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What's the easiest and quickest way to get rid of hundreds of books?

  • I'm moving in about ten days, I'm disabled, and my mother (who is in her mid-sixties) is here helping me pack. I've got four of five hundred books, mostly paperbacks and mostly genre fiction, about which I'm finally being sensible and eliminating. The problem we're having is that it's almost as much trouble to get rid of these as it would have been to pack them. It sort of makes me sick to my stomach to throw them in the trash, but I will if I have to. However, I'm on a second-floor apartment and it's a good distance to the trash, so that's not trivial, either. An aunt is the HR person at the women's shelter here and she wants to take some of the hardbacks, though I think she might be overwhelmed by how many I have. Would craigslist work well? Could I just say that people could come and look through the big plastic tubs we've filled with books, leave the tubs on my porch, and let people get what they want? Or would they be put off by them being all jumbled and, worse, scatter them about and upsetting my neighbors? I've the impression that used bookstores almost don't exist anymore and those that do are very picky about what they will take. We can't be available to answer inquiries from those interested in the books and anything that is time and labor intensive isn't really an option because there's a lot more to be packed and we can't devote much effort to disposing of these books. But at the moment, they're taking up both space and packing materials that we need to use for, you know, packing and moving.

  • Answer:

    I would bundle them by genre, maybe about 40-50 books per lot. Post them on Craigslist and Freecycle, and state clearly that the taker has to take the whole lot. I've seen ads that basically say "Please take this whole lot, keep what you like, and sell/give away the rest." Maybe put a couple of titles/authors per lot in your post, so that people have a bit of an idea what's in each bundle.

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Donate them to http://www.betterworldbooks.com/donate.aspx. Simply print out the shipping labels and post them off. If you have a lot of books there is an email address to contact. There is a list of sorts of books they won't accept (which isn't many) and they have to be in good clean condition. All for a http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx

wwax

Just a note about offering things for free: my brother out-law had a working fridge that he wanted gone; he offered it free on craigslist and maybe freecycle and got nothing but flakes. When he reposted the ad saying the fridge would go to the first person who turned up with a loaf of good beer, a guy turned up within the hour. So maybe offer to trade for something that's not money, but still has some value to you. People are funny.

rtha

If you are in the US, Vietnam Vets of America may be able to do a http://www.clothingdonations.org/schedule-a-pick-up/ pick up. Salvation Army offers a http://www.satruck.org/ service.

spunweb

The friends of the library in your region does a book sale and has http://www.cabq.gov/library/makediff.html. They likely do not pick up but you might be able to swing a freecycle "Take them all, donate the rest to the library" situation which would be preferable to tossing them.

jessamyn

You could contact your local BookCrossers www.bookcrossing.com and someone will probably be pleased to take them and give them away on your behalf.

LyzzyBee

I've gotten rid of books via Craigslist-- it went extremely smoothly. (A little too smoothly; I was careless, and I think lost a box of technical books in the process...) Just put an ad up, put your books out, and they'll probably disappear fairly quickly.

darth_tedious

It sounds like your main problem may be the physical transporting of the books out of the apartment? In that case, you may have luck with a local volunteer group. Your local church/Boy Scout/Girl Scout Troop/ might love working toward a community service badge/good karma by doing the schlepping of the books to a used bookstore or charity. Teen and older volunteers could help sort the books, too. Call a bunch of spots, and the first one to respond gets the good karma! You would be quite reasonable in asking for help; books are heavy! Agreeing with previous posters, you'll have more follow-through from people if there's a small price attached to the items. I've given away many things on craigslist, and that "Free" category has the worst follow through and most time-wasting emails.

BigJen

Do you have a half price books franchise in your area? If you can get your books to one of their stores, they will a) help you bring the books in from your car b) pay you some money for your books (not a lot, but hey--it's better than nothing, right!?) and c) won't make you lug all the books they don't want back out to your car. They'll donate them to charity instead, I believe. There's also: d) You get to wander about the store looking at/poking through tons of interesting books while you wait for them to make an offer. The downside is that you're trying to get rid of books, not add more to your collection, of course. But it's a good way to pass the time!

Estraven

Used bookstores still exist, but (at least in my area) they'll only pay for hardbacks --- paperbacks, if they take them at all, will rarely get you more than store credit. Seconding donate them: the Friends of (your local) Library probably hold somewhat regular fundraising booksales; lots of shelters or local jails might accept them; the American Association of University Women, at least around here, might sell them to raise funds for scholarships --- ditto a lot of churches, preschools, veterans' organizations, or groups with mission schools in third-world countries.

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