Collegiate Times

Through the use of its Web site, BookHolders.com, BookHolders offers students relatively lucrative buyback deals - so long as they're willing to wait. With the Cash Now program, students can turn in their books at the end of a semester for the standard buyback price. The Advantage Plan allows sellers to wait for BookHolders to sell the book at 85 percent the original price online. The student seller is informed via e-mail to pick up a check after each sale.

"The student is assuming some of the risk of whether or not we'll be able to sell that book," Allen said. "But they are reaping a larger reward when that book does sell."

Through the Web site, "students have complete control over their books," Moore said. "They can change the prices of their books to make them more competitive and sell their books faster."

Stores like BookHolders, fusing Web and on-site sales, represent the changes on the horizon of the textbook market. In response to the popularity of used books and peer-to-peer sales, publishers are finding new ways to maximize profit margins. E-books with Kindle applications are becoming more popular with publishers profit margins. E-books with Kindle applications are becoming more popular with publishers and bundled software, purchased once a semester, is also becoming more common.

When all else has been tried, textbook publishers have a tried-and-true approach. 

"The publishers' response ... is to revise a book every two years, which is crazy," Diffell said. "But the reason they do that, by and large, is to kill the used book business. ... I would rather buy and sell used books, absolutely." 

Moore, who remembers what it is like to try and get good deals on textbooks, echos his sentiments.

"It's ludicrous, man. It's horrible," Moore said. "Think about physics and calculus. ... Does the information ever really change? They just change a couple of questions at the end of the chapter and say you need to get a whole entire new book and spend another 150 bucks."

Allen said BookHolders breaks up software bundles and sells older editions of books to save students money. 

In the face of a tough textbook market, bookstore managers like Glosh offer advice to those buying books on a budget. 

"I'd shop. I'd start early. And be very smart," he said, adding that students should be "very good consumers. ... They're going to find a book here and a book there ... Look and see what's out there and where they're going to get the best deal."

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