Get the Most Money for Your Used Textbooks
You paid a lot for those books, so here's how to get the best price when you sell them back at the end of the semester.
Before the school year started, we told you how to cut your textbook costs in half -- or more. Now that the fall semester is almost over, it's time to sell those books back and get a little spending money for the holidays.
The campus bookstore may be a convenient way to do this, but you'll likely get more money back if you sell your books online. I did a little comparison shopping to find out how much more.
I teach a journalism course at the university where I live, so I used the book from my class, Writing and Reporting News. The retail price is about $120.
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First I checked the buyback price at the university bookstore: $37.
The I used two of the comparison Web sites we recommended in the story about cutting textbook costs -- Bigwords.com and CampusBooks.com.
Of the 13 purchasers Bigwords.com listed when I did a buyback price search for Writing and Reporting News, eCAMPUS.com was offering the best price: $50.16 in store credit or $41.80 cash. Plus, Bigwords.com provides free, printable shipping labels and will send you a check or credit your Paypal account within seven to ten days. (Chegg actually had the best buyback price listed, $80.14. But when I clicked through to the site, Chegg said it could not buy back this book.)
My search on CampusBooks.com turned up a better cash price from Bookleberry.com: $49.95. And shipping is free on books more than $25.
So before you tote all your books to the campus bookstore, do a little searching online to see if you can get better buyback prices elsewhere.
