Cheap Reads: 6 Tips to Save on Books

Buying a book at the suggested retail price might be a bigger mistake than judging it by its cover.

Flat sales, savvier readers and the emergence of new players in the retail and online marketplace are keeping the pressure on sellers to offer more books at a discount.

Book sales have held steady over the past year. Consumers spent roughly $2 billion on books in August 2009, about the same as August of last year, according to the National Retail Federation, which tracks sales.

And shoppers are hunting for bargain (and often secondhand) reads, while retailers are dropping prices even on new titles to make sales, says Daniel Butler, the NRF’s vice president of merchandising and retail operations.

Last week, Wal-Mart (WMT) started an online bookseller battle when it announced it would offer 10 bestsellers for $10 each on its web site. Amazon.com (AMZN) promptly matched that deal. And by late Friday, both retailers had dropped their prices again, Wal-Mart to $8.99 and Amazon to $9.

Target (TGT) joined the fray Monday, offering the same selection for $8.99 on its site. For two books on the list, Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” ($29) and Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” ($35), the online price cut amounts to discounts of 69% and 74% respectively.

“Wal-Mart is so huge they can afford to lose money on a few books,” says Larry Witt, an analyst with Morningstar who covers online commerce. The retail giant needs the attention of extreme specials to bulk up its online business, which is “woefully behind” that of competitors Amazon and Target, Witt says. (Wal-Mart will not be offering the same deals in stores.)

Booksellers are also betting customers will buy more than one deeply discounted bestseller, says Scott Testa, an assistant professor of business administration at Calibri College in Radnor, Pa. “Retailers know consumers hate to pay for shipping,” he says. A customer who buys Amazon’s $9 copy of Dean Koontz’s “Breathless” might be tempted to spend another $16 on other items during that transaction to get free shipping on the whole order.

Don’t fret if your reading list doesn’t match your retailer’s short list of discount bestsellers. Try these six ways to snag your next book for less: