How Much is My College Textbook Worth?

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college textbooks

It is clear to every student doing his or her studies at an American university that college books are a great expenditure in the budget. Moreover, there are certain degrees that require the purchase of textbooks that cost a fortune: it concerns science and business books in particular. Your wallet will start to feel the effect immediately! Through the analysis of your used textbooks’ publication date, condition and prices online, you can understand how much they are really worth. We outlined this information in more detail below, and we hope it should help you sell your used textbooks at the best price!

Top Selling Subjects

Selling textbooks can be a lucrative hobby but only if you have the right books! Unfortunately, novels, autobiographies and literature books are not worth as much as hardcover science books. So if you have taken courses in the following subjects, you have higher chances of earning more cash:

  • Business: textbooks written on the subjects from Accounting to Corporate Finance are top sellers. Topics like Management or real estate essentials will let you earn the most!
  • Nursing: it does not matter in which year of the program you are, nursing textbooks hold their value extremely well! Make sure you keep your books in good condition! If you sell them at the end of the semester, you can earn practically as much as you paid for it. Nursing school is expensive so every dollar counts!
  • Science: so far, science books will make you the highest profit if you sell them online. Whether you are studying biology, chemistry or even environmental science, you can be sure you can make your money!

           Therefore, making extra money by selling your used books should stimulate you to study even harder to make sure you pass well all your business and science exams from the first attempt. Selling such books at the end of the semester will increase your profit!

           Moreover, if you find such textbooks sold online or in a bookstore at a reasonable price, you can quickly buy them and resell when the timing is good to make that extra profit. If you see students queueing near a university bookstore in an attempt to sell their textbooks, propose to buy their books so that you can resell them online to BooksRun to make even more money. Use these tips for your money-making habits!

Publication Date

The publication date has a direct impact on what your old textbook is worth. It is part of the business plan of the publishing companies to issue new versions of textbooks every year to make sure they get consistent profit every time. Therefore, the difference between recent versions is only subtle but it will have a significant impact on the price tag when you are trying to sell a used textbook online. Therefore, if you purchased a brand-new book, the rule is to sell it as soon as possible to make the most profit as you will capitalize on its recent publication date. It is extremely important to have books in a good condition for a sale to go through successfully!

The Textbooks’ Condition

If you take care of your textbook when using it, you will get more cash for it when you sell it. Good condition generally means the following:

  • Clean pages: no highlighting, no underlining in your textbooks. It is the most obvious indication to buyers that the book has been used.  If you really need to make some notes and underline some important data, scan your textbook’s pages or practice tests and highlight as much as you want!
  • No folded corners: we all tend to fold corners of certain pages if we feel like referring to them some time later. If you want to make a good deal, make sure you use sticky notes to mark important parts of the study material!
  • Keep your CD: if your textbook comes as a bundle with a CD inside, then you have to keep it with the book all the time. If it is not there, most likely you will not be able to sell your book because buyers will prefer other offers with CDs.
How Much is My College Textbook Worth? 1
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When to Sell

To understand your old college textbooks’ real value, you need to understand the best time when you should attempt to sell them. It means you need to find the balance between supply and demand in order to make a good deal. Imagine you are trying to sell your textbook in the middle of the semester when most of the study material has already been covered by students. Do you think your chances for a good sale are high? The answer is no since most of the students have already purchased hard-copy or digital copies of textbooks. It should not be surprising as they want to prepare well for the midterm exams! The same idea is with trying to sell your old college books in the midst of summer.

Therefore, your best approach should be to sell your textbooks hot, i.e. as soon as you have finished your exams! Having said that, BooksRun unlike other buying services buys textbooks all year long and always offers you competitive prices!

Iliana K