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Comment by aezell | Hacker News Reader

I stopped using AbeBooks when I stopped using Amazon. ThriftBooks and BetterWorldBooks are good alternatives unless you are on AbeBooks for antiquarian books.

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I would encourage people to support ThriftBooks. Used to compete against them when running KudzuBooks.com. Kudzu went bankrupt shortly after owner sold AcademicBookServices.com (used K-12 books) to Follett's used k-12 division. ThriftBooks has been around since the Kudzu days and have continued to run a tight ship and improve their site with little to no resources. It's good to see them around. Margins in the remainder business are extremely tight and it is difficult to get good remaindered stock with the consolidation of publishing houses and the closing of so many bricks and mortar stores. Remaindered book = book returned to the publisher who puts a black mark somewhere on the loose page ends and resells to bargain market (usually wholesalers) at 5-15% of retail price. They in turn get resold to brick and mortars for bargain book tables or online (should be sold "Like New" but some are sold "New" if the publisher forgot to mark the book).

Related question - are review copies considered "remaindered"? There's a store in NYC called Strand Books that is notable in it sells new hard cover releases priced about 5 to 10 dollars less than the cover price. The condition however is perfect on all these. I always suspected these were review copies.

I just went to check out thrift books and found something surprising. I looked up an old childrens book that’s an old favorite of mine and saw a review that looked really familiar and triggered something in my mind. I went over to Amazon and found the exact same review...word for word. I wonder what’s going on here...does Amazon sell review text to other vendors? Is there a public API for reviews that other sites can use?

+1 for BetterWorldBooks. They donate their profits to fund literacy programs. Plus free shipping. Love them.

> $28,421,885 Funds raised for literacy & libraries

Woah, that's cool. I'm definitely using this site. How can ‘they afford the free shipping?

Edit: And they ship free to Canada... no "free shipping" thing ever works to Canada unless you spend a lot of money.

I think they can afford free shipping via a couple of ways. First, there's book rate with the USPS that's used to ship books and reading materials at a discount. Second, since they're a nonprofit, albeit a B-Corp, they might qualify for an additional discount since they're a volume shipper.

I bought used textbooks from them years ago on Ebay (this was right as Amazon was getting popular/starting to dominate the market of online textbook sales) and I was rather satisfied. Got exactly what I ordered exactly in the condition stated in a reasonable time frame for a student-friendly price. Can't ask for much more than that.

AbeBooks is a great resource for older and out of print books. Amazon itself is completely overrun with trash-quality fly-by-night POD and counterfeit publishers. Even when you do find a legitimate copy, it's often ludicrously overpriced.

I buy a lot of antiquarian books, many of which are not just out of print, but in the public domain. YMMV.

Powell's, in Portland, OR, has an online arm.

https://www.powells.com

Local bookstores can typically order virtually anything.

> Local bookstores can typically order virtually anything.

This. Unless you're in the mindset that you need to buy something and you need to have it delivered now (why?), a local bookstore does the job. I typically order books on my closest one, all it takes is an e-mail or gasp I pass by and tell them what I want in person. Never failed.

Unless, you live in a town with no local bookstore, like I do. I can drive 20 minutes to a Barnes and Noble and that's my only option.

If it's not inprint aren't they likely ordering from ABE?

Alibris is a good option too.

Yes! I buy technical books here from the Seattle Goodwill "store". If you are in Seattle you can let them know you want to pick it up and they will refund you the shipping and you can usually pick it the next morning.

Thank you! I've used AbeBooks to get a hold of out of print books - there seems to be a number of Australian sellers that use it. Hopefully I can find a way to buy from them directly.

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