Where I buy cheap books!
18:00 |
| One of my small bookcases for all of your viewing pleasure |
Cheap books? Did somebody say cheap books? *looks around frantically* Settle petal.. I did indeed.
I live in Wellington, New Zealand, and
there aren’t that many options for buying new books in stores. We have
Whitchoulls (kind of like a Barnes and Nobel) and Paperplus. Both of these are
super expensive, and a Paperback will generally be sold for $20 NZD and a
hardcover would be sold for ~$35 (but can be up to around $50). Yikes. Before
you start calculating how much I must have spent on the ~350 books on my shelf;
the majority of these were not bought for this price!
Book store sales
If you love bookstores, just like I do
(there is nothing like perusing the isles of a book store) but can’t stand the
prices – I recommend making a beeline straight for their clearance section. My
local bookstores offer deep reductions on books often ~$5 per book. Also keep
an eye on closing down sales. Last year a book store in my city closed down
*weeps gently* which was bittersweet – one less bookstore in town, but they did have insane closing sales. They wanted to get rid of all of their stock so the day before
they shut they had tables of 5 books for $2
Online
Buying books online is significantly
cheaper than buying them in store, and what’s more is so many of them do free
shipping!
If you live in the US then I would 100%
recommend shopping at Amazon. Their prices are pretty much unbeatable.
Amazon used to be one of my favourite book places to shop because they used to
do free shipping over $120 internationally. I wouldn’t buy books for ages then
wait until my wish list was bursting then make a big purchase and get free
shipping. Until... *Dun Dun DUUUN* they took this offer away! Now shipping to
New Zealand is completely ridiculous from amazon – I’m not paying more for shipping
than for the actual books – bring back free shipping amazon!
If you have read any of my posts I am sure
you have heard me talk about book depository one way or another. That’s because
this is my go to place to buy specific books and new releases. The major upside
is they do free shipping all around the world! Yes, I know. Although the books
here are slightly more expensive than amazon, the shipping from the UK only
takes about a week and I’ve never had an issue. They have a bargain bin here.
Recently mighty ape has been a place I’ve
bought quite a few books from. Mighty Ape is essentially New Zealand Amazon. I
use Mighty Ape for all sorts of things, and so I pay to get free shipping on
all my orders (Similar to Amazon Prime). One amazing thing about Mighty Ape is
they offer price matching! I have been told they can’t price match certain
items before but have had so much success with the price matching before! I
bought the Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness the other day for only $20
NZD after they price matched Book Depository.
Second hand books
Op shops
Op shops tend to be a place I avoid – the
smell of moth balls isn’t my favourite. Although if you battle through the used
clothes and shoes there is often a hidden wall that people forget about: Used
books. Often there are so many books that aren’t interesting but last year my
local op shop had about 20 new release YA books for $1 each – obviously someone
cutting down their personal library but I was practically leaping around the
store when I found them – and then waddled home carrying 20 books though town!
Op shops tend to sell books for a few dollars a pop.
Library sales
Most local libraries have annual or
bi-annual book sales. The Wellington City Library does 2 each year. This is
where they get rid of excess books. What’s great is they often have popular
books at these sales; when a new bestseller is stocked at the library they will
often stock multiple copies to keep up with demand. However when the demand
dies down a little the library sells extra copies of this book to make room for
more. At my library the paperbacks
usually cost $1 each and Hardcovers $2 each. However the longer the sale goes
on, the lower the prices drop. I swung by my library to pick up 3 hard cover
books for $1 a week ago.
Let me know your favourite places to buy
books!
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