In this contribution, a cheap organic material, disodium terephthalate, Na2C8H4O4, has been firstly evaluated as a novel anode for room-temperature Na-ion batteries. The material exhibits a high reversible capacity of 250 mAh/g with excellent cycleability. The average Na storage voltage is approximately 0.43 V vs. Na+/Na. A thin layer of Al2O3 coating on the electrode surface derived from the atomic layer deposition technique is effective in further enhancing Na storage performance. Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as "Supporting Information". Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.