UNT alumni business rents books, helps you save money
It's a common phenomenon. By the end of the first one or two college semesters, students and their parents realize just how quickly course text book values plummet. After a student spends a few hundred dollars to buy a brand new text book, he or she may only recover pennies on the dollar when they sell it back to the bookstore – if the store will buy the book at all.
Even if a student works out a deal to sell the book to another student taking the same course later, it's unlikely they will recover much of the original expense.
A new idea
But what if students could rent their books for a fraction of the price of a new book?
That idea is what sparked RENTtext, a textbook rental business catering to UNT students, started by alumni (and father and son) David and Zach Manasco.
"I used to get so frustrated when dealing with the bookstores while trying to buy or sell books as a student," Zach says. "I think every student starts to wonder if there is a better way to get textbooks."
When Zach was a sophomore, he came up with the textbook rental concept. Then a UNT entrepreneurship class his senior year gave him an opportunity to put the idea on paper to see if it could actually work.
Zach applied the e-commerce and web development knowledge he gained while pursuing his bachelor of business administration degree to the business model, and because he'd studied business law for three semesters, he knew how to set up an LLC (limited liability company).
Keep it in the family
After his 2004 graduation, Zach and his father, David – a 1971 UNT graduate who studied political science – launched the new business venture together. David, who served as a president and vice president in manufacturing, brought more than 20 years of business management experience to the table.
They say that working together as father and son leads to some disagreements but "no more so than we used to have."
Getting a piece of the market
RENTtext's goal is to rent books to about 10 percent of the freshman and sophomore student population, so each semester when the Manascos pick up UNT's list of adopted textbooks, they also get the estimated student enrollment per course and order based on those numbers.
"We purchase our textbooks directly from the publishers and offer the most current editions for rental," Zach says.
When texts fall off UNT's adopted book list, RENTtext is often able to sell the books to bookstores that serve other universities still using the texts.
When to rent a textbook
Zach and David say you shouldn't procrastinate when it comes to renting your text books.
"We strongly encourage students to pre order their books," David says. "We sometimes run out of the more popular courses by the time school actually starts."
You can begin preordering books Aug. 11 for the Fall 2008 semester.
How to rent a textbook
Visit renttext.com or go to the store (111 N. Welch St.) to place your order.
Vision of expansion
Though RENTtext gets requests from Texas Woman's University and North Central Texas College students to carry books for those campuses, the Manascos want to strengthen their UNT market before expanding to accommodate the other Denton County campuses – but they plan to expand in the very near future.
"We are also actively looking at expanding to the University of Texas at Austin area and the Texas A&M University at College Station area, as well," Zach says.
