Book Search Tips: A Guide to Finding Out-of-Print Books on the Net

Databases

These websites are all searchable. That means that you can input an author and/or a title, and you'll receive a list of available items. When using any of these, remember that it's usually best to use as few keywords as possible. You can add keywords if the search returns too many results.

Say you are looking for Across the River and Into the Trees byErnest Hemingway, then you should just use Hemingwayin the author field, and Across the River in the title field.

Remember also that booksellers occasionally make typing errors. If you can't find the book you are looking for, eliminate either author or title and try searching on a single field.

Don't be intimidated by the international sites. European booksellers are much more likely to be multilingual than North Americans. And almost all will ship anywhere in the world.

Advanced Book Exchange It seems to have the biggest inventory.
Alibris
Antiqbook - Based in the Netherlands, this database is broken into several sections: books before 1900, books after 1900, and maps & prints. A very good source for European titles. Probably the biggest European database.
Antiquarian Books in Scandinavia
Biblio.com
Bibliofind - Amazon purchased Bibliofind in June 1999, saying they'd keep it running. They eventually integrated it into their site, then scuttled it.
Biblion - British.
Bibliophile.net - A multilingual site, offering French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English language listings. You can register wants, and be emailed when a match occurs.
Biblioroom - French/Belgian.
Book Avenue- Allows you to save your wants, and be emailed when a match occurs. Has auctions as well.
Clik-Books - British.
Independent Booksellers Network - British
Galaxidion - A French Database.
IberLibro - Spanish.
JustBooks - British site, purchased by the Advanced Book Exchange.
JustBooks.de - Same site but in German
Livre-rare-book - French.
MyOwnBookShop
Rarebooks.ch - Swiss.
Tom Folio A bookseller-owned cooperative database.
UKBookWorld - British.
World Book Dealers - Limited to members of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB). Seems to consist of high-end specialists. If you are looking for something very rare, this might be the place.
Zentrales Verzeichnis Antiquarischer Bücher - A German database.
Barnes & Noble - They are now offering out-of-print titles. Quite similar to the Alibris setup, except that their listings actually come from Alibris and ABE. You'll pay the Barnes & Noble markup on top of the listing price.
Powell's Books - A bookstore in Portland, Oregon - well, actually, it's several bookstores. And cumulatively, they have a heckuva big inventory. There are some very good deals to be had. The interface is very clean, and you can search through everything from all of their stores, both new and used, as well as many markdown items. Keep in mind that they don't bother to describe the book's condition in their listings.
BookCloseouts- A discount bookstore. They have a fairly small inventory (mainly remainders), but if you can find what you want, the prices are really terrific.
Amazon.com Books - Amazon takes orders and does searches for out-of-print books. However, for the most part, they look for their books in the databases above, so you'll find it cheaper to do yourself (although you may prefer to have them do all the work for you...). They also have Auctions, and zShops (a sort of mall operation - quite a few books listed there)
Chapters Indigo - A Canadian chain store. Sells new books only, but sometimes has books which are out-of-print in other countries.
Amazon UK - Again, sells new books only, but may have books which are out-of-print in North America.
Half.com - All prices are at least half of current retail, and sometimes much lower. Some good deals can be found here.