The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
If one does not have a book sale program (e.g. via a "Friends" organization), or one has books that might find a better home and raise more money than at such a sale, are there other viable ways to sell withdrawn books?
I'm wondering if it is workable to use some service like Amazon, Alibris, Ebay, or some consignment service or dealer to better handle the withdrawals and benefit the library. Is this reasonable only for exceptional items, or can it work for run-of-the-mill weeded books (in good condition)? What might be involved?
mgkrebbs
The ALA has a fact sheet on organizations that accept book donations: http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet12
I manage our local friend's donation & resale program ... I don't personally deal with selling them online, but here is my understanding of the situation:
Not all books will make a profit online, especially if the books have been withdrawn due to wear.
Those books that might sell at higher prices to make it worthwile (to cover your time + shipping to justify it all) may take some time to sell ... so you need to have sufficient storage to hold that stuff that might make a profit.
Most of the folks who scour book sales for re-sale purposes have some sort of barcode scanner on their cell phone -- they can scan the UPC, check the prices online, and then decide if it's worth their buying or not. Those scanners (ASellerTool, ScoutPal) tend to have a monthly subscription fee (\$10-30 currently). I've never tried them, so I don't know how it compares to what's provided from isbn.nu (which in their about page mentions they may block you if you hit them too hard)
Every used bookstore in the English speaking world already has a copy of 'Cooking with Rosie' and at least two books on the Atkins diet.
As we don't have the time (or space) to deal with what we deal with now, if it were me, I'd try to find someone near you doing the book reseller thing, and try to strike a deal with them, so they just give you a flat rate per book, but it's not taking up your time stocking a book cart, etc, and then you can donate what's left to whatever organization are in your area. (I send children's books and textbooks to Books for International Goodwill, I also give to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore)
And even for damaged books, some stuff still can be reused -- I've got an artist who makes collages from other ... but it has to be glossy paper, non-photographs ... I can push boxes of children's books on her, even when they're falling apart.
... and if you want to do the online selling yourself, you may want to read one of:
We are using Better World Books as a partner to find new homes for our recent collection evaluation project. They've been awesome to work with.