Some college students want to sell textbooks. They may have completed their classes or finished their courses at college, and have extra books they don’t need any more. Although the textbooks they’ve used have provided a lot of useful and educational information, those students may feel they have gotten all they are meant to get out of their books, so they decide to try and sell them so that they can get some money. Although any money (cash or check) they might receive from the sale of textbooks could go towards purchasing other new and used textbooks, there is another thing to consider: by a student selling textbooks they no longer need, they allow for the possibility for those same college books to be made available to other students who could really use those books. If another student can purchase a “used” version of a textbook, the seller can feel as if they have done a bit of good, by making their unwanted books available to others. (That’s a lot better than throwing books away, isn’t it?) In fact, quite a few students may choose to donate their books to a library. There are a lot of libraries that are happy to receive used textbooks. Whether a student decides to sell used textbooks or give them away, these books may cover a variety of topics which may include:

1. Art textbooks
2. Social science books
3. Economics (may include chapters on macroeconomics or economics)
4. Statistics
5. Business
6. College physics
7. Nutrition
8. Sociology
9. Communication and media
10. Philosophy textbooks
11. College study skills

Choosing to sell books may be a fairly simple process. If one decides that they aren’t going to need the book anymore, then all that has to be done is to find a college textbook buyer (a “bookbuyer”). Of course, not all textbooks might be sold. Various factors such as supply and demand, etc., may dictate whether there is a demand for the textbook a student wants to sell. In many cases, textbook sellers can find buyers by posting ads on bulletin boards that display such ads, advertising in newspapers (college papers, journals, etc.), by visiting either on-campus bookstores or off-campus college bookstores that offer “textbook buyback” where students can try to sell their old textbooks. And by going online and searching for bookbuying companies that either specialize in, or offer to buy new or used college textbooks. Lots of options exist when searching for companies that buy. There are comparison websites (“compare”) and sites that buy and sell books, and there are also websites that specialize in buying textbooks when students want to sell them. One of many textbook websites is called “www.booksintocash.com” and many students sell textbooks to that company. By systematic research and review, the student wanting to sell their books may have a chance at finding book buyers.

Some Students Keep Used Textbooks

There are also quite a few students who decide to keep some or all of their books, because they’ve become familiar with the contents, the chapters, and the information presented. For example, if they need to look up formula, it’s easy to find the exact chapter that covers those formulas. If they need to look up a theorem or hypothesis, it is second nature to be able to turn to the exact paragraph that discusses those theories. One may even feel that there is a bond formed between a person that uses an item for an extended period of time, and the item that person is using. Students that study their books and spend hours, days, weeks, and months doing research with the same used textbooks may find that it is very easy to obtain helpful information from those books. There are some pupils that plan to keep their books all their life, and they might place markings throughout the pages. Corners may be dog-eared (where the page gets folded down in a corner), bookmarks may be placed throughout the text, sentences or whole chapters may be highlighted, etc. All these markings might help the owner be able to find pertinent information more quickly than having to search for it line by line in an index, or thumbing through the text until a paragraph is recognized. But it might be important to note that if marks or alterations are made to one’s textbooks, they may be harder to sell if a prospective textbook buyer has certain rules or policies pertaining to the purchase and sale of books, e.g., excessive highlighting, or handwriting throughout the book. However, students that have made the decision to hold onto their books for the rest of their life rather than to sell textbooks probably don’t have to worry about the salability if they’re not going to sell them.