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.

Getting established in the art industry

BuyStudentArt.co.uk is a website where art students can sell their work direct to the general public on a commission basis. Kerri shares with us some tips on how to get established in the art industries after university.

So you are an artist….now what?

Once you have set yourself on the road to becoming a full time artist, what do you do next?  You have created your next master pieces, you could have canvases stacking up or photographs filling up PC space, so how do you go about selling your artwork and becoming recognised? 

 See my 10 ways to becoming recognised as an artist.......

1.       Decide on a name and a brand - this doesn’t have to be expensive, will you be known as your name or by a brand name? 

2.       Add your website wherever you can, have it as the signature on your email, on your profile on Facebook and Twitter

3.       Buy your url, this is simple and a quick Google search will determine if this is available, they are usually less than £10 and well worth it

4.       Design a quick and easy website – you can do this for free if you use something like www.webs.com it certainly gives the impression that you are a serious and professional artist, it is simple then to direct people to your website for sales

5       Sell your artwork, try and find outlets for your work

6.       Try websites such as ours, www.BuyStudentArt.co.uk where you can upload your artwork and then a commission is taken if the artwork is sold

7.       Try local fairs, lots of universities have summer fairs with stands for as little as £5 and well worth trying to sell your artwork here

8.       Have posters and flyers made up – try Vistaprint for free promotional material

9.       Join online networking groups, such as LinkedIn and find groups where you can network online

10.   Contact your local library or adult education centre and see whether you can put an exhibition on in the foyer

11.   Contact the local paper, if you have a good local story, they will love to cover you

Wish you all of the best and if we can help at BuyStudentArt with selling your artwork or advice then please drop us an email on Info@BuyStudentArt.co.uk 

Thank you to Kerri of BuyStudentArt.co.uk for sharing her advice with us.

Is prostitution a good option for a cash-strapped student?

The BBC today released a news report that more and more students are turning to prostitution, gambling and medical experimentation as a means of keeping afloat financially. 

Now we have advocated on the blog before that the best kind of part-time work is one where you can fit your hours in around study, and where you get the maximum amount of money possible for the minimum amount of hours. Prostitution, gambling and medical experiments I suppose, fit this criteria very well. Too well. My mother always taught me if something sounds good to be true, then it probably is. 

So, with the EMA being scrapped, and student loans and grants being reduced, along with rising tuition fees, students have to find ways of making ends meet, financially speaking. And things like selling yourself might be attractive to some - and it never seemed to do Belle de Jour any harm, did it? After all, she got a PhD whilst leading a double life as a part-time call girl as well. 

But we can't all be as 'lucky' as Belle de Jour has turned out to be. It could've all been so much different for her, and for every Belle, there are hundreds of others who get caught up in a very disturbing world, from which there may be no return. The reason that prostitution, gambling and medical experiments are so highly paid is that the risks are high, and the losers are many. 

Blah, blah..... I don't want this to turn in to a rant about how you should all be good little students and stay away from the nasty people. What I want to know is this - have you, or do you know of anyone who has, made money from a less-than-conventional method to support themselves while studying? 

Apply to university after you've got your A-Level results

This week, the old proposals to change the university application system so that students apply AFTER they know their results has reared it's head. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard this mooted in the past. For the full story, you can read it here in The Daily Mail.

I think it is a brilliant idea. If there is a system that favours the cheeky and ambitious over those with proven academic credentials, then the current system of applying with predicted grades is it. The current system is confusing, time-consuming and leads to disappointment.

It's not surprising that it is a proposal that has been dragged up again by the Conservative-Lib Dem government. The Tories especially love the notion of the free-market, and the current system allows customers and suppliers (students and universities respectively) to work with imperfect information, which is sub-optimal (see, I was paying attention in economics class).

Where students work with unknown, predicted grades, an over-optimistic student will apply to a university course which demands grades way above what they will actually go on to achieve. This leads to disappointment and a panic as they end up applying through clearing. At the other end of the scale, a student whose tutors predict low grades will apply for courses with low grade requirements where they could have got a place on a much better course and at a much better university.

Either way, the system favours the student putting in a cheeky application and works against those who under-estimate their own ability. I can't help thinking that those from families who favour high academic achievement are the most likely to try their luck, whereas the students from families where university is an alien concept will likely see elite courses and universities out of their reach. Even if they achieve way over what they expect, it will mean either accepting the course they have been offered or pulling out and re-applying. It's not an ideal way to choose to do something which will influence your career path, and indeed your whole future. Allowing a student to apply to university after they have their A-Level grades would be a big step towards giving students a university place based on actual achievement, regardless of class, school-type or influence from family or college tutors.

The proposals to move A-Level exams to earlier in the year in order to allow enough time to process results for the start of the university is not a bad one. I remember getting very bored toward the end of my two-year A-Level course and would have welcomed exams in the May rather than dragging things out until June or July.  However, I still feel this would mean the window to apply would be too short. The reason you have to apply six months before you sit your exams is because the whole process - involving literally thousands of students and over 100 universities - is a huge administrative task.

Surely it would be better to either have students take a year out as standard. The gap between sitting your last A-level exam in July, and starting university in the October is too short. To this point you would have been at school for at least thirteen years, and are going to be at university for another three. I don't think that a year out to work a bit, get some money and have some breathing space to think over your course and university choices is a bad thing.

Anyway, I am in favour of allowing students to apply to university after their A-Level results. I think it can only be good for social mobility and a system that is based on true achievement and potential, rather than on the imperfect information and blind optimism it is based on now.

Do you think that the current system needs fixing? Do you think if you had applied after knowing your results, your choices would've been different? I welcome your opinion, as usual.