Better World Books

Thanks to Bill, I've recently discovered a wonderful new online booksellter called BetterWorld.com. And since Bill described it so well, I'll just post what he said:

Better World Books. From their own description, they are an online bookseller with over a million titles available, who use their heft to sponsor and support literacy programs, make as little carbon footprint as they can, buy carbon offsets for the rest, provide actual human customer service, and have decent pricing as well.

From a consumer-y perspective, the main thing is that they offer free shipping on any books in the Continental US, and flat rate 2.97 per book anywhere else on the planet.

This is particularly good if you only want one or two books, as the difference in price that say, Amazon offers would be offset by their shipping costs unless you hit their minimum purchase amount for free delivery ($25 US, or $39 in Canada). It's also really good if you live in some godforsaken backwater (IE NOT in North America) and get raked over the coals for shipping.

And it gets to be an even better deal if you are concerned about the social issues.

Another thing that rox is the "Fund Local Literacy" search they have on the front page of their site, which shows you where you can buy local used books in order to support local literacy campaigns and libraries--these books are ALSO under the same shipping fees - free in the US, $2.97 per book anywhere else.

So far, I think this is a very good thing. Does anyone know of something like this that is Canada-local?

Check them out. The prices are just as low as Chapters or Amazon, but the shipping is WAY lower and they appear to at least be trying to do the Right thing.