Michelle Neuner tests out ListMyBook.com at UT San Antonio. Courtesy photo.

Today, an Austin startup is launching an online marketplace of used textbooks on campuses across Texas.

ListMyBook.com View Profile Follow is a marketplace for textbooks that spares students the price gouging common at bookstores and the hassle of shipping from online sales. Rather than wait to receive books through online sellers like Amazon or spend time shipping them, students can use ListMyBook.com to sell them on campus for free, in an exchange similar to Craigslist. is a marketplace for textbooks that spares students the price gouging common at bookstores and the hassle of shipping from online sales. Rather than wait to receive books through online sellers like Amazon or spend time shipping them, students can use ListMyBook.com to sell them on campus for free, in an exchange similar to Craigslist.

The campaign will bring the service to Austin next week at the University of Texas, St. Edwards and Austin Community College.

Founder Laurel Naughton said taking the bookstore war to campuses—and making an online marketplace free for students—is a matter of social good.

“Even more worrisome, many students purchase their textbooks with student loans,” she said in a statement. “In reality, they end up paying much more for their books due to student loan interest rates.”

Legal Banzu View Profile Follow , which connects low-income legal clients with pro-bono or low-cost legal services. ListMyBook isn't Naughton's first altruistic venture. She also founded, which connects low-income legal clients with pro-bono or low-cost legal services.

Accordingly, she plans to keep ListMyBook free for students. If it succeeds, she said she’ll explore advertisements as a form of revenue, as well as adding features like a way to easily exchange class notes.

Textbook pricing has come under scrutiny in recent years as a way to reform the rising costs of college without having to reinvent the American system of higher education, a tangled web of tradition, regulation and powerful competing interests.

Naughton rattled off three reasons textbooks are so expensive.

“It’s mostly because publishing companies continue to release new editions of the same material, only slightly modified,” she said in a statement. “Secondly, professors are also incentivized by royalties to use books they’ve authored, and bookstores take advantage of the convenience they provide students by being located on campus.”

The site’s November launch coincided with Congress reintroducing The Affordable Textbook Act (H.R. 3721) , which would issue grants to schools who create and implement free and digital course materials, called open textbooks, at significant savings for students.

Naughton said the launch campaign will also include the University of Houston, Rice, and Texas Southern University.