Have you used BookScouter to sell your textbooks for a ton of cash? You can help other students to earn more cash for their books as well by telling them about BookScouter. We’ve created a simple flyer that you can print and hang up around campus. They are perfect for bulletin boards in cafeterias, dorms, popular classrooms, and anywhere that students are likely to be found.

Please make sure to obey any rules regarding the posting of flyers. Some places may require approval before pinning up flyers (This is usually noted somewhere on the board). Also, please be responsible and take the flyers down after your school’s buyback period is over.

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I’m pleased to announce that BookScouter will have a table at the Amazon Sellers Conference for Online Entrepreneurs (SCOE) in Seattle from July 8th through 11th. This will be our first trade show, and I’m hoping to be able to unveil a couple of additional tools on the website designed specifically for small- and mid-sized book resellers. I’m also working on putting together some “swag” to give away. What do people prefer? T-Shirts? Mouse Pads? Pens?

I just learned that BookScouter has been mentioned in the March 2011 issue of Consumer Report Magazine. The full article is titled “How To Get Rid of Practically Anything”! There are a few paragraphs about getting rid of old books where it mentions that BookScouter compares prices from dozens of book-buying sites.

In case you haven’t heard yet, Borders Bookstores has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is closing around 200 of its 600+ stores across the country. The stores that are closing will be liquidating their inventory which means that some good deals can be found. You can check this link for a list of Borders Store Closings to find one near you.

Due to some recent feedback from vendors on BookScouter’s feedback system, I’ve recently made a couple of minor modifications to the feedback page and the criteria that I use to approve feedback. When a user is submitting feedback, the following text is now displayed at the bottom of the page:

“Each feedback submitted is manually reviewed and approved before being displayed on the site. Ultimately, BookScouter may approve or reject feedback for any reason. We try to be as fair as possible and may not approve feedback for some of the reasons noted below.”

• Vulgar or offensive language, including name-calling.
• Poor grammer, punctation, spelling, or the use of all caps.
• Comments not specificly related to the vendor for which it was submitted.
• Comments not related to selling back books.
• If we have reason to believe that a vendor is incentivising users to leave positive feedback for themselves or negative feedback for somebody else.
• Only one comment per user, per vendor is allowed. The most recent feedback will be displayed.

I also fancied up the page a little bit by adding a clickable-star selection instead of a drop-down box with numbers.

Finally, when submitting negative feedback for a Preferred vendor, users have the option of using me to contact the vendor on their behalf and try to have their complaint resolved directly. These are vendors that I believe provide good customer service, and I will try to work with my contacts at these companies to ensure that BookScouter users have the positive experience that I expect.