selling library books on Amazon

myteeduck

Hi

Im an ex-student and come july/august i will be wanting to sell my old uni books on Amazon. (Did all college books on Amazon and did quite well).

However.....1/3 off my uni books are ex-library stock that my dad got me when his work closed their library for a bigger better one. Before i sell these on Amazon, is it illegal to list ex-library books on amazon, or sell them on at all? Also As they have the old library dates bit in the front and have the name of the library stamped on the page edges (As with most library books) how much cheaper should i sell them on for? They are in perfect condition other than these two things, and this would be stated in the listing?

Thanks in advance

Seaxwyn

Hi there

I've both bought and sold ex-library books on Amazon. There are loads on there, it seems to be accepted as normal practice.

I start all my descriptions with 'Ex-library (withdrawn) with usual stamps....' Then when a book sells, I paste my description into the packing slip and send it with the book, just in case the buyer hadn't noticed it was an ex-library book. I've never had any problem though so this may be unnecessary.

A librarian at the local college told me she was once phoned up by someone who had bought a book on Amazon, seen their label in the front and rang up to find out whether it had been stolen. I doubt most people would bother though.

good luck with it.

hummingbird

Hi,

I've worked in various libraries and usually withdrawn books are stamped as such across the date labels or somewhere prominent, then the books are given away, taken by staff, or sold in the library. If you have some you can sell them on with no problems.

soolin

You can sell them as long as there is a discard stamp.

rare_stuff

Seaxwyn wrote: »

A librarian at the local college told me she was once phoned up by someone who had bought a book on Amazon, seen their label in the front and rang up to find out whether it had been stolen. I doubt most people would bother though.

I did! When I discovered a book I had was out of print and it's original publishing price was nearly £200. As it was bought in a lot of undelivered parcels, I knew there could be problems selling it on, especially if purchased by the original library! They happily paid me £70 for it and reclaimed, or at least said they were going to reclaim, the cost from the courier! They did want some details of my purchase and required an invoice for it. It was an NHS training Library in a very specialist field and they stated they had members waiting for the book and it had been lost in transit between libraries.

As for withdrawn stamps, many library books do not have stamps to indicate this, even though the book has been officially withdrawn. This is often the case when large quantities are discarded. I have heard of some book sellers having their own "withdrawn" stamp to use in such cases!

The other common way for a library to mark a book as withdrawn is by tearing out the front end paper with the main library label on it! Some times this is done neatly, though not always!

I've only ever had one problem with an ex-library book sale. It was described as such, but the customer complained due to their being anti-theft thingy in it, which set off the alarms at her uni library! Luckily Amazon CS saw the funny side of this and removed the feedback as it was accusing me of making them look like a thief. It's not so easy to get feedback removed these days though.

My only recommendations for selling ex-library stock, some already having been made, would be never to grade better than good, unless the book was like new and unread. Clearly state in discription that it is ex-library and has library markings. And to include a copy of the description in with the packing slip. And I wouldn't price lower than other copies for sale by much if at all, unless other copies were all new or like new.

Also, make sure you weigh them and work out how much it will cost for you to send them before setting prices! It's amazing how many students selling off heavy text books have undercut those who get postal discounts and will end up out of pocket if they post the book! Then other students come along and undercut them!!!

greenstreetprince

myteeduck wrote: »

Hi

is it illegal to list ex-library books on amazon, or sell them on at all?

as long as the book has been discontinued by the library and you have picked it up genuinely (not kept it after borrowing) I dont see what the problem is.

I've picked up many books from my local library for just 10p and sold them on ebay, never had a problem. my library always stamp them as 'wthdrawn' and remove the dates card.

just remove the card or the page the card is on

teapot2

Hi MTD,

I'm a small seller on amazon and quite a bit of my stock is withdrawn library books as in my area they are cheaper than charity shop books. I have done quite well with some of them but tend to list them as 'acceptable' as there are always quite a lot of stamps, stickers and markings.

As others have mentioned, make as full a description as possible in your listings and that should help along with a copy in the dispatch note.

So far I've not had a problem with any I've sold.

Good luck
Teapot