How to Sell Your Old Textbooks After Your Exams

Sort your books before you list anything

Go through your shelf and separate books into three piles: ones in genuinely good shape you'll sell, ones with heavy damage not worth listing (torn covers, missing pages, water damage), and ones you might still need for a future semester or a competitive exam. There's no point listing a book you'll want back in four months.

For each book you're keeping to sell, check whether it's still the current edition for the course — an outdated edition is much harder to sell and you should price it accordingly, or not list it at all if it's genuinely obsolete.

Photographing your book properly

Take your photos in daylight near a window rather than under a yellow tube light — colour and condition are much harder to judge in poor lighting, and buyers notice. Photograph the front cover straight-on, the spine, the back cover, and at least one or two inside pages that fairly represent the book's condition, including any highlighting or notes if present.

Don't crop out damage to make the book look better than it is — this is exactly what leads to refund requests later, which cost you a completed sale and hurt your standing as a seller more than an honest 'Fair' listing would have.

Choosing a condition grade honestly

Pick Like new, Good, or Fair based on the real state of your copy, not on what price you're hoping to get. Buyers reading your photos will notice a mismatch between the grade and the pictures, and an honest Fair listing sells faster than a dishonestly graded Good listing that gets flagged in a refund request.

Pricing: what the 25% default actually means

When you list a book, the sell form suggests a default price of 25% of the book's MRP — this is a starting point, not a rule. You can price higher for a Like new copy of an in-demand engineering or medical reference, or lower for a Fair copy you'd rather move quickly than hold onto.

Remember that the price you set is what you receive; buyers pay your price plus the platform's 15%-of-MRP margin on top, so you don't need to build a buffer into your own price for platform costs.

After you list: approval, sale, and getting paid

Your listing goes to pending status and a reviewer checks it before it goes public — this usually happens well within a day. Once it's live, buyers can find and purchase it; when a buyer pays and their payment is verified, you'll ship the book and update the order with the courier name and tracking number.

Once the order reaches completed, your earnings land in your OldTextBooks wallet. You can withdraw from the wallet in multiples of ₹100 once you cross the ₹100 minimum, paid out by an admin to your UPI ID or bank account.