What are my best options for selling good condition used legal books?

February 5, 2024 10:52 AM

What website is best to sell used (but very good quality) Legal / Law texbooks? I'm more interested in quick and easy as opposed to maximum profits. As an example, this book is one I'm trying to sell. What are the best places I could sell it directly or list it for sale? Thanks!
posted by davidstandaford to Law & Government (7 answers total)

Thrift books.com recently started a buyback program, in beta currently, but it seems risky to me. I've never tried it.

I know you said website, but:
McKay's is an in-person option, but I think they're mostly, what, Tennessee and Kentucky, U.S.A.? I've sold books, including textbooks, to them on more than one occasion.
posted by AbelMelveny at 11:04 AM on February 5, 2024

Posting directly in law school facebook groups or online discussion groups at the beginning of the semester. Some profs don't mind students using older editions of textbooks.
posted by hepta at 11:05 AM on February 5, 2024 [1 favorite]

I've unloaded old textbooks by using Bookscouter.com; enter the ISBN number and it will return a list of offers for your book, mostly from used textbook resellers.
posted by sencha at 11:20 AM on February 5, 2024 [3 favorites]

A million years ago I put them on Amazon. Sold them all, even made a profit on some (because some profs LOVE out of date/print textbooks). You can be a marketplace seller.
posted by atomicstone at 11:25 AM on February 5, 2024 [1 favorite]

Put them on Ebay, as "Buy it Now" and set the price 20 percent higher than what you would accept. Then enable "make an offer" and when they lowball you, you'll end up with maybe ten percent below your ideal price. I used to sell on Amazon but they have gotten more and more restrictive.
posted by mecran01 at 11:26 AM on February 5, 2024 [3 favorites]

Bookfinder.com is a one-stop for a bunch of resellers; it allows you to see what other folks are asking for your book *and* see if any of the major online textbook shops will pay cash for your book. Entering your ISBN results in this, which shows you that while the cheapest available copy starts at $182.25, the green box with buyback offers in the center of the page shows you that textbook sites like Textbookrush and Sellbackyourbook are only offering around $2.30 for a copy of that edition, which means they think there's little demand and is unlikely to sell for them. The fact that Amazon shows a 9th edition published 3 years after your 2016 8th edition is almost certainly a factor in that. Older editions of assigned textbooks are a tough sell, since profs usually force students to have the most recent version.

However, I'd still enter the ISBNs of the books you have at Bookfinder; you might get lucky and see a nice offer from one of the textbook resellers for a few. For what it's worth, I've had good experiences with Textbookrush, Sellbackyourbook and Booksrun, which have been upfront and quick with payment for what I've sent them, but some of the other sites Bookfinder shows results for have terrible reviews online, so I avoid them.

Of course, checking auctions at eBay is also very useful for getting a sense of the market for a book; e.g., there's a copy of the 9th edition currently available for $47.95, and here's your 8th edition for $7.38.
posted by mediareport at 8:46 AM on February 6, 2024

Whatever books you can't sell, consider donating them to the Internet Archive for scanning and uploading to their free digital library. They have an app that makes scanning bar codes to see if they need a given title super easy.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:25 AM on March 15, 2024