Where/how to sell academic books?

the_devil_made_me_do_it

I have a number of academic books I would like to sell, but don't know where or how to sell them.

They are pretty much in as new condition, but I have no need for them now, so want to sell them on.

If anyone can advise it would be much appreciated.

ajwolf

I found there is no one stop shop which is best. Very much depends on the book and how in-demand it is. I used a combination of places, did a bit of research on where I could get the best price.

First option:
John Smith's Bookshop - If you live near a university which has one (doesn't need to be the university you went to) you can send an email direct to the store with a list of all the books you have and they will reply saying if/how much they can offer. You do need to take them into the store yourself to sell them but I found they sometimes offer better than anywhere else.

Option 2:
Amazon - selling them on Amazon (don't trade in as they tend to offer a really low price). Easy to do and they're listed permanently as opposed to an auction for a week or so. They don't charge for listing but do take a fee once sold. Downside is the postage is fixed (£2.75) so you may lose out a bit on heavy/large books.

Option 3:
Trade in sites - Fatbrain, Webuybooks or the like. I've never used any of these sites but I would check if they're buying any of your books.

Option 4:
ebay - Tends to be fairly poor for textbooks. Often quite a few of the same title listed but no bids on any. Again this will vary depending on the book and maybe the time of year.

These were the places I checked and picked the one which was best for each book. I would spend some time on the web checking each of these. It's helpful to have a list of your books in a word document so you can copy and paste names to search (saves time and boredom if you've got a lot of books).

New_York_No1_fan

the_devil_made_me_do_it wrote: »

I have a number of academic books I would like to sell, but don't know where or how to sell them.

They are pretty much in as new condition, but I have no need for them now, so want to sell them on.

If anyone can advise it would be much appreciated.

Used webuybooks.com last year after shopping around for the best deal.

Also looked at Fatbrain and several similar as prices can vary week to week. Don't accept the first offer you see, unless you are happy with it. Think I spent 3-4 weeks going over the sites to try and grab the best deal. It all depends on demand for the book at the time.

webuybooks were really fast and efficient. posted books off FREE and received cash back within 2 -3 days. postage alone would have been huge on the 12 books I sold! so bear this in mind.

Happy selling.

GoldenShadow

New_York_No1_fan wrote: »

Used webuybooks.com last year after shopping around for the best deal.

Also looked at Fatbrain and several similar as prices can vary week to week. Don't accept the first offer you see, unless you are happy with it. Think I spent 3-4 weeks going over the sites to try and grab the best deal. It all depends on demand for the book at the time.

webuybooks were really fast and efficient. posted books off FREE and received cash back within 2 -3 days. postage alone would have been huge on the 12 books I sold! so bear this in mind.

Happy selling.

Wow, they're offering terrible prices. I don't recommend anybody who has done a Business degree trying to flog books there. 40p for a £40 book? Nope.

I've flogged a fair few via Ebay and done quite well that way.

katie1812

On Facebook my degree course has a group on there which new and old students are a member of and so we use that to sell our books onto younger students.

thatlemming

katie1812 wrote: »

On Facebook my degree course has a group on there which new and old students are a member of and so we use that to sell our books onto younger students.

This! Find the freshers group of your uni and advertise them there. I did it for my first year books I knew I wouldn't need again, no effort at all