broken is waiting to be fixed

I’ve got a few hundred books. Most are unread, gotten cheaply or for free. It happened mostly by accident. Free book on the sidewalk? Sure. Bag of used library books for $5? Done. A new book here or there? Expensive, but only $10-15.

Now it’s a veritable mountain of books. I seemed to have been stockpiling as if trees would disappear tomorrow and books would become the new currency.

With a forthcoming child and moving of house, I’m trying to lessen the sheer weight of paper in all of its form, but I want to get something for them. Some of the books are perfectly good books. Some of the books were expensive. I can always drop them off at the recycling center where people leave and take books. I can take the to the local indie bookstore and wait around for an hour or two while they give me a complete lowball offer. I can sell them online one by one followed by repeated post office visits to mail them to their new owners.

I’m stuck between the sudden realization that to make any cash on these books that makes it worth my time doesn’t exist. Either I give the books away which takes no money and uses no time, use a little time and get virtually no money, use a chunk of time and get very little money or take a lot of time and get a minuscule amount of money.

Any recommendations here?