Drowning in books!

May 24, 2012 9:10 AM

Detroit Filter: Where can I sell my old novels, textbooks, children's books, and test prep books for cash?

Due to a cross-country moved scheduled on Saturday morning, I'd like to be rid of these books by Friday afternoon. Bookscouter.com suggests that no online store is interested in purchasing the following:
- SAT/ACT/SATII/AP/A-level test prep books from 2006-2010,
- Cliff's Notes and Sparknotes literature guides,
- advanced/honors/IB/AP/A-level high school and honors-level college textbooks,
- British A-level workbooks in the sciences, and
- novels worth $20 each.

Please help me out!

posted by lotusmish to Work & Money (8 answers total)

Donate them to Goodwill and get the tax deduction. I tried to sell off my library 8 months ago on ebay, including (once) collectible books and signed first editions, and I barely got enough to make the project worthwhile. I then tried to give them away via craigslist and other resources, and no one responded.
posted by Ardiril at 9:16 AM on May 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

King's Books!
posted by FatRabbit at 9:23 AM on May 24, 2012

Best answer: The Wayne State bookstore might be a better bet for the textbooks.
posted by FatRabbit at 9:30 AM on May 24, 2012

I used to own a secondhand bookshop. I used to specialize in non fiction books and still out of what you listed I would most likely have only been interested in the novels. If they are worth 20 new I could have sold them for about $8 bucks and would have given you $2-4 for them depending on condition, this is in Australia second hand books in the US sell for a lot less. You might get something for the text and workbooks if they are no more than a year or so old and in clean condition selling them at a nearby Uni.

Basically I'd do what Ardiril suggested donate them and get the tax credit it is the most time efficient way and you'll probably make more.
posted by wwax at 9:38 AM on May 24, 2012

Yeah, sorry, but all the school books are basically worthless.
posted by easily confused at 9:52 AM on May 24, 2012

Best answer: If you're willing to drive to Ann Arbor, Books By Chance will take all of your books, try to sell what they can online (giving you a cut), and donate or recycle the rest. I had an excellent experience with them, which basically amounted to having them show up at my apartment door and then mail me a check for $100 a month or two later. They have a pick up location in AA that you could use, since they don't pick up from outside the city.
posted by Schismatic at 9:59 AM on May 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can sell your books back to Powell's. The process is explained on the link but basically you input the ISBN numbers, they'll give you a bid. If you decide to go through with it, they even cover the shipping cost. However I imagine that the money per book is minimal (or less than you might be able to get on amazon, ebay or a yard sale). However it's a way to get some money out of your books rather than just giving them or throwing them away (although I imagine that they won't accept everything).
posted by kaybdc at 10:45 AM on May 24, 2012

Best answer: King's Books!

I was just at King Books last week, and while I was sitting near the front desk/cashier recovering from those four flights of stairs someone came in with a load of college texts. The manager was kind but firm - they do not buy text books. The best she could offer (which the student actually accepted; apparently she'd been schlepping these tomes all over the metro area) was to leave them out front on the "free" tables.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:06 AM on May 24, 2012