Selling Old Technology Books

I’ve decided to sell some books on eBay. I have way too many books in my small house now. I have no room for any more bookcases. There are stacks of books piled up everywhere. I will probably never read many of those books. The books I’m most willing to get rid of are books on obsolete technology. I have books on Windows 2000 Server Certification. That exam has probably been retired so I certainly don’t need those books. Anyone who is still supporting Windows 2000 Server may want them though. I also have many books on Java programming. I’ve decided that I don’t want to ever program in Java. It is easy enough to learn the Java language but there are huge frameworks you need to learn to master Java development. I really don’t have the time to master another huge framework like the .NET Framework. In my opinion, you either master the Java J2EE platform or the .NET Framework but not both because nobody has the time to become proficient in both. I suppose a programmer entirely focused on programming could manage it but I tend to study many other subjects like web design.

Below is a widget I found for displaying the items I have for sale on eBay. This is a great way to give my auctions some additional exposure. Just move your mouse over the book’s image to see the price and auction status. Unfortunately this is probably the only place I can use this widget without be accused of spamming.

It is fairly easy to list books on eBay because you only need the ISBN to get all the details into your listing. They even supply the image although occasionally I have to scan the book myself.

Amazon is also a good place to sell used books but they tend to drive down the price to the lowest possible value. There is almost always somebody selling the same book for less. I really get tired of relisting books on Amazon but I must have forgotten to do it because I have not been swamped with emails from them in awhile.

I should do some more research on how to sell books online because I have hundreds of books to get rid of. Unfortunately, it is really difficult to sell books on obsolete technology although I sometimes buy them myself if I happen to need to use some old software or programming language. For example, I got rid of my books on RPG II but then I had to replace them when I found work requiring that skillset.