Buying used books? Why not. It’s a cheap way to afford a book not by its cover but its content.

Living in Indonesia, usually we are accustomed to buying brand new books, glossy cover, and white color paper. Although paper is cheap here, but sometimes we need to think about saving money as well as saving the earth. We are not ready yet for buying second products, books in this case.

Local produced books are always cheaper than imported books, but you only get about half the knowledge because local writers don’t have time and effort to write hundreds of pages book. If they write 200+ pages, editor will kick their ass and ask them to trim into less than less than 100 pages. Yeah, thick books don’t sell well in Indonesia.

For online book shopping, we can use Gramedia Online, pay with credit card or transfer, and it will be shipped within 3-4 days to any Indonesia address. This online stores in not comprehensive, not all titles available as they are available in Gramedia stores in malls.

Now, if you are interested in imported books (a.k.a English written books), the most famous one is Amazon.com. Not only they sell books, they sell everything from electronics to house related things. And may be you don’t know this, Amazon also sells used items.

Just like this example, a brand new book of DK Eyewitness London is sold at USD 16.50, while used books (if available) can be purchased only with USD 5.00. That’s a great saving!

Continue reading →