Earn Money at Home Selling Textbooks Online

You don’t have to be a college student to earn money at home selling textbooks. If you have previous experience selling your own textbooks or other books online, that will make it easier, but you can sell textbooks online for other people, too. If you’re still a college student, you can easily do this for your friends as well. With the right connections and a nice set up, you can make some extra money every January and June through August.

Connections

First, find people who want to sell their textbooks. Facebook and other social media is one of the best ways to do this. If you have graduated from college sometime in the past few years, you’ll have the best chance of knowing a lot of people who are still in college. Send a Facebook message to all your friends that are currently in college asking them if they would like you to sell their textbooks. Also, send a message to all others just in case they know college students. If you live near a college, this will work best. Make sure all the students you work with are close to you. There is no reason to ship books to you only to ship them out again.

People will begin to show interest and tell you what books and editions they have. Then, ask them all to tell you what new books they need. If anyone wants to sell a book that someone else needs, you can cut out the online deal from the start. Sell it directly to them at a good price and save on extra commission fees, shipping, and packaging.

Get the Books and Set them Up

Give the college students a time and place when you can pick up the books. Preferably, offer a few times at the very end of the semester so that conflicting schedules will work out and they will be finished with their work. Drive to the college and pick up all the books. You can also let them drop off books where you live, too, if it’s more convenient for some of them. Keep very good records of who gave what book.

Do some research on what the current price is at the bookstore and online. You can usually get this information from the website. Give the students an estimate of what you can get them for the book based on what it’s selling for online minus the website’s commission, shipping, packaging, and your commission. Show them how what you can get is more than what the bookstore will give, if you can get that information.

Sell the Books

Set your books up for sale on websites like Amazon.com and Half.com. Use media mail shipping at the post office to save money and buy packaging supplies in bulk for a better price. Ship the books the same day, if possible, when they sell. You can give the students their money by handing them or mailing them a check or through pay pal or another payment method online.

Not only did you do all the dirty work for them, you did it all while giving them a better price. Even a few dollars extra is worth it, especially if they didn’t have to do anything. Charge a minimum of 10% for your services based on the selling price, but try not to go over 30% or you might not get as much business. 20% is a good amount. If you sell a book for $50 with an online commission fee of $9, you’re commission would be $10, and they would get $31. Online sites will charge the buyer for shipping and handling, so you won’t need to worry about this.