Used Books

This is probably not what you were expecting!

This page used to be a simple list organized by publisher and grade. Finding used books now is not quite as straightforward, but you have more tools. Used books are now incorporated throughout the whole site: this allows us to offer you a much broader, easier-to-search selection of materials.

Using our catalog's filters can give you similar results to our former page. For instance, if you are looking for Bob Jones, simply type "Bob Jones" into our search engine; you can then narrow the materials down by category, publisher, author, grade, media, or even used materials only! You can also sort the results by title, author, publisher or price. Feel free to call or e-mail if you have any questions or are looking for something in particular!

For us to sell used books, we must buy them first.

By selling your books to us, you can:

• Clear your home of curriculum and books you no longer want
• Recover a portion of your original cost
• Add to our pool of used curriculum for others in need
• Take advantage of buying other used curriculum yourself

Some general guidelines:

We pay up to 30% of the new price for used books. For instance, if the new price for the book is $10.00, we may offer up to $3.00 for it. This is for books we believe we can resell and are in excellent condition. We offer considerably less (or nothing) for defaced books, old editions, damaged books, or books we are overstocked on. Also, if we are not familiar with the book, or we know of no demand for the book, we will offer less: it may be worth more and you are certainly free to try to sell it elsewhere. We offer you what we think we can for your books; you may freely accept or reject our offer. We thankfully accept donations.

The most popular used books we carry are current editions of A Beka, Bob Jones, Apologia Science, Saxon Math, and history resources used in the Beautiful Feet, Sonlight, Veritas, and Tapestry of Grace programs. Other used books wanted are books we normally carry, classic books for children and young adults, and Christian books from a Reformed perspective.

When to come / what to expect:

We do not buy books on Mondays or Saturdays. This is extremely important! We need time to price the huge quantity of books that come in, and also to place orders, pay our vendors, and work on various projects around the store. Although the book buyer may appear to be grumpy, we are glad to buy books Tuesday through Friday 11am to 4pm (no appointment necessary!). If you come during buying hours, we will make every effort to work with you as soon as we can. However, the book buyer is sometimes busy and it takes time to figure and look up prices for books, so we ask you to patient with us! After we have figured a price we will give you our offer and either write you a check or offer store credit if you agree.

Regarding long-distance book buying:

A common question lately is whether or not we buy books from out-of-state clients. Our answer is a cautious yes. Long-distance book buying is more time-consuming, complicated, expensive and risky than buying books we can actually see and handle, so we have had to set some restrictions. There are five things you should note (you can tell we leave most of the risk with you):

• We will not offer a quote on books until after we receive them. The above guidelines are all we can offer before seeing the books.
• We will not pay the shipping cost to get them here. (We recommend using a cheap shipping method like USPS Media.)
• We will not buy books that get lost in the mail. (You are free to pay for delivery confirmation at the post office.)
• We cannot guarantee to buy every book you send: condition, edition, and current supply all factor into our final decision.
• We will not return unwanted books unless you wish to pay the shipping cost to have them sent back.

If you are fine with these rules, please feel free to e-mail or call with a list of books you have to sell. We will do our best to get back to you with a yes or a no before you send the books.