I recently graduated, and I have a bunch of textbooks left over from the past four years.

Some of them are older edition books (Like a 4 year old version of the calculus text).

The local bookstores will not buy back such old editions.

Does anyone know where I could sell these books?

1) I know you can list books at amazon.com, so one method i suppose would be auctioning them online? Does anyone have more details on this?

2) I also heard there are online bookstores that will buy any textbook you have.

All information would be greatly appreciated

8/9/2007 1:14:46 PM

you could also try half.com.... perhaps there's the possibility that someone is still using/wants those textbooks

8/9/2007 1:19:16 PM

www.ebay.com

8/9/2007 1:19:31 PM

http://www.bigwords.com

8/9/2007 1:54:43 PM

Type the ISBNs into Amazon then check what other people are selling them used for. There is a link "sell your here" that will let you list it for sale. If you want to sell it quick, price it so it appears near the cheapest books.

There are lots of books that ain't worth crap, you'll see them going for $0.01, its usually not worth it to sell for that low after Amazon takes their cut and you pay for packaging/shipping.

I just found a box of books this weekend that I was going to toss. Turns out 1/3 of them were going for $6 or above on Amazon so I listed them and have sold some already. The other 2/3 are on the way to Goodwill.

-- Dave

8/9/2007 1:59:02 PM

only thing i'll mention when selling books online, is keep shipping charges in mind...especially expedited shipping.

on amazon/half, if you book sells, they give you around $2-$3 to ship it...which might cover it (unless its a larger book). but if they choose expedited shipping, amazon/half only give you $4-$5, which probably won't cover priority shipping, especially for a large book, especially if you're sending it to the west coast. either don't allowed expedited shipping for bigger books (normal thick college books), or price the extra shipping costs into your price for the book.

8/9/2007 2:10:25 PM

I just made about $250 selling some my old schoolbooks on Amazon, but older edition textbooks usually go for EXTREMELY cheap on there, as well. Nobody really wants them, despite that they're probably not that different from the newest version. And as far as sites like Barnes & Noble go, they will buy back some of your stuff, but most likely not old editions. I don't know what to tell you, sorry.

8/9/2007 2:24:25 PM

Oh yeah, on shipping. Package up your item and ask for Media Mail rate when you go to the post office. Its cheaper and slower but its all that is required for standard shipping. You can throw delivery confirmation on top of it for another 0.60 I think.

I usually don't tell the buyer I'm doing delivery confirmation. In the 30-odd books I've sold online I have had 2 come back and tell me they didn't get it and threaten to do a refund request. E-mailing a scan of the Post Office receipt that has their zip code on it and the Delivery Confirmation slip usually shuts them up.

One person had the wrong ship to address selected and Amazon's policy is that I have to ship to the address that comes across in the Order. Sucks for them but I'm not going to be out $$$ for their mistake.

-- Dave

8/9/2007 5:19:56 PM