How To Sell College Textbooks for Cash

Photo Credit: Logan Ingalls

So, one of the things I did this month, and I do it at the end of every semester, is I sold my college textbooks to a reseller and made $300. Of course, those books cost around $600, but since I had to have them I might as well make a little money back. This post is going to talk about how I do it, a little walk through if you will. It's very easy really, and won't take much of your personal time or any money out of your pocket.

 There are two ways you could go about selling back college books, one is if you are a student and you're looking to recoup some of the money you spent on them. The other is you hunt ebay, garage sales, etc. to buy other peoples books for cheap, and resell them for a profit. I'll talk about how you can take what I've told you and apply it to both situations.

Quick Tips

• Most buyback sites will pay for your shipping. You will just need the ability to print the label they generate on their site for you.
• If you have Paypal choose a buyback site that will pay via PP, because you will get your payment much faster!
• Pay close attention to the reviews of other people that have sold to the site have left. Avoid any that have to many negatives.
• Amazon will buy your books back, but they ONLY offer an Amazon credit to your account. Which if you shop a lot on Amazon isn't terrible, but if you need cash it's not what you want. Remember though that Amazon does sell food, bodywash, supplies and textbooks, not to mention a million other products. 
• Make sure your books are in good condition! If you send in torn, stained, marked up, etc. books the companies can refuse your books AND you WILL NOT get them back. So be careful of what you sell. 
• I have used textbookrush.com many times myself, and I have always been satisfied. Last year I switched to a new book buyback site, bookbyte.com and I DO NOT recommend them. I switched because they offered more than textbookrush but they are terrible! Do not use them.

How To Sell Books You Already Have

1. Gather all your books that you are going to sell. Sit down with them, and your computer, and pull up a website called Book Scouter.
2. Once there enter the ISBN of one of your textbooks into the appropriate spot. The ISBN is generally found on the back of the book, above the barcode. 
3. After you have done this a page will load that will give you a list of different book buying sites that will buy the book, for how much, customer reviews and more. Here's an example of what the page will look like. 

    4. Here I'm going to suggest that you not automatically choose the one that gives you the most money for your book. Look around, click on the links. Read the reviews by other people that have sold to them, check out the features. I'm going to suggest highly that you go with a seller that offers payments through paypal if you have a PP account. 

    5. I also suggest you go ahead and do this will all your books. Write down how much for each book, through what seller, etc. Choose three different buyback sites to compare, and then choose the one you are going to go with. 

    6. Follow the link to their site, and then you'll have to follow their instructions on what to do. Each site is different, and I can't step by step lead you through it. In general though you: make an account, enter in the ISBNs of the books you are selling back, and create the order.

    7. Print the label that they will provide for you, this is key if you don't want to pay for the shipping yourself. (You don't by the way, books are heavy and heavy=$$$$ in shipping). 

    8. Lastly just make sure that you continue to monitor the status of your books. Track the shipping, watch for when they process, and keep an eye on when they issue payment. 

How To Resell Books You Find For Profit

1. Search Garage Sales, Thrift Stores, craigslist, facebook listings, etc. for used textbooks. Be sure that the condition is good, no tears or stains, little to no writing/highlighting. If you have a smart phone you can use the book scouter mobile app. Scan the barcode, and it will bring up the price comparison page for you. 
2. Repeat steps 2-8 from above. 
3. Something to remember if you go this route is that most buyback sites will only buy a set amount of each book from you. Like they will only buy 4 copies in a year of the same book, and 4 copies of another book, etc. So you may need to have multiple sites that you sell to. 
4. You can sell through Amazon and Ebay as a personal seller. If you sell on Amazon FBA then you will get money for your books, because the customer is paying not Amazon, and not a credit to Amazon. Also, you can sell on Ebay, but there are a lot of sellers on there, and many offer the international version of a book, which is usually cheaper and is only slightly different. So many buyers just buy the cheaper one from out of country. 

So there you go. No really a whole lot to it really. I know people really make decent money reselling textbooks. The main difference of selling through Amazon or Ebay vs. selling to a buyback site is you can charge close to retail price on Amazon/Ebay. A buyback site is going to offer you less, because they plan on selling the books themselves, and the are looking to make a profit too.