Now that I'm done with school, I thought I would see if I could make those heavy textbooks disappear. I brought a backpack full of them up to the bookstore today to see what they would be willing to pay for them. After the man scanning the bar codes finished reading off the values ("$2, $3, $9...we don't carry this one...") I smiled politely, put them each back into my bag, and left. I understand that they need to make a profit, but offering me $2 for something that very clearly says "$15.00 USA, $17.00 CAN" on the back is ridiculous, considering the near-perfect condition of the product.
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| Digital photographic compilation of my textbooks, left over from two semesters |
So I'm off to TuftsLife's
BookSwap and eBay to try and sell these directly to some students. As long as I beat Barnes & Noble's prices (and judging by their markup, that won't be too hard), it should work. I'll wait, of course, until later in the summer, when people are actually textbook-shopping.
Of course, now I'll have to go back to
my guide on purchasing college textbooks and add: "Check to see if I have your books in stock before shopping elsewhere!"
Over the years I've found that selling textbooks on half.com is a great way to make back around 60-90% of what you paid for them (assuming you do it in a timely manner before a new edition comes out). It works better for texts than for real books, but check it out.
ReplyDelete-Geoff
Great idea! Half.com (An eBay company!) is where I sometimes buy them, so that's a good idea as a place to sell. I price checked on Amazon, and they'll buy a few of 'em, but I'm pretty sure I just get gift cards. So yeah; half. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteUpdate: I've started selling books on Half (as per Geoff's suggestion) and it's working really, really well!
ReplyDelete