Last Updated on Mar 5, 2020 by James W
Gathering dust on bookshelves everywhere are books you could turn around and sell for a profit, making selling used books into a great source of extra income. No one likes to pay full price for books — especially expensive textbooks. Yet once people read a book, they probably don’t have a lot of use for it. Findthe best place to sell back textbooks and other used books online, and you can make a profit on books you buy for cheap or books you obtain for free in common places.
1.Your House
Books are left sitting on bookshelves, packed away and hidden in boxes in most people’s homes. If you haven’t read a book in over a year or you don’t think you’ll reread it in the future, it can go. If you don’t sell a book you’re not using, you’re basically letting dollars sit around your home unspent.
Check old backpacks and book bags you or your kids brought to school. Chances are, you stuffed textbooks in there when school ended and forgot about them. Even textbooks several years out of date could earn you some extra money.
2. Friends and Family
Once you’ve finished giving your own home a thorough looking-over, move onto friends’ and family members’ homes. Not everyone wants to spend time selling books, even if they’re missing out on a great source of extra income. You may find some friends and family members are willing to part with old books just to declutter their home. They’ll give them to you so they don’t have to bother selling or donating them.
Offer to do them a favor in return, like clean a room of their home. Look in all of the areas of the home where you might expect to find old books— as long as you have their permission first.
3. Rummage and Estate Sales
When you can’t search for books hidden away in homes, look for books people are willing to sell for pennies on the dollar. Rummage and estate sales are great sources for old books, especially old textbooks, which most people don’t have a need for once they’ve finished taking their classes. You’ll often find them all in a single area too, so you can comb through them all at once or make an offer on an entire stack.
4. Thrift Stores
Some people donate old books and textbooks to thrift stores, which charge significantly less than face value. An especially good time to snatch up deals on old textbooks is in the early summer months, after the school year is over and people are eager to get rid of textbooks they no longer need. You’ll also find trade paperbacks, hard covers and even bestsellers.
5. Library Book Swaps
Your local library sometimes has more books than it needs. A library is also likely to discard old textbooks when they replace them with updated editions, but you can still sell earlier editions for a profit at a used book buyer website. Ask a librarian if the library intends to hold a book swap in the near future.
The point of a book swap is for people who take books for free to donate books in exchange. Participate by donating books you’ve scored from homes, rummage sales and thrift stores that you tried to sell online but didn’t think would earn you enough profit to bother.
Whether you approach book selling as a hobby or a source of extra income, the goal is always to make a profit on a sale. That’s why it’s so important you spend nothing or next to nothing on the books you hope to sell—and there are plenty of places to find books for cheap or free. SavingAdvice.comeven recommends you visit college bookstores at the end of a school year and see if they’ve thrown out any books in good condition. But even if you don’t want to dig through the trash, these five places are sure to turn up books you can sell.
About the Author:
Michael Der has been collecting books and paper ephemera for nearly two decades. . After years of buying and selling books, Michael combined his hobby with his high tech background. In 2006, he founded MyBookBuyer.com, an online book buyback site. When not actively scouting for books, Michael can be found spending time with his family and two mini dachshunds.
image source: fotolia
