Now that the price of a gallon of gas in the US is creeping nearer and nearer to the price of gas in the rest of the world, people are paying more attention to what they spend and how much they drive. I live in New Jersey and work in Manhattan, so I cross two types of driving cultures in my day. In Manhattan, there’s about fourteen bazillion different types of mass transportation I could choose, from subways to trains to cabs to pedi-cab bikes to buses—to helicopters if I’m feeling really frisky. Most people don’t own cars, because it costs as much as the car itself is worth to park that car for a day. Or an hour.
In New Jersey, it’s the land of the big box store and the land of driving pretty much everywhere. I once received some mass email that told me, and no word as to whether this is true or not, at any given moment, no matter where you are in New Jersey, you are never more than 15 miles from a mall. That’s a lot of malls. And a lot of mall hair.
But I have a feeling that the time of shopping as entertainment and driving to a mall to do so is rapidly coming to an end – not that I spend much time shopping as a form of joyful enterprise. There are some things, however, which I will always shop for, and which are not entertainment purchases or miscellaneous items in my budget. Up there with items like “mortgage,” “health care,” “food,” and “more food, oh my God with the EATING,” is an immovable entry: books.
No matter how high the price of gas, by hook or by crook, I will buy me some books. Maybe they will be digital Kindle books, or maybe they will be paper books, but there will be books. It’s not optional.
So what do folks like us do when the price of a gallon of gas is nearly the price of a paperback? Good question. Here are some options:
1. Obvious: the library. If you have a local library, the books are free, cheezy bread, free. Head on over, get yourself a library card, and gorge on the awesomeness.
My local library participates in a rather kickin’ program called ListenNJ, in which patrons can download and check out audio books for free, with a limit of five titles for a 10 day loan period. That’s kick ASS right there.
But what if library wonderment isn’t an option? Coupons and cheaper options ahoy!
2. Obvious, Part Deux: Used Bookstores Every now and again there’s a minor kerfuffle over used bookstores, with some authors loathing them and the lost profit, and some readers who can’t reach for the $9 paperback pricepoint loving every moment of their local used store’s hours of business. I’m personally a big fan of the local used store in my area, because it’s a treasure trove of cover snark, it’s bloody huge, it’s up the road from my favorite pet supply store, and it smells like Used Books, which is about as good as New Car and New Baby smells. So if you like to own, abuse, and drop your books in the bathtub without worrying over lost dollars, used stores rock. And seriously, the cover snark potential is just awesome.
And if you don’t like #1 and #2? Damn you’re picky.
#3: Start haunting your local bookstore’s rewards program. I work near a Borders, so I’ve got a Borders Rewards account, and every now and again I get a coupon for 20% off a purchase, or an opportunity to buy three books from a selected list, and get the fourth free. For my birthday, I received a 25%-off-one-item coupon, and I’d say I get at least a coupon a month, though I don’t necessarily use them all. Borders’ program is free to join.
Barnes and Noble also has a membership club, which offers bigger discounts on every purchase, but costs $25 to join. With their membership you get 40% hardcover bestsellers, 20% adult hardcovers (rwor!), and 10% off almost everything else. There are also member email newsletters with additional discounts. Personally, I don’t buy enough hardcover books that this is worth it for me, but I did learn something clever. A book club I know of signed up for a membership by pooling $5 a person. All you need to access the membership discount is the phone number of the member who joined. So if you round up a posse and join together, you can all access the membership benefits via one phone number.
Rounding out the big box book survey, Books a Million also has a discount club, which, for $15.00 a year, offers an additional 10% off every purchase.
If big box stores are not to your liking, and you prefer your local independent, try talking to the owner or manager about your book habit and see if there’s a discount they would be willing to offer you in exchange for goods or services you might provide. That might be a longshot since everyone is tightening the fiscal belt these days, but you never know if they might need some graphic design work, a newsletter template, some help at busy times, or what.
And what about publishers? Do they feel your pain? Oh, yes. Your inability to buy as much as you like is their pain, too. So keep your eye out for #4: Publisher Specials From package deals like Harlequin’s current buy three get the fourth free deal, to the one that caught my eye at my last trip to the store: Kensington’s Zebra Debut program.
You might have noticed the books on the shelf – they retail for $3.99 or $4.99, and are marketed as “tomorrow’s bestsellers at yesterday’s prices.” Yeah, if my local gas station had a sign like that, the line would stretch into Pennsylvania.
I asked Kate Duffy all kinds of nosy questions, and she said that the program “was the brainchild of the publisher, Laurie Parkin. It was her idea of a possible way to build a bigger audience for a brand new author.It has been very successful. Very. Sally MacKenzie was our first debut author to hit the USA Today list with her subsequent “Naked” titles. But for every debut author, initial print orders were increased beyond what we used to experience.”
Historicals, Duffy says, in particular are doing well in that program, and the line is exclusively for authors who have never before been published. Their first book is priced at $3.99, and the second novel is priced at $4.99.
And what’s the very, very best kind of book? See #1 – the free book. Duffy has offered up the six June, July and August releases for the Zebra Debut program, including Dark and Dangerous by Jeanne Adams, Lord Scandal by Kalen Hughes (which I reviewed and gave away copies of in May), Her One Desire by Kimberly Killion, To Wed a Highlander by Michele Sinclair, Lost in You by Alix Rickloff, and A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure by Victoria Dahl.
I’ll do a random comment drawing here to select six lucky folks who will each receive a free book – woo! So drop a comment, and if you’re so inclined, share your secret for feeding your need to read when you’re short on green (or red or blue or whatever color your currency is). Comments are open for 24 hours starting now.
I buy from our local indie, steal my husband’s B&N;card to take advantage of the discounts there, and have just recently gotten sucked into Amazon’s 4-for-3 program. Oddly enough, even though I live across the street from my local library (literally…I could throw a rock and hit it), I don’t tend to check out library books very often, probably because I’m a re-reader and tend to get things I know I’ll want to read more than once.
My library offers a lot of its material in ebook versions to download and read at home without even going to the library so saves on gas too.
Honestly I still can’t stop buying books though. I tend to buy from Amazon because they have decently cheap prices and free shipping, which I of course make sure I spend $25 for.
You just need to have my mom around. The woman gobbles up like ten books a week, 95% of them romance. She leaves a trail of them, like rose petals, in her wake.
I’m not as poor as I used to be, and don’t stint myself on books because of price (very much, anyway). My big problem is space. I can’t keep all my books, and have to ruthlessly purge them WAY more often than I want to. And my local library is small and has limited selection, and I have NO patience to wait for new releases.
Before last summer, I never had a TBR pile. I’d buy books and read them. If it took me all weekend to go through my Thursday bonanza (the day when the stores get new stuff in, where I live), that’s what I did (‘cause I’m single and have no kids or pets, so I can, so there!). Now, thanks to you bitches and your recommendations, I have a TBR pile, and it has more than a dozen books in it, and I don’t have any more room!
I guess I’ll have to start shopping for an e-reader. Damn it.
I dont know if anyone has mentioned this yet or not, but Borders offers text message discount coupon codes. I just signed up last week and received a coupon code for 25% off one item that was good till the end of last week and then received another coupon code yesterday good for this week. I love it! I hate printing coupons because I forget to pull them off the printer or leave them on the desk. Arrgh! With the text message, all you need to do is show them the message. Love it!
I’m so jealous of people whose libraries carry more than a token selection of romances. My branch of the DC public library has so few new ones that it’s definitely not an option for 99% of the books I want to read. What they do have is fantastic book sales. It’s surprising how many good romance novels I’ve found at those sales when one considers that hardly anyone I know would dream of admitting she reads romance (except me, of course). Each branch library has its own Friends of chapter, and each holds its own book sales, so there are several opportunities a year to score books cheap.
Other than that, I try to buy midlist authors new so that they’ll sell enough to keep their contracts. I’ve got both the B&N;and Borders rewards cards, so that helps a bit. But I buy a huge proportion of OOP and older books at a wonderful UBS in a nearby suburb. It specializes in romance and the owner is knowledgable and very friendly, so going there is fun and informative. And as a DC resident I’ve even taken advantage of the Library of Congress, which does, much to its own surprise, carry romances.
Randi, $173 saved? AWESOME!
I signed up with booksfree.com for a while, and really liked the service—like Netflix, but with books. I think either SB Sarah or Candy touted this website a long time ago?? I’ve been meaning to sign up again and hopefully get some OOP titles I can’t find anywhere else. Nice deal.
Comment!
This isn’t particularly conducive to choosing what you read, but when money’s short or I can’t bring myself to picking out crisp new books, I go down to the local thrift store associated with the school district or a non-profit and buy the books there for less than $1. Yeah, it isn’t great if you want something in particular, but I’ve picked up some awesome stuff, both romance and not!
I’m a booksfree junkie, I have over 150 books on my list right now. I have my certain authors though that are “must buys” and I usually buy from either Walmart or Target where they’re 25% off or do the 4 for 3 thing on Amazon, which works out the same way.
I hope you didn’t think I said this because I agree with you.
God, this wine is really getting to my head. No, wherever that money ends up, whoever’s pocket it goes into, I’m not going to be one spending the money anymore to line it. Take my SUV, $75.00 a week for a tank of gas—that’s, um, (can tipsy woman here count?) $300 a month and I only run errands and go to coffee shops and cafes to write. Unless I’m really stressed out over a book and then I go to the Cheesecake factory, sit at their bar and have mojitos…
Ok. Cheyenne has officially had too much wine tonight.
Zipper25. Zip my mouth?
SB, Sarah, that is so awesome. I live in Arizona, so it’ll be the opposite—A/C blasting 4-5 months a year and the rest of the year barely use the heat. I’m glad to hear you like it. They look so sharp. They’re backordered 3 freaking months here, but I’ll get mine eventually—I’m in line.
I love my local library! The only bad thing is that they have so many books that they’re having to downsize their collection, so not as many are available to check out. However, that means I can buy the downsized books for cheap!
I work a block away from our nationally-ranked main library and live about half a mile from a branch library, so it should be easy for me to utilize such a wonderful service. However, I only go there for the book sales. Not because they aren’t wonderful, knowledgeable people (they are). Not because they don’t carry romance (they do). It’s because I am very good at taking books. I’m also lousy at returning them. So rather than rack up a boatload of fines, I just buy the books outright, then give away, donate or trade them later… provided I can part with them at all, that is.
I buy books from all over, but try to at least get them at some sort of discounted/sale price, be it through Sam’s or Costco, Wally’s and grocery stores or online. I am also blessed to have pals on some of the online paperback swap sites who will order for me the OOP ones I can’t find locally. And I also have a friend who has a monthly book budget that is higher than many people’s rent. Seriously. She’s the most voracious reader I’ve ever met, in all genres. She goes through books like water through a sieve. I inherit a lot of her cast-offs and duplicates that she’s forgotten she already read, and also use her B&N;discount card. In addition, she put my name on her account at the UBS, since she has thousands of dollars in UBS credit … I KNOW!!!
… and it’s more than she’ll ever use up on her own.
Diane
My local used bookstores stocks a few new books – JD Robb, vampire/paranormal, Robert Crais and a few others – and discount them at 20% off the cover price. They also offer a 20% discount off any special order. You might check to see if your local used/independent bookstore will do the same
Speaking of gas and oil, my mind is boggling. I heard on the news today that the US government is voting to outlaw the use of oil from tarsands in military and postal service vehicles, because it’s dirty oil—causes environmental destruction to produce. Which it totally does, and I’m not going to get all defensive about that (having lived my whole life smack dab in the middle of the tarsands, I can go out my back door and dig some out of the riverbanks, and it’s the raison d’etre for my home town).
But seriously, the US is willing to invade Iraq for oil, but is too good to use tarsand oil? What the hell?
I used the library as much as possible. Requesting books so I don’t have to drive to the different branches. Also plan one day to go to UBS and goodwill. By doing it all in one day I save money on gas. Books I pay $1.49 at goodwill can be traded to the UBS for $3.50 to 4.00 credit.
And when all else fails? Reread favorites.
I love my local library, not only do they have an excellent selection both at the headquarters and at the various branch libraries and if they don’t have it they can usually order anything but new books through interlibrary loan for only $1 per item. They also recently started selling paperbacks for a quarter…don’t know how long it will last but I am taking advantage (this despite my vow not to buy any more books until I made a real dent in my TBR pile which now hovers at about 200 books). Alas I have the self-control of a 4 year old.
Speaking of no self-control, I am also constantly suckered by Amazon’s 4 for 3 deals (the only books stores are miles from my house and I don’t have a car so I also love amazon).
I have found books as low as $1.84 by browsing all the eligible 4 for 3 book deals on Amazon. If you factor in free shipping handling and the fact that I don’t have to pay taxes it was like stealing it but less criminal.
Zebra’s pricing plan is a very good idea…I bought Lord Sin because it was only $3.99 when usually with new authors I try to get the books thru the library or at least booksfree first.
The bookstores here in Cairo are very expensive and don’t have much variety so I tend not to shop in them and I don’t have access to the only library in the neighborhood. So locally I rely on a used bookstore that isn’t too bad. It isn’t huge and the “romance” section is mostly populated by Danielle Steele, Fern Michaels, and Nora Roberts BUT sometimes you can find gems mixed into the “fiction” section – found my first copies of Jennifer Crusie books there.
Otherwise, I have been relying on my ebookwise reader for books. I love it – when I can get it to talk to my desktop, which it has been refusing to do lately and tech support is ignoring me.
This post has given me a serious desire to take a walk down to the used bookstore this morning and see what I can see… especially since it’s the time of year when many people leave Cairo for good and purge books….
I, being a poor lowly student with a reading habit bigger than her bank account, use my University’s fiction Library. It has most of the older title I want, but doesn’t seem to update except with authors that are popular… which makes sense, but isn’t so useful for people who read obscurely. I don’t really use my local library, not enough variety.
If all else fails I can usually convince my mother that she should buy a book for me. Works sometimes.
Also, free books for me?
Even though I’m in Australia?
A lot of my local used book stores don’t really have romance books – they have 3 Danielle Steels and 1 Marian Keyes book, all at least 10 years old. 🙁 Occasionally I get lucky, though.
As for suggestions – if you’re Australian, the exchange rate with the US dollar is quite good now, so you can order books from Amazon or other US online booksellers and have them shipped to you and *still* save money. Crazy!
Which might get expensive, though, especially if your tastes tend to lean towards 19th-century guide books. *ggg*
I just bought a copy of Lord Carew’s Bride at my local Salvation Army thrift store for 50 cents. The SA gets $ for charity, I get a great book for cheap, it all works out!
I love my library and visit often. Only problem is often SBTB will review something that sounds great but I can’t get it. Maybe not for a long time before it shows up on the library database. I still want to read The Spymaster’s Lady but it’s not available yet and I’ll probably have to get it from Amazon. Which I find frustrating because then I have to shell out for more books in order to get the free shipping because it’s obscene to pay £6 on a book and then £4 for them to ship it to me. May as well add to the till and get free shipping. It’s not like I need cheap wine this month.
I wonder how one can get a job as buyer for the public library?
My local library system gives away old books being taken out of circulation for free. People are also allowed to bring in books they no longer want and take whatever they wish off the cart at no charge.
The volunteers in our hospital stock the book shelf in our family room with fairly new free books that are available to anyone who wants them. I hadn’t read Harlequin in decades til I started going in there and pilfering the stash during long night shifts. I put them back when I’m done, but patients and family members are encouraged to take them home if they wish.
I enter contests, and win occasionally *g*. Many authors have give aways on their blogs/websites. My favoritest Shiloh Walker has a monthly giveaway.
Also, I’ve gotten a surprising amount of books by emailing my fangurly squees to my fave authors. I have a whole bookshelf full of autographed books, and my library walls are decorated with original art sent by my fave cover artists. Anne Caine rocks!!
#5- get a part time job at Border’s and get a 33% discount on all books! That’s the reason I work there. Even when I go back full time I will keep working one day a month just to keep my discount.
The Borders Rewards club actually gives members 40% off bestsellers while non members get 30%. And the weekly email always has a coupon of at least 20% off anything. The coupons are tailored to the membership though so sometimes they are 20, 25, 30 or 40% off. Also they show up on the cell phones if you choose to get them- so that is 2 coupons (I hate the one coupon per purchse/per day rule, so I break it). And there is usually one that goes out on Sunday or Monday that is usually a really good one.
I am in Jersey right now, getting ready to go home from vacation and will be filling up my tank before I hit NY. For once I didn’t do any mall shopping while I was here- it didn’t rain! But then I didn’t get to Cape May or Ocean City either which sucks. But I did get to play pool monster with my twin grandsons!
Ooh, I hope I’m not too late! Fingers crossed!
I have to say, I love getting library books. I’m in grad school and shelf space is at a premium. So unless it’s a *very* good book that I know I will reread repeatedly, I’m glad to get them out of the house.
Me and a couple chicas from work pass books around. Not only do you save $$ but you have something to talk about while working.
Free books! The best kind, no doubt. I buy audiobooks from Audible.com. They don’t have everything, but they’re getting better, and the prices are much better than buying new on tape or CD. Sometimes, they’re better than buying used, too. You have to be a member to get the best prices, but the subscription buys you a certain number of book credits per month, so it’s not an additional charge.
Let me be the nth person to tout paperbackswap, bookmooch and booksfree.
I get free books from my building’s laundry room. Someone has a SERIOUS Harlequin Blaze habit, and when s/he’s done leaves them on the table down there. I take them, list them on Paperbackswap and voila! Free books! I also buy books from my local library’s sales for a quarter. Money to a good cause, and when I’m done reading they either go to the keeper shelf or to paperbackswap to be recycled for new-to-me books. Postage can add up, but it’s still way less than the cost of buying new.
My son’s nursery school has a take one, leave one box which I have made great use of, but it’s mostly biographies and dry historical non-fiction. I try to spice it up a little with the things I leave—they don’t stay there long.
The Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia, MO has a HUGE selection. They used to have them pulled out and just sort of in rotating displays that were impossible to go through. Now they have the Harlequin, etc. in one section to themselves, and all other romance authors are in with the main fiction, which is also very cool. Went there last night. Picked up four Lisa Klepas and a J. R Ward, and am just finishing Gabaldon’s Brotherhood of the Blade which is also quite good). Oh, and though I can’t find Lori G. Armstrong’s books at B&N;, they’re at the library.
As for gas prices. Killing me. Absolutely killing me. I show dogs. I have a Ford Windstar that gets 17 mpg. Just going back and forth to work I’m spending over $75 a week. How much over? I don’t know. I’ve run into the gas pump cutoff valve. It only allows you $75 at a time. that lasts me about 6 days. I’d love a Prius but a) can’t afford one, b) can’t fit two Dobermans and a Min Pin in it, and c) there’s apparently a 15,000 strong waiting list for those suckers right now.
No solution for me at the moment but I haven’t given up hope.
I have an addiction to Paperbackswap.com and Bookmooch.com, where you can trade books for just the price of postage. If I HAVE to have something, I buy it at Borders with my Borders Rewards card, but if I can wait I put it on my wishlist at PBS or bookmooch.
I pretty much do a little bit of everything that has been mentioned.
However, 2 suggestions based upon previous comments :
1- Someone mentioned they had a B & N gift card that they hadn’t used because the store was too far away . . . you can use a/the GC online. Plus, if/when you spend $25 = free shipping!
B- If you are a member, or no someone who is, of either Costco or Sam’s Club (I belong to both via work, which pays for it) all the books they sell are generally 45% off the cover price.
I work for a non-profit organization and our Librarian has dedicated shelf space to “freebies.” Staff can drop off their already reads and pick up anything on the shelves. You can keep whatever you really like and return anything you don’t just have to have for someone else to read. So far, no one has taken the opportunity to discar old college textbooks or other drek!
Love my library – the branch is less than a mile away, and it’s hooked up with a bunch of other city libraries in the area. I make my requests online, and the Book Fairies deliver them to my branch free of charge. I can get on the waiting list early for major-release hardbacks.
Rediscovered the majesty of the Goodwill store last weekend. Had to go in to get a cheap VCR for my daughter to destroy at science camp this week, and lo, they were having a sale on all romance novels – 10 cents each. And there it was, a Suzanne Brockmann Harlequin Intrigue in the original cover from 1996. Squee!
My best strategy not mentioned in the post is sharing with a group of friends. (This works best with long series.)
Everyone chooses a series to buy, and the new books are traded around. The books in transit are collateral – if you don’t return books or return them damaged, you aren’t loaned new ones and your ones not in your possession aren’t returned. This way you can read and discover more series.
A life without books is unacceptable so my penny pinching tips include: Amazon Visa card, library card, paperbackswap.com, half.com and campusi.com
Also, make friends with your librarian! I love the ladies who work in the branch I visit most often and they are so helpful. They will often buy the books I suggest and can help me quickly arrange an interlibrary loan for those books the library will not buy.
It is tough right now, isn’t it? I can’t believe how expensive even the paperbacks have gotten. It all adds up really quickly.
But, when in a tough economy and still hungry for a major book fix, I believe in getting creative.
Here are my latest resources:
1. The library.
2. booksfree.com (I received a gift membership at Christmas, and I’m enjoying it. My biggest complaint is the sometimes long waiting lists with popular books. Not unlike the library in that way.)
3. Reading from my very extensive TBR mountain, which leads me straight to …
4. The used book stores. I’m pretty lucky to be near a couple with good selections. I trade in the books I’ve read and am sure I’ll never read again for books I want to read.
5. Braking for used book sales at libraries.
6. Looking for sales and savings at the chains.
I do still purchase new books, just not as many as I used to.
Since I work in an elementary library, I probably shouldn’t have to buy juvy lit, but I cannot help it. It’s a serious problem, compounded by the fact that my library clearly does not have Loretta Chase or George R. R. Martin. The Tucson library and Friends of the Library sale are, thankfully, both awesome and we have great used book stores and a ton of thrift stores. Still, I’m considering signing up for one of those netflix-for-books services. My other plan right now is to empty out our change jar, take it to a CoinStar machine, and turn it into an Amazon gift card (I think they charge less of a fee if you get a card instead of cash. I guess I could get a gift card for groceries or something, but. . . why?) and then get Amazon’s 4-for-3. So, basically I’m subsidizing my book habit with the BF’s leave-my-loose-change-lying-all-over-the-house habit.
I, too, make good use of my Borders and B&N;rewards memberships. The local library is a wash as they take forever go get new books in – and by the time they do I’ve already read them. Often go to Good Will and have often found some great reads. What I mostly do, however, when short of cash or gas, is pull out one of the hundreds of “Keepers” I have stashed in boxes all over the house. Since I don’t keep these old books in any certain order, I’m always pulling out a surprise – a favorite book that I haven’t read for many years.