Hello and welcome back to Blogmas day six (6)! In today’s post, I wanted to share with you some tips and tricks for shopping for well-priced books this holiday season.
I want to preface this post by first encouraging you to shop second hand and in charity book shops where possible (and of course use your library if you are looking only to access books – I have a post coming up later this month all about accessing e-resources via libraries!). I won’t be going into any detail with them here, but I do recommend places like Better World Books and World of Books.
I also wanted to point out that I live in London in the UK where we are lucky enough to have a lot of options and different routes of access to books. Whilst some of these online sites will be available internationally, I’m not too sure on shipping costs for each of the recommendations I mention below (please feel free to let me know and I can update the post where necessary!)
With all that said, let’s get on with the post!
Firstly, I want to shout out Bookshop UK which has just recently launched. Each book you buy from Bookshop, independent bookshops that are signed up to the website will receive a commission from the sale. You can choose to support a specific independent bookshop, or you can search in general for a book. At the moment, Bookshop UK does only deliver to the UK, but it does mention on their FAQ that they are hoping to launch in other EU countries soon. Also, all of the reading lists on the site are created by either bookshops or affiliates which is pretty cool!
One of the best places to shop for books that are very popular is in supermarkets. In most large supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, etc.), the books will be sold for £4 (four pound) each or two (2) for £7 (seven pound). Supermarkets generally have a decent selection of adult books, but almost no YA titles. Also, most of the children’s titles will be by only a couple of the most popular children’s authors. But if it’s adult books that are in the current book lists that you’re looking for, supermarkets are definitely your best bet. I’ve also gotten brand-new hardbacks from supermarkets for only £10 (ten pound) which comparatively is pretty decent.
The next place I want to talk about is great for book series/book boxes: The Works. I’ve gotten many book boxes over the years from this shop: The Hunger Games, Heroes of Olympus, The Mortal Instruments, The Young Elites. They always have a great selection for very cheap prices – usually £15 (fifteen pound) or less. Individual fiction books are usually £1.99 (one pound ninety-nine) or three (3) for £5 (five pound). Most of the books won’t be new titles, but you do find the occasional title – I’ve found countless over the years and saved ALOT of money. They also sometimes participate in student discount and they have their own points card, too, called Together Rewards. They don’t ship internationally, unfortunately, except from Ireland and they have a minimum spend required for free delivery.
Blackwells is the next shop I want to talk about. Blackwells is usually around the same price as Amazon and sometimes even cheaper than that. They are one of the UK’s largest booksellers and carry a huge selection. They also have free shipping to the UK and their books always come with a free bookmark. The shipping outside the UK is apparently included in the prices of the books, so it’s probably worth checking out their main website to see what the costs are like. Their reading lists are also really useful – I use them often in my day job as a librarian. You can find them on their main page here.
If you are buying from Waterstones, make sure not to shop in store straight away. Usually, their books are cheaper online, so what you can do if you find a book instore that you want, is go to their app and find the book you want, then use the ‘click & collect’ function and select the shop you’re in. They aim to have the book available from two (2) working hours after you order. A recent example of this I found was when I wanted to buy Legendborn. It was £7.99 (seven pound ninety-nine) in store, so I looked online and it was £6.49 (six pound forty-nine)! So it is definitely worth having a look online first. They also have a student discount of 5% (five per cent) and have a stamps points card – when you spend £100 (one-hundred pound) you get a £10 (ten pound) ‘voucher’ that is added onto your points card. Thankfully this never runs out (unless they change their terms and conditions, of course) and they have in the past offered promotions where you can earn double or even triple stamps on purchases!
The last bookseller I want to talk about in this post is Wordery. They’re a bookseller that only trades online and are usually pretty well-priced. If you’re a student and have a student email address that ends in ac.uk, you can sign up to their student club and they’ll send you various offers throughout the year. I signed up to this back when I was a student and received really decent offers (the main one I used was 10% (ten per cent) off when you buy 2 (two) or more books). You can also find more general promotions directly on their website – they always have some kind of discount offered, so make sure to always double check here before checking out your books. They’re also currently doing an advent calendar where you can win books every day – definitely worth checking out! Also, Wordery offers free worldwide delivery to a number of countries here.
The last places I want to shout out are two of my favourite publishers – ones I use often for work. I talked about Verso’s subscription service in yesterday’s post, Gift Ideas for Book Lovers, which I would definitely recommend, but they are also currently having a sale on their entire catalogue of books, too. It’s 40% (forty per cent) off for the rest of the year. As I mentioned yesterday, Verso is the “largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world.” They offer free delivery for items over a certain threshold for different countries here and shipping internationally costs £6 (six pound), which is pretty decent if you take into consideration the 40% (forty per cent) off!
Zed are also having a sale on their catalogue of books – 30% (thirty per cent) off. Zed is a mostly non-fiction publisher that focuses on publishing marginalised voices, especially ones from the Global South. They also ship internationally and offer free delivery in the UK, the EU and US & Canada for certain minimum values here.
I would personally highly recommend checking out publisher’s websites prior to booksellers’ websites as the prices are often similar and you never know when a publisher might be having a sale.
Right, that was a very long post! I really hope this was useful. I haven’t always had money to spend on books, so this post comes from years of me trying to find the best possible deals and the cheapest possible way to find the books I wanted when they weren’t available in any of the libraries I was a member of.
If you have any tips and tricks for book shopping, please let me know! I’m always very eager to find new ways to shop for books.
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