When I used to run, before the Tomato arrived, I was one of those folks that would get a runner’s high if the distance was long enough. I would feel euphoric and ready to take on the world. Hopefully, when the Tomato is big enough for me to run with her in the BOB stroller, I will have that feeling return. But, for now, I think I get that feeling from decluttering.
My friend, Caitlin, at Honeycomb Originals, has launched an Industry Project for herself. She is unloading her unwanted books, taking all of her store bought sweaters and skirts and donating them, while replacing them with items that she has knit or sewn herself. It’s inspirational and impressive to read and watch as it unfolds. I had started to declutter before she started her project, but it has really pushed me to do more.
I have an affinity for books. Until recently, I had not unloaded any… ever. I had all of my childhood books, all the books that I bought and read through high school and all of my textbooks from college and graduate school. I have listed those in good condition on Paperbackswap.com and have had a good amount of success finding books for my classroom to trade for credits that I earn when I send out my own books to those who request them. But, since I have left teaching to be a mom, I no longer have a classroom. So, the credits amass on the site as I send out books more often than I request them. I wondered if there was another way to help move the books along from my home. Caitlin spoke about using Abebooks.com on this post. I set about collecting my textbooks from the attic and sorting them into ones to keep (because they were from a favorite class or had something to do with my thesis) and ones to purge. In my first go around on Abebooks, I sold about 10 books. The site makes it easy by paying for shipping and giving you the option of sending the books from a FedEx location or the post office.
When I was telling my brother in law about my excitement over simplifying the attic, he told me that he had sold books on Barnesandnoble.com. I checked out the next batch of books on both sites and found that B&N gave me much more per book than Abebooks did. Some books showed up on both sites to sell and some showed up on just one. I also had a growing pile of books that were on neither. I asked Caitlin what she had done with the books that weren’t able to be sold, and she said that she took them to her local library to add to their book fair donations. I emailed my library and while they said that they did not take textbooks, I could drop off any paperback and hardbacks that I had annotated. Excellent!
When I went to the attic for a third trip for books, I sat down at the computer to see if I could find any other sites that bought back books. I wanted to see if any that were going to library had any more spots to which I could sell them before finally dropping them off. So I Googled it and found Bookscouter.com. This site is awesome! It allows you to enter the ISBN number for the book that you would like a price on and it compares prices on over 40 buy back sites. It helped me to find some more sites such as Powell’s, Valore and Bookbyte. I’ve now sent out a ton of books and have made a good chunk of change from them. The attic is emptying, I’ve made some money and I feel better by having less and simplifying my life. Thanks for the inspiration, Caitlin!
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I’ve heard great things about Powell – I’m getting ready to go through all of my books here and get rid of most through Powell!
Beware that Powell’s will only accept those books that do not have writing or highlighting. I figured that out after I listed a bunch of books with them, but before I sent them out.