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madteaparty
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Just curious. I've been rather ashamed to use amazon for the convenience--even though I moved to an area with multiple bookstores. but I read an article about book selling on amazon recently and I'm making a change. Also,

I received a book from amazon lately that looked like it had been printed at home... I think I will call with book list and just pick it up for convenience

You?

Edited by madteaparty
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Amazon. Local bookstores have priced me out unfortunately. I can't afford to pay double or triple a book than what amazon charges. I used to do used book sales a lot but even now they are only charging a dollar less than new on amazon. Plus, I can get it same day delivery for a lot of books for the cheaper price without wear and tear on my car.

 

Betterworld books is great when they have their sales. Only issue is that shipping can take awhile.

 

eBay used to have excellent lot sales. It is very hit or miss now.

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Mostly from Amazon Sellers.  I have purchased 2 (possibly 3?) textbooks for DD from eBay Sellers, that were, when purchased, much lower in price than a comparable book on Amazon. Some were purchased for USD $0.01 (one cent) plus $3.99 shipping in the USA. The only issue we have ever had was that a Workbook arrived with about 6 missing pages. We are in South America and couldn't send it back.  DD found those pages, online, or her instructor sent them to her. Many of the books have been in better than described condition. One book was one category lower than described, but perfectly acceptable.   I ask our Receiver/Forwarder to check the ISBN Number and to take a quick look at the condition, before sending it to our house.

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We don't have many bookstores around.  B & N went out of business in my city.  I once asked them for a certain book and they just flat out said they don't have it. No attempt to offer to order it.  If they don't want my business fine and dandy. 

 

So yeah, mostly Amazon or from various sellers that sell homeschool books. 

 

 

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I buy from Amazon but also from a few catalogs, but those are mostly specialty books. If a find a book that I really want/need at a store or in a catalog/website that I come across, I will purchase it from them even if I can find it cheaper on Amazon.  Amazon carries everything, but it's the smaller booksellers who highlight little known books.  If those small booksellers go away, Amazon's not going to bring those books to my attention.   This is particularly true for specialty, niche-market booksellers who see people use their catalogs/websites as free resources to find new books, which they then go on to buy from Amazon to save a few dollars (or get a couple of days faster).  

 

There are few bookstores near me other than a couple of Barnes and Nobles, and they seem to be carrying fewer and fewer books. Most bookstores that carry used (either exclusively or in addition to new) I find are poorly organized and too many of the books stink.  (My beloved Powell's in Oregon is the exception; I'm sure there are others I don't know about.)   Old books with acid paper make my eyes sting and water, so I can't read them.  Plus I hate the feel of really old books.  

 

Daedalus Books carries mostly remainders and we have gotten quite a few good books from them.  

 

 

 

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On-line:

Bookfinder.com - "The Google of dead books." It's a meta-searcher that searches Amazon, Abebooks, Biblio, Betterworld, and thousands of independent sellers worldwide.

 

Brick & mortar:

Our public library's bookstore, where all library discards and donated books go. $2 hardcover, $1 softcover, 50 cents trade paperback or any children's book. Conveniently located between us and the grocery store.

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Amazon used for physical books if possible. Direct from curriculum sometimes. Rainbow resource.

 

Library if available.

 

Kindle if possible if I must purchase and price is similar to physical books.. I'm "challenged" by clutter and if a digital option is available, I'll use that instead of a physical book.

 

Sorry for the sentence fragments, typing on my phone.

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We don't have any bookstore near us anymore and when we did their prices were so much more than other sources it wasn't worth it to me. I buy occasionally on Amazon, especially if I need it right away (prime). Lately I've preferred getting used books from thriftbooks or abebooks. I've found it costs me less that Amazon used and dealing with their customer service has been so much easier and more pleasant.

 

New i usually buy through cbd, rainbow resource or directly from a company- this is typically homeschool books and some for fun.

 

The last time I bought from a bookstore was before we moved and had a gift card to use. We were disappointed in the children's selections (it was a bday gift for my child) and ended up buying school books we could use and ordering books online they wanted.

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Usually from Amazon.  If it's a pricey book, I will try for a used version.  eBay if there's something I really want and can't find an affordable one on Amazon.

 

Sometimes I take my kids to bookstores and let them buy stuff.  But my own personal love affair with bookstores died some time ago.  I'm not really sure why.  They used to be my paradise.  Now I see them pushing ridiculously overpriced and frivolous things and offering nothing new.

 

We've been better about using the library lately.

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Yard sales! And thrift stores - but be cautious there because not all thrift stores seem to understand what thrift means. This is especially true

of some of the Goodwill stores around here; I think some of them think they're Halfprice Books! Rarely do I buy a new book. 

When I do indulge in a new book it's because of one of two things:

 

*I personally know the author and want to support him/her ( I know quite a few local authors )

or

*An author I'm particularly keen on has finally published a new story (John Flanagan comes to mind!)

 

ETA: I do occasionally buy from Amazon. Mostly those are subject-specific non-fiction. Curious as to why you said you were changing things

up due to what you read about selling on Amazon, OP?

Edited by scrapbookbuzz
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Abebooks or amazon sellers.

 

 

Library thrift shops have resellers going thru with scanners daily so very hard to find anything not in poor condition.

 

BandN has priced me out and locally has a poor selection.

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It depends on where I hear about the book. If I read about it in Chinaberry or Bas Bleu or another book catalog, I buy it from the catalog. It's part of honoring the company that took the time to tell me about it. If a person tells me about it, usually Amazon. I do sometimes shop at our local Barnes and Noble, but honestly they carry mostly latest releases. It's harder nand harder to find older books there. I understand the lack of shelf space. We also have a Half Price Books here and a Vstock, so we have a lot of access to used books. I feel like Amazon has become the Wal Mart of the internet and have been trying to shop other places. Chinaberry used to have so many books, and I never would have heard about them anywhere else. Now they have mostly other goods and it makes me so sad.

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Amazon if I need a book ASAP. 

Thrift store once in a while (although I seem to rarely find a book I don't own already there).

I set up things to buy the books I need every 6-8 weeks, so I will use bookfinder.com to look for the best deal on each book. Sometimes that is abebooks, amazon used, thriftbooks. 

Bookoutlet sometimes has good deals.

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We use amazon and also scholastic - the preschool at our church will let me place an order for scholastic books when they do. We love the yearly scholastic books warehouse sale - it's become a 'last day of school' tradition. I also usually get some things from our co-op's used book sale. Occasionally I will find myself at an outlet that has a book overstock store that I will plunder through - sometimes it's junk, but sometimes they have something good.

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It depends on where I hear about the book. If I read about it in Chinaberry or Bas Bleu or another book catalog, I buy it from the catalog. It's part of honoring the company that took the time to tell me about it. If a person tells me about it, usually Amazon. I do sometimes shop at our local Barnes and Noble, but honestly they carry mostly latest releases. It's harder nand harder to find older books there. I understand the lack of shelf space. We also have a Half Price Books here and a Vstock, so we have a lot of access to used books. I feel like Amazon has become the Wal Mart of the internet and have been trying to shop other places. Chinaberry used to have so many books, and I never would have heard about them anywhere else. Now they have mostly other goods and it makes me so sad.

 

 

We loved Chinaberry when my kids were little!  Found so many treasures there that no one else had ever heard of.  Bas Bleu is fun too, and I occasionally buy from them but I have such a fondness for Chinaberry.

 

I remember one catalog in which the owner took people to task for using their catalog as a "shopping list" for Amazon - and were proud to tell her about it.  She was quite eloquent and not nasty, but she got the point across that their catalog was not meant to be a resource to be used to buy elsewhere.  This was at least 15 years ago.  We were already buying from them anyway, but that had a lasting impact on me and my shopping philosophy.

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I love the convenience and ease of buying from Amazon. I still try to make an effort to buy a few at B & N from time to time. It's lovely to be able to actually see a book before I buy it. (just not the same on Amazon.) Plus whiling away an hour or two at a physical bookstores is still one of my great pleasures.

 

My heart will break if all the brick and mortar bookstores die....

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amazon.  a couple used bookstores.  one gets mostly remaindered, but some of the used books are worth it. dont' use it as much anymore - one which focuses on homeschool books/resources gets more visits.

 

amazon is opening a bm store in our local mall.   supposedly only books.

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There aren't any bookstores selling new books close to my house any more, unless you count the small selection of best sellers at the local Half Price Books. There used to be 2 B&N in the area but they both shut down.

 

It's hard to compete with Amazon's prices and there's hardly ever a time when I can't wait 2 days for Prime shipping.

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I try first to find a book in Kindle format. I borrow from the library (both Kindle and printed) before I buy. If I buy, it's most often from Amazon. We never had any local bookstores with the exception of a used bookstore years ago. The B&N closest to me went out of business in December. There's a Books-a-Million 30 minutes in one direction and a B&N 30 minutes in another. Sometimes i go there to browse, sometimes I actually buy something. Mostly I just borrow Kindle books or audio books from the library.

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First, if it's for a book club, class, or something where I need to buy the book right away, I usually use Amazon.

 

For other books (when I might need them a year or more out), I keep lists of books we already own and books I would like in my iPhone & computers using a free Microsoft app called OneNote (It syncs automatically, so I also keep lists of other things - grocery and errand lists, gift ideas, travel itineraries, spreadsheets for kiddo's grades, etc).  We have a hobby of going to garage and estate sales, especially on the last day (when things tend to be 50% off), so I check places like that first.  Then I check secondhand & thrift stores.  Usually whatever book I want comes up for less than $2 at one of these sources in less than a year.  I can often find adult reference, literary & chick lit books at places like that too if I just wait long enough. I can always tell when someone's been reading Marie Kondo because there will suddenly be dozens of books I want rather than just 1 or 2.

 

If all else fails, I buy from Amazon, weighing carefully whether a used copy is cheap enough to justify getting it used, or just using Prime to get it new.

 

I'm getting away from digital copies of things unless they are cheap or free. I like the freedom to loan a paper book out or resell it that I don't have with most digital copies. Also I don't like that Kindles now do more than just show the books. I don't like kids having unsupervised internet access and if they can figure Kindle out, it can give them access.

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We loved Chinaberry when my kids were little! 

 

So did we!  A Common Reader was also wonderful.

 

I buy books at thrift stores, used book stores, the library store, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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We loved Chinaberry when my kids were little! Found so many treasures there that no one else had ever heard of. Bas Bleu is fun too, and I occasionally buy from them but I have such a fondness for Chinaberry.

 

I remember one catalog in which the owner took people to task for using their catalog as a "shopping list" for Amazon - and were proud to tell her about it. She was quite eloquent and not nasty, but she got the point across that their catalog was not meant to be a resource to be used to buy elsewhere. This was at least 15 years ago. We were already buying from them anyway, but that had a lasting impact on me and my shopping philosophy.

I remember that letter, too. She made a lot of good points.

 

We have so many books from Chinaberry back in the day. They became some my kids favorite books. My ds19 has many of those books packed away to read to his future kids!

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If I want something specific, quickly, I use Amazon. But every Thursday my kids have classes that I don't have to stick around for. I browse at 2 goodwills, Salvation Army, and another resale shop. I almost always end up with a good sized stack of books, for super cheap. Mostly these are kid novels- my oldest is 9 and a big reader and I've got two more coming up. I always grab books by Spinelli, Avi, Clements, certain series, newberry award winners, etc. I almost never buy my own novels because I'm only going to read it once, so I pretty much just use the library for my own reading. I love shopping for kid books though!

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Amazon. I vastly prefer e-books, even if I have to pay more. If whatever I want isn't available in digital format then many times I decide I don't really need to read it. If I decide I do then I usually purchase from a used bookseller on Amazon.

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We loved Chinaberry when my kids were little!  Found so many treasures there that no one else had ever heard of.  Bas Bleu is fun too, and I occasionally buy from them but I have such a fondness for Chinaberry.

 

I remember one catalog in which the owner took people to task for using their catalog as a "shopping list" for Amazon - and were proud to tell her about it.  She was quite eloquent and not nasty, but she got the point across that their catalog was not meant to be a resource to be used to buy elsewhere.  This was at least 15 years ago.  We were already buying from them anyway, but that had a lasting impact on me and my shopping philosophy.

 

Oh, I love Chinaberry! I have such fond memories of reading through their catalog and choosing books for my kids. So many of our favorites came from there.

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Amazon, book depository, Barnes & Noble (depending on if I'm there and/or the price is similar with the educator discount), BAM (we don't get there often but I love their bargain book section) and the local textbook store I worked a few times actually sells some children's books. I got some hardcovers dirt cheap.

 

Edited: I have also bought from a used book store before, too. I don't know what you call it but they have some used stuff.

Edited by heartlikealion
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Mostly Amazon. We have a B&N in town, but that means getting three kids dressed, shoed, fed, watered, buckled into car seats, diaper bag prepped, and then wading through all the ridiculously-priced toys they have now, often just to find out they don't have what I need or it's twice as expensive as Amazon.

 

I have so many fond memories of book stores, including lots of dates with DH. Occasionally we'll swing by B&N on a date, but we honestly have so many good books at home that have yet to be read, and a lot of what they have is just pulp fiction and pop science/psychology, when I want to read meaty things. Sure they have some good stuff too, but it only takes two seconds to search on Amazon. And I don't really like the chain aspect of it. I like nice local places that fit in with the fabric of the area, not yet another chain store in yet another strip mall in Suburbia, providing the same pulp and pop that every other store in the chain provides.

 

I guess occasionally I'll pick up a book at Costco (my kids really like some of their stuff) or place an order at a monastery or other religious website because I want to support them. And the next city over has an excellent Orthodox bookstore that I always support if possible. Other than that, I'm unapologetically an Amazon shopper.

 

 

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We are fortunate to have a great locally-owned bookstore just a mile from our house. They carry both new and used books, and the employees are very friendly and helpful. I've taken to ordering a lot of things online, but we like this bookstore so much that we go to them first. If they don't have what I want, I order from Barnes and Noble. I don't like Amazon very much, so I generally only use them as a last resort.

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(My beloved Powell's in Oregon is the exception; I'm sure there are others I don't know about.)

 

 

Powell's. Swoon. I will take a roadtrip to Oregon just to wander that store for hours.

amazon is opening a bm store in our local mall. supposedly only books.

Have you been to the one in U Village? It is mainly books. You can buy Kindles & accessories as well. What i don't like is that since they are whatever price Amazon is selling that day they dont have prices, so you need to scan or lookup prices on everything. Also they don't take cash. Must pay with credit/debit. They also only carry the top sellers in each category so if you are looking for sonething older or obscure they wont have it. Edited by Plateau Mama
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As I recall, AbeBooks is owned by Amazon. There is another marketplace for books that I purchased one Textbook for DD from. I had a Discount Code and I paid them by PayPal.  I think the name of the Marketplace is Alibris?

 

Usually, when I bother to check prices on another Marketplace, the price on Amazon is quite a bit lower. However, I have seen the opposite, as in the textbook I mentioned above.  Comparing the price of the same Seller, on Amazon and on another Marketplace...

 

The number of textbooks available on eBay is very small, compared to the number on Amazon, and the 2 textbooks I am positive I bought on eBay were purchased from individuals. 

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So did we!  A Common Reader was also wonderful.

 

I buy books at thrift stores, used book stores, the library store, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

I miss A Common Reader so much, even after all these years.  Such a fun catalog and so many off-beat books that would never have been discovered on Amazon.  

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I've been trying to order ore from publishers to get away from Amazon.  There are a couple of homeschool sellers I've used a lot.

 

Locally, there is an excellent used and antiquarian bookshop two blocks from my house, so I like to go there.  We have a Chapters not far away as well as a childrens book store - both within about 10 min fom home, though I've not been happy with the latter's offerings recently. 

 

I get quite a few at Value Village too though their prices have gone up recently.

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Amazon and their third party without the slightest bit of guilt.  The books I want or need are rarely available at a physical bookstore and I'm not paying the mark up brick and mortar stores are forced to charge for overhead costs because overhead costs are no longer necessary with online shopping. I never browse books to find something to read.  I know exactly what I'm looking for when I buy a book or I'm researching a category of books and amazon makes that easier.  The reviews are extremely helpful and by far the biggest money saver.  I've bought books on both good and bad reviews, because often the bad reviews are people not liking something for reasons I would like it.

 

When Amazon doesn't have it, it's usually because it's part of a curriculum, so I buy it online at a curriculum supplier.

 

I don't like shopping at all but I hate shopping in person, so online is for me whenever possible.
 

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My library's used book store. It's awesome!

 

If they don't have something or I need a textbook, I buy used on Amazon.

 

As a final resort or for a gift, I'll buy new on Amazon.

 

DH goes to Half Price Books sometimes and has a favorite independent bookstore in Bogota he visits frequently.

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