Three Tips on How to Save Money on Books

I don’t read that much but every time I do it will always be about travel or any travel related literature. In the last (almost) two years of my backpacking in Asia I always make sure that I only spend a small amount of money buying books. Books can be very expensive especially if you buy often and if you buy a lot. But as I go on my travels, I learned a few tricks on how I could save money on books and audiobooks:

Borrow

Most hostels maintain a small library of books usually left by previous guest. You’ll be surprised sometimes on how wide and current the collection has become since most travelers opt not to carry books that they have finished already. You can always borrow from your hostel for free. If you’re also travelling with some friends, you can just swap and borrow the books as soon you finish reading it.

Trade or Sell

A lot of bookshops in main backpacker circuits often allow trading of books, some even buy used books. You can trade your book for another one sometimes for free and sometimes for an additional small amount of money depending on the condition and quality of your book. So make sure that you take care of the book so it could still have a high trade-in (or re-sale) value.

Download

The internet is a vast resource when it comes to reading materials. You can download a lot of books and audiobooks from various websites. Just make sure that these websites are legit and does not infringe copyright.

Additional Tip!

Use your Smartphone or Tablet as an Ebook Reader

Android phones are now cheap and powerful and there are a lot of reading applications that are available for free. Some of these apps are connected to free download sites such as Project Guttenberg and the choices of books especially of classics are almost limitless.

Photo Credits (Flickr Creative Commons): Bookshelf by neco