In the past, my sister has enjoyed going to book fairs, filling up envirobags with books for $5. Whilst this is a very cheap way to buy books, it has meant that our house is becoming really cluttered with books. The book shelves are overfilled and there are growing stacks and boxes on the floor of my study room.
To declutter our house of these books, I went on an investigation into selling.
Gumtree and Ebay
My family no longer uses eBay, after we had bad experiences with PayPal (let’s just say we lost hundreds of dollars through debits on auctions which we didn’t even bid on). However, in the past, I have tried to sell books on eBay and it was quite unsuccessful – the fees, book value, and specificity of the book don’t lend to auction-style selling.
I’m now doing most of my selling via Gumtree, but this requires the buyer to specifically want your book and to search for it on the site.
Secondhand Bookstores
I then decided to turn to secondhand bookstores and googled a list of the ones in Sydney. Here’s a fairly good list: http://danny.oz.au/books/shops/sydney/ I also found some secondhand bookstores just by walking around the shops and noticing.
I then contacted the bookstores asking:
- If they buy books from the public
- When they buy books (most have a “buyer” in store on certain days/times only)
- What kind of books they buy (genre, age, condition)
- How much they pay for books
Some stores provide this information on their website, but others require emailing or phone enquiries. By doing this research, I was able to find out which stores I should go to – I mainly wanted cash (not store credit) and I had to plan which store was the most convenient to go to.
Going to Sappho
On Tuesday, I took 2 books with me to try sell at Sappho in Glebe. You can read their buying books policy here: http://www.sapphobooks.com.au/buy_books.html
Although Sappho is quite far for me to go to, I decided to try Sappho, because their buyer is there EVERY day between 10:30am-4:30pm and their standard buy offer is $1 per book. There is a secondhand bookstore at my local train station, but they offer 50c per book and their buyer is only in at specific and irregular times. I’m also rarely at the train station now, because I primarily take the bus into the City.
Anyway, Sappho bought both my books! Because they were recent-ish, I got $3. This isn’t much, but I was excited nonetheless. I had cleared 2 books from my house and gotten $3 in my pocket!
I plan to return to Sappho next time in the City, bringing more books with me.
Mixed Vegetables 
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