You may not want to judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a person by his or her books.  Your personal library, whether it is 20 volumes or 10,000 volumes, is both a measure of what you know and what you have left to learn.  It is an expression of your identity, your passions, and your experiences.  I hope to help you make thoughtful and strategic choices about building your library and doing it on a budget.  If you have a pastoral library, church library, collection of thoughtful books at home, or the beginnings of a library on some shelves in your seminary dorm room, this guide will help you.

Seven Tips on Getting Books You Actually Want for Cheap

7. Go to Book Sales.  Friends of Library groups and community organizations of all types collect books and then sell them for a dollar or two a volume to raise funds for their organizations.  Keep your eyes open in your local publications for sales near you and also be sure to check out these web sites:

Book Sale Finder - www.booksalefinder.com
Book Sale Scout - www.booksalescout.com

Also, you can find about other sales by using Google Alerts and setting up recurring searches such as: "book sale" +calendar so that newly added web content will be sent to you alerting you to some great sales.

6. Buy and Trade at a Local Used-Book Store

Find books that you are interested in at a used book store.  This is a great way to get rid of stuff you don't want anymore.  Even if there isn't anything you want at the store at any given moment, storing up trade credit will set you up to pounce on some great commentary or theological book when one arrives.  Also, make used-book stores a destination on your trips - use local yellow pages to find them as well as this great resource: http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/interest.php?brandID=BOOKSTORES_USED& to identify potential book stores to visit.

5. Buy Books Used Online

If you haven't been buying books used online off eBay, Amazon, Half.com, Alibris.com, Abebooks.com and other sites, then you may not be aware of how inexpensive many classics in the areas of Old Testament, New Testament, Devotional, Congregational Ministry, and the like can be.  You may want to use a service like www.bookfinder.com to comparison shop for books.  Other comparison sites include www.addall.com and www.pricegrabber.com.  Often eBay can be the cheapest place to get used books, for best results, I would recommend doing an advanced search and selecting the "search completed items" checkbox to see what that specific title has been selling for.  Then you can create a saved search for the title(s) you are interested in and bid on them (for best results use a sniping service). 

4. Sell Your Books Online

If trading your books at your local used-book store isn't working for you, why not sell your unwanted items on Amazon or eBay.  On Amazon, find the detail page of the book you'd like to sell and click the "sell yours here" button and follow the instructions.  You'll pay a small fee for each book, plus a flat rate for each item that sells.  Amazon now allows you to be paid with gift certificates that you can turn around and buy the books you really want with your credit.

3.  Trade Your Books Online

There are great book swapping sites popping up on the web.  List your unwanted Robert Schuller books and trade them for some Walter Brueggemann or William Willimon or whatever you want.  Some sites that I enjoy are www.paperbackswap.com and www.swaptree.com.  Also, Meetup.com and Bookcrossings.com often have local events in your community where you can actually meet people and trade books.

2. Estate Sales

I love going to estate sales.  You will find much higher quality books at estate sales than you will at garage sales.  Even if you don't find titles you're interested in - if you develop an eye for good deals you can pick up some titles that will have good resale value to earn you credit on Amazon or popular titles to arrange for some trades online or in your local bookshop.


1.  Buy During the Summer

Especially for academic titles, prices decline online during the summer.  Many booksellers have repricing scripts that are constantly trying to undercut other sellers.  Demand for books declines during the summer, especially for more academic books, so prices online fall.  You should start to see a decline around mid to late May which will continue through early July.  As schools kick back into sessions, book demand pick up in early August and so will the prices.  Individual titles will always vary, but this is a general trend to guide your purchases.

I hope this guide has been useful for you.  If you would like to receive information like this on a regular basis, please visit my web site, www.colporteurbooks.com and sign up for an e-newsletter with tips, tricks and strategies to help you buy religious books and build your religious library.

Grace & Peace,

Todd Noren-Hentz