I was reading an article on MSN.com a while back about quick ways to make an extra hundred bucks. I usually don’t hold much stock in such endeavors since they are typically more trouble than they are worth. Since it was a slow day though, I decided to take a peak at the list, and stumbled across a site called Cash4books.net. As the name indicates, Cash4books is a site that pays you for books — duh!
Always wary of new moneymaking ventures, I first conducted my due diligence. After a thorough investigation (I always read reviews, look for scam articles, and make sure these sites won’t ask for a bank account #, CC#, or SS#), and doing some hemming and hawing, I felt comfortable enough to give it a whirl.
Boy am I ever glad I did! And so are my wife and mother-in-law!
THE BENEFITS
- The site was super easy to use. On the homepage, you can enter the ISBN numbers of the books you have to sell. The site immediately tells you if they will purchase the book or books and for how much.
- Cash4books pays for shipping. They have easy to follow instructions for shipping and will even allow you to send your books by way of FedEx if you have a large enough order.
- If you choose to be paid through PayPal (you can also choose to be paid by check), you can get a 3% bonus added to your payout.
- I was amazed to see an older woman at the resale shop the other day, using a scanner (I think you can rent them from Cash4books for like $5 a month or something) like you’d see at the bookstore checkout line, attached to her PDA, scanning book ISBNs to see if Cash4books would buy them. It’s like miners panning for gold out there! It’s not a bad pastime considering you might be able to purchase resale shop or garage sale books for a quarter a pop, and turn around and sell them to Cash4books.net for maybe five or ten bucks!
THE DOWNSIDE
- Cash4books doesn’t seem to buy many old or novel type books, preferring more recent textbooks and subject specific (non-fiction) works.
- If you’re books are damaged (i.e. water stained, ripped, highlighted over a certain percentage of pages, etc.) you might not receive as much money as you were initially quoted. It’s a good idea to review the site’s quality requirements as well as the quality of your books before taking the time to ship them.
RESULT
- Between my mother-in-law, my wife, and I, we cleared a total of $440, mostly in used textbooks. Not bad for an hour or two sorting through and boxing up some old books and a couple of trips to the FedEx store!
Disclaimer:
This article is for informational purposes only. Any action taken by the reader due to the information provided in this article is at the reader’s discretion.
