shipped it. I've never heard of Browns but I'll look into it. I've always had good luck with ebay, but it can take a long time to find what you want at a good price.
tara_hanks
I've bought from Abebooks, twice. Both were from the US, but still, they took months (I regularly buy from the US via Amazon and Ebay, with no problems.) I agree, the lack of a feedback system is frustrating.
I've just ordered a book from http://www.alibris.com, they seem much more communicative anyway, a good sign.
justyn_thyme
Alibris is better, I think, because I ordered a bunch of books in the US via Amazon, some from Amazon and some from Amazon sellers which included Alibris. Everything arrived at my cousin's house, lickety split, and then she put them all in one box and mailed them to me. However, ordering from the US is hugely expensive because of the shipping they charge. It is hideously expensive for me to order from the UK because even amazon considers Poland part of Rest of World (like Japan) instead of part of Europe. The shipping to Germany is half of the shipping to Poland! Ebay.co.uk is ok because of the feedback system, but it can take a long time before the book you're looking for appears for sale.