College Being

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t difficult to sell textbooks. Once you find out the right time and right place to sell, it becomes a walk in the park.

Here’s a list of things you should think about when you sell textbooks to make sure you get the best value:

PRICE

Before you start the process of selling a textbook, you must obviously find out how much it is worth or either you get ripped off or people won’t buy it. Visit an online bookshop like Amazon and search by the title of your book. Find out how much the book is worth on the average. Also take into consideration the condition of the book as it affects the selling price. It’s better if you could visit several online sellers and find out who will pay most for the book you’re selling.

PLACE

Next you should decide where to sell textbooks to; it can be to friends, to the college bookstore or to online resellers. Its common belief that the college bookstore offers the least buyback prices and this is true most of the time; so your best shot is online resellers. After that comes the problem of deciding which website to use. There are hundreds of sites out there but not all of them are well established or reputed. Choose a site that has very good reputation and will pay for the shipping expenses and will pay you fast. The most popular sites to sell textbooks on are Amazon, eBay and Craigslist. You can sell on those too and they have their own pros and cons. One con of eBay is you need to pay for shipping. Amazon also offers Amazon Buyback which gives you free shipping when you sell your book directly to Amazon.

TIMING

Try to never sell textbooks near the conclusion of the semester because at this time the demand is very low and so are the prices. The only buyers are those who are attending summer classes. At this time the textbook prices are at the lowest value in the whole year. For the best profit, you should sell textbooks near the beginning of the new semester. Since the demand is very high at this time, buyers are willing to pay high prices to get textbooks before they’re all over.

Here’re some tips that will be helpful in getting some good background information that will help you sell textbooks online:

• Analyze online prices of the relevant books.
• Analyze local prices of the same.
• Give priority to sites that offer free shipping and instant payment if you are going to sell textbooks online.
• Always try to sell at the appropriate time–that is–when the books are in high demand.

If you somehow end up in the unlucky situation of not being able to sell your book anywhere, try to find a bookshop that’ll trade it for another book or maybe store credit. Remember that when you sell textbooks, you hold most of the cards.

This is a guest post by Amit Sehgal. Helping students save money on college textbooks.