You’ve definitely encountered phrases like “Instructor Edition Textbooks” or “Teacher’s Edition Textbooks” when hunting for affordable books for college. Let’s figure out what this whole thing is about and answer the most pressing questions: are these kinds of faculty textbooks the same? Is selling instructor edition textbooks illegal? Do instructor edition textbooks have content identical to student editions ?
It’s the time of year for a lot of holiday cooking and baking. As you dust off an old cookbook and consider letting it go to make extra space, you might want to first check BookScouter.com to see the current value. If it’s really old, you may want to have it appraised by an antique book dealer.
You might decide to hold on to your vintage cookbooks and then pass them down to a family member. Perhaps you come across a rare find — a really expensive cookbook — and decide to sell it. Or you might decide that a vintage cookbook would make a thoughtful gift for a cook or collector you know.
Reselling books can be a very lucrative business or side-hustle! As with every business, great tools and resources can help make the business of reselling books sustainable.
Here are the best resources to help you make the most money reselling books:
Resources for Finding Books
Finding books that you can resell for profit is the greatest challenge and also one of the most exciting parts of flipping books (aside from making money). Below are a number of great places where you can find quality books to resell:
- Online: Of course, start with BookScouter vendors like Amazon and eBay. You can also check those sites directly. Other resale sites like Craigslist and Facebook Market place might have some treasures.
- Colleges: When looking for books pay attention to college semesters, buying from college students could prove to be an excellent opportunity for you. You could gain permission from a college club or greek organization, partner with a local bookstore, or work with a local coffee shop to set up a shop (a table, special event) to purchase books back from students.
- Local Places: Think of perusing the lines of tables full of treasures that you can make great money from (or some items you’d like to use in your own home). Places like garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores, library sales (use https://booksalefinder.com to find sales), auctions, and markets are all great local places to find books. In these moments having your BookScouter app downloaded (iOS or Android) will help you quickly see if the books you find will be worthwhile.
You never know when you’ll stumble on a book to resell. Download the BookScouter App to look up the resell value no matter where you find your books.
- Liquidation Opportunities: Two important sites to find mass volumes of books at discounted prices are https://www.govdeals.com and https://www.liquidation.com/index. When purchasing books from liquidation services, be sure to cross-reference for the value of the book(s) before you make the purchase. The risk with liquidation is that you may be purchasing by pallet or box and not all titles (or any) will be listed.
- Amazon Arbitrage Sites: These three websites can help you quickly find books from Amazon’s database: ScoutIQ, Zen Arbitrage, and Scoutly.
Resources and Tips for Selling Books
Now, for the best part: making money on reselling books!
To help you find the best going rate for a book online, the BookScouter ISBN lookup feature is the best way to immediately sell for the highest going price for a book. We structured the lookup so the best deal shows up first! You don’t have to search for the best price.
Curious about how to sell books on BookScouter.com? Check out this article.
If you click on the caution sign, it shows if there is a minimum amount required to sell to that specific vendor at this time.
Similar to how you find textbooks, you can use similar avenues to resell textbooks! If you are connected to a college student group, consider reselling directly to your connections. You can also set up your own accounts on various platforms. These are merely suggestions, but honestly using the BookScouter tool will help you sell at the best price every time.
Work from home (or anywhere) as a book reseller.
Pro Tools for Reselling Books
BookScouter.com provides a number of additional resources for resellers who are serious about flipping books. These tools have helped so many pro users make lots of money faster.
- Bulk lookup: This tool allows you to look up multiple ISBNs at one time and receive all of the best prices for each on one page.
- Deals: View pricing information from our buy and sell vendors to identify potential deals.
- Historical Buyback Price Lookup: Review the buyback price history for a given ISBN, and identify seasonal pricing and trends.
Do you need these resources? CLICK HERE to gain access to all the pro tools! Becoming a BookScouter Pro is only $29.99 a month!
What You Need to Ship Book
Great resources like easyship and UPS provide tips on how to ship books inexpensively.
Using common-sense like making sure the books are clean and up to the quality expected by the buyer, all you really need are shipping items and a postal service!
Shipping books is easy! You can factor shipping into part of the low overhead of running a book flipping business.
Here are a few items to have on hand, especially if you’re reselling books often:
- Book shipping boxes
- Packing Tape
- Clear plastic bag or bubble wrap
- Packing materials
UPS, FedEx, and USPS are all great options for shipping your books. Don’t forget to grab the tracking number!
With these best resources in hand, you’ll be making great money flipping books!
The semester is wrapping up and you are preparing for final exams. Yes, that keeps you very busy, but don’t let the semester end just yet. You need to sell college textbooks! Why? You have gotten the most out of your textbooks the semester. Now it’s time to let them go, and earn some money along the way.
Timing is important for many things. From delivering a good joke to asking for a raise, mastering the timing is half the work. So when it comes to selling your textbooks, we want to equip you with time-tested wisdom for when to make the sale.
You don’t need to worry about the “when?” question anymore. Our team has been monitoring the best times to sell your textbooks for high sell rates and higher price points since we started in 2007.
Here is what we’ve learned over the past ten plus years about timing:
1. The beginning of the fall semester is THE best time to sell your textbooks. On average more students are attending college in the fall semester than the spring. This typically occurs because more and more students are graduating at the end of a fall semester than in years past.
2. The second best time to sell your textbooks, you guessed it: the beginning of the spring semester. Similar to the fall semester, at the beginning of the spring semester students recently received the syllabi for all their courses. This is the best time for them to buy their textbooks. Naturally, it is also your best time to sell.
3. The third best time is the end of the spring semester. Likely due to students preparing for summer courses, the end of the spring semester is another great time to sell textbooks.
In addition to knowing the best time to sell your textbooks, we have a couple rules of thumb to remember:
1. As a general rule of thumb with all three best times to sell is to post your books between 3 weeks before the semester begins and no more than 2 weeks after the semester ends.
Granted, college semester start dates vary. However, take a general poll of academic calendars of several large universities and that will help you gauge the best time frame to post your textbooks for sale. Not sure where to start? Take a look at Ohio State University’s future semester start dates HERE.
Why sell up to two weeks after the end of the semester? Many students will change their course schedule after the first day or week of classes. This means they still need to purchase textbooks.
Now, you’re probably wondering, “when should I avoid selling my textbooks?”
2. Glad you asked. The least profitable times to sell your textbooks are the “middles.” The middle of the semester and the middle of the summer. Students are not looking for books then, and often, neither are bookstores. Avoid the “middles” to maximize your profit.
No matter when you decide to sell your textbooks, BookScouter will help you make it a great sale!
Here at BookScouter, we pride ourselves in being the best resource for you to buy and sell your textbooks.
That’s why we created the Ultimate Guide to Buying and Selling Textbooks!