Selling Your Textbooks

Sorry I'm not really updating as frequently right now; finals week is officially underway and I am so stressed. But I thought I would take a minute to share a couple of options that you have for selling textbooks and how to get the most money out of selling.

Image from College Book Renter

You have a few options when it comes to selling books back, and it really is up to you which one you choose; each has its advantages and disadvantages. 

• Selling back to a bookstore: this is probably the most obvious. Bookstores host huge buyback events during finals, and Off Campus Bookstore in Athens even lets you text them the book's ISBN to find out its buyback price. My experience selling back to bookstores has been pretty good; don't expect to make more than 50% of the book's price back, and make sure you have all components of the book (including a CD if it came with one) and your student ID or 810 number (if you live in Athens) when you sell back. 
• Selling back to friends: I've sold a couple of books this way. Write a note on Facebook and list all the books you want to sell and what class they were for, and pick a reasonable price (i.e. something you yourself would be willing to pay for the book). Tag a bunch of your friends and see what happens.
• Selling back to Amazon: Amazon has a textbook buyback program that lets you see how much your book is worth, and if you like the price, you ship the book them and get an Amazon e-gift card in return. This is pretty nice if you have books for classes that aren't going to be taught next year at the University so no one in Athens will buy them back; someone, somewhere wants that books, and they will look on Amazon for it. Just make sure you're truthful about the condition the book is in when you ship it to Amazon. 
• Donating: I don't want to call this a "last resort", because it shouldn't be, but we all know that buying textbooks is expensive, and the money you make from buyback can help ease the pain in the fall when you start the process over. If you're willing to donate books, though, there are tons of options: Goodwill, the Invisible Children drop boxes (there's one at Russell Hall), and I even saw a flyer at the SLC last night for a group that will give you a free t-shirt if you donate three books. 

There are, of course, other buyback options and websites, but these are the main ones that came off the top of my head. I don't expect to make a lot of money from buyback this year, so what I do make I will probably just deposit into my grad school fund.