Nothing can be quite as frustrating as attempting to sell your textbooks back to the bookstore or any bookstore for that matter. Here you are, holding a textbook that you paid $130.00 for 6 weeks ago that they will not accept back due to a new edition coming out during that time. Probably with the only difference being the forward in the book. Almost as agonizing is that $130.00 book now being worth $30.00 on the buyback. It’s a lot like robbery only they don’t bother with the formalities of masks and guns. So here are a few tips on selling you books for the most conceivable money you can get.
1.) Get realistic. Unfortunately nothing in the world is worth less than a textbook that is the “old” edition. Sometimes you will get stuck with a bum, so go into the venture with low expectations.
2.) Try “googling” “textbook buyback” or some similar phrase. When you do you will notice that there are literally dozens of sites that are asking for 10 digit ISBN numbers. I recommend that you type your ISBN number on Notepad or some similar type of text document processor and then cut and paste the number into multiple vendor’s websites. The reason for this is that the price offered on the buyback will vary quite a bit from one book to another. For example your Economics book may fetch $20.00 on Vendor “A’s” website but $50.00 on Vendor “B’s” then notice that your Marketing textbook will fetch $40.00 on Vendor “A’s” website and $20.00 on Vendor “B’s”. In a situation like this you will sell your Economics book to Vendor “B” and the Marketing book to Vendor “A”. The price they pay depends as much on the book as the vendor and just because they pay more than someone else for one book does not mean that they will give you the best price for another. Be aware that many sites will offer to pay your shipping costs, usually this is because they are low balling you on the buyback price of the book, but not always.
3.) Next you can try selling used on Amazon.com. I have done this in the past whenever I have an older edition of a book that isn’t selling many used copies. It works pretty well however this time around I noticed that there are multiple used copies for less than $1.00, which to me just isn’t worth the hassle. Often you can get at least $5.00 to $10.00 for older editions though. Hey, that’s almost a Starbucks Latte’. The best thing about Amazon.com is that whenever someone looks up the books they need, it will give them a starting price for the same book in used condition. There is a high chance that some student somewhere will snatch it up at a good price.
4.) Ebay is the seller of last resort. First because in my experience not everyone starts by looking on Ebay for books and unless you have a “buy now” option on your auction, the book may not be available when the student needs it.
5.) If you are really brave and in a college town, try Craigslist. Though I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone who bought textbooks off of there. It is an option though.
6.) Sometimes I get spam from my fellow students in my email about them selling their old textbooks. This is almost always a good idea since the books are generally snatched up by our peers within 72 hours. I personally don’t mind spam I use. School bulletin boards, online and real work as well, though not as well as email, at least from what I’ve seen.
7.) Lastly there is Half Price Books in your local neighborhood. Whenever they cannot buy a book back, even for pennies on the dollar, they ask if you would be willing to donate them to a charity. A little charity never hurt anyone right? The more savvy among us may even be able to use it as a tax write off.
Well I hope that helps.