Buy new books at Barnes and Noble or through Bookshop.org, used books at ThriftBooks or a library sale, rare copies on AbeBooks, and digital editions through Kindle, Kobo, or Libro.fm. If you only want to read a title once, borrow it with a library card in the Libby app. The right store depends less on what you are reading than on three choices: print or digital, new or used, and whether you need to own the copy at all. Make those calls first and the cheapest legitimate source is usually obvious.
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Print, Digital, or Borrowed: Decide Before You Shop
A book is a bound or digital work sold as a single unit: either a physical copy you own outright or a licensed file you read on a device. That split decides whether you can resell it, lend it, or keep it if the store closes your account.
Hardcover. Releases first, survives rereading, and holds resale value. Signed and collectible copies are almost always hardcovers.
Trade and mass market paperback. Trade paperbacks match the hardcover page layout. Mass market paperbacks are the cheapest new print option, but the glued spines crack with heavy use.
Ebook and audiobook. No shelf space, instant delivery, no resale. Older audio releases still turn up on CD, which you can resell like print.
Buyer type matters too. Students need course texts on a deadline and often rent. Fiction readers chase new releases and backlist paperbacks. Parents replace picture volumes fastest. Collectors hunt signed printings, where condition decides everything. People who mostly read comics, manga, or magazines browse a different set of shops, and puzzle fans have their own guide to sudoku books.
Match the ISBN, Not the Title
Cover art, pagination, and even translations change between printings, which wrecks a class assignment or a collection. The ISBN (International Standard Book Number, the 13-digit identifier assigned to each edition and format) is the only reliable way to match an exact printing.
- Locate the 13-digit ISBN on the copyright page or above the barcode of the version you want.
- Search that number instead of the title, since a title search returns dozens of printings.
- Compare the results, checking publisher and print year against what you need.
- Confirm the seller photo or description matches before you order, especially on marketplace offers.
A comparison tool such as BookFinder searches thousands of dealers by ISBN at once. Always compare totals with shipping included: a cheap copy with high postage often loses to a pricier one with no shipping charge.
Where to Buy New Books
New copies sell for roughly the same amount almost everywhere, so the real differences are selection, membership discounts, and who gets the money.
Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million
Barnes and Noble is the largest dedicated bookstore chain left in the United States and carries the deepest in-person selection of any national retailer. It is also growing again: trade press reported in December 2025 that the chain planned about 60 new stores in 2026. A paid membership takes a percentage off most purchases, and the online free shipping threshold changes periodically, so confirm it at checkout.
Books-A-Million is the second national chain, concentrated across the South and Midwest, and it leans harder into bargain tables. Its Millionaire’s Club membership gives a 10% in-store discount and free standard shipping on eligible online items, according to the company’s support page. Remainder stock tends to surface here first.
Independent Bookstores and Bookshop.org
A local bookstore sells near cover but earns its keep on curation, special orders, author events, and staff who read the section they stock. Independents are where readers discover small-press work, zines, and signed local editions.
Bookshop.org is the online route to the same stores. Per its own support documentation, 10% of direct and affiliate sales go into a pool split evenly among independent bookstores every six months. A shop that runs its own Bookshop.org storefront collects 30% of the cover price on orders placed through it, and stores in that program must be American Booksellers Association members with a physical location. Orders ship from the wholesaler Ingram rather than the store’s shelves. The draw is where the money goes, not the lowest total.
Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Costco
Amazon #ad holds the largest catalog on the web across print, Kindle, and audio, plus textbook rentals that return by mail at semester end. Its marketplace also carries used copies, though condition depends on the individual seller. For the widest selection in one search, Check current pricing #ad. A reader on your gift list can turn Amazon gift cards into whatever format they prefer.
Target and Walmart stock a curated run of bestsellers and children’s titles in the media aisle, discounted off list. Costco carries a narrower rotation but sells new hardcovers at some of the deepest new discounts anywhere. None of the three will special-order a title they do not stock.
Where to Buy Used Books
Used copies are where the real savings live, and secondhand sellers share a grading vocabulary worth learning. Like New means almost no handling marks. Very Good allows light shelf wear. Good permits creasing and a cracked spine. Acceptable can include highlighting, a name written inside, or a damaged cover. The gap between Good and Acceptable is where most disappointment happens.
ThriftBooks. ThriftBooks is the default for cheap used stock. Its deals page lists free U.S. shipping on orders of $20 or more, and a ReadingRewards program earns points toward future orders. Grading is applied house-wide rather than seller by seller, which makes buying sight unseen more predictable.
Better World Books. Better World sells new and used stock and funds literacy programs from sales. In August 2026 it added an optional checkout donation toward shipping a container of donated books to Ethiopia through Books For Africa. Qualifying orders ship at no charge.
Half Price Books. Half Price Books runs on trade-ins, so shelves turn over constantly and prices sit well under retail. Bring your finished stack and the counter quotes a cash offer on the spot. Go in with a category in mind rather than one exact edition.
AbeBooks and eBay. AbeBooks aggregates independent dealers worldwide and is the first stop for rare, out of print, signed, and first-edition material, with condition notes written by people who handle the copies. eBay covers similar ground with real auction risk. Both are marketplaces, so shipping and returns are set dealer by dealer.
Library sales and thrift stores. Libraries clear donated and retired stock through sale carts and Friends of the Library fundraisers, usually at flat per-item rates well below any online seller, with hardcovers included. Goodwill and similar thrift shops land in the same range. Fill-a-bag days near the end of a sale are the best value you will find.
Ebooks and Audiobooks: Kindle, Kobo, Libro.fm, and Libby
Digital titles are licenses, not property, so pick the platform you will still be using in five years. The full breakdown sits in the guide to where to buy ebooks; the short version follows.
- Kindle (Amazon): the largest ebook store, with Kindle Unlimited as a monthly subscription to a rotating library. Purchases stay inside Amazon’s apps and devices.
- Kobo (Rakuten Kobo): the main alternative store, with Kobo Plus subscriptions for reading, listening, or both available only in select countries. Many Kobo eReaders also have library borrowing through OverDrive built in.
- Libro.fm: an audiobook store where you pick an independent bookstore and a portion of every purchase goes to it. Files are DRM-free, so you can download and keep them outside the app.
- Libby (by OverDrive): free ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines with a public library card. Libby replaced the old OverDrive app, which was retired in 2023, and loans and holds carried over.
Hoopla is a second library app at many systems, and Project Gutenberg and Open Library offer tens of thousands of public domain works with no card and no hold queue. Popular releases on Libby can carry waits of several weeks, so place holds early.
Store Comparison at a Glance
Each seller below wins on a different kind of order; none wins on all of them.
| Seller | Sells | Strongest for | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barnes and Noble | New print, ebooks | Browsing in person | Paid membership discount |
| Bookshop.org | New print | Supporting independents | 10% of sales pooled for indies |
| Amazon | New, used, Kindle, audio | Largest selection | Used condition varies by seller |
| ThriftBooks | Used, some new | Cheap secondhand copies | Free U.S. shipping at $20+ |
| AbeBooks | Used, rare, signed | Collectible editions | Each dealer sets shipping |
| Libro.fm | DRM-free audiobooks | Indie-supporting audio | You choose the store it supports |
| Libby | Library ebooks and audio | Borrowing at no cost | Needs a library card |
Red Flags Before You Pay
The most common mistake is paying full list for a novel that three used sellers stock for a fraction of it. The others cost more than money.
Counterfeit print runs. Marketplace sellers occasionally ship pirated copies of popular titles. Symptoms include gray-looking text, misaligned margins, thin paper, and a cover with slightly wrong colors. Order from a seller with a long feedback history, or from the retailer itself.
International editions sold as domestic. Textbooks printed for overseas markets are legal to own but often carry different problem sets and page numbering. Sellers bury that information at the bottom of the description. Match the ISBN and the problem disappears.
Inflated out of print listings. Algorithmic resellers push scarce copies to absurd prices, sometimes hundreds of dollars for a copy that trades cheaply elsewhere. Cross-check a second used marketplace and AbeBooks before paying.
Pirated download sites. Free full-text copies of in-copyright work are not legal, and those sites are a common malware route. Libraries and Project Gutenberg cover the same need without the risk.
Ways to Pay Less, or Nothing
Four habits cut the cost of reading more than any single store choice.
Rent course texts you will not keep. Renting costs a fraction of buying new, and Chegg, Amazon, and most campus stores rent. The campus bookstore is the safest source for a required edition because it stocks exactly what the instructor assigned, though it is rarely the cheapest. Renting is the wrong call for anything in your major, since you hand it back.
Look for remainder copies. A remainder is unsold new stock the publisher clears at a deep discount, marked with a stripe or dot on the page edges. The interior is untouched. Bargain tables at chain stores are where these surface.
Preorder the books you want most. Large retailers generally charge the lowest price they advertise between the preorder and release day, and preorders arrive on release day. Signed and exclusive printings sell out inside that window.
Use the library first. Branches lend print and digital material at no cost, and interlibrary loan reaches almost anything else. Plenty of great reads never need to be bought at all.
Start with the ISBN of the exact edition you want. Then check three places in order: your library catalog or Libby, a used seller like ThriftBooks, and the new price at Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, or Amazon. If you love it enough to reread, buy print; if you will read it once, borrow it. Checking books that way turns one advertised price into a real range.
Common Questions Before You Order
Is it cheaper to buy online or in a store?
Used copies are almost always cheaper when you buy books online, often by half. New releases land closer together once chain promotions, membership discounts, and warehouse club prices are counted. Library sales beat both.
Does Bookshop.org really pay independent stores?
Yes. According to Bookshop.org, 10% of its sales go into a pool divided evenly among independent bookstores every six months, and a store that sells through its own Bookshop.org page earns 30% of the cover price on those orders. You can shop from a specific store’s page to direct your money to it.
Should you rent or buy a textbook?
Rent when the course is a one-off and the edition changes often. Buy used when the subject is your major, because a resold copy recovers part of the cost and a rental recovers none. Check the campus store for the required ISBN first.
Can I read for free legally?
Yes. Public libraries lend print and digital titles at no charge, and the Libby and Hoopla apps handle that access from a phone. Project Gutenberg and Open Library host tens of thousands of public domain works with no card required, which is the legitimate alternative to pirated files.
Which audiobook store supports independent bookstores?
Libro.fm is the main one. You choose an independent bookstore when you sign up, a portion of every audiobook purchase goes to that store, and the files are DRM-free. Libby is the no-cost option if you would rather borrow audio through your library.
About This Guide
Editorial review: wheretobuyguides.com team. Retailer links and program terms (Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, Books-A-Million, Libro.fm, Libby) checked October 2026.