25 January 2010

Empty My Shelves Please!!!

I have an insane amount of books I want to eliminate from my shelves.  Seriously insane.  The complete list can be seen here.  The cost of shipping these books as freebies would be astronomical, and I am unfortunately one broke beeatch.  So what to do?

Yes, yes there's always BookMooch, but I already have about 135 points there which means 135 books I can order.  So that's a no-go.  I've heard some people donate to libraries, but most of the books I want to get rid of are used copies of books totally not published in the last 5 years.  Another no-go.  I don't really want to set up on Amazon and sell them as I'd like to get rid of the entire stack as soon as possible.

So seriously, what do I do?  Do you guys have any advice on how I can get rid of this stack?

If you guys see some you'd like to have, I'd be very very willing to send them to you for the cost of shipping.

12 comments:

  1. You could take them to a used bookstore and see which ones they'll take. Or you could donate them to a hospital or prison. I also think there are good programs out there that will ship them overseas (and they wouldn't care if they're old).

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  2. I would suggest taking them to Half Price Books. Then you EARN money for giving them away. It's not much for each book, of course, but if you get a good sized bag in there you might get something for it. :)

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  3. Do you have a Book Rack store around you? They buy used books and while they don't give you all that much for them, it's always better than nothing. Plus you get the off your hands fast. Good luck!

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  4. I was going to mention a used book store as well. A deeply established one may not want them all but a newly established one might. Also, old folks homes love book donations as well. That is what I do with my hardcovers (my used store only takes paperbacks).

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  5. I listened to Paper Towns while working out and I have to rate it high because I **wanted** to workout!

    And your FTC was hilarious!

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  6. Used bookstores would be the first place to go.
    But places like women's shelters (or other shelters), missionaries/churches, community centrers, any kind of goodwill, salvation army type places that take donations could always use help.
    Libraries, garage sales also work.

    Also, this question was asked in a used bookstore I was in, a guy was asking what he should do with this giant box of books, and the store owner said something about some books are recycled into pulp and used for some sort of instillation? But theres some ideas, good luck.

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  7. Join Bookcrossing.com and get some ideas on how to wild release your books. You can look me up there too; I'm caligula03

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  8. If there's a thrift store near you, I suggest dumping your old books there. Often thrift stores are non-profits. If not, I suggest donating to your local library. Libraries sell donated books in their book sales which raise money to buy new books. Hope that helps.

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  9. Trisha,
    Sell them on Half.com. I have a bunch on there.

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  10. Thanks for the advice everyone!

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  11. All of the above advice is great. I just wanted to encourage you to still consider libraries--many libraries don't take donated books for their own collections, but sell them at book sales to raise money for the library system.

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  12. LauraLynne - I'll ask my library, but I remember them throwing out books which I find to be a heinous crime.

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Talk to me baby!