At the Jersey shore, you can find avid readers like Bonnie Anderson, of Egg Harbor Township, at the Bookateria in Ocean City.
It's a used paperback book store -- where Bonnie trades in the books she's already read to build up credits to buy other books at a deep discount.
She says she's been going to the Bookateria for 30 years and has $1500 in book-buying credits.
Bookateria owner Woody Robinson explains how it works.
Customers bring in paperbacks and are given credit for the price of the books. They can then buy used paperbacks for a "service fee" of $1.87 each.
Customers who don't want to trade in old books can buy used books for half-off the cover price.
If you don't live near a used paperback store like the Bookateria, or the Harvest Book Outlets in Fort Washington and Media, Pa., you can still trade in your used books -- both hard and soft-cover.
A number of websites will buy your used books... even pay for shipping. It's a great way to turn an old collection into cash
CKY Books is typical of these sites. You enter the ISBN codes from the books you want to sell. And within seconds, you can find out how much they're willing to pay.
If you accept their bids on your books, you print out a packing slip and a postage-paid shipping label.
Another online book-buying site is Powell's books. You might find it worthwhile to try your ISBN codes on both sites and see which one will pay you the most.
You can also try selling and buying used books on half.com and through Amazon.
Here are links for some popular book-buying sites.
