Comparing book prices
Ever noticed the huge variation in book prices across bookstores and across countries? Wondered if you might do better with your book purchases if only you had the time to search across suppliers yourself? Asked yourself how you can track down books that weren’t published in the last couple of months? Here’s an Australian site that will do the searching for you: https://booko.com.au
Booko’s mission statement says this:
‘Booko is a site with a very simple goal - to find the cheapest place to buy books & DVDs. This site started out as a personal itch and has slowly grown into a very handy site, slowly adding more shops for comparison and more features to make it easier to use.’
The bookshops searched are not only in Australia but are all over the world. Booko began sourcing books from just a few bookstores in 2007 and has expanded so that it can now search 64 online stores that are located all around the world. It calculates the shipping cost to your home country, converts the price into your own currency, and ranks the data from cheapest to the most expensive.
While Booko has been going for some time, I’ve only just come across it and I have a friend to thank for the introduction.
It’s great for writers, who are often asked where their books can be purchased: they can direct readers to Booko.
It’s great for readers, who want to know which book supplier offers the book or the e-book at the best price.
Of course if you’re looking for a newly published book and you’re lucky enough to still have a vibrant bookstore near you, you might not want to go down this route. After all, local bookshops need all the help they can get in these times of rapidly changing technology.
But if you’re looking for a book that wasn’t published in the last few months or if you don’t have a local bookstore near you, you may have to go online for your book purchases. And with the summer holiday season fast approaching, now is a terrific time to learn where to buy your books at the best price. Happy browsing!
