This was a trick I discovered late in college, that I wish I would have known about earlier because it could have saved me thousands over my college years.
It shouldn’t take more than a hour and could save you hundreds each semester.
Basically, the goal is to buy and sell the textbook for the same price – making it ($75-$75=$0) FREE!!
1. Find the cheapest priced textbooks.
Get the ISBN# from the barcode of the book and do a search on both for the cheapest used book.
Feel free to look other places like textbooks.com or Barnes and Noble, but Amazon and eBay are likely to be the cheapest.
Make sure you are getting the right edition for the class (I had many classes that it didn’t matter, but for the purposes of reselling, the newest edition will help).
2. Use it, but don’t abuse it
Folded pages, highlighting, rounded edges don’t affect the price very much, but missing covers or pages do. Don’t eat your book!
I know you are in college and probably short on cash, but if you are resorting to eating paper as a dietary supplement, stick with looseleaf; it is cheaper.
3. Get ready to sell those textbooks
After the fall semester you are going to want to sell them right away, because other anxious college kids will be looking to buy them up for the spring semester.
After the spring semester on the other hand, you should probably wait a couple months before looking to sell.
Remember: supply and demand.
How many college kids are looking to buy their textbooks for fall, when classes let out in May?
4. Don’t trade them in to the Campus Bookstore!
You want to list and sell them for best possible price, and that is NOT it.
There are many options for selling your books, but you want to find one where YOU are selling to the customer.
What you will find is that as long as every school in the U.S. hasn’t switched to a newer edition, you shouldn’t have a problem selling them for what you paid.
I like Amazon’s textbook store
eBay is another good option, but I don’t think it is quite as easy as Amazon.
Once you go to Amazon’s textbook store
The whole process is pretty easy
It shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes for each book.
- When setting your price, look to see what the lowest price is and go a few cents below that. This will help you to sell your book as quickly as possible. Check back every week or so and adjust your price so it is the cheapest listed. If your book is not in the 5-10 lowest priced books, it is unlikely that it will sell.
- When you do sell your book, you will receive a notice via email with the buyer’s info. It is your responsibility to get it shipped ASAP. Not doing so will result in poor ratings and will make it more difficult to sell the next book.
I did profit off a few books over my last year in college doing this.
You will find that some are winners and some are losers, but no matter what, I suggest that you sell textbooks online – you will be doing a whole lot better than those who buy their books new and sell them back to the campus bookstore.
Making this even simpler
If you don’t have time to actually go through the selling process (which does take a little time and energy) Amazon has a trade-in program. Occasionally this can work out REALLY well and is a LOT quicker.
In the example we used, you can actually buy the book right now for $105 and trade it in for a $123 Amazon gift card (see image below).
So definitely pass this along to any college kids you know, every college student would like to get their textbooks for free!
I wish I’d known about this when I was in college! Of course, that was almost 10 years ago now, so I don’t know how much the Internet was used for buying and selling textbooks at that time. Very good tip 🙂
@Becky,
well – as I mentioned, I wish I would have figured it out earlier, but better late than never I guess…
@Centsible
Thanks for sharing…
I’ve sold many textbooks in my day but I’ve never actually profited from the sale. By definition they are always sold at lower used prices. You sold them at cost? Impressive.
-Raymond
@Money blue book
I did sell a few below my cost -nicely discounted “USED” cost – most were right around what I paid for them – the goal was always to break even
Thank you for this valuable information, I will use it and share it
Textbooks are such a ripoff…at least at college bookstore prices. Oy! Online is definitely the way to go. I wish I had taken this advice a few years ago.
I just saw what some of the textbooks that I need are gonna cost…I’m definitely gonna try to re-sell them once I’m done. Thanks for the info!
I do the same thing and end up with books costing me $10-20 each (due to Amazon taking their cut and shipping costs). Sure beats a 75% loss selling back to the bookstore!
Off Campus bookstores are cheaper than online and on campus. Did you know that Half.com (eBay) calls the bookstores to list their Textbook online because of volume selling (more fees) than a single student.
If you will check the feedback, note the one’s with 4ooo or higher they are bookstores. Also, the bookstores are laughing at students that buy online, because they list the books at a higher cost, and do not have to worry about returns due to drop/add.
I know this because I worked in a College Bookstore for 4 years..
@Patricia
Thanks for sharing – it is good getting some insight from a textbook “insider” 😉
Thanks Bob and all the posters for this post. It has definetly hit home. My wife recently decided to go back to college after a 10 year break =). I was blown away with the cost of these books. $50 -$100 each. Wow!!!! Thank you so much for these ideas. I plan to resell the books for her and shop around for better prices and will definetly use the difference to pay down debt.
This is something I absolutely did during college. My best semester went something like this: I sold all the books from my current semester, bought all the books for my new semester, and somehow ended up with about a $100 profit. My friend (who just so happened to manage a local bookstore near campus) always makes fun of me and tells that story to people because I am the only guy he knows that bought all my books for the semester and made money in the process.
I did this in college and grad school. Make sure to email professors asking for syllabi as soon as you know what you will be taking the next semester, so you can order your books _well before_ the first day of class, as it may take up to a week or two to get them when you order on line. Also, pay the extra buck or two to get the book that is in better condition when you are buying the book–this will make it easier to sell later. It doesn’t matter how gentle you are with your book if it was a mess when you got it. And I disagree about highlighting–don’t highlight. It will make it easier to sell the book if the text is clean. And don’t list your book a cent below the lowest price. List it at the lowest price, or even a cent above. Many large scale sellers such as book stores have software that automatically lowers the price of their book if a cheaper listing appears. Therefore, if you go lower you will only trigger a downward cascading of the price, ultimately lowering the price you can get for your book.
And in response to Patricia’s comment about bookstores being cheaper: it may be true that buying a book at the bookstore is cheaper than buying it from that same bookstore’s online presence, but if a bookstore in Texas is selling it for half as much as the bookstore next door, I’ll save money by buying on-line. There is no question that you will save money by buying textbooks on-line and reselling them on-line.
Thanks for this article.
Some Amazon sellers have automatic repricing programs. It makes more sense, to me, to stay at the minimum price listed. If you under price you books, you run the risk of starting an avalanche to a penny.
Very good advice. My daughter and I will use it well for the fall and spring semesters. Thank you for your great ideas!!
You are welcome Kim!
Also, a student started a Tradebook Page on Facebook for the university that I attend, we connect with other students to see if we can trade textbooks, some will offer their textbook for free, and some will sell it at a very good price. You can also meet on campus around public areas for safety, which is how I purchased a book that I paid $40 instead of $180.
Sounds like a great idea Mary!
Thank you. Great information.
Very helpful post Bob. I especially like how you detailed everything out and made it as ‘step-by-step’ as possible. If I were in college this would have made it very easy for me to get my books for free. Alas, I’m done with college for the time being 🙂 but maybe one day I’ll return for my masters. It’ll be nice to know I can at least get my books for free.
Yep you sure can!
Good tips, thankyou! 🙂 The best way I saved during my years as well was to check out the on campus library! I was able to borrow so many books and “recheck them out” throughout the semester. True they might be 5 editions old, but they would only change a picture or two or reorder the chapters. I must’ve saved hundreds!
Wish we had done this while we were still in school!