RentScouter

How to rent textbooks online is a question many are asking themselves in the quest for cheap textbooks.

Renting books online has been a growing trend over the past several years not only because of the rising cost of textbooks, but also with the worsening economy.  Anyone that has recently attended college, or knows someone that has, can certainly tell you about the rising costs of getting a higher education.  Various reports state that the typical college student spends around $800 on new and used textbooks each year.  How did the ability to rent textbooks online begin?

Save Money: Rent Textbooks Online

Some frustrated students decided to try and do something about the high costs of textbooks.  Out of this dilemma textbook rental companies were born like Chegg and BookRenter. Over the years, these companies have made the process to rent textbooks online streamlined and easy.  Despite the ease of renting books online, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Get the exact ISBN your professor requires for class, not just title and author because often there are old editions of the same title and author textbook.
2. Ask your professor if there are any required supplemental materials (CDs, DVDs, InfoTrac, etc) as most used textbooks will not always have these supplemental materials.  If these materials are required see if you can buy them separately as often a used book and new access code will still be much cheaper compared to a new textbook.
3. Always read the terms and conditions of whichever textbook rental company is offering you the best price.  Each company has different policies regarding length of rental, marking in the rental book, rental length extensions.
4. Many companies that allow you to rent textbooks online have multiple day unconditional guarantees, but try and make the best decision before the book arrives in your hands.

When trying to decide whether to buy textbooks online or rent them, keep in mind renting a textbook is generally a fixed cost.  However, if you buy a new or used textbook you will be able to sell back your textbook when you are finished.  There is no guarantee you will get any cash when you sell back school books, but you should use a rule of thumb of 20% of purchase price on older editions and 50% on newer editions.  If you want, textbook rentals are generally available for purchase at the end of the rental term.

You can do whatever you want with the money you save if you rent textbooks online as it has the potential to save you up to 70% off the purchase price of buying a textbook at your local school book store.

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As we reported back in April, it would not be long before Kno provided a solution for cheap textbooks. We didn’t have to wait long as they today announced the Kno textbook app for the iPad.  In case you forgot, Kno is the run by CEO Osman Rashid, one of the founder’s of the textbook rental juggernaut Chegg.  Kno originally developed a dual-screen tablet for electronic textbooks, but abandoned that effort a few months ago in search of a different solution for providing cheap textbooks.  However, with the huge success of the iPad and growing Android tablet market the company decided it might be best to leave hardware to the experts.

Kno Textbook App the solution for Cheap Textbooks?

The Kno textbook app is an impressive first effort that even comes with a 15 day money back guarantee.  Among the highlighted features:

1. A catalog of over 70,000 textbooks at discounts of 30-50%
2. Course Manager – Quickly organize your textbooks and materials all in one organized space
3. Chapter Preview – A quick method to find the content you wish as an attempt to duplicate flipping through a regular textbook
4. The ability to highlight content and create sticky notes
5. Words to Friends – Share your thoughts with your social network directly from within your etextbook

Kno is offering their app as a free download and monetizing the effort by having extextbooks purchased from the Kno textbook store.  Kno is offering a free textbook to those that participate in the Early Bird Program – simply like them on Facebook through the link, participate in their product feedback discussion, and they will refund you the purchase price of one electronic textbook after completion of the program.

The Kno textbook app allows a user to organize digital textbooks and PDFs into courses through an easy to use drag and drop interface.  The Chapter Preview features allows quick flipping through the pages of the digital textbook to facilitate quick finding of desired material akin to flipping to through the pages of a printed textbook – of course, there is a search feature as well.  Users can highlight whatever they wish and add sticky notes as well.  Furthermore, a Wiki or Web search can be launched from within the textbook app from a highlighted word.

However, the novel feature of Kno’s textbook app is wonderfully called “WTF”, or rather “Words to Friends”.  WTF allows users to send out “study messages” to to their social network friends on Twitter of Facebook.  However, the study message is not currently linked back to the originally highlighted text and it is not easy to cut and paste either – so WTF indeed   It is still a much better way to stay awake and entertained in class versus texting on your cellphone or keeping a comic book in your biology textbook.

Kno textbook app features WTF

Head on over to the Kno website and check out their textbook app to see if you think it is the solution for cheap textbooks.

A couple of updates on Chegg right now: totally free priority shipping, additional when you sell your textbooks to Chegg if you use this promotional code: CC105024, no cost extension for rental of books if you order now, extra five% discount on textbook rentals when you use this code: CC105024 Enjoy! Code: CC105024