Used Book Buyers

[rainbowbride617.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone! I'm looking for some advice for a place in the greater Boston area (the closer to Davis, the better) that buys used books. I've got bags and bags sitting here that need a good home. I love to sell them to a book store where I know they will get a good home. I've got a ton of hardcover fiction and non-fiction. Help is appreciated!

Comments

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

The Harvard used book store buys used books, although they're picky.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

If you can find a local bookstore to take them, hooray! But if not, another possibility you may be interested in is http://paperbackswap.com - trade the books you don't want for books other people don't want. I've been gleefully turning several shelves of mysteries I'll never read again into shelves of books that I haven't read yet, but the books I haven't read yet are gaining on me.

If you have mostly hardcovers, it isn't quite as ideal, since all books are one credit, and hardcovers are a little less cheap to mail. But it's fun and pretty gratifying as far as knowing the books are going to good homes.

[marphod.livejournal.com]

If you have SF/Fantasy genre fiction, Pandemonium in Central buys them. Although they're somewhat picky.
(Well, all book stores are going to be somewhat picky.)

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Harvard Bookstore doesn't take hardcovers unless they are really exceptional, like art books. But Rodney's in Central Square does, and so does McIntyre and Moore. In both cases call to make an appointment before you drag yourself down. They have buyers most days but Sunday.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

This is what I've been doing, since all of the bookstores people have mentioned above have refused to take 95% of my books. And we're talking hundreds (slowly, of course, over time!), a fairly eclectic collection. Books are so expensive and yet trying to get rid of them is ridiculous; you can hardly give them away. Except to Goodwill.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Actually, since I was getting rid of so many books, I guess I can say more about my experiences.

First of all, almost nobody would take my hardcover books. Not one of the used bookstores I went to took anything (including Macintyre & Moore). The exception was libraries. I donated a bunch of "like new" hardbacks to Hurricane Katrina relief. However, there's a very specific type of book they can take -- often replacements for things that they already had in their collections, so they already have catalog information. The libraries down there mostly just literally have no place to put all the random donated books and no manpower to spare to sort through them (a massive job).

At the Brookline Booksmith (their Used Book Cellar was the only place that took a decent number of my adult fiction paperbacks, and the only money I saw from the hundreds of books I purged), I picked up a flyer for a charity place that will come to your door and take your books away from you. I don't have the flyer any more, but I bet they still have them at the store. You still don't get anything anything out of it, and I recall they won't take everything -- but you don't have to lug them anywhere, which is wonderful.

And Rosie's Place is always looking for children's books. (I know you don't have these, I'm just writing sort of generally now.) Getting there is a pain, but you can visit the Children's Book Shop in Brookline and drop them off there, which I found to be much easier.

[ron_newman]

Is this the charity place on that flyer?

Community Book Solutions, now renamed to Got Books?

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[ocschwar.livejournal.com]

If you don't have time to make a proper appointment at a used bookstore, then the Davis Square Goodwill is a good place to leave them, as the store is frequented by book scouts.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know if they are taking books right now, but there is also the Friends of the Somerville library, who do a book sale.

[venusunder.livejournal.com]

You might go to freecycle.org. You can't receive money for things you post there, but the standard method is that whoever wants the books would come and pick them up.

[ron_newman]

I suppose Book Crossing is another alternative, if you think random people who find your books will actually want to read them

[shadow.livejournal.com]

There are a number of used-book sales come September at local colleges, some of which take community (and non-textbook) books for sale as well.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

there's always half.com

[leenah.livejournal.com]

i recently had gotbooks.com pick up over 100 various books, hardcover, paperback, fiction, nonfiction, all sorts. (honestly it might have been 200 books. i didn't bother to count them.)

i signed up on their website. they got back to me w/ a date a week away when they'd be by for the books. i put them all on the front porch in bags and boxes that day before i left for work, and when i got home the books were GONE.

YAY!

i get no tax deduction, but the books are gone, and can be found at the gotbooks.com booksale on fridays/saturdays. some charitable group will get half the proceeds, and the books will get to people who want them.