Collegeville Textbook Company — New & Used Textbooks in East Lansing, Michigan

In addition to the primary textbook, you will see a lot of extra stuff on the store bookshelves. This could include study guides, solution manuals, quick references, and electronic aides.

Study guides can be useful, and are often times recommended, but not required. Unless your instructor specifically requires the books, you can usually get through the course without buying them. If your prof does not require them, we recommend going to the first week or two of class to determine if you need them.

Many courses have quick reference guides associated with them. These are usually laminated 1 or 2 page guides that give an overview of an entire subject. These can be extremely useful for foreign languages, advanced sciences, or any other subjects that involve lots of memorization of standard tables or graphs. Aside from that, these guides generally don’t offer much and instructors rarely even recommend them to their students.

Electronic or online materials come in two forms: access codes and CD-ROMs. Access codes are almost ALWAYS required. Many profs use them for graded homework. These are often bundled with the book. Keep an eye out for Used books bundled with valid access codes. They’re hard to come by, but if you can find them you can save big!
CD-ROMs generally don’t provide a whole lot of material that you can’t get from the textbook. These are generally included with the text, but are rarely required.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the magic word with textbooks is USED. Buying Used is always the best way to save money. A Used copy of a textbook will be at least 25% cheaper than a New copy. The supply of Used books is generally less than the demand, so if you see a Used copy, buy it. It might not be there in an hour and then you’ll have to settle for New.

Just like any other big purchase, you’re going to want to shop around at a few different stores to make sure you get the best deal. Each store has different stock, particularly in regards to Used books. The most convenient place to shop is on Grand River Avenue, right downtown. There are 3 bookstores easily within walking distance so you can compare without driving all over the city.

A Clicker is a little electronic device that a lot of profs use to take attendance, administer pop quizzes, or get general feedback from their students. They are available at any local textbook store and usually run around $38-40 (around $28 if you can find a used one). Chances are that you will need one at some point. Each clicker has a serial number on the back that is necessary for it to work right. Over time however, the serial number will fade out due to normal wear. When you buy your clicker, put a piece of clear tape over it to prevent this from happening. Collegeville Textbook Co. does buy back clickers, as long as the serial number is readable and it works!

The latest fad with college textbooks is renting. In our opinion, this is a scheme to appear like a good deal for you, when it’s usually a better deal for the book store. When you rent a book, you to pay 1/2 the NEW price at the beginning of the semester (so a book that sells for $100 new would cost you $50 to rent) and you sign a contract to return it at the end of the term. When you return it you don’t receive any money  in “buyback.” Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Here are a few problems with this promotion. First, you pay the same amount whether the book is New or Used. Second, if you don’t return the book in time, you pay the full New price, even if you rented a Used copy, plus some hefty “processing fees.” Finally, if you need your book for more than one semester, you’ll have to re-rent it, in effect paying the full New price of the book, even if you rented a Used copy.

Here’s an example:

Say you don’t rent the book mentioned above for $50. Instead, you buy a Used copy for $75. Since only high demand books are up for rent, the book stores are likely to be paying between $35 and $50 in buyback for it. You end up saving between $10 and $25 dollars by buying instead of renting. If you just can’t find a Used copy, then renting can be a decent deal if you don’t think you’ll need it for another class.

Most stores offer textbook reservations. Unlike rentals, this is a great way to secure Used books before you even get to MSU. With reservations, you just send in your class schedule (either on the stores website, or by mail using a form) and pay a small deposit. The bookstore will set aside your books and you can pick them up when you get to State. You are under no obligation to buy them, you don’t have to search the store to find all your classes, and best of all, you get first pick of Used books. You can reserve from Collegeville right here!

Selling your books at the end of the semester is a great way to recoup some of the money you spent at the beginning. But, you have to play it smart. There are five rules to getting the most cash out of your books when you’re done with them.

a. Timing is everything. Finals week and the week prior is the best time to sell your books. By then, the bookstores have a good idea what is being used for the next semester and will be willing to buy them for the most money.

b. Shop around. Just because one store is only offering $20 for your $150 book doesn’t mean that the others are the same. Once the bookstore has bought the amount it needs, the price can go down. Other stores may still want more copies of your book.

c. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Make sure you know how much you’re getting for each book, not just a total. Your total for two books could be $70, but you may be getting $65 for one book and only $5 for the other.

d. If you think the price seems low, ask why. If a book is being used for a class, you should be able to get about half of what you paid for it. It could be a valuable book that the bookstore doesn’t need. It also could be a book that isn’t being used the next semester. It could also be going into a new edition, in which case, you’ll probably want to take what you can get for it before it completely loses its value.

e. Always insist on CASH. If you are offered a debit card instead of cash, make sure you understand the terms of the card. Many have hidden fees that quickly diminish its value. You are usually better off just getting cash.

A few weeks after classes start, we always get more than a few frantic students coming in to buy a book that they purchased online, but it never arrived. While you can occasionally find good deals online, you may run into a lot of problems too. Books ordered online can often take almost a quarter of your semester to arrive. There is also the risk of the book not showing up at all. Less scrupulous dealers advertise the required book but ship the old or international editions (or sometimes even a completely different book altogether!). Furthermore, if you decide to drop the course or need to return it, it can be very difficult and time consuming to get your money back.

eBooks are paperless electronic textbooks, usually read on a laptop computer. They come in a lot of different formats, but the most common electronic textbook is a subscription for a semester. Because the cost to actually make a physical & distribute a physical book is a very small percentage of the cost of a book, there isn’t really that much of a savings, and if you need to use the book for longer than the subscription period, it will end up costing you more. If you are considering an eBook, the most important thing is personal preference. If you would prefer to study from a computer screen and you aren’t concerned with keeping or reselling the material, then an eBook might be just right. If you don’t like studying from a computer screen and would like to sell or keep your book, then a physical book would probably be best.