open university books

kitty42

trying to buy the set books for an open university course-3 are simply novels/poems etc but 1 is a text book. tried amazon which had the books really cheap but then wanted to charge more than the books cost for postage. being new to all this i don't know if this is normal and I should just get on with it or whether I could get them somewhere else. Not many second hand book shops around here and would they sell the text book anyway?

mikeyd

ebay sometimes had open university textbooks on that, so you may wish to check there as well.

Cat72

Amazon only charge delivery if the total sale is less than £15 so that is normal. You could try Bookbrain which gives you different prices including delivery charges. If you have a borders near you they have 20% off at the moment, I posted the link on the vouchers board a while ago- however I usually find amazon are cheaper for the books and offer a 5% discount if you have a nus card.
You could also use a site like bookprice which gives you prices for second hand books, but with all internet sites you will have postage, including ebay.
The thing you have to remember is it is term time so everyone is looking for text books and the prices start to get hihger- what I would do is just buy the book at the cheapest price I could get and sell it next year at term time. I have just done that with some counselling books and mostly broke even.
I also buy through sites like nectar and pigsback which give me money back from amazon book purchases- nectar is prettty rubbish but pigsback is good- worth considering joining these sites if you have a few purchases to get this year, as its free and gives you an extra bonus.

meerustar

You could also order in WHSmith and if they don't have it in, they will order it for you and you collect from the store.

Caramelapplebetty

Hi
When I did my degree with OU I often used blackwells and studentbookworld.com. The suggestion re ebay is a good one because I sold all my books on there including course material as well as the set books. So it is worth looking after the books then you could claw something back at the end of the course. Also worth checking Sesame the OU mag - that has a classified section where people often sell course books and materials.

squashy

Definately try amazon as lots of uni books are with marketplace sellers too so you'll get it much cheaper.

Eg:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0749287454/ref=dp_olp_2/203-7563770-1820742

wheeze

also could try universitybooksearch.co.uk, have sold on there in the past

Testee

My friend is doing an OU course and she found her books through https://www.saveonbooks.co.uk but also worth trying https://www.greenmetropolis.com.

kitty42

Thanks to all. Lost this post and had to have help from Pink. Not looking good for the ou course is it!!

Sharra

If you know someone who is a current OU student - lots of ppl advertise their old course books in the OU student magazine (can't remember what its called).
You could also try http://www.readitswapit.co.uk