Ordering

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What is an ISBN and where do I find it?
An ISBN is an abbreviation for International Standard Book Number. This is a 10 or 13 digit number usually appearing on the back of the book near the scannable barcode. This is the number most electronic inventory systems and databases use to track titles.

You can find the ISBN on most newer books near the scannable barcode on the back of the book or on the copyright page near the front of the book. On mass market paperback books you can find the ISBN inside the front cover most often or again on the title page.

Things to watch out for:

College textbooks which have a sticker on the back with a store printed ISBN covering the real ISBN. This often leads to the wrong item, wrong edition or wrong supplements. When you are not sure of the ISBN sticker either remove the sticker or simply refer to the title page.

If you can not locate an ISBN on your book, the most common answer will be that it was printed before 1975ish - before ISBNs were in common use. We do not purchase books without an ISBN. Our database system is simply not equipped to deal with them.

I'm entering books but I'm not getting any offers. What am I doing wrong?
You might be entering items we simply are not buying. This is evidenced by the message "we are not currently purchasing this title".

You might get the message "this item is not in our database". If it is not in our database then we are not currently buying it. If you think it might be a title we would be interested in, you can send us an email inquiry and we can check to see if it is a title we might want.

Our buying criteria is based upon demand for an item, condition of the title, and projected resale value. If you have tried 20-30 titles and we have rejected them all, odds are what you are reading and what we are buying are at wildly different ends of the spectrum. If you have entered mostly fiction titles you could try entering some nonfiction titles. There are many different genres of books if you are not having luck with one, try entering books from another.

What types of books are you buying?
We purchase all types of books; however, we normally specialize in non-fiction books and textbooks. We are specifically interested in the following genres:

• Religion
• History
• Psychology
• Textbooks
• Business
• Educational
• Computers
• Travel
• Medical
• Economics
• Marketing
• Art
• Self-Help
• Sociology
• Politics
• Law
• Gardening
• Sports
• Foreign Lang.
• Engineering
• Mathematics
• Science
• Current Fiction
• Biography

You can also check out our main page to see the most current offers we have made or click here to see even more current offers.

Do my books have to be in a certain condition?
YES! Your items must be in standard good used condition. This means the cover can show some slight wear, but the pages must be intact and the binding tight.

When you items are received this is the criteria they are inspected for.

• Water / Moisture Damage
• Pages Stuck Together
• Torn / Loose / Missing pages
• Torn / Missing / Cut Cover
• Torn / Loose / Broken Binding
• Books with an odor (smoke, musty, etc.)
• Excessive Highlighting / Writing in Margins
• Book Club copy of the Retail Version
• Correct Title / ISBN

If you send us items that have these flaws we most likely will refuse to purchase those items, or to reduce the offer. Anytime we receive items that do not meet our guidelines you will be sent an email of the problem along with instructions on how to get your item returned if you wish. WE are one of the RARE sites online that will hold your item for you if there is a problem. If you read the fine print of other sites you will find that they specifically state: "we do not return items for any reason" We feel that your items are exactly that, YOUR ITEMS if we can't purchase them we have no right to just keep them. So we hold them for you, in case you want them back, we can recycle them for you or we can donate them to an international non-profit organization.

We have published a very helpful guide on book condition, please review: Book Selling Condition Guidelines

What about Magazines, Comic Books or Book Club Editions?
No.

My book does not have any ISBN, now what?
We do not purchase books without an ISBN. Our database system is simply not equipped to deal with them.

How about old books, do you guys buy old books?
We do not purchase any book without an ISBN. If you have older books that you feel are valuable we encourage you to contact a local reputable antiquarian dealer to determine their value. These types of appraisals are best done in person with the items in question. It is always a good idea to ask for references first when dealing with any type of appraisal service.

Are there any hidden costs or fees associated with this site?
None. The only cost you might have to bear out of your own pocket is if you choose to insure your shipment or add delivery confirmation to it prior to shipping. This is not mandatory but it is something we recommend.

I have a large collection of books and I want to sell them. Will you buy all of them?
Only if our system will make you an offer on each individual ISBN. We have found that most individuals would like an offer that truly reflects the value of each book. We would be unable to offer such competitive prices if we purchased all books. You must also consider that books are extremely heavy and shipping them is very expensive.

Why can't I check out?
If you do not have a minimum of $8.00 in books in your check out cart our system will not allow you to create an order. These minimums are in place to insure we are able to continue to offer top rate service and prices for all of our customers.

If you do have $8.00 in total in your cart and are still having issues. Please contact us here.

Why do you need my personal information? Are you going to sell it?
We only collect information that is critical for us to serve you. Name and address we must have if you are requesting payment via a check. Email is needed for PayPal Payments and to contact you if any problem should arise. A phone number is a great backup contact method to have, we very rarely call any of our customers preferring to correspond via email.

We NEVER disclose, discuss or share your personal information with any third party. No representative of CKY Books will ever contact you and ask for any information other than name, address, telephone and email. You will never share your Social Security, Drivers license or any other critical data with us.

We hate SPAM and will not contribute in any way to any third party bombarding you with offers you never asked for.

I have more than one copy of a title, will you buy multiple copies?
This is evaluated on a case by case basis. Our site was started to cater to normal individuals. We wanted to provide a service that would recycle books, cut down on waste and focus on putting some money back into the pockets of the everyday reader or student. To that end we will generally only buy one copy of a title per account, we feel this will greatly serve the individuals rather than the dealers who try to dump titles on us as demand decreases.

If you happen to have multiple copies of a title that you wish to sell we encourage you to email us. Exceptions will be made as long as we feel it does not hurt the majority of our users. All multiple quantity order titles will now require written management approval prior to shipping.

Is this going to cost me any money?
None. The only cost you might have to bear out of your own pocket is if you choose to insure your shipment or add delivery confirmation to it prior to shipping. This is not mandatory but it is something we recommend.

Help! I can't get the packing slip to print.
If you don't have a printer or your printer is broken there are several things you can do.

• Forward the email receipt to a friend who has a printer. Use that email as a substitute packing slip, also it has a link to the shipping label.
• You could access your account, your packing slip and mailing label from another computer with a printer.
• As a last resort ship without the packing slip. Be sure to included your name clearly inside the box. Simply address your package to: CKY Books, John C. Watts Drive, Suite B, Nicholasville, KY 40356, ATTN: Missing Documents. Take your package to the post office and pay postage yourself. Please note you must ship as MEDIA MAIL, it is the only rate for which we will reimburse.

I forgot to ship my books within the 48 hour time frame. Can I still send them?
We understand that some times things happen to prevent you from shipping your order in a timely manner. In most cases this will not be an issue, we do ask that you contact us first if you are outside of the time frame. If you do send them outside of the 48 hour time frame without contacting us you do run the risk of having your order adjusted.

Orders created on Friday we of course understand cannot be mailed on a Sunday so the following Monday is acceptable.

Please remember the quicker you get you items safely packaged and shipped the quicker we can pay you.

Are there any minimum requirements to create an order?
Yes. You must either have a total of $8.00 in order for our system to actually complete the checkout process.

The packing slip printed but it isn't showing the titles. Is that OK?
Ideally the packing slip should show: Order #, Name, Address, Phone and then list the ISBNs and titles as well as the price per item and the total amount quoted. We are aware of a bug where the titles are not properly displayed. This is fine. Please make sure however that your name at least is present on the packing slip. Hopefully we will find a fix for the title issue soon.

Packing and Shipping

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I decided to not send a book, how do I remove it from the order?
Simply draw a line through the title that you decided not to sell on the packing slip. You can write a note if you like, "decided to keep this title". OR you can simply not send it in your shipment and our warehouse will mark it as missing from the order and your payment will be adjusted.

There is currently no way to edit your order on a line item basis.

The shipping label will not print for me. Help!
You can try to access the shipping label from within your account by shipping label.

Also there is a link to the shipping label from the automated email you should have received after your order was created.

If those do not work please email us and we will try to help.

I don't have a printer are there any options for me?
If you don't have a printer or your printer is broken there are several things you can do.

• Forward the email receipt to a friend who has a printer. Use that email as a substitute packing slip, also it has a link to the shipping label.
• You could access your account, your packing slip and mailing label from another computer with a printer.
• As a last resort ship without the packing slip. Be sure to included your name clearly inside the box. Simply address your package to: CKY Books, 117 Mobile Ct., Nicholasville, KY 40356, ATTN: Missing Documents. Take your package to the post office and pay postage yourself. Please note you must ship as MEDIA MAIL, it is the only rate for which we will reimburse.

How should I package my books?
This is probably the most important question you can ask. If you don't take a few minutes to properly package your shipment, the odds are greatly increased that your books will get damaged or destroyed in the mail.

We recommend each and every customer read this article. It covers in depth how to properly package your items for shipment.

Is the shipping really free?
Yes. 100% totally free shipping when you use our pre-paid shipping label. We do recommend that you purchase delivery confirmation or insurance to protect your items.

I want my books to get there faster. Can I ship them UPS or FedEx?
Yes. We will even reimburse you a portion of that cost! We will reimburse you the amount that your package would have cost, had you used our pre-paid label. Simply create an order print out our packing slip and send your books. You don't even need to request this partial reimbursement it is something we do automatically for every customer who ships us books in this method.

I am sending a lot of books. They won't fit in one box. Now what?
We recommend everyone read this article. There are some postal regulations to be aware of as well as some common sense rules of thumb. The post office will not accept a package weighing over 70lbs so we suggest you not even approach that limit. We don't want anyone to get hurt trying to lift a box like that for one thing, because books are heavy.

We ask everyone to use some common sense. If you have 70lbs of books divide it up into two boxes and print two shipping labels, even 3 boxes would be acceptable. We however don't want to see 70lbs of books divided up into 10 boxes or anything too silly the other way. This is a sure fire way to have your books returned with postage due and your account banned.

How much can I put in a box?
You can put as much as you like in a box. However the postal regulations will not allow a package using our label that weighs more than 70lbs. We suggest everyone read this article. We ask that everyone use some common sense and think about getting your books here safely without hurting themselves or someone else. Books are very heavy.

I found another book or books that I want to add to the order. How do I do that?


There is currently no way to add a book to an order that is already created. The simplest thing to do is to create another order if your items will allow you to meet the minimum requirement of $8.00. Then simply ship them together in the same box.

If the item you want to add will not get you past the minimum requirement, we suggest you simply print the offer screen of the item/s you want to add and include that printout with your packing slip and the order you are sending.

Transit

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How long does it take for my shipment to arrive?
Normal inbound shipping to us average about 7-11 business days. This number does not include shipment from Hawaii, Alaska or APO's. Shipping times from those places at times can take 21 days or more.

When we receive your shipment you will be sent an automated email from us.

Can you track my shipment and see where it is? No. Our label only pays for the free shipping. If you want to be able to track your shipment you need to purchase delivery confirmation at your local post office. Our data has shown packages with delivery confirmation on it has a greatly reduced chance to go missing in the mail and even statistically lowers the damage to boxes. The post office takes much greater care of packages with Delivery Confirmation than to those without.

What is media mail? Media Mail is a cost efficient way to send books and media through the USPS. The maximum amount of weight a package can weigh is 70 lbs. A media mail box can only measure at 108 inches combined width and length.

My order "status" has not changed, what's going on?
CKY Books automated system has 3 different statuses for an order to pass through. When an order is created in our system an automated email is sent to the customer and the status is set to "pending".

Pending means you have created an order in our system and we are awaiting its arrival.

The next status change is "received". This is changed when your shipment arrives. Once it has been updated to "received" another automated email is sent to the customer. Your order is now ready to be inspected and compared against the packing slip. If there are any problems with you shipment or items this is the stage where we will contact you.

If all is well with your order it is usually updated to "paid" very quickly. This means we have your check ready to place in the mail or your PayPal payment has been applied.

If you are not receiving your automated emails we suggest you check your email settings to verify you are not filtering any email from the domain name www.ckybooks.com.

Receiving

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I got an email referring to an adjustment to my order number. What does this mean?
After we receive your shipment we then inspect if for accuracy and to make sure all items meet our guidelines. If you receive an email like this it means that one or more of your items do not meet our guidelines for some reason. That reason will be detailed in that email.

I never get any emails of "status" changes to my orders. Am I doing something wrong?
If you are not receiving your automated emails we suggest you check your email settings to verify you are not filtering any email from the domain name www.ckybooks.com.

You guys refused to buy one of my books and I decided I want it back. Will you return it?
YES. We are one of the RARE sites online that will hold your item for you if there is a problem. If you read the fine print of other sites you will find that they specifically state: "we do not return items for any reason"

We feel that your items are exactly that, YOUR ITEMS. If we can't purchase them we have no right to just keep them. So we hold them for you, in case you want them back, we can recycle them for you or we can donate them to an international non-profit organization.

Payment

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How long until my payment is issued now that you have the books?
We strive to make all payments within 24 hours of receiving your shipment, except on weekends. We are working very hard so we can soon make ALL payments within 24 hours without exception.

My check has not shown up yet. How long do I have to wait?
We mail all checks to the address you submitted when you registered. You are responsible for the accuracy of that information. All checks are mailed via USPS First Class Mail, usually it takes about 2-4 days for checks to arrive. If for some reason your check seems to be taking to long to show up please let us know, we will work with you to make sure you receive your payment. We do strongly recommend everyone sign up for PayPal. It is fast, secure and trackable. Link to PayPal sign up.

I received my payment but the amount is different than what I was quoted. What's going on?
Most likely one of your items did not meet our condition guidelines, so your payment was lowered. We try to always send an email to each customer who has an item with a problem. We are human and do make mistakes. In the past there have been instances where these emails were not sent as our company policy dictates. The first thing we recommend it to check your email setting to verify you are not filtering any email from us. We encourage anyone who receives a payment that is different from what you expected to contact us, we will be happy to try to help you figure out why you are not receiving your emails or why you were not notified. This is an area we are actively working on to improve.

I got an email saying my order "status" was changed to Paid. So where's my money?
This status change indicates your order was paid. This means either your check has been issued and is ready to be mailed or your PayPal payment has been submitted. For checks on average 2-4 days. PayPal is much faster, sometimes you will receive an email from PayPal before you get our automated email of the status change.