If you spent many hours thumbing your way through your textbooks during your studies you might be glad to see the back of something you feel you know inside out anyway and wouldn’t want to read through again.
If those old textbooks are sitting around gathering dust there is a very good chance that you can get a financial reward for closing that chapter of your life and selling them for cash.
Here is a look at how to make a fast buck from selling your unwanted textbooks and similar items that could be quickly converted into a welcome sum of money.
It’s payback time
The average college student spends somewhere in the region of $1,200 per year on textbooks and while that is clearly an unavoidable expense that you have to cope with while you are studying, you now have the chance to get some of that money back.
There are loads of different ways to sell your textbooks and some are definitely going to turn out to be more profitable than others.
One of the quickest and easiest ways of selling your textbooks is to offer them back to the college bookstore.
The good news is that a lot of college bookstores will make you an instant cash offer which is convenient, but the bad news is that if you take this perceived easy route you are unlikely to be turning a profit, as they want to pay you a low price in order to leave a profit margin when they resell to new students.
Plenty of options online
There are loads more opportunities to get a good cash offer for your textbooks when you go online so it has to be worth the extra effort to search out the best possible deals.
For example, learn more at www.buybackexpress.com to see what you might get for your old textbooks. Also, remember that some sites will pay your shipping expenses, but it would be wise to look at the overall package and decide whether you could still get more money from one site where you have to pay the shipping because some sites might attempt to factor those “free” shipping costs into their cash offer.
Cut out the middleman
Another option worth considering in order to maximize your profits from selling your unwanted textbooks would be to sell your used books to other students.
It will often be the case that some of your underclassmen will want to get their hands on the very same textbook that you bought last semester.
If there is a college forum or other suitable social media page, you might be able to match up your textbooks with a willing student who wants to make a saving by buying secondhand from you.
It is not always that easy to find other students who want to buy your old textbooks directly but at least you won’t be paying any commission for doing so.
A chance to make regular money from the same textbook
Some savvy students manage to find a way of generating an income from their old textbooks without resorting to selling them.
They do this by agreeing to rent the books instead of selling them to students during the semester. There tends to be a number of students each year who have not planned ahead so they could be willing to rent some of your books to get themselves out of a fix.
However, there is no guarantee that you will get your books back at the end even if you have been paid the rental fee upfront, so this is by no means a foolproof way of making cash from your old textbooks.
Getting the best price
It’s all very well finding the best way of getting money for your old textbooks but if they are in a bit of a sorry state that is clearly going to affect the value.
The best way you are going to get top dollar for your old books is to keep them in the best possible condition and think of them as a valuable commodity while you are using them.
There are a couple of neat tricks you can use to help keep your textbooks in great shape.
A good tip would be to seal the edges of the book with painters tape. The edges of a book are the primary point of impact and the most vulnerable to damage, so a quick run over with the painter’s tape will help keep them looking as good as new, even after you have used them for your own studies.
Also, aim to use sticky notes when you are making notes or want to find a certain section. This will be a better tactic to preserve the state of your textbook compared to writing in it or folding the pages.
Joe Wong is a Father of 6 so as you might imagine, finances are often stretched! His eldest just graduated so that’s technically one less ‘kid’ to clothe and feed. Read his articles on making some extra cash no matter if you’re a student, retired or regular 9-5 worker.