Donate Books vs. Selling Books
I kept a lot of textbooks from college. I had these grand ideas that I’d actually use them again someday; however, I only ever picked them up to move them from one place to another. So I decided it was time to get rid of them, and what better way to clear out some books than to sell them. But it didn’t really work out how I planned.
The Problem with Selling Textbooks
There’s actually a few problems, and they all became pretty apparent after I sold my first textbook.
- New editions: My textbooks aren’t old but it seems like there’s a new edition every year. That makes my textbooks outdated.
- Lots of competition: If you look around online (like Amazon), you can find most textbooks pretty cheap. It makes me feel like a sucker having bought from the university bookstore. The fierce competition means I have to sell my books for next-to-nothing.
- Shipping: After all is said and done, I still have to pay for shipping. Textbooks can be heavy. That means spending a few dollars to get the book to the buyer, and that much less profit.
Where to Donate Books
There are several resources for donating books. Here’s a short list, but feel free to add your own.
- Goodwill – They don’t explicitly list textbooks on their site, but the friendly guy at our local store was more than willing.
- Books Through Bars – BTB provides books for prisoners.
- Books For Africa – BFA has been doing what their name says since 1988.
- Local library – Check with your local library. I’ve heard they even accept textbooks.
For other items, Kim wrote a great post about charities that’ll even pickup your donations.
Aside from helping out a worthy charity, donations are a tax write-off. Kim also wrote a great post about documenting your tax deductions.
What do you think? What happens to your old textbooks
Image courtesy of Lin Pernille Photography
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3 Responses to Donate Books vs. Selling Books
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July 21st, 2009 10:01 am
You definitely have to sell textbooks right away if you hope to make any money at all from them. As a college prof whose students tend to be from limited financial means, it really pisses me off that textbook manufacturers will change just some very trivial stuff about a book but then call it a new edition which makes it basically impossible for a student to make any money from the resale of that book. I always recommend to my students that they check with their instructors to see if they would be allowed to use an earlier version of a textbook.
Also, as someone who has sold my share of books, if you’re looking to make the highest profit with the quickest sale, keep your book in top condition then sell it on Amazon.
I donate all my books that can’t be sold to Books for Africa – one of the honor societies on my campus has donation boxes set up all over the school.
July 21st, 2009 10:22 am
you may want to enlist the help of swaptree.com – i have gotten rid of some textbooks that way and have gotten books/cds/movies/video games in exchange.
July 22nd, 2009 3:43 pm
Since you’re in the Baltimore area- you might also want to look into The Book Thing, which accepts donations of books and then allows people to pick up books for FREE – as many as you want!
http://www.bookthing.org
Also, the Baltimore Free Store is another valuable resource: http://www.baltimorefreestore.org