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selling books
May. 26th, 2011 05:58 pmWhen we pared down our bookshelves a few years ago, I sold many a book for trade credit to the local used bookstores. Now we have some more boxes, and I don't want to do that again, because we still have too much trade credit at these stores. But what else can we do with the books that might garner us anything? I could of course donate them to library booksales, and I did that for the ones the bookstores didn't take, but I don't want to start there.
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magscanner has been selling books on ... Ebay, I think he said, but I don't have an account there, and I want to get rid of the books fairly promptly, not let them dribble off over a long period of time. Someone else told me that Powell's, the great used bookstore in Portland, buys used books online. So eventually I decided to try that. I picked a few boxes that were mostly recent fiction, including extra copies of the freebies we got from the WFC a year and a half ago. At Powell's website, after setting up an account with them, you type in the ISBNs (they don't take pre-ISBN books online) and they come back with a list of those they'll take, with titles and cover photos added so you can confirm you didn't typo the ISBN.
All right, they took a few - almost all from the most recent fiction; they didn't take any of those of my non-fiction books that were in the boxes at all. Then I had to ship them. The cost of boxes and mailing supplies added up to half of what I'm getting in trade credit, though the bubble wrap and biodegradable foam peanuts will last me for several more shipments after this. Not to mention the cost in time and effort of packing it all up. I am terrible at present wrapping, as I was reminded while trying to get the bubble wrap to go around the stacks of books.
At least Powell's will pay the postage, and the PO raised no objection when I handed the boxes in. So we have a few books out. Next week, I'll try some more.
magscanner has been selling books on ... Ebay, I think he said, but I don't have an account there, and I want to get rid of the books fairly promptly, not let them dribble off over a long period of time. Someone else told me that Powell's, the great used bookstore in Portland, buys used books online. So eventually I decided to try that. I picked a few boxes that were mostly recent fiction, including extra copies of the freebies we got from the WFC a year and a half ago. At Powell's website, after setting up an account with them, you type in the ISBNs (they don't take pre-ISBN books online) and they come back with a list of those they'll take, with titles and cover photos added so you can confirm you didn't typo the ISBN.All right, they took a few - almost all from the most recent fiction; they didn't take any of those of my non-fiction books that were in the boxes at all. Then I had to ship them. The cost of boxes and mailing supplies added up to half of what I'm getting in trade credit, though the bubble wrap and biodegradable foam peanuts will last me for several more shipments after this. Not to mention the cost in time and effort of packing it all up. I am terrible at present wrapping, as I was reminded while trying to get the bubble wrap to go around the stacks of books.
At least Powell's will pay the postage, and the PO raised no objection when I handed the boxes in. So we have a few books out. Next week, I'll try some more.
