Earning cash from your hobby

A good way of earning money to help you through university is to turn your hobby into cash. Of course, it helps if your hobby is doing something that someone is willing to pay money for, but if you can get money for something you enjoy doing and will be doing it anyway, then great!

There are specialist websites that can help connect you with customers happy to pay students to undertake work for them, such as StudentGems. The other option is to go it alone. One such student to have already started this process is Hayley Spiers, a third year English and Drama student at The University of Hull.

She says….. “Like many students I have a part-time job to help support myself financially, but I’ve also managed to turn my hobby into something that makes a little extra cash. I’m a self-taught photographer and I recently started advertising via my Facebook page, my website and on free advertising websites such as Gumtree, Friday-Ad Ltd and VivaStreet. I’ve had a great response with people asking for everything from headshots to family portraits to event photography such as parties and fundraisers, and it’s great to be able to enjoy my hobby and make some extra money at the same time.” HayleyMariePhotography

Hayley’s hobby is great as she can build up her experience by helping her fellow students by taking their portraits for their drama portfolios, and it’s something she can fit around her studies and part-time job. The advantage of having all the equipment in place already means that after a bit of advertising and a free website and you’re ready to go.

The work that you do as a result of your hobby will also provide valuable business experience, such as marketing, sales, customer service, and accounts which you can add to your CV. This could make the difference in helping you in to that important graduate position.

Remember if you start making money from your hobby, you should check with HM Revenue and Customs to see if you should be paying National Insurance and Tax.

If you are interested in a cheap photographer in the East Riding area, then you’d do worse than contact Hayley via her Facebook page or her website, but be quick, she won’t be this cheap forever! You never know - her hobby may take her far, as could yours.

Are you making money from your hobby whilst at university? Get in touch and you could be featured too.

How to sell your university text books

After, or even during your time at university, you will accumulate textbooks that have done well for you, but that you no longer need. It's a shame to think about throwing them away, as they won't have been cheap and there's probably another student somewhere just like you who would benefit from using them. It's a good idea to sell university textbooks as it helps the environment by encouraging re-use, preventing waste, and gives you welcome extra cash. 

Here are our recommendations to find your unwanted books a loving, new home.

1) Use our site, the Book Pond. It's free to use and easy to list books. The site puts you in touch with other students in your university town who need the book you want rid of. You set your own price and exchange the book in person for cash. Use the page tabs above to link through to our main site and start selling today. Yes, this and similar sites may not have massive audience numbers yet but it is free to use, fully searchable, and you can list your books in other places at the same time with no obligation to sell. 

2) Put up a notice at university. This is a tried and tested method which has worked ok for me in the past. By putting a notice on your department notice board you are reaching students who are on the same or similar course and studying the same modules. They are also likely to be local so you can hand it over in person. The downside to this method is you need to be physically on campus to put the notice up, and there's always a chance it will go missing, so you need to check back regularly. Also, you need to be careful what contact details you leave on the notice to avoid nuisance phone calls. 

3) EBay. Good old EBay - I love it! There's nothing you can't get on EBay, text books included. The massive advantage of this method is the sheer reach of the site. The disadvantage is that you will likely need to post it, incurring P&P costs, and that listings run out, so if it doesn't sell within the listing period, you will need to keep re-listing. Fees apply - a fee of about 50p to list, and then 10% of the final selling price is typical for textbooks. 

4) Amazon Marketplace. If you want the best chance of selling your books, then Amazon Marketplace is the method for you. I have sold almost every book I have ever listed with Amazon but I paid the price for it. The registration process is more thorough than other sites, and you need to register a bank account with them. The commission is higher than EBay, and the postage that they charge the seller on your behalf does not cover what it will actually cost you to post it, especially if the book is bulky and heavy, which many textbooks are. But this is a good method if you want rid at any price, and see some cash as better than none. Bear in mind that because Amazon handle the sales automatically for you, it's probably not wise to list the books in other places at the same time.

5) Sell to a book dealer / book shop. Many university towns have independent book shops that trade in textbooks. Some will buy your textbooks from you, and this is a minimum fuss way of getting rid of them for cash. Be warned though - some book shops won't buy certain categories of books (for example, law or business), and the price they will give you will be well below the RRP at around half of what they expect to sell the book for on the second-hand market. Others offer a brokering service on a commission basis, which will give you a bigger share of the sale price, but with the increased risk of the book not selling at all. 

So there you go, turning your textbooks into cash is pretty easy but you must choose the method that suits you. The method is a trade-off between getting the most value out of a sale, and guaranteeing the book will sell at all.

Don't forget of course, you can always donate your books to the local charity shop, or pass them down to a younger student out of good will. 

Whatever you choose to do, please do something because having textbooks sat on your bookcase doing little more than gathering dust is a very sorry sight. They deserve to be loved and to be useful to someone. So wish them well, and send them on their way.