Do You Have Books To Offer?
Every book we wave goodbye to needs to be replaced on our shelves,
from the chippy little Penguin Classic to the three Volume Medical Text.
Perhaps you have an unwanted collection you'd like to sell
(or donate). The economic and environmental cost of fuel makes it
silly for us to buy quantities of less than several hundred,
unless you're in the area and can drop them off.
We normally have a buyer in, but would advise ringing first to make
sure. Parking is available in the building (Waitrose also offers
free parking if you spend £50).
Some guidelines for selling us your books:
- By all means contact us first. Give us an idea of the kind of books you have, which subjects, and if fiction, the kinds of authors. There is no need to list them all out in the first instance, very likely not at all.
- Naturally we’d like to know how many books you want to sell and if they are a mixture, in roughly what proportion.
- Books do go out of date, particularly in subjects like law and computing where the material changes rapidly. In other disciplines, management or economics for example, publishers regularly update editions, perhaps with little cause beyond a new cover and some minor alterations. We tut at this, but it does affect course lists which determine what the next generation of students will buy. If you’re not sure, telling us when you bought them will give an idea. Or send the ISBN numbers (mostly on the rear cover with the barcode), don’t put any dashes in, just the number, we can see if they will be saleable. As textbooks are heavy, it can save a difficult journey. This kind of thing won't be necessary for original texts by key figures, Einstein or J.K.Rowling, or in subjects which don’t change, like maths and classics.
- If you have textbooks, it will always be most remunerative for you to sell them yourself, direct to another student. Please bear in mind that Skoob sells books at about half the new price, so you will only receive a percentage of that.
- We can’t guarantee to buy any books until we’ve seen them and can only offer very rough guesses as to what they may be worth in advance.
- Many of us find books hard to sell, but bookshelves are finite and we want to read more. The question ‘am I really going to read this again’ can be helpful. If it’s a reasonably common book, buying another copy in 5 or 15 years may be the best option. The internet has made it possible to find that particular edition again.
For larger quantities, we are interested in academic books, particularly in technical, scientific, maths and philosophy and library collections. If you have some to sell, please email us. We can visit and collect from a very wide area, not just London or Oxford, and there's no need to make a list, we need to look at books for condition. We won't plunder your collection for 'the valuable ones', we'll make an offer for the whole lot you wish to dispose of, and guarantee to hold onto them until we find a suitable next owner.
