Comments on: Selling Back Really Old Textbooks Online

By: Patricia Beaudin

Patricia Beaudin — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 19:36:42 +0000

I know this post is almost a year old, but I stumbled across it while trying to sell a few remaining texts books and I wanted to say thanks. I used amazon for the bulk of my books and was left with 5 they didn’t take so I’ve been searching for a site that would take the last 5. While I still have 3 books left over, I got rid of two more which is what I wanted.

By: Max

Max — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:06:42 +0000

I found Chegg pays the highest prices for used texts. I also use them to rent texts every semester instead of buying and save a lot of money! I wanted to share a promotional code that your readers can use to get an extra $5 when selling used texts to Chegg or for a discount on their text order. Put in the code when ordering and hit the “apply” button.

The code does NOT have an expiration date so it can be used at anytime. Here it is:
CC125998 (edited by admin, due to comment guidelines)

Feel free to share with friends who need to save money.

By: Cam

Cam — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:18:01 +0000

So, did you ever receive the checks? Were they for the right amount? Please let us know.

By: Monevator

Monevator — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:35:37 +0000

Sort of related: I sold over 500 CDs a few years ago, and looking back I am amazed at what I got for them. Now I’d get maybe 1/5th as much, I think.

I wonder with Kindle, the new iPad and all, if the tipping point is about to arrive for books?

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:28:23 +0000

The key to getting good money back at your college bookstore is to sell at the right time. Most of the year they buy for a national wholesaler who pays very little. When they buy for their shelves they will give you 50% to 65% of what you paid at the beginning of the semester. Also, check with your professors to makes sure they have turned in their book requests. The bookstore can only buy books for which they have orders and professors NEVER turn them in on time.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:53:42 +0000

I have a degree in Computer Engineering. Math included Calc 1-3, Differential Equations, Discrete Math and Statistics. I wish this could have all been condensed into “Advanced Engineering Mathematics”.

By: geomark

geomark — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:06:08 +0000

DMCA is your friend. If they are surrounding the stolen content with Adsense then Google is pretty good about shutting them down, not fast, but they do process the complaints. Gotta send them a hard copy signed letter.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:37:32 +0000

@mark – Because people think that they can steal content word-for-word and make easy money from it.

By: mark

mark — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:41:35 +0000

why is this post duplicated at this guy’s blog: [link to scraper removed]

By: George

George — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:10:52 +0000

You can also use this website to buy books.. I often buy tech books at Bigwords for 80% off retail.

By: richard

richard — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:02:59 +0000

to original poster, so i was wondering which buyback site (not talking about amazon, half, or ebay) actually sent you a check after you mailed them your books? thx.

By: Ace of Wealth

Ace of Wealth — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:14:57 +0000

Amazon while they take a fairly large piece of the pie, is a great option for selling your textbooks. I was able to sell an entire box of textbooks in about a week. It was truly amazing.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:10:02 +0000

@bobby – I studied mechanical engineering.

@Richard – What did you use to establish fair market value?

Bigwords has a link to donate unwanted textbooks as well through BetterWorldBooks. If you donate 3 books they’ll cover shipping.

By: bobby

bobby — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:08:23 +0000

sorry stephen, my question was meant for jonathan

By: teeej

teeej — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:08:33 +0000

thanks for the great lead. I’d been wondering what to do with books that I had trouble selling on half.com and this seemed like a good solution. In general, I liked the ease of use and the alternative it offers, but found the site to be off on many of its price qoutes.

I’ve been buying, but mostly selling textbooks online for almost 3 years. I took up the hobby of dumpster diving in grad school since I lived next to campus and rode bike past big garbage heaps. I’d often check the contents of boxes and find text books worth 10, 25, 50 and $100. I could sell them overnight on half.com as the lowest seller. I maintained a sizeable inventory of 60+ books and made $1000 in book sales last year. Now that I’ve moved and I’m out of school, I’m now down to 30 books, none of which are very good or valuable, so I have to decide to donate, sell cheaply, or hold and hope.

Most of my books, bigwords did not want “students not buying.” several offered reasonable prices that I could dump quickly and get some cash, which I’m looking for right now. Many offered low prices, quoted $8.50 on half.com and $.01 on amazon. Both prices were always wrong, and both were often close to $2-4 on either site.

I found the site very helpful in a way that kayak.com is helpful for finding cheap airfare. It may not have the best price, but it has a quick link to every site selling the book, so comparison buying and selling becomes much more efficient than physically looking up each book on each site. With Bigwords, I could look up my book, see if anyone offered a good price, and decide if it was worth putting/keeping on half or amazon.

Personally I prefer half.com for selling, and amazon for buying. Amazon takes too big a cut for sellers, and too much competition from big sellers prices me out of the market. I guess I rely on buyers who prefer half.com…however I often compare my prices to the lowest price on Amazon and count on smart consumers to find my books. Other factors include no expiration of inventory and user friendly inventory management.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:08:09 +0000

I’m getting an MBA… Double major in Marketing & Strategy.

By: bobby

bobby — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:35:54 +0000

what is your degree(s) in?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:54:48 +0000

Great article, but one word of advice… I’d recommend NOT selling them at your “nearest college campus bookstore” if I were you. They’re a total rip off.

I am currently a graduate student and have had to buy and sell books every two and a half to three months. I’ve found that the buy back prices offered by our campus bookstores are sometimes 300% to 400% LESS (I’m not joking) than the prices I can find on the internet. No joke.

As an example, I tried to sell a Finance book back about a month ago and my campus bookstore offered $8. I didn’t think that was a good deal, so I decided to keep it and see what I could get for it over the internet. I used a book buying site similar to the one mentioned in this post above and was able to sell it for $35, with FREE shipping. Most all of these sites email you printable USPS postage labels as part of selling the book and you can either request to receive a check or get a direct deposit. Just be sure you have a bunch of boxes ready to go for shipping.

You can also sell out-of-print books on sites like the one above while sometimes local college bookstores are not willing to take them back.

By: Students and Graduates-Send In Your Books! « The Millionaire Nurse Blog

Students and Graduates-Send In Your Books! « The Millionaire Nurse Blog — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:31:46 +0000

[...] My Money Blog, had this post about Bigwords. [...]

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:27:29 +0000

Half.com has allowed me to basically reuse the same lump sum of money by buying and selling all my textbooks through the site during college. I’ve used it for the past 5 years. BigWords is nice but I tend to find Half has the best prices.

By: Jake @ CareerAde

Jake @ CareerAde — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:19:22 +0000

I’m too sentimental – I kept all my text books. Have most of them in my office now, and actually them here and there (mainly finance, accounting, …)

By: Jeremy Olexa

Jeremy Olexa — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:46:20 +0000

Thanks for this notice, can you please drop a note when you get the payback.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:36:41 +0000

Online is definitely the way to go, even for current students. When I was a student not too long ago, I could get much more money online for them. My campus bookstore would only give you, say, $3, for a book that originally cost $50. From what I remember, their prices depended a lot on if any professors were going to be using that same book in the future. A lot of students wanted to just get rid of books quickly for pocket money so the campus bookstore took advantage of this. I also found that buying books online was a lot cheaper than the bookstore.

By: Mrs. Money

Mrs. Money — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:45:11 +0000

Wow! That’s awesome. I’ve got some old textbooks at home I thought weren’t worth anything. I think I’m going to give this a shot!

By: Don

Don — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:14:05 +0000

I use Amazon as well. It really reinforces the notion of old-fashioned capitalist competition (which I sometimes note in my econ classes). I’ve found that if your book is overpriced by $0.12 that it can sit for weeks without selling. Drop the price 12 cents, and it’ll be gone in a couple of days.

As a rule, I won’t ever underbid the lowest priced book in a category. It just encourages a bidding war and we both lose; I’ve seen that more than one time. I match prices instead. (That puts a different perspective on the fact that all the gas stations in town have the same price…. It doesn’t have to be collusion.)

Don