If you’ve been thinking about selling your used books to make some quick extra money, you’ve probably been looking through your libraries and boxes. But before you start selling your used books online, there are a few considerations you need to keep in mind.
Here we want to show you some simple tips to start selling your used books and earn money fast. Don’t miss them!
- Make an inventory
- Cleanliness and level of conservation
- Take good photographs
- Set a fair price
- Book details
- Sell them in an online marketplace
1. Make an inventory
Before you start selling your used books, you must do a complete review of your library, and any other shelves, boxes or space where you store books. Depending on your family or your tastes, you will most likely have a wide variety of books, including classic novels, college books, school books, self-help books, and even your children’s books.
Each of these books will be a candidate for sale, but it all depends on how much use you currently have for them, and what your family needs. Keep in mind that you should ask your family members before you start selling books. They may want to keep some that have sentimental value, or that are simply part of their collection. You don’t necessarily have to sell all the books in your home, just the ones you don’t use or are not interested in.
Create an inventory dividing the books by categories, authors or years of publication. This will be much better for posting them later on internet marketplaces and selling them, so they will be organized and it will be easier for you to cover every aspect of them when you need to make the publications and photographs.
2. Cleanliness and level of conservation
Cleanliness is the next important point you need to pay attention to. When you make the inventory of the books you are going to sell, you must remove all traces of dust or dirt accumulated on the top of the pages, as well as on the front and back cover of the book.
In this review, you have to make sure that the book does not have any bookmark, stamp, paper or anything between its pages, since they are commonly used to mark, and you may have forgotten them inside the book. Another important point is the annotations, if you made any with a pencil, be sure to erase them; if they were made with a pen, it will be impossible to get rid of them, and this will reduce the value of the book.
When cleaning your books you also have to confirm the level of conservation they have. If you notice that they have small details of disuse and deterioration, there is no problem, as long as they are still useful and not disabling to be read. But, if on the contrary, they have a strong smell of mites, they are full of humidity, the covers are swollen or the pages are detached, it is better that you think about donating these books or throwing them away definitively.
3. Take good photographs
To promote your books and post ads about them on marketplaces, you should ideally take photographs of them to show them to interested buyers. These photographs should be quite detailed, so that all the details of the book can be observed; both the good ones, which show their level of conservation and the bad ones, which show any detail of deterioration they may have. Keep in mind that they are used books and you have to show them as such.
Try to take pictures in a clean and illuminated place, eliminating any other object in the background that may distract buyers; we suggest you do it in a white or unicolor background. When taking pictures, take them horizontally, they will be better accepted in the marketplaces ads and will look better. Capture several angles of the books: front cover, back cover, spine, first page, sides, etc.
4. Set a fair price
The price is one of the key details to start selling your used books, and although it may seem difficult to determine, it is not as complicated as you think. What you should do is take into account the state of conservation of the book, the type of book it is and if it is part of a special edition. All these details can add or subtract value to the book.
To give you an idea of how much a book like that might cost, you can go to internet marketplaces to see how much the book costs in new and used condition. Based on how much it would cost as new, you can subtract a little from the price depending on its condition. It’s all about analyzing each case and researching.
5. Book details
When it comes to publishing your books on internet marketplaces, you have to take into account the bibliographic details. These are the ones that define the title, the author, the year of publication, and the publisher where the book was published. These basic details can almost always be found on the back of the cover or the first pages of the book.
If you want to post your books in marketplace ads, it is also important that you highlight if they are part of a collection or special edition, this can give more value to your books. Likewise, if you want to sell a book that is part of a saga, and you have several of them, you should sell them all together, so it will be better for buyers who are interested in all of them.
6. Sell them in an online marketplace
Nowadays almost everyone interested in buying something turns to online options, as they are the most immediate way to get what they are looking for without having to leave home. In the case of used books, you’d be surprised how many people are interested in them; whether they are students looking for a specific book for their thesis, or hardcore readers interested in certain special editions. So if you want to sell your used books, an online marketplace is ideal.
To do this you just need to get the one that best suits your needs and start uploading your ads with the books you want to sell, post pictures, bibliographic details, and any other comments you want to add. In the end, you will be able to attract the attention of many buyers, who will agree with you on payment and shipping methods. Luckily for you, most online marketplaces offer shipping services, so it will be much easier than you think.
Do you want to know more about marketplaces to sell your used books? Click here.
Are you ready to sell your used books with these tips? You sure are!
If you are interested in earning more extra money, here are some other things you can sell to make it happen.
Sell what you don’t use and earn some extra money fast!