A few yeas ago I was looking for the 3 volume hard cover “The Complete History of Middle Earth” and could not find it anywhere in Australia. One of the local bookstores pointed me to abebooks.com (bad mistake on their part – I have not been back since) and ever since I have only ever purchased books from there.

Abebooks seems to be a clearing house for a plethora of independent booksellers around the world. They sort on price and often the books are ex library or on one occasion a “Not For Sale” review copy. Mostly I select New or good condition books and I have never found the description far from the description. They have both new and second hand.

And my hard cover series …. I got it new in wrapper for $30 less each than the local price (if they were available) including freight and one cover was slightly bent on the corner from the shipping.

Didn’t I see a demo of this for the iPhone in the past few months? Back then, it wasn’t something I was impressed by. Now that the economy is in the toilet, I’ve reconsidered!

Cool ,James.

Not meant as personal criticism or anything, but I am sure you realize that Android Scan in the case of book stores is just killing itself: Borders isn’t exactly doing well (they put themselves up for sale) and a lot of independent booksellers at least here in CA have in recent years gone out of business. And if more people followed your approach, they’ll soon find no more Borders to go to (to look for books before buying them elsewhere).

Yes, I buy from Amazon, too.