Ready to Get More for Your Old Books?
Hi there, I’m a bit of a bookworm. In fact, I have so many books that I may never read them all. Some are old textbooks, others are novels I intended to reread. My bookshelf was overflowing, till I decided it was time to declutter and make some cash along the way.
So after some tidying up, I managed to sell my books and made a neat $100.26. Here’s the breakdown:
– eBay: $20.56
– Textbooks.com: $33.00
– SellBackYourBook: $21.65
– K-12 Book Buyer: $13.05
– Powell’s: $12
Sure, sifting through my books and finding buyers took some time. About 10 hours, to be precise. But with some free time on my hands, it was better than binging on TV shows.
First, I decluttered my bookshelves, down from 7 to 3. Using a website called Book Scouter, I listed each book’s ISBN number. The site tells you which companies might buy your book and at what price. Every company has a minimum book order – for most it’s around $10, but some might have different prices.
Go figure, not all companies wanted my books. But when they did, I sorted the books by company. Then went to each company’s website and entered all the books meant for them.
Different types of books were popular with different platforms. For example, non-fiction and textbooks were sold quickly, while Powell’s was keen on my fiction collection. K-12 Book Buyer was helpful for my old study texts, and SellBackYourBook was keen on non-Christian religious and educational books.
I also ventured onto eBay, grouping books into themes like motivation, finance, scripts, and so on. Here I learned that adding enough information about each book can help with sales. Even listing books as ‘the worst book ever’ tends to attract attention.
As for packaging all these books for shipping, I found free boxes from my local liquor store. A little packing tape and a trip to the post office did the trick. And apparently, you can even arrange for post office pick-ups right from your home.
Interestingly, the book that fetched the highest price was August Wilson: Three Plays for $5.15 on SellBackYourBook, while T.S. Eliot’s Selected Poems managed only $.23.
Now the last part – any books I couldn’t sell online, I bagged them up and took them to our local bookshop, the Book Trader. They have a credit system where they take your books and give you store credit for future book purchases.
So that’s how I managed to declutter my bookshelves while making some extra cash. Have you tried selling your old books? If you’ve used a different method, do let us know!
Hope this helps you with your own book-decluttering mission!