Textbooks are a ripoff as you probably know. There's no way I'm going to get anything close to the $100 + I spent on each textbook for the last semester, but now that I'm thoroughly sick of them and don't need them anymore, I want to recoup as much as possible on my losses. Anyone have any personal experience with selling back textbooks? Looking for the best prices possible. . .
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Who pays good money to buy used Textbooks?
- Thread starter Sharalyn
- Start date
not sure if you've ever gone to half.com but it's kind of sister-site with ebay. I've used it multiple times when selling a textbook. It's not an auction site like ebay is, you put your item up for sale and if someone wants to buy it at that price then they contact you kind of thing. I've sold every book I've put up there. If you go there you can check it out for yourself, they even have a tab at the top that says search textbooks. Anyway, that's been the best place I've found to sell used textbooks.
It perhaps goes without saying that the college book stores do not give very good prices. 20% is not unusual. If you're luck, some stores like the Follett run stores will, and certain books they know will be used in future semesters, ave a 50% guarantee for buy-back, but those are few & far between, and sometimes have other restrictions attached.
From what I've noticed, Amazon seems to have the best options for this, considering their main market and the sheer numbers of people looking for books here. They seem to sell for higher than ebay, and students shop here more often because a wide selection is guaranteed
Ebay prices will probably tend to be a little lower, since a lot of students don't look towards ebay when searching for their text books, since it is often difficult to find all of the books you need at one time, and you have to go through te bid process and hopefully win, or start all over again.
Other students at your campus may be a good source, since they'll be taking the same classes with the same curriculums. This probably requires more leg-work though, in putting up signs trying to find buyers, etc.
One final option are book swaps. Some college student organizations run these, or something similar, where you can swap your old text books for someone else's old text books that you need. This won't get you any money, but it will mean you don't have to spend money for the new books you need.
Good Luck!
From what I've noticed, Amazon seems to have the best options for this, considering their main market and the sheer numbers of people looking for books here. They seem to sell for higher than ebay, and students shop here more often because a wide selection is guaranteed
Ebay prices will probably tend to be a little lower, since a lot of students don't look towards ebay when searching for their text books, since it is often difficult to find all of the books you need at one time, and you have to go through te bid process and hopefully win, or start all over again.
Other students at your campus may be a good source, since they'll be taking the same classes with the same curriculums. This probably requires more leg-work though, in putting up signs trying to find buyers, etc.
One final option are book swaps. Some college student organizations run these, or something similar, where you can swap your old text books for someone else's old text books that you need. This won't get you any money, but it will mean you don't have to spend money for the new books you need.
Good Luck!
What is your academic field of study? You might consider holding on to the textbooks for the courses that make up the core of your major. (If you're studying accounting, hold on to your accounting books, for example). But I see no reason to hold on to books that are for some of your other classes, save for a couple of other books that would serve as basic reference books (a style guide for writing, perhaps).
Once you have those sorted aside, take the rest to the college bookstore on the first day of Buy-Back Week and see what they will give you for them. You might do better to go to a second-hand bookstore near your college, or to have your professors pass the word to the following terms' students that you have a book for the course available for purchase.
Once you have those sorted aside, take the rest to the college bookstore on the first day of Buy-Back Week and see what they will give you for them. You might do better to go to a second-hand bookstore near your college, or to have your professors pass the word to the following terms' students that you have a book for the course available for purchase.
What is your academic field of study? You might consider holding on to the textbooks for the courses that make up the core of your major. (If you're studying accounting, hold on to your accounting books, for example). But I see no reason to hold on to books that are for some of your other classes, save for a couple of other books that would serve as basic reference books (a style guide for writing, perhaps).
Once you have those sorted aside, take the rest to the college bookstore on the first day of Buy-Back Week and see what they will give you for them. You might do better to go to a second-hand bookstore near your college, or to have your professors pass the word to the following terms' students that you have a book for the course available for purchase.
Once you have those sorted aside, take the rest to the college bookstore on the first day of Buy-Back Week and see what they will give you for them. You might do better to go to a second-hand bookstore near your college, or to have your professors pass the word to the following terms' students that you have a book for the course available for purchase.
Bored Goblin
New member
Ebay or students taking the course next year.
Vindictive
New member
You can choose to post each book individually on Amazon.com. I've found that I'm usually able to sell my old textbooks this way. Barnes and Noble might have a similar feature, though I usually stick to Amazon. You might also check with your own college bookstore - some pay a certain amount of the face value. Some schools also have their own posting websites that allow you to sell books.