College Textbooks 101: The College Student's Survival Guide to Buying and Selling their Textbooks

By George E Dolney III

Have you ever wondered why textbooks cost so much, yet when it comes time to sell one to a buyback you get next to nothing back for it? As a college student, do you have a difficult time navigating through the confusing world of ISBN numbers, correct editions, bundles, and your professor’s syllabi, in order to get the correct textbooks that you need for your classes? Are you tired of all the drama, and just want honest answers to your questions, and some easy-to-apply strategies that you can use to save both time and money, when buying and selling your textbooks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483507668

Book preview

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Part I: Getting Ready for Class

1. What exactly is a Textbook?

This is a good question, and believe it or not, a common question. Quite simply there are two ways to answer this depending on how literal or how loose we decide to define what a textbook is. For example, you could loosely define a textbook as any book that is used as a part of the teaching curriculum, or as a student reference that is assigned to or used in conjunction with a particular class. Keeping with this example a paperback copy of Hamlet would be considered a textbook just the same as your huge hardback College Biology text would be.

But there are different ways that the book industry in and of itself classifies books, and here is where the literal definition comes in. Hamlet, as used in the above example is technically what is called a Trade book, whereas the College Biology book would be classified as a textbook. What differentiates the two is primarily the amount of research, opinion, fact, and the officially accepted nature of the contents therein. So a textbook is a book of an official stature (though still reflective of the current accepted social thought, and scientific establishment of the times) that is used to educate the reader on a particular matter or subject. Most often you will see that textbooks are written by individuals who hold high-ranking degrees in their respective fields and who operate on some level of representative authority among their professional