How to Get the Best Deal on Books
I’ve begun reading more books over the last couple of years. From this hobby I’ve found a few ways to allow me to get the best deal on books.
Research what you want to read
Browse Good Reads – Specifically the following sections:
- Genres: https://www.goodreads.com/genres
- Community created lists: https://www.goodreads.com/list
You can also create an account on Good Reads and input some details of books you’ve read already along with how much you enjoyed it (i.e. your rating our of 5 stars), for the platform to provide some recommendations.
Again, you can check out what I’ve read and my ratings to see what I enjoyed: https://www.goodreads.com/DaleS/
Obtaining the books
Below is my current method to get the best deals on obtaining books.
Reference Sites:
- Booko: https://booko.com.au – Compares prices of books based on country from a variety of sources
- Usually the US and UK have the cheapest books
- Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/ – A subsidiary of Amazon and place for buying physical books
- Usually one of the cheaper sources of books from Booko
- Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/ – A subscription service that allows you access to both Audio books and e-Books. There’s a 30 day free trial and then $USD 8.99 / month thereafter.
- Audible: https://www.audible.com.au/ – Another Amazon service, for $AUD 16.95 / month you get to keep one audiobook, and you get flat rate price for additional audio books ($AUD 14.95)
- Library Genesis (LibGen): http://libgen.io/ – A free resource for ebooks. (Download at your risk).
Method for getting the best deal:
- Decide what format you want your books in (physical, audio or ebook), for me I usually prefer physical books, but if an audio book exists on Scribd I might just listen to it instead. Currently I don’t use Audible, but I’m considering it for the future, given the “ownership” aspect of Audible (for future access as opposed to losing the book once my subscription stops).
- If you’re just looking for free, or low cost I would suggest a subscription to Scribd and/or searching on LibGen, but if you’re like me and prefer physical books, read on.
- Search the title on Booko – if Book Depository is one of the cheaper places (sort by Total Price which includes the delivery fee) then go to the next step, otherwise purchase from the cheapest place.
- Try changing countries on Booko to both the US and UK, and compare the Book Depository price by converting the USD Dollar or Pound Sterling into Australian dollars (Google is your friend)
- Most likely the converted prices will be cheaper than the local price
- Just be aware the converted price doesn’t include GST so you’ll need to multiply the price by 1.1 (i.e. adding 10% GST).
- Once you know the cheapest price, note down the region for Book Depository you searched on.
- Note: The reason we’re doing this is because Book Depository has free world wide shipping, so therefore they bake the shipping cost into the price of the book. This is done by taking your computer’s IP address to determine which country you’re browsing from to then calculate the price of the book to display. Sneaky sneaky.
- Use your VPN and set it to the location of the cheapest region.
- Go to Book Depository and the default currency should be in the region you’ve set i.e. USD for US region
- Note: Make separate orders based on region.
- Search and add to your basket the books you want to purchase.
- Wait for the books to be shipped to you
- Enjoy and read
