How to Sell Your Textbooks At College In A Few Easy Steps

Whether you are a freshman or running up 6+ years on your college campus, selling textbooks isn’t easy. But our guide is the best on the internet because we are giving the most comprehensive step-by-step plan on selling your textbook and getting the most money for it.

1. Find Out Costs From School/Online Buybacks

Selling your textbook back to the college/high-school bookstore is easy, but you don’t get a lot of money. You usually do this if you have very little time to find a better deal elsewhere.

But if you want to get more than $25 for a $100 book, know the price of your book in different places. The first two places you should look is your bookstore’s price, and the price of online buybacks. Online buybacks are companies that will buy your book on the spot, and they usually pay a little more than your college bookstore.

Here are a list of other buyback companies ( who also sell books as well ):

• Chegg.Com Book Buyback
• Textbook.com Buyback
• Belltower Books
• Bigwords textbooks

*Tip: Did you get zero dollars from your bookstore because your edition is out of date? Hold onto it. Some older editions are just as good as new editions. Other people buy older editions if they can’t afford a new one, so you still might get some money from it.

2. Make a price comparison list for your textbooks

The “New” is how much you bought it for, and the rest of the items are how much these companies ( the textbook store, Chegg etc. ) are giving you for your textbook. This is one way to sell your book, but there are two other ways that may be better. Let’s keep moving!

3. Check out prices at Amazon and other book sites

You have a list of how much your book is worth if you sell it to the buybacks. But are you getting your money’s worth? The best place ( and easiest ) to check is Amazon & Half.com, since there you can see how much other people are selling your book used.

• Abebooks.com
• Bigwords.com
• CampusBooks.com
• Ebay.com
• Half.com

Once you have some prices of your books on these sites, add them to your list:

Now you can now see how much you are getting if you sell it to a company, and how much other people are paying for your book online. Now you can price your book to sell it.

4. Price and Popularity

Using the example above, you can get $35 for your Spanish book from the bookstore, but the online buybacks will give you around $55. All the other places online selling your book is selling it at around and $60 used. If you sold it online yourself, you probably could sell it for 55-65 dollars, or you could sell it to a buyback company for $55.

These two options ( selling it online, or selling it to a buyback ) give you control on getting money for your book, but the third option is the most valuable.

5. Classifieds postings, Price it Local

Selling something local is always easy. Selling a book online is more work since you have to package it, go to the post office, mail it, and wait for your money to come. Selling it to someone in the same school or local area is easy because you can get your money quickly, charge a little more, and the buyer doesn’t have to go through the hassle of expensive books or shopping for a book online.

*Warning: Some online buybacks/textbook sites have scammed students. Make sure that the site is reputable ( the ones we linked are good ) and Google the company and the word “scam” or “review” to see what other people think about the company.

That is why bookstores are convenient to buy books. You only have to do one thing: pay for the book. But, if you can also sell straight to other students, you make more money.

This is where you can use our site, The Wham Classifieds, or other sites such as:

• Craigslist
• OOdle
• Uloop
• Facebook Marketplace

Post your book with an approximate price, and see what you get as a reaction. You should do this at least a couple of weeks before school ends. As well as the classifieds, post it in Facebook classroom groups, as well as a couple of flyers around campus. Since other people may take the class, you have good chances of finding others to take your book.

Beginning term book-swapping events can also get many students together to buy/sell their books.

*Think:Are you willing to wait a couple of days, or weeks, or months, until you can find someone who will take it at your price? If your class is popular, or is a general education class that a lot of students take, then you probably can sell it very quickly. But beware, many students don’t have their classes setup until the beginning of the semester

6. Sporadic Classes, Old Editions, Donations, and Amazon/Ebay

Some classes only occur during one semester ( Fall or Spring ), so it is up to you on how long you want to hold your book for. Even if this is the case, post it up in as many places and as many prices as possible, just in case you decide you need the money sooner rather than later.

Older edition books, which may have no value to buybacks, are sometimes viable books for some classes. Make sure to speak to other teachers or students to know if the book can still be used for a particular class. Also, post it to as many places with “or best offer” since the demand for old editions is not as great.

*Fee Sites:Now, an alternative route that some people do is post their books on sites like Ebay, Amazon, or Half.com. These sites are good because you have a bigger market of people probably looking for your book, and can probably sell it quicker.

These are also places that have commission fees for your items, and there may be more pressure to price your books lower if other people are selling the same book. These fees eat out on how much money you can make, you will have to ship the book promptly after its sold ( or risk getting a bad rating ), and it could take 2-3 weeks before you get your money back. But, if you think you can sell your textbook faster on these websites, there is no harm in adding a listing.

Just be sure to drop your listing if you sell the book, because if someone buys the book and you no longer have it, you can be penalized.

*Goodwill Tip: Donate your book. There are many companies & non-profits ( some are supported by your school ) that sends the books to people who need them, or sell them and use the funds for good things. There are too many local and national initiatives at each school. If you know of one, be sure to tell us about it, and we will promote it to others.

7. Find the Best Buyer, Try To Be Local

From here, you can decide to hold off until someone buys your book, or decide to use a buyback site, Amazon/Ebay, or textbook store to sell your book.

The best deal, and the best situation, would be to sell it for more than the buyback locally. You won’t have to ship it, you will make more money, and you help your fellow students. With the Wham, our college classifieds section is dorm/cluster-based, so it would be great to find someone with the same book in the same area on campus.

No matter how you sell your books, this information will give you a lot more power in knowing the textbook marketplace, and how you can get more money selling it on you own.

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