It’s a Book Drive!

Click here to donate your books

Did you know that most of our books were donated to us by the community? Over 95% of the books on our shelves were given to us by generous readers and community members. We wouldn’t be here without our donors, and we truly appreciate every one.

We don’t pay cash for books at this time. But we do offer store credit to our donors!

How it works:

• If you’re donating more than about 200 books:
  • Use this form to arrange for a pick-up
• If you have fewer than about 200 books:
  • Drop them off during our regular store hours
  • Use our contact page to arrange an appointment to drop them off outside of our regular store hours
  • Use this form to arrange for a pick-up

What we want:

• Clean books – We’re happy to clean off light dust, stickers, etc. Please don’t bring any books with mold, heavy water stains, or heavy writing inside. Please ask before donating books from a smoking household.
• Condition – Books in VG or better condition are best, but we can use some books that have a little wear. Please don’t bring us books with severe damage. Light scuffing, lightly creased spine, etc. are fine. We can’t use books with deep tears to the covers or pages; broken spines (such that pages are falling out); or heavy soiling. We may make exceptions for severely damaged books with nice illustrations, but please ask first.
• Topics – We always need black studies, cultural studies, teen/YA fiction, and books on mysticism and alternative religions. We offer double store credit for collections of books that are mostly made up of those categories. Fiction is always welcome, including genre fiction, urban fiction, mystery/thriller, and romance. We do not accept books by right-wing, racist, homophobic, or transphobic authors. We only accept select magazines. Right now, we have way too many books on Christian studies, Judaica, military history, and oversized dictionaries and atlases. We might accept a few of those titles as part of a much larger collection.
• Discard policy – Most collections have some books we just can’t use. If we can’t use any of the books you bring us, you’ll be given the option to take them back or to leave them with us for disposal. If you leave them with us, it’s with the understanding that you won’t receive store credit for those titles, and that the books may be broken (torn apart and used for crafting); composted; recycled; or donated elsewhere. The discard option we choose depends upon several factors and may result in destruction of the book(s).

We can’t pay cash for books. This is entirely to keep our prices as low as possible.

We offer store credit in exchange for books. The credit is a flat rate and is usually based on the number of books we can use, not on the specific genre or value of any particular title. We sometimes make exceptions for oustanding collections or when we need to fill gaps in parts of the store.

The standard store credits listed below are guidelines. While the store credit you receive may not be more than the amount listed below, if we accept your books it will never be less than that amount.