30 Best Places to Sell Books for the Most Cash in 2022
– Best Places to Sell Books –
Are you searching for the best websites that buy books? Selling books is a fantastic way to make extra cash and even start your bookselling business.
We all know how criminally expensive textbooks and academic books can be – if you can make some of your money back from them, it’s got to be worth a go.
Selling books online can be a profitable business. However, you need to do your research to know what you are getting yourself into exactly.
The book industry is still quite thriving even though there is enormous competition. Especially now that there are audiobooks and ebooks.
Also, the sooner you sell your used textbooks, the better. They become outdated quickly and, the more relevant they are when you sell them, the more money you can make.
But before you proceed, you need to know the Best Place to Sell Books. There are tons of places on the internet where you can sell those paperbacks and hardbacks that you no longer read.
In this post, we list the Best Place to Sell Books for cash.
Best Places to Sell Books Online
When it comes to selling books online, there are two major ways to do it.
- Buyback sites: With these websites, you enter the name of the book you want to sell, and you get a quote. If you like the quote, you ship your books to the company and get paid. This is the easiest way to sell books and the best method if you want to get cash quickly.
- Online marketplaces: With these websites, you list your books for sale, and then wait for customers to buy them. This method takes longer than the one above. But, since you can set your own prices for your books, it gives you more control over how much money you earn.
Which one you choose, really comes down to a matter of personal preference.
30 Best Places to Sell Books Online
Below are the Best Places to Sell Books:
1. Facebook Groups
This is one of the best places to sell books. The chances are, there’ll be a group on Facebook for people on your course where you can share exam tips, and module recommendations, and (most importantly) sell books.
Facebook groups are the easiest way of tapping into the crop of students in the year below who need to buy the exactly used books you own – your ideal market.
If you want to get rid of your university textbooks quickly, it’s a good idea to bundle books from certain modules together and sell them in bulk.
Also, don’t throw away books just because you’ve made notes inside them–this is one of the rare instances where your scribbles might not decrease the book’s value.
Friendly notes could actually come in handy for some students, meaning you might earn more cash for the books you own.
Plus, selling books on your uni Facebook group means you don’t have to pay any postage or fees, as you can just meet buyers on campus to hand the books over.
2. eBay
This is one of the best places to sell books. If you’re not already on the ball selling everything you possibly can on eBay, now’s the time to give it a whirl. They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that’s definitely true with eBay.
Unlike some of the other sites on this list, eBay will take a slice of your profits and, depending on how busy you are, may even charge you to list items.
We have a complete guide on how to work eBay like a pro, including info on the fees, so check this out before you get started on selling your books to really maximize your profits.
If your books are in high demand or are out of print, you could end up making a good chunk of money by selling them on eBay.
Tip: Make sure you handpick your titles and keywords to ensure the right eBay audience finds your books.
So, for example, if you’re selling a book about accountancy, include words such as ‘business’ and ‘finance’ in your listing.
eBay is also a great place to look for yourself if you’re trying to save money buying books.
3. WeBuyBooks.co.uk
This is one of the best places to sell books. From what we’ve heard, WeBuyBooks.co.uk is one of the best sites to sell books in the UK.
They have the quickest and most efficient system going for selling your unwanted books. As a result, customer reviews are pretty decent.
All you need to do is enter the ISBN number (usually found next to book barcodes) on their website, or scan it on their book-selling app, and you’ll receive an instant valuation.
You can then choose to accept or reject it as an offer.
Once you’ve entered enough products to meet the minimum value requirement of £5, you can print off the shipping label and send your books over to their warehouse free of charge.
After your books have been checked, the money should be in your account within three days – it’s as easy as that.
4. Amazon
This is one of the best places to sell books. It’s not just Amazon themselves that sell books on the site–anyone can sign up and sell books to a market of millions of people.
Amazon has a couple of selling plans to choose from but, unless you’ve managed to stockpile an outrageous number of books, the basic plan should be enough for you.
That said, unless you’re selling books for a pretty good price, Amazon’s rates may make it costly to sell second-hand books through them.
We cover the fees and all the best tips for selling in an entire load more detail in our guide to making money on Amazon.
Once you’ve got to grips with the fees, it’s just a case of uploading the details of your books and their condition onto the site and waiting for someone to buy them.
5. Abebooks
This is one of the best places to sell books. Abebooks is a less well-known book-selling website, but you’ll be amazed at just how popular it is with those in the know (particularly students).
In fact, it has over ten years of online bookselling experience, so can offer millions of titles. Abebooks works in a similar way to Amazon.
but there’s also the option to sell your books to collectors or other sellers, which might be a good idea if you’ve got rare or collectors’ items.
If you plan to sell books there, though, you need to know your potential buying audience, and when they would be most likely to shop (e.g. September for used textbooks).
There’s a monthly subscription fee of around £20 if you’re selling less than 500 books, which could add up if you don’t manage to sell all of your books quickly.
On top of this, you’ll pay an 8% commission for every sale.
Other Amazing and Best Places to Sell Books
1. Book Scouter
- Official site: bookscouter.com
I love this website! This is one of the best places to sell books. You simply enter the ISBN of the book, then BookScouter searches over 40 different buyer sites to find the ones that will pay the highest amount for your book.
They are especially well known for buying and selling textbooks.
If you don’t have the time to compare prices on different sites one by one to find out which one pays the most money for old books, BookScouter should be your number one choice.
Still not convinced? Read my BookScouter review for more reasons why you should always check with BookScouter first.
2. Cash4Books
- Official site: http://www.cash4books.net/
Cash4Books operates differently from the above-mentioned site.
Instead of creating a marketplace to make your used books available to potential buyers, they will buy them directly from you. However, they don’t just buy any book.
They have to meet certain conditions.
To find out if your book meets their criteria, simply enter the ISBN of the book in the provided search box and hit enter. You are then given an offer for the book (assuming they want it.)
If you like the offer and want to sell it for their price, they’ll send you a prepaid shipping label that you can use to ship the book to them.
3. Sell Back Your Book
- Official site: http://www.sellbackyourbook.com/
This is one of the best places to sell books. Sell Back Your Book works similar to Cash4Books.
Enter the ISBN and get an instant quote. They also have a set of standards for the kind of books they buy.
Here is the kind of books they don’t Buy:
- Advanced Readers Copies
- Review Copies
- Items with no ISBN anywhere on the book
- Offensive and explicit material.
- Incomplete sets (volume 1 of a 2 book set etc…)
- Encyclopedia Sets
However:
They do Buy Textbooks as well Except the Following kind:
- Instructors Editions
- Annotated Instructor Editions
- Teachers Editions
What I personally like about this one is the Bulk ISBN option.
If you have a lot of books, it can get tedious to enter one ISBN, hit enter, get a price, then goes through the whole thing over and over again for every single book.
With the bulk ISBN option, you can enter as many ISBNs as you like and get an instant quote for each one at once. They also have apps that make it extremely easy to sell your books for the highest price.
Instead of entering ISBN(s), you simply scan it with the app. This can speed things up immensely.
4. Blue Rectangle
- Official site: http://bluerectangle.com/
This is one of the best places to sell books. Blue Rectangle is like these book-buying websites mentioned earlier, but with even more flexibility.
You still need to check if they want your book in the first place.
The rest of the process is similar. They also offer check or PayPal payments.
5. CKY Books
- Official site: http://www.ckybooks.com/
This is one of the best places to sell books. Another website that buys books directly from you is CKY Books.
Their range is more diverse, from fictional to non-fictional, religious books to textbooks, self-help books to travel books, and much more. They also cover the shipping costs.
Paid via PayPal or Check. You can also sell movies, games, and DVDs here.
6. Paperback Swap
- Official site: http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php
This website is designed for book owners to exchange their books.
You list the books that you are ready to swap and wait for an interested buyer. You will get credit after you send that particular book out to that buyer.
Also, you can use the credit you earned to get a free book put up by other sellers.
7. Comic Book Classifieds
- Official site: http://www.comicbookclassifieds.com/
This is one of the best places to sell books. Got comic books you want to sell? Sell on Craigslist of comic books!
This awesome comic book classified has been around since 1998. It has been featured on tons of sites. This is one of those sites where you can sell books worth a few dollars to books worth hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
8. Decluttr
- Official site: https://www.decluttr.com/start-selling/
This is one of the best places to sell books. Decluttr is a great website for selling used books.
You can also sell CDs, used phones, tablets, games, and DVDs on there. So if you’re looking to get rid of a lot of stuff, then this is a good place to do so.
You sell your stuff directly to Decluttr–which means no waiting around for a customer to buy it! Just visit the website, and select the “sell CDS, DVDs, games & books” tab above the search bar.
Then, enter the barcode of the book that you want to sell.
Decluttr will give you a quote for the book.
There’s also an app available:
The Decluttr app is actually one of the best apps for selling stuff locally and online.
The app is handy because you can use it to scan barcodes. This saves you the time of having to enter the barcode for each book that you’re going to sell. If you plan to sell a lot of books, then the app is a real-time-saver!
9. BookFinder.com
- Official site: https://www.bookfinder.com/buyback/
BookFinder.com works very similarly to Book Scouter. So you use it to compare prices from different buyback vendors.
The layout and design of the website are much clunkier than Book Scouter. So we don’t recommend it as highly.
But, it’s still worth doing a quick look on BookFinder to compare its offers to those featured on BookScouter. It’s a handy site for finding the highest buyback prices.
And, it’s been around since 1997 and has been featured by the New York Times, Newsweek, and Forbes.
10. Craigslist
- Official site: https://craigslist.org/
While there are tons of sites similar to Craigslist out there, CL is still one of the best sites to sell stuff locally. If you’d prefer to set your own prices for the books you plan to sell, then check out Craigslist.
You can put up a listing and sell your unwanted books to people in your area.
Top-Notch Platforms You Can Market Books
1. Bookbyte
- Official site: http://www.bookbyte.com/
Bookbyte has been around since 1999, mainly focusing on helping college students buy, sell and rent textbooks cheaply.
All you need is either the title of the textbook or the ISBN. Enter either of those two in the “sell” search bar to get an instant offer. This is one of the best places to sell books.
If you like the price, click “Continue Sale” and complete the process. They’ll then email you a (prepaid) shipping label you can print out. Once they get the book(s) you get paid via Check or PayPal, your choice.
2. Bookstores.com
Bookstores.com is one more place that will pay you for your books and has free shipping.
Many of these Internet sites are similar in their method for buying books, but they don’t all pay the same price and are not all accepting the same type of books. You may need to use more than one to be able to sell them all for the highest price.
3. BookDeal.com
This is one of the best places to sell books. BookDeal.com has quickly grown to become the best website to sell books, and they have been doing this for over 20 years.
For years, the company has understood that selling your textbooks is not an easy feat. Aside from comparing offers, you need to evaluate the trustworthiness of the buyers.
Furthermore, you have to monitor the selling process until you finally get paid. And even with the payment, you can be paid less than what you quoted.
4. Textbook Buyer
- Official site: http://www.textbookbuyer.com/
This is one of the best places to sell books. The website has had a reputation associated with buying used textbooks for the past 10 years.
They have featured the company in the Wall Street Journal, and the Good Housekeeping Magazine.
It is much heralded for its fair pricing policy, free shipping, and fast payment. Additionally, to used textbooks, they also buy new textbooks at special prices.
5. Chegg
- Official site: https://www.chegg.com/sell-textbooks
This is one of the best places to sell books. Sell your old textbooks online with Chegg.
Visit the website, enter your book’s ISBN number, and you’ll get an instant quote for your textbooks. If you like the quote, then just print out your free shipping label, and mail it to Chegg. Once Chegg receives your books, you’ll get paid.
6. TextbookRush
- Official site: https://www.firstclassbooks.com/buyback
This is another website where you can sell your unwanted textbooks for cash online.
Just enter the ISBN of the book you want to sell–or you can enter multiple ISBNs if you have a lot of books to sell – to get an offer.
If you’re happy with the offer, then you can ship your books to TextbookRush. It’s free to do, as the company gives you a prepaid shipping label.
You get paid in cash, through PayPal, or in-store credit.
7. FirstClassBooks.com
- Official site: https://www.firstclassbooks.com/buyback
Visit FirstClassBooks.com, enter the ISBN of the textbooks you want to sell, click on the “Check Prices” button, and you’ll get a quote for each book.
You can get paid through PayPal or check. After receiving your textbooks, FirstClassBooks.com will usually send payment within two business days.
If you decide to sell your textbooks to the company, then you can ship your books for free. The website provides prepaid FedEx or USPS shipping labels.
8. ValoreBooks
- Official site: https://www.valorebooks.com/sell-textbooks
This is one of the best places to sell books. To sell your textbooks to ValoreBooks, visit the website, and enter the ISBN of the books you want to sell.
You can enter multiple ISBNs into the box, then click on “Get Price Quote” and you’ll get a quote for all of the books that you plan to sell.
If you have a lot of books, then this is really handy. You’ll get an instant quote. If you’re happy with the quote, then you can ship your items to ValoreBooks for free.
Payment is sent by check or through PayPal.
9. Barnes & Noble
- Official site: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/textbook/textbook-buyback.jsp
A lot of people don’t realize that popular book chains Barnes & Noble buy textbooks. It’s definitely worth checking out.
You’ll need to have at least $10 worth of books to sell in order to sell to Barnes & Noble. To get a quote for your books, just enter their ISBN.
Unfortunately, Barnes & Noble only allows you to enter one ISBN at a time. If you have a lot of books to sell, then this can take up some extra time.
If you decide you like the offer you get, you can ship your books to Barnes & Noble, and get paid.
10. CampusBooks
- Official site: https://www.campusbooks.com/books/sell
CampusBooks works similarly to BookScouter. With it, you can compare the prices of textbooks offered by different buyback vendors.
While BookScouter is designed for regular books and textbooks, the focus of CampusBooks is solely on textbooks.
You can enter the name of the textbook you want to sell into the search bar. Or you can search for titles using the ISBN to ensure that you are quoted the correct buyback price on the specific book and edition that you are selling.
11. Textbook Recycling
- Official site: http://www.textbookrecycling.com/sell-textbooks.aspx
This is one of the best places to sell books. Get paid for your unwanted textbooks with Textbook Recycling.
Just visit the website, and enter the ISBN for the book that you want to sell.
With Textbook Recycling, you can enter multiple ISBNs. So if you have a lot of books to sell, then this is really handy. Once you’ve entered the ISBN, you will get an instant quote for your books.
If you like the offer, then you can ship your books to Textbook Recycling. Shipping is free, depending on the value of your order.
12. Student2Student
- Official site: https://student2student.com/sellBook
This is an interesting website that cuts out the middleman, allowing students to buy and sell textbooks directly from one another.
You can sell books to students on-campus.
It’s sort of like Craigslist, but it’s specifically aimed at college students who are looking to buy and sell college textbooks.
13. Yard Sales & Garage Sales
If you are having a yard or garage sale and would like to put your books out, try to sell them in bulk or price them for $.25 to $1 each.
Don’t expect to make a large amount on books as they are generally weaker garage sale items.
14. Half.com
Also, this is one of the best places to sell books. Half.com is a company owned by eBay but where eBay specializes in auctions, half.com lists books to sell for a set price.
They will sell both general books as well as textbooks. You will need to create a seller’s account to start listing books (by ISBN).
There comes a time in every reader’s life where they have to accept some hard truths: that not every book they’ve read is one they should treasure forever.
Also, that they don’t need three different copies of their favorite classic, even if it keeps being re-released with cooler covers
Also, that decorating in towering stacks of books might not be the healthiest choice unless they want to start wearing helmets around the house.
However, when you’ve come to this point, you will want to clean out your collection. And, that may mean it’s time to sell books.
Hopefully , this article has been helpful. Feel free to share it with friends and love ones.