SFU Bookswap
Browse  |  Login  | FAQ
Guide

FAQ:

What Is This Site About Anyways?

The SFU Bookswap is a FREE online directory intended to connect students who have books to sell with students who want to buy textbooks. We do not directly buy or sell books, nor do we collect money or act as an arbitrator between disgruntled parties.

What we do is provide a venue for you to search for textbooks that you need next semester, and a place to get some cash for the books the bookstore did not want back. The process works by allowing SFU students to create textbook classified ads. Other students now search the site for the textbooks they need, and can either purchase a book outright or make the seller an offer. If the book is not sold by the expiry date, the seller is given the option of connecting with the person who made them the best offer.

How Do I Buy Books

  1. Search for the title or ISBN of your textbook
  2. Find the cheapest one that you want to buy and click the title of the text to view its details
  3. Either make the seller an offer (the seller will be immediately informed of your offer and have the opportunity to contact you) less than the posted price, or offer the full price to 'buy' the book immediately
  4. Wait for them to email you back to arrange a meeting place to make the exchange
  5. Buy Snacks with the money you saved

How Do I Sell My Textbook

Selling your textbook is quick and easy. Best case scenario, you will be done in under a minute, worst case, you will be done in five.

  1. After registering and logging in, click the 'New Posting' link in the top right.
  2. Select the name of your textbook from the title dropdown. You can either choose from the list, or start typing and it will auto-complete.
  3. Enter The Price You would like for your book. You Can either have only dollars or both dollars and cents
  4. Enter the date that your posting will expire. If your book hasn't been sold by the time the posting expires, you will have the option to contact the person who has made the highest offer
  5. Enter the description of the posting. This can either be a description of the book itself, or information about what course it is used for, the condition of the book and any additional info you want associated with your posting.
  6. Select the class your textbook is for from the dropdown. If you can't find your class click on the button to the right to add it
  7. Click "Sell My Book"
  8. Profit

The Name Of My Textbook Is Not In The Title Dropdown Can I Still Sell It?

Yes! You can certainly still sell your textbook on our site, you are simply the first one to try, so you first must add the text to our database

  1. Click on the Sell link in the top right or on the user homepage
  2. Click the "Add Book" button on the right-hand side of the page
  3. Enter the name, ISBN or Author in the search field of the window that pops up. (ISBN is the best) This will search books.google.com for your textbook. Once you locate your textbook, simply click the entry that matches your book.
    If you cannot find your textbook by searching, you will simply have to add it manually. Click on the manual tab
  4. Under the Edit Manually Tab fix up the information that is missing or incorrect.
  5. Click "Save". If everything went ok, the page should refresh, and your book should now appear in the title dropdown.

Note that the edition field is sometimes filled in automatically. It can contain fields such as, hardcover, paperback, etc... However, its main purpose is to differentiate between multiple versions / editions of the same textbook that the publishers love to release every year.

What The heck is an ISBN and where do I find it?

The ISBN is a unique 10 or 13 Digit number which uniquely identifies a book. It is usually found on the back of the book near the barcode, or a couple of pages in, near the copyright information. Of course, custom courseware does not have a ISBN, so if you wish to sell that, please use the barcode in its place.

Can I Sell Custom Courseware?

If you believe that your custom courseware will benefit the person buying it, you can by all means sell it. We only ask that since the custom courseware has no ISBN, you use the barcode in its place

My Book Didn't Sell, Now What?

So you didn't get the big windfall you expected for your book. If someone made you an offer, you can always cut your losses and accept it. Otherwise, you can try selling the book to Quads or the Bookstore during Buyback, or hang onto it for another semester and try reposting it to this site :)

Supported Browsers

Other browsers have been known to work, including the most recent version of Safari for OSX, as well as IE6. But these are officially unsupported

Contacting SFU Bookswap Admin

Love us, hate us, have a problem or a question or just want to drop a line. Contact us at admin@sfubookswap.com