the biggest player in the space is http://bigwords.com
bigwords.com also only seems to work for textbooks.
For a timesaving tip, you can type any ISBN or keyword (title, author, etc), directly into the URL to save a few seconds. IE:
http://texts.com/b/Steve Jobs Walter
>>
http://texts.com/b/Steve%20Jobs%20Walter
>>
Book Depository is a weird thing; for a couple of years, I was unable to buy books there, because they had met some kind of weird quota for my country. Wonder what was up with that, but I assume it has to do with some tax-dodging deal in Jersey or wherever they're based.
On the downside, the books didn't ship for a week and I wasn't told there would be a delay (I just double-checked the order confirmation) or that a delay had arisen; I assumed the books had shipped until they told me a week later that they had just been mailed. When I asked why, they said they were having trouble sourcing them with suppliers. While these aren't best sellers, they are leading books in their field and commonly used in college classes on the subject. Also, shipping from the UK to the US takes a little while.
The upside is that shipping is free and that their mission sounds encouraging: (from their About page: http://www.bookdepository.com/aboutus#helpContent)
"Founded in 2004 to make 'All Books available to All' we focus on selling 'less of more' rather than 'more of less', differentiating ourselves from other retailers who increasingly focus on bestsellers."
"The Long Tail: why are we making as many books available as possible?
Of the 30 million titles ever printed in the English language only a few million of these are in print. We are seeking to make available as many of these titles as possible (and working to do the same with foreign language titles). This way, we will have the largest breadth of titles available in the world. Where books are no longer in print or poorly available we are seeking to make them available again by republishing. We do this through our Dodo Press imprint."
Amazon offers multiple different kinds of shipping with different prices. (I expect the other vendors do too, but haven't checked.) It looks as if Piranhas picks the default, but I'm a cheapskate and rarely have an emergency need for a book, and therefore tend to choose "super saver" delivery for any items it's available for. If we're comparing against shipping from overseas, this is clearly pretty reasonable.
It would be very cool if you could, e.g., indicate how quickly you want a book, and have Piranhas choose an appropriate shipping option for each vendor.
A shopping cart approach is something I've thought about, but I'm not sure when I'll have the time and/or energy to get it done…
One improvement that I would very much like to see is the ability to search for a set of books at once.
Thanks, and as Borat says, "big success"!
Also, what is Wordery; I hadn't heard of them. Why would I buy a book there rather than someplace else, other than price?
Is there a way to show what type(paperback, mp3, etc) somewhere in the title ?
