where to sell books

[northoftheborder]

I really need to find the best place to sell my overgrown stacks of books. Alibris, Powells, Amazon??? Or just haul and donate to library? Any experience with the online sites I listed, or are there others I don't know about?

[Stinky The Clown]

1. My wife tells me eBay is still the best.

She buys and sells. The other sites see low end books sell very slowly, if at all.

[Vinca]

2. ebay drives me nuts because so many sellers seem willing to give their books away.

I guess it all depends on what kind of books you're selling. We have a used bookstore in town that buys them in good condition, but if you have any rare books I'd figure out what they're worth and offer them to either a dealer at a reduced price or put them on ebay at a fixed price.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. My wife will often see a book she wants one one of the higher end book sites . . . .

. . . . and be turned off by the price. Sure enough, it is on eBay for a buck or ten.

There is usually a difference in condition. The eBay books often turn out to be musty or otherwise in bad shape.

In one case, there was a book she wanted for research, an illustrated children's book from the turn of the last century. She found it, after years of looking, on one of the high end sites in near mint condition for many hundreds of dollars. She bought it. Not a week later, the same book, in well used shape but complete and untorn, showed up on eBay. She paid $11 for it.

She feels she overpaid for the mint copy and greatly underpaid for the worn copy (which still had the tissue protector sheets in the color pages).

[northoftheborder]

4. Does it matter whether hard-back or paper-back as to price you can get?

[Donnachaidh]

5. I like Alibris

I've bought books from them for years. Dunno if they've got as many wonky rules as Amazon or Ebay -- but they get my vote.