Sell Used Textbooks for More
When Your Professor Re-adopts

You’ll be offered more when you sell used textbooks at the bookstore if your professor has ordered the book for use again the following semester. When a professor turns an order in before the textbook buyback, the students are paid more and the bookstores replenish their inventory, but the authors lose out. Even if your professor indicates that the book will be used again, there’s no guarantee they will follow through and get the order in on time. Why do the authors lose out and how does it benefit them when a professor procrastinates turning in the order?

We’ve covered in detail how the authors of textbooks, often professors, don’t make any money if a college bookstore is to sell used textbooks. If a professor delays turning an order in, the bookstore will only pay the students the wholesale price and those books will be shipped away. When the order is finally submitted the bookstores will have to fill the inventory with a larger percentage of new books from the publisher. This is a winning proposition for the authors and publishers as more students are forced to buy new copies.

Often times you can help your own cause by doing a little lobbying before the semester ends. Let your professors know you understand how the game is played and that you want to get paid by the bookstore when you sell used textbooks. Find out if they intend to re-adopt the book for the following semester and ask if they’ve turned the order in. Enlist some of your classmates to join the effort and increase the pressure on the professor to follow through.

If the professor informs you that the book will not be re-adopted, find out if it’s because a new edition is being released. If this is confirmed, your residual value will be much less and possibly zero. Your best chance to recoup a decent value under these circumstances is if your edition is still being used at other universities and the online value remains strong.

If the professor doesn’t re-adopt your book and it’s still a current edition; you’ll have to decide between accepting the wholesale value from the bookstore versus attempting to sell the book online for more.

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