We’ve All Been There: Book Buy Back

May 19, 2009 Posted in HaHa

textbook_buyback

You finished your last exam early and, after waiting for someone else to turn theirs in first (you don’t want to be first!), ran down the steps of that lecture hall, slammed that baby on the desk and skipped your way to freedom. As you walk home you notice how great the air smells, how bright the sun is and how beautiful your campus is. School is out and you are feelin’ groovy.

After regaling your roommates with tales from your 90 minute essay exam (“I totally rocked that shiz!”), you head to your room to start the end-of-the-year cleaning session. You grab a garbage bag, sit down at your desk and start sifting through the piles of papers, books and notebooks that litter your desk.

In the back of your mind, you know that some of those notebooks will come in handy for next year’s classes. In the front of your mind, though, you know you will never look at them ever again. So, in a celebratory fashion, you toss one binder after another into the Hefty.

“Bye bye, Econ! See ya never, Psych 240!” The feeling is euphoric. All those syllibi, gone. All those Power Point slides, gone. Those damn course packs, gone. All those near-empty highlighters, gone.
Soon you are left with nothing but a stack of books.

You gather the books, throw them into your backpack and head to the bookstore to sell them back. On your way, you start planning what you will do with all that extra money. A keg for the big end-of-the-year bash? A new bag? A ticket to Lollapalooza? The possibilities are endless. Even though you know the bookstores totally screw you with the buy-back, you have, like, 12 books this time! Giant, expensive textbooks and lots of novels. You’re sure there is some serious cash flow coming your way.

The bag is heavy and by the time you make it to the bookstore you are sweating. Naturally, the line is super long and filled with other students hoping to make it rain. You stand there, cocked to the side from that overflowing bag of books, and watch student after student happily free themselves of the semester. Only the looks on their faces as they leave isn’t one of big money – it is anger.

When it is finally your turn, you unload your books onto the counter. The cashier scans them one at a time, forming two piles.

“We can’t use these,” he says, pointing to the larger stack. “They’re going with the new edition next year.” He offers to let you take them home (so nice of him), or he can donate them to whatever organization it is that wants your used copy of Tom Jones. You consider taking them – you aren’t going to give those away for free! – but then you realize that you’d have to carry those all back home, not to mention pack them up and move them.

“Ugh. Just keep them,” you say.

You don’t think things can get any worse and then he hands you your money. A whole $26. For 5 books. That wasn’t even a quarter of the cost of one! You rip that money out of his hands and storm out of the store.

Yeah, we’ve all been there. Maybe if you combine your money with all of your friends, you’d have enough for that keg.

3005532 CommentsWe%27ve+All+Been+There%3A+Book+Buy+Back2009-05-19+15%3A00%3A45Lauren+-+University+of+Michigan on "We’ve All Been There: Book Buy Back"

Matt says:
Tue, 19th May 20096:15 am

I actually had a special case this year. Only had to buy one textbook, $60. Got it bought back for $41.50. I'm happy with more than 50% back, let alone almost 70%.

m says:
Tue, 19th May 20097:24 am

I sold back 15 books (English Major) that when I bought them, cost me around $375-400 and made a whooping total of $36!!!!!

Being an English Major is the worrrsssssttttt

Liz says:
Tue, 19th May 20097:29 am

I only had one textbook to sell back. I keep all of my novels, and I'm a lit major, so all I had was my french textbook. $65 bucks for a $90 textbook. Awesome!

To be fair, though, I kept roughly twenty books.

Linda says:
Tue, 19th May 20097:31 am

I was thrilled this semester..I bought my Biology textbook used for $70 on half.com & our bookstore happened to be buying them back for $70!! [They go for $120 used at the bookstore] Anyways, never before has that happened to me(and probably never again) but I was thrilled. I hadn't even cracked the book open all semester..

Sara says:
Tue, 19th May 20098:17 am

Our school has a textbook rental system. We only have to buy supplemental reading for certain classes, so the most we spend is $40.

Gloria says:
Tue, 19th May 20099:22 am

I always just sell mine on half.com or ebay.

Last semester I tried book buyback and I had 3 books I had spent roughly $275 on.

Buyback offered $20 for a $95 book and $5 on a $75 and the other one was no longer accepted.

I sold all three on half.com and netted a nice $185.

Jeffrey says:
Tue, 19th May 20099:41 am

chegg.com anyone??

Lindsay says:
Tue, 19th May 200911:55 am

Out of 4 textbooks that cost me $220 originally, I was able to sell back 2 for a grand total of $21.

Christy says:
Tue, 19th May 20096:00 pm

Chegg.com is good for renting books. They also buy some of yours back.

Lenna says:
Tue, 19th May 20098:26 pm

This is why I don’t bother selling books back. Most of the books that cost lots are ones I need for a few years anyway (Biochem~!)

Mazuba says:
Tue, 19th May 200911:29 pm

I hate how they screw you over with "new editions" every semester .

Jenny says:
Wed, 20th May 20098:43 am

I used to work at my university's bookstore, and buyback was brutal. I had a lot of people yelling at me and cursing me out over the results of their buyback. Yes, it sucks to shell out tons of money only to get about 10% of it back, but there is nothing that I, a lowly cashier, can do about it.

Brooke says:
Thu, 21st May 20095:55 pm

Make sure you check all the bookstores at your school. I went to one that offered me $2 for two books and I walked right out of there. The second one offered me $12 for one of my books and couldn't take the other. I sold it and put the other one on craigslist for $15.

And about the new editions, for next semester if have to buy a 2010 edition! How is that even out? lol I'll never find a used one of those!

Star says:
Tue, 26th May 20093:42 pm

I sold my books for almost $100 this semester because I went the week before classes ended. I was shocked. Have to try it again next semester.

Jenny says:
Wed, 27th May 200910:15 am

Star, that's the best time to sell books back. The reason for that is because bookstores only take back a certain number of each specific used book per semester. The earlier you go, the better chance you have of bookstores still having room to buy back your books.

Jackie says:
Fri, 29th May 20099:49 pm

I agree with "m", being an English major is horrendous.. I sold back 15 paperbacks for a grand total of $12, and went away sobbing.

BUT I have learned that often the libraries on campus have copies of the novels I only need for 1-2 classes before we move on, so I have saved trouble that way. The only problem is not having the right page numbers occasionally.

Jessy says:
Sun, 31st May 200912:19 pm

That is why I always buy and sell books on half.com. Since my first semester, I've never had to shell out money for new textbooks– I just keep reusing the same money .

Lauren says:
Wed, 3rd Jun 20093:39 pm

chegg.com is usually where i get my books for 1 quarter/semester classes. you can rent them for really cheap, then you just ship em back when the class is over! be careful though, i have found a few books that were cheaper to just buy than rent.

studentlistings.com is also great. it compares prices for all the top book selling sites!

JJ says:
Sat, 6th Jun 20093:48 pm

I've been scr*wed so many times by my campus bookstore I refuse to sell any of my books back to them and I try not to buy them from them in the first place. $15 for a $150 book? I'd rather use it for fire wood. What I really love is about half of the time they will say online that they are paying $75 for that book but when you show up to sell it they say the website has errors. Yeah, a f*ck pot of errors!!!

Megan says:
Sat, 6th Jun 20095:06 pm

I don't even waste my time buying books from the bookstore or selling them back. Most of the time, teachers don't even know what book they are going to use yet so then you're stuck with that book & not knowing if you could've sold it back or not. Sooo, I try to sell my books on Amazon (as well as buy them) and have had some pretty good luck with that. But, since I'm a psychology major, I'm starting to keep my books because I might actually need them again someday..

J. Scott Allen says:
Fri, 21st Aug 200911:52 am

Try using http://www.bigwords.com They are a textbook search engine that searches all the online retailers (including those already mentioned here) and rental sites to find you the best prices. But you can also use them to search for resellers to sell your book to.

Carlos says:
Wed, 9th Jun 201012:55 pm

Where can I go to get rid of textbooks in the city of Los Angeles, Ca that will take any college textbooks???

Carlos says:
Wed, 9th Jun 20101:06 pm

I've tryed online and calling college campuses, please help!!

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