Hunt around for the best online book bargains and save 60% on your next read

May 1
21:00

2004

Tukshad Engineer

Tukshad Engineer

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Book sales in the UK were reliant by the Net Book ... which since the early 1900s meant that UK ... were able to fix the price of books in their shops. However as ... and discount

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Book sales in the UK were reliant by the Net Book Agreement which since the early 1900s meant that UK publishers were able to fix the price of books in their shops. However as competition and discounting grew the NBA fell apart in 1995 and the fixing of book prices became outlawed - suddenly mainstream bookshops were able to offer discounts and special offers to their customers - the way things should be. These days there is even more competition and booksellers now face competition from supermarkets,Hunt around for the best online book bargains and save 60% on your next read Articles online stores and various other who all offer a variety of discount books. Things have never been better for the UK book buyer - a host of popular books are available at cheap prices as long as you're prepared to look around before you buy.
WHERE TO FIND DISCOUNTS BY BOOK TYPE
The extent to which you can save on books depends largely on what type of book you're looking for. It's also worth remembering that most fiction works will appear first on hardback (expensive and rather inconvenient to lumber around on the train) and then in paperback often a couple of months later - the paperback is always considerably cheaper.
If it's bestseller books you're after you can certainly save some cash by choosing the right place to buy it. Some booksellers will discount a range of titles while others will only discount titles from their own big sellers which leads to a difference in price for the same book. While the offline stores will generally offer a few pounds as a discount, but as always the highest discounts are available online with Amazon and others offering up to 50% on popular titles from time to time. We'll look at some bargain online retailers shortly.
Non Fiction & Academic Books are harder to get discounts on, but it's still possible to save money with these. Often books are over-printed and the glut of supply leads to sluggish sales and a perfect opportunity for discounts arise. Such titles are often found in discount stores shortly after being published. Most online stores also offer discounts on these types of books but you're unlikely to come away with serious bargains.
I'm sure you've seen some classic books being offered for £1 in famous bookshops. If this is your genre then you're in for some real treats as classics can sell at real bargain basement prices. This is because the copyright on UK books lasts 70 years after the author dies - after this time any publisher can issue their own version at reduced cost. Classic authors such as Dickens, Plato and Aristotle are just a few of the classic authors for whom you can pickup discounted books.
GENERAL OFFLINE SHOPS TO LOOK OUT FOR
Obviously the large well branded book stores are a good place to look out for the title of your choice. They frequently also hold sales where you can pick up some good cut price titles. It's also worth checking out discount bookshops - these shops will take on the excess books for which there was significant overprints. There are also several second hand book shops where you can pickup real bargains - books sell from as little as 20p in these shops and this is one fantastic way of making a profit (you can buy various books cheaply and resell it on ebay - see http://www.online-profits-today.com/ebayindex.htm for more on this). Book clubs are another good option, particularly if you are a regular reader. Aside from offering a range of premium and popular books many book clubs also offer their own titles at heavily discounted prices. Beware when joining such clubs - the initial discounts can be great (new books for as little as 50p) but there is usually a minimum number of books (at a higher price) that you will have to purchase for a contract period. This is not for the casual reader.
GO ONLINE FOR THE BIGGEST BARGAINS
It's possible to get very lucky with discounts if you're into shopping online. While http://www.amazon.co.uk/ offers some real treats for every book reader there are other online shops which you should bookmark. For example, http://www2.uk.bol.com/ has some great bargains and at the time of writing had 4 top class books at a 60% discount (and several books at 20% or more off). This is a standard, and not something out of the ordinary. For the online buyer some other stores representing good value are:
http://www.whsmith.co.uk - Again, has several promotions running all through the year. Check in here from time to time.
It's always worth remembering that the online market is never static. Continually look out for new online stores - often you will get heavy opening discounts as online stores try and buy customer loyalty.