Spring Cleaning Tips to Turn Used Books, Gadgets Into Cash

— -- With spring finally in the air comes the urge for a little spring cleaning, purging and, hopefully, cashing in.

If you're looking to dust off and unload some books in your home, you may want to turn to the Internet. But first, you'll need to look for the International Standard Book Number or ISBN.

If you enter the ISBN at a site like BookScouter, you'll save time and it will get you the best price for your tomes. According to BookScouter, an average household has $120 in books just lying around.

BookScouter searches offers from more than 30 vendors and has more than 1.7 million users. The site's president, Dustin Checketts, said the site experiences about 650,000 searches a day. He said paperbacks net up to $6 apiece while cookbooks fetch between $5 and $40.

Dorian Thornley, co-owner of a used bookstore called Westsider Books, said springtime is prime time for unloading unused books.

"People [are] buying summer reads," Thornley said. "People hit our store in April to get books for vacation. ... Now would be a good time, now definitely."

Thornley said the classics were a hot commodity.

"Hemingway still sells like crazy," Thornley said. "Jane Austen, 'Wuthering Heights,' I mean all those books. They're not classics for nothing, you know."

If it's old technology that you're hoarding, like cellphones, tablets or MacBooks, try Gazelle.

On that site, you rate your device as "flawless," "good" or "broken." The site gives you a quote and if you like the quote, you print a label and send your gadget to the company. Gazelle will even buy broken phones, as long as they power on.

According to Carmen Vetere, vice president of marketing at Gazelle, more than 2 million products have been sold on the site. She said the turnaround time for sending in a device and getting paid was typically 24 to 48 hours after the condition of the device was verified.

And if your product is rejected or valued at lower than you expected, Gazelle emails you and you can either accept a new offer or get device sent back to you at no cost.

Also, at some stores and websites, if you opt for store credit or a gift card, you may get a bigger return. For example, Gazelle pays 5 percent more if you choose an Amazon gift card rather than a check.

Finally, if you'd rather a one-stop shop for all your selling needs, try the Amazon Trade-In program, which accepts hundreds of thousands of items in exchange for a gift card.