It's time to clean house. I mean really clean house. I want it all gone! OK, well not all of it, but most of it. Though we've cleaned house several times over the last few years with our numerous moves, it's always an overwhelming task. To minimize that "OMG, what have I gotten myself into?!" feeling, I'm attacking the house one (very) small area at a time. The other night, I got a hankering to reduce the pile of to-be-read (that I will never read) books on my bookshelf nightstand. Half an hour later, two-thirds of the books were boxed up and ready to be ousted from the house.
As I looked at all the money that was once spent on said books, I began wondering if I could get a few bucks for them. I went to Amazon's marketplace and realized that too many people had the same idea, and I'd be lucky to sell the books at all, let alone for more than a penny. So on a whim, I Googled "selling books online." The first hit was Powell's Books, a Portland-based bookstore that I had actually heard of and from which Hubby had purchased books a few years ago. "Why not?" I thought and gave it a go. Minutes later, I was selling books and falling in love.
All you have to do is type the ISBN numbers into a search box, and within seconds, Powell's tells you how much they will pay for the titles they want.
Now, don't get me wrong: Out of a box of 40ish books (yes, just from my bookshelf nightstand - don't judge), Powell's only wanted to buy four titles for $1.50 each. BUT it costs me ZERO to send them those four books, and, in return, I will get $6 in my PayPal account that I otherwise wouldn't have had. And before you tell me not to go spending the money all in one place, I use PayPal enough to make purchases that it will be like getting a $6 discount the next time I buy scrapbooking supplies or something from Etsy. And knowing that I have at least another 40 books to cull, there may be a few more dollars in my account before the month's end.
Update: Since first drafting this post, I went through another bookshelf and fared much better: Out of 20-25 books, Powell's accepted eight and deposited $11 in my PayPal account. Now I'm officially addicted, and Hubby is nailing down books in the house.
4 comments:
This sounds great! I have a lot of books just lingering on my shelves. I'll have to check in to this. Thanks for sharing!
That's a good idea to sell your books! My problem is that even though I know I'll probably never read some of them, I won't be able to part with them anyway! :-)
-Brianne
For all that work, I think I'd rather just donate mine to our local Care & Share shop and get the tax write-off. Not worth as much, but I'd be getting rid of the whole lot at once without the hassle of typing in ISBN numbers online. But I have to say... that update made me laugh out loud. Too funny.
Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day and leaving a sweet comment :) It's so very hard for me to part with my books. The house that we're building actually has a little "library". xx
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