Items to Look for: Textbooks

For those of you who don't know, the modern textbook industry is a rather exploitative institution. Textbooks are frequently updated with new editions to make using used books more difficult (frequently the only changes between editions are changed homework sections) and expensive. A typical college textbook costs anywhere from $120-$250 depending on the subject. When I was in college I had one book listed at $350 (I didn't buy it).

The only good thing about the textbooks being so expensive is that their resale value is pretty high. Many students do not bother (or don't know) to sell their books on Craigslist or Amazon if their university bookstore won't buy them back at the end of the semester. They hold onto the books and eventually sell them for cheap at garage sales (after all, as far as the student knows the books are worthless). You can then buy them and resell them.

I have a pretty strong understanding of the textbook market.  In the last calendar year I've made over $500 selling other people's textbooks.  In summer of 2010 I made over $1500 selling textbooks. The trick to making money on textbooks is being good at judging if a book is worth anything. Following is a list of things to keep in mind when looking at textbooks at garage sales:

• Copyright date is the first indicator I use to determine if a book is worth anything. When I find a stack of books, I sort through them and discard anything with a copyright date more than four years in the past. As I said above, textbooks are replaced with new editions quickly; four years is about the maximum time between editions. Once you've looked at enough textbooks you can tell which books are older, especially books from the 80's or 90's. Don't even bother picking up books that old
• Subject is my next criteria. Different subjects have different rates of replacement. New editions of social science textbooks come out as frequently as every year or two. Engineering textbooks (which are far less common at garage sales) are replaced every four to five years on average. Math books are replaced every three to four years it seems. Unfortunately, the most common books at garage sales are social science texts.
• Use your smart phone, if you have one. If I'm garage saling with someone who owns a smart phone, after my initial narrowing of the pile by copyright date I'll just check all the books that have come out in the last four years. It's easy to just scan the barcode and check Amazon for the book. Be sure you're looking at the used price and not the used price when buying a book though. One of my friends found a book that he thought sold for $160 on Amazon. When he rechecked it he realized he was looking at Amazon's new price; used copies started at $0.01.
• If you have checked the book on Amazon and it's an older edition, don't make the purchase. It's not worth it.
• If you don't have a smart phone (or you're not saling with someone who owns one) you need to be more selective. You have no way of checking a book's value so there's a very large possibility of purchasing a worthless item. When I'm in this situation, I will only buy books with a copyright date from this year or the previous year.
• Book condition should also be taken into account when buying books. Really, condition doesn't really matter if you're selling a book on Craigslist; I've sold some pretty beaten-up dumpster books and never received a complaint. On Amazon, however, condition is more important because people can give you negative feedback. Negative feedback means worse sales in the future. If a book has torn pages or a torn cover, sticky or missing pages, or excessive dirt, don't buy it.

I was going to discuss pricing textbooks to sell but I think I'll cover that on Tuesday.  This post is long enough.