Too many books
 

Running out of space

I have about.200 new books (mostly fiction but many nonfiction) that I want to sell or donate and I have no idea how to go about it.
Any advice would be welcome. Please send me a private message and I will respond

Check with either Sumter or Lake County library. I know that the Lady Lake library accepts donations, which they either sell to generate revenue to purchase new books, or put into circulation.

Sumter county library will accept donations.

Library at Pinellas Plaza accepts donations, and I think you can get a receipt for taxes, it has been a few years since I dropped some off, so not sure about the receipt.

Yep, Friends of the Library at any Sumter county library. Pinellas or on highway 466 are two. Their hours are something like 10am-2pm weekdays. I think they do limit donations to 2 bags per day , so the volunteers can process them.

Libraries are usually picky about donations. I had to weed my personal library when we moved from Palm Harbor, FL to the Villages in 2005. Donated many books to the Tarpon Springs, Oldsmar, and Safety Harbor Public Libraries but there were many books no library wanted. Law text books, other text books, various older novels of lesser writers, etc. Had to throw a lot of these in the trash.

I had sold my best art books and other prize items from my library to a Santa Rosa, CA used book store back when we moved to FL in 1996 from Northern California. I also had needed the money to send stuff out to people via the mail in the 1990s.

Try the area used book stores if you have books that might be in high demand like very nice art books, first editions in good condition, etc. You might also Google online used book buyers.

I did find this but have never used them-- Sell Your Books and Sell Back Textbooks At sellbackyourBook.com

I put mine on EBay. Lowball prices. Tales some time, but they are slowly going to someone who wants them. Same with CDs and cassettes. I had yo invest in a small scale and a special label printer. They have been paid for many times over through my sales.

Join in a neighbourhood garage sale !!

Library at paradise lake by fire station will take them.. call or stop by..they are open.

Yes the library at Paradise Rec center is called "Mark Twain Library" and they did accept my donations recently. Here is a link for it. Mark Twain Library - The Villages, Florida USA - Libraries on Waymarking.com

Books
 

How about donating to an assisted living or nursing home! Libraries have a budget to but new books. Nursing homes do not. In the past - pre COVID - they were thrilled to receive my books. However, rules may have changed due to COVID.

Salvation army
 

Give them to the Salvation Army.

Donate them to the Coleman Prison.

Lake Sumter Library at Pinellas takes books of any kind.

I put the books into a tote outside my front door and sent a note out to the neighbors that there were free books available. After that, it's to the library.

I donate mine at Citizens First in Brownwood. They resell them cheap and ALL proceeds go to a local battered women house.

Habitat for Humanity's Restore in Leesburg may be another donation option.

Take them to the Mark Twain library in Paradise in the villages

Get a Kindle and you won't have to worry about getting rid of books. No problem giving them to local library. They are not picky about what they accept.

Citizen'a Banks accept donations, they have a big fund raiser where they sell them and I think the money goes to a Women's Shelter.

Hundreds on the "cloud" at Amazon and in my Kindle. No more on bookshelves at home. Saving space

Newer books sell well because people are buying them for “Zoom backgrounds” to place on shelves behind them in a Zoom meeting so as to appear well-read. Give the rest to the Salvation Army.

Try operation paperback (operationpaperback.org). The organization donates books to deployed troops and military treatment facilities.
Sign up on line.

Is the bookstore (which has used) in Colony still open for taking books? I've taken some of mine there in the past but that was before the "lock down".

Marian markets has a stand in isle H. She sells her books for .50 cents each and said she takes donated books to help keep her cost down. All books she sells are .50 cents. It was awesome. Very nice lady!

Donate to a hospital

I had the same problem back home when I was downsizing to move here. I ended up taking them to Half PricedBooks ( a retail reseller). I got a whopping $50 for at least 200 books. I was disappointed but at least they were gone - I have no idea how many they actually resold vs other ends. There just isn’t a decent market for old books.

Oh yes they are. They get bombarded with donations. And despite what I thought they were worth, the grim reality is they are with close to zero.

Take it to the library.

Mark Twain library.. It a small, volunteer run library. They accept all book donations

books
 

An excellent place to donate your books (or most anything else) would be Centsibles upscale thrift shop on 441 in Summerfield. It is run by religious organizations and all religious books are free, while all other books in their large book section are priced very low. It is also an excellent source of a wide variety of books for book clubs. You can also get a reciept for tax purposes, if desired. The warehouse in back of the store is open M-F, at 10 to 4 pm. for donations.

Paradise library will take them

A jail or prison, homeless shelter may love them now with covid, thrift stores etc.

When we moved to the Villages, I had hundreds of pounds of books and a wife screaming we will not have room for them. I had several hundred current photo books as I used to sell them and they were samples. I was disappointed that our library didn't even want them. We had a new library with many empty shelves. No interest in what I had or in making the effort.

Selling them? There are used book stores. I think you will be shocked at how little they will pay. You can give them to one of the villages libraries they all resell books. I expect with Covid not all are opened and people trapped in their homes are doing stuff like getting rid of stuff. My friend has cleaned his garage 2-3x this year. Fortunately it has not effected me.

I expect, I HOPE, covid will be over in six months and like spring after a tough snowy winter life will re-emerge. Hey not much snow in Florida. Had you lived in Syracuse with
120 inches of snow a year, it would make sense.

Donate to library or vets

Former librarian replies
 

Why do you give your books to a library? Because you are not going to reuse them, and they are taking up space.

The big problems for libraries are 1. Not enough money to buy new books; Not enough staff to process new materials and service patrons; Not enough space to store and display new materials.
The cost to process materials and put them on the shelf is substantial. If the library has more unpaid volunteers than they can use for shelf reading and other chores, the money the book sales take in MAY justify the space for storage and periodic book sales, but the "gift" of your unwanted discards is, at best, a mixed blessing.

The library wants to serve you and needs your help. If you give them a few bucks every year, that would be great. Donating last year's pot boiler -- not so much.

Library Drop-Off
 

My wife has donated many books to Sumter County Library in Pinellas Plaza. They have an outside drop box near the front door. You can drop books in there 24/7. They either place them on library shelves or sell them in their tiny book store. The best thing about it is you can put 20 in the back of your vehicle and when your out that way, day or night, weekday or Sunday, you can’t put them in the drop box. Will take some time to get rid of 200, but a little at a time and you’ll be done.

I would like to see what you have. 515-321-5070

Public library will take them

When we did a major downsizing up north I decided to do some serious pruning of my books. I wanted to donate them to a charity that provides books for prisoners and was shocked at how picky they were. No fiction over 2 years old regardless of the author. They had a list of "preferred subjects" which included books on witchcraft. (Alas, I had none.) I ended up donating them to Goodwill or Salvation Army, I forget which.

kathy