Local bookstore offers free books giveaway

ACE University Bookstore on Highway 544 in Conway has been selling used textbooks to students since 1995 and has now offered to refund one student’s entire semester worth of textbooks in a special giveaway.

Andy and Charles Elvington decided to open their own business after working in bookstores for years.

Charles Elvington managed Coastal Carolina University's bookstore from 1974 to 1980 while Andy Elvington ran the bookstore at Horry-Georgetown Technical College from 1980 to 1994.

ACE is actually an acronym for their names.

Rusty Elvington, manager of ACE, said he understands how expensive college textbooks are but the store is trying to help make it easier.

“Our goal is to put more used books on the shelves for students,” Elvington said. “Books are insanely expensive, but we try to save as much money as possible.”

A rising junior at CCU suggested the idea of a free textbook giveaway to promote ACE University Bookstore to incoming freshmen. That way, for the next four years, the class will turn to them.

They began their promotion at the end of May and utilized Instagram and Facebook to inform students.

In order to qualify, students could purchase anything from ACE and give their email address at checkout.

So far, 1,500 emails have been entered and the last day of the contest was Sept 1.

It was initially supposed to end after the first week of classes, but Elvington noticed that students were still in need of textbooks.

“We thought it was unfair to stop it,” Elvington said. “...there are still a lot of students, as of this week [Aug. 25,] that are still in need of purchasing things, so that’s why it ran into this week as well.”

The winner was selected after this past weekend. Elvington said it was just by luck.

“We’re going to log on and just do a blind scroll, put the curser up and down then BAM, pick them like that,” said Elvington.

The winner will be announced after Labor Day.

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