The Bookstore provides the opportunity for students to sell textbooks bought for NYU courses.
The NYU Bookstore pays 50% of the current selling price for books to be used in NYU courses during the upcoming semester, regardless of whether or not they were purchased new. NYU professors submit their textbook lists for their course and, based on departmental estimations of how many books will be needed, we buy back as many books as possible from our students. Since we buy back only the number of books we need, you may not always be able to sell your books for 50% of the current retail selling price. It's first come, first serve for the best prices and it is important to follow our suggested selling dates. Once we hit our limit on books for which we pay 50% of the selling price, we continue to buy back books but at the wholesalers price.
Buy Back Hours and Locations
Main Bookstore |
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Palladium Hall, 3rd Floor |
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Professional Bookstore (Law/Stern/Wagner Only) |
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National Used Book Wholesalers
Once we reach our limit on a title or if a professor no longer intends to use a particular book, as a service to our students, we try to purchase your books for national used book wholesalers. We act as the intermediary between you and the wholesalers who generally offer 10%-30% of the current retail selling price for your books. We pay you the price set by the wholesalers and your book is recycled for use on another campus. Our wholesaler has a database of over 200,000 titles so there is a good chance most of your books have some value. These companies are also our source of used books for titles not used at NYU before.
What do you mean there's a new edition?
It is very important to realize that many college textbooks have relatively short lives due to revisions and updates in information. When a new edition comes out, the current edition becomes outdated and usually cannot be bought back. You should, therefore, always try to sell back your books as soon after the semester as possible. The longer you wait to sell your books, the greater the possibility that your books will become outdated.
Why won't you buy my books back? They look OK to me!
As a courtesy to the next user, books we buy back must be in "reasonably good condition." This does not mean you have to coddle your books. Books that have some underlining or highlighting are acceptable as long as they are readable to the next person. We cannot, under any circumstances, buy back a book with a broken spine.
Reasons we do not buy back books:
- Edition is out-of-date
- Damaged or broken spine or binding
- Foreign language books with cribbing (translations written in)
- Answers written in study guides or workbooks
- Missing or excessively worn pages or paperback covers
- An important componet of the book, such as an included CD is missing.
- It is custom material designed to be used for a specific course and/or semester.
- If, for any reason, we are unable to buy back your books and you do not wish to keep them, the NYU Bookstore will donate your unwanted books to one of several book donation programs.