Where is the best place to sell books?

[Carrie Ellis]

Hello everyone!

I have been selling books on Amazon. The fees are getting stupid and I think I am probably giving the books away once i count my time, driving and standing in line at the PO. I don't mind paying a fee but not when it adds up to nearly 50%.

Here is my fees on one book with Amazon:
Dimension Value
Item price $4.00
Shipping $3.99
Customer pays $7.99
Summary of charges
Referral fee -$1.20
Other fees -$2.79
Fee discounts $0.00
Taxes ( click to load )
Estimated net proceeds $4.001

So they think my net proceeds are a proceed? I am still paying $3.00 to ship a book like this by media mail. Amazon is really getting ridiculous. I am taking all my books off right now. My kids just have a lot of books from homeschooling all these years and college books now (when the semester is over).

So does anyone have a better place?

 

[starry_solo]

Craigslist or eBay. eBay used to have a specific website for books and other media called half.com (well eBay bought it out) so not sure if it still exists.
What is this "referral" fee?

I would put multiple books together for craigslist or ebay.

 

[Carrie Ellis]

I am not sure and I have never seen a referral fee before. After fees and shipping, I am actually making $1 and Amazon $4! I am done now with amazon. I am planning on dropping Prime this year too. The benefits are so few recently.

 

[Disneyland_emily]

eBay you end up about 50% after fees/shipping so not fantastic either.. i look at it as I’d rather have $5 than $0 for crap laying around the house.. for $1 total profit I’d be donating them..

 

[Eastern]

Best way to sell college books is for your kids to ask their friends if anyone is taking the same class and needs the book. Then sell it directly to them for a little cheaper than Amazon. My kids did this several times. Freshmen books are the easiest to sell because everyone has to take those introductory classes.

You can also try selling them back to the school bookstore. Not always the best deal but sometimes something is better than nothing. And you get immediate cash or store credit.

Also, always try to get them to buy the cheaper used books from Amazon to begin with. Be careful with sellers. I like to buy from 'fulfilled by Amazon' because some individual sellers are flaky and you won't get your book in a timely fashion. One person told me 'sorry I was on vacation' when my book hadn't shipped for over a week.

Amazon rentals are also really good. Wait to order it until you have to (because they rent it to you for a specific number of days and you want to be sure to have it during finals). Save the box it came in for easy return.

Between renting and buying used (and reselling some) I did pretty good. Took me the first few semesters to realize that we didn't have to buy the new most expensive book version every time!

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Hello everyone!

I have been selling books on Amazon. The fees are getting stupid and I think I am probably giving the books away once i count my time, driving and standing in line at the PO. I don't mind paying a fee but not when it adds up to nearly 50%.

Here is my fees on one book with Amazon:
Dimension Value
Item price $4.00
Shipping $3.99
Customer pays $7.99
Summary of charges
Referral fee -$1.20
Other fees -$2.79
Fee discounts $0.00
Taxes ( click to load )
Estimated net proceeds $4.001

So they think my net proceeds are a proceed? I am still paying $3.00 to ship a book like this by media mail. Amazon is really getting ridiculous. I am taking all my books off right now. My kids just have a lot of books from homeschooling all these years and college books now (when the semester is over).

So does anyone have a better place?

I have 100 plus books of the sAme series of my daughters. They cost me between
$6-$12 each. We put them in our neighborhood garage sale & a person was interested in them but for less than 25 cents per book. I’m not going to sell them for that. My husband sells things on EBAY but I know In The long run it wouldn’t be worth it. I’ve been searching for a place to donate them that’s tax deductible instead of trying to sell them.

 

[runwad]

We use this site to see who will give us the most for our books, mostly school books, not sure on other kinds? https://www.bookfinder.com/

 

[MomToOne]

Well, I can't tell you where to sell them, but I can tell you where I buy them! Other than Amazon and eBay, I've been turning to Abebooks more and more lately.

 

[MillauFr]

Seems like you can make more money by giving them away to charity and writing it off as a charitable donation on your taxes.

 

[rkstocke5609]

https://www.hpb.com/home

Half Price Books is my go to..

 

[barkley]

My kids just have a lot of books from homeschooling all these years and college books now (when the semester is over).

We use this site to see who will give us the most for our books, mostly school books, not sure on other kinds? https://www.bookfinder.com/[/QUOT
i was going to suggest the same site-it gives prices from a multitude of sites.

i don't know about selling books on amazon but i get a better return on selling THEM dd's textbooks vs. selling them back to the college bookstore. the thing you have to do though is hang on to books and keep rechecking for about one full school year, quarter after quarter b/c many schools only offer certain classes one quarter per year so if your kid took the class last spring then it's likely not going to fetch much if anything NOW, but if you hold on to that book and recheck the sites during the end of the winter quarter you may find some decent coinage.


kids books? maybe find a homeschooling group and provide them with a list to see if anyone's interested OR see if a local used bookstore will at least give you credit on the books for future purchases.

 

[Caseheidi]

Check out your local book stores. We have Powell’s here, and they will purchase used books in good condition. They will not take everything, but I would think with school and reference books you have a better chance of them being purchased. I know with Powell’s, they will not purchase hardback if the book has come out in paperback.

 

[Dakota731]

I started giving them to my young nieces and nephews. $1 profit wasn’t worth my time or gas to the post office

 

[disneymagicgirl]

You can print usps labels at home and ship right from your mailbox. That at least saves you time and gas. It is quite easy. Go through PayPal and you get a discount or USPS website and ship it media mail.

I generally post books on my neighborhood FB page for free. Even then it is hard to get rid of them. haha. So what is leftover I donate and take the write off.

 

[loves to dive]

I used to sell mine on Amazon and while I didn't make any money, they were out of the house, which was my goal. Then I just started donating them to the local library because they needed them and I didn't. My son bought his books new the first year at college but was too lazy to resell them to the used bookstore so we donated them to the library as well. Then he started waiting until the first week in school to see if he really needed to buy the book, turns out half the time he didn't. If he needed to he either bought them at the used book store or rented from Amazon. He just returned them to Amazon and again the used ones went to the library. Now I buy all my books via ebook so no books sitting around and he's done with school. Problem solved for us.

 

[starry_solo]

I have 100 plus books of the sAme series of my daughters. They cost me between
$6-$12 each. We put them in our neighborhood garage sale & a person was interested in them but for less than 25 cents per book. I’m not going to sell them for that. My husband sells things on EBAY but I know In The long run it wouldn’t be worth it. I’ve been searching for a place to donate them that’s tax deductible instead of trying to sell them.

PM

 

[drnp]

If I want cash with least amount of hassle I sell them at half price book as well. Its one trip and you dont have to take their offer if you dont want to.

 

[MEM]

If I want cash with least amount of hassle I sell them at half price book as well. Its one trip and you dont have to take their offer if you dont want to.

Alas, no stores in Massachusetts...

 

[littlele]

To anyone looking to donate books, please consider your local school. As a librarian, I love when we get great books that the kids are done with, but I know will be used by many in our library.

 

[dsanner106]

Half Price Books is the book division of Ebay actually, just so you know. I have been selling books online for almost 20 years and half price was purchased about 5 or 6 years ago.