So as a recent college graduate, I have accumulated a massive amount of college textbooks. They are the unfortunate ones that got rejected when I tried to buy them back to my university, so now they're piled up collecting dust in my storage room floor.
A few months ago I was poking around the internet trying to find a place where I could dump them, and I came across a few ideas. One was to donate them, if they were not worth anything, to any charity foundation of your choice. So I sent about 25 books to them, but I was still stuck with about 15 books that still got rejected.
My second find was a website called,
PaperBackSwap.com. You can join and use the site for free.
When you join, here's what you do:
- Take all the books you want to get rid of, and post their ISBN numbers up on the site. These will now be in your bookshelf. They will be available to everyone for order.
- Now, search for books that you want/need. There's over 4 million books available on the site. If the book is not available to order, put it in your wish list.
- Now here's the catch. The site is free but when someone orders a book from you, you are responsible for the shipping costs. But when you order a book from someone, they pay the shipping. So it's basically a swap and you're only paying a mere $2.95 for a postage.
- After you ship the book from the PO, you go onto the site and mark the book shipped. When the receiver gets the book, you get a credit. And vice versa. The more books you ship, the more free books you can order!
Also, when you post at least 10 books, they automatically give you 2 credits.
This site is great and practical. Today for example, I received New Moon in the mail. For $2.95 postage cost.
How do you get rid of old books?
Comments (15)
Thanks for the tip, Sweet Kate. How do I get rid of old books? I give them away to my sister, friends, cousins, trade with people and sell them.
By the way, I think you look lovely.
Cool tip. I have too many old books, so I better start getting rid of them soon.
@Reckless@mancouch - I saw her first.
@Werewolf@mancouch - Hahaha... get in line, Andy.
I am a HUGE fan of this site. ^___^
i usually sell my hs textbooks to people a grade lower than me.
idk about college though.
@cornyonacob@xanga - I'm doing the same in my college - selling to students a grade below me. It's faster and I keep my books in pristine condition. :)
Paperbackswap.com is awesome! When I discovered it, I spent about four hours listing about 120 books. In the following two days, I sent out about 20 and selected two with my free credits. People are still requesting books from me and I have an abundance of credits that I am happily stockpiling for books that I really want but are also really pricey.
I collect cookbooks and have already found a couple of real treasures that I couldn't have brought myself to pay for, but very easily warrant spending a credit. And since I like to have all the books available in a fiction series, I can get them all this way for a lot less than it would cost me to purchase them new locally or online.
I hope more people will join and share the literary wealth. Thanks for posting! The more people who know and join up, the better for all of us swappers!
I love this site too!!!
awesome. now I know how to get rid of all those books gathering dust on my bookshelf. Thanks
for books that are worth a significant chunk of money, it's better and smarter to sell them on sites like half.com. what? you sent out 20 books and have only selected to get only 2 books back? i don't see any advantage to that, or if you just want to give them away for free.
I don't they just sit,there...or I give them to my sisters. I've tried selling them on Craigslist before,but, didn't get replies or if I did get inquiries, they didn't answer me back.
I've browsed that site but haven't signed up for it. I too have some textbooks that I am considering getting rid of but some of them might be too old.
I SELL THEM BACK AT THE END OF EACH SEMESTER WELL THE ONES THAT I CAN SELL BACK... THE OTHER ONES I JUST GIVE TO WHOEVER NEEDS LIKE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE... BUT I STILL HAVE SOME THAT ARE TAKING UP SPACE AND COLLECTING DUST ON MY BOOKSHELF... BUT I MAY CONSIDER THAT WEBSITE YOU JUST BLOGGED ABOUT! SOUNDS LEGIT TO ME!