posted on January 12, 2001 04:49:52 AM new
Hi all -
Has anyone here found their "niche" in selling fiction? I've never found the steady money in it. Out of all my duds, many have been fiction that I thought would sell, but nope. Usually it's a case of too many copies available on half.com or something. I've had good sales on advance galley proofs for some genre fiction, but otherwise it's such a crap shoot I am leery to touch the stuff.
If you do make sales, do they seem to be to people collecting certain authors? I did some good business on Dorothy Dunnett and a few other authors over the past year. Also a bit in the First Edition angle.
Or do your buyers seem to be just looking for something good to read?
posted on January 12, 2001 05:19:09 AM new
I don't sell books as a specialty, though I love to read. What I sell is mostly china, vintage pictures etc.. so most of my customers are women. I find if I have a few books out there by the most read authors in romance etc. that it brings more page views and sales. They may be looking for a book and then find that piece they just can't pass up. But just listing books you're right there's just too many out there selling in lots for low prices, unless it's something really special or old works that never made the charts from an author that's currently big. I met someone who sold only old Stephen King novels and did quite well.
posted on January 12, 2001 05:28:30 AM new
I noticed that if it is new fiction, unless it is a real specialty item (FE that was a small release for an author that later became popular or signed and in really great shape) it's not going to sell very well.
I basically gave it up in favor of non-fiction that I know will sell.
The new fiction exceptions:
LARGE TYPE BOOKS (always have sold)
Certain popular authors in some genres (but it's tricky to figure out who they are)
Books sold as a lot (for cheap)
Some SF authors
I manged to sell a couple of books by playing up the subject matter ... one had a plot with dolphins and the other had a Celtic magic plot.
posted on January 12, 2001 07:02:49 AM new
I just started dabbling in books recently and I have definitely noticed that non-fiction does way better than fiction. I've had pretty good luck with biographies.
My husband is a huge baseball book collector and is very knowledgabe about condition terms, first editions, etc so he helps me with my descriptions.
I know that traditionally there is not much interest in ex-library, but I've recently had some surprises. I bought an ex-lib for 50 cents, a biography, and it sold for over $50.00. I have another ex-library that I paid 79 cents for, a biography of a sports figure, and its just over $30.00 with a couple days to go!
If only all sales could be this great! I bought a book about the US Air Force that I thought would do really well for $1.00 and it went for a whopping $5.00! Oh, well...
posted on January 12, 2001 08:03:30 AM new
maple: ex-library are a big part of my business. I describe them as such in my auctions so there is no confusion, and from time to time people comment that the book was in better condition than they expected.
One thing libraries have are last year's editions of price guides and other annuals which they discard when the new editions come in. I've had good luck with many of these, since in many cases the info is not that old, and the pictures are still great.
I haven't tried biographies much...guess I thought they'd be hit or miss like the fiction. Maybe I should put in some time researching that category on ebay, since I see so many of them on my rounds.
posted on January 12, 2001 11:32:15 AM new
Fiction doesn't sell for me either. My theory why it doesn't sell is that even the most fantastic fiction usually lacks keywords that attract searches. For instance, if you're selling "Le Divorce" by Diane Johnson, and those are the main words in your title, well you are only going to get bidders looking for that book specifically. Maybe you could throw into the title words like Paris or French (the action is set in France) but it's going to be a stretch as to whether the person is even interested in books relating to that topic....Whereas if you have a book on Catherine II of Russia, you have a number of keywords to hang on that book which could bring people to your listing: Russian, History, Catherine II, Russia, biography, royalty, etc.....Anyone who searches on "biography" (as I often do) is already looking for books. Same idea could apply to a book on embroidery.....or baseball....or woodworking...or HTML....it's easier to describe AS WELL AS has more people looking for them......
I buy most of my fiction for 50 cents at the thrift store. But it's much harder to find the non-fiction books I need from used sources.
But you know, I just remembered, my biggest sale ever (180 dollars) was for a rare science fiction book.
posted on January 12, 2001 02:53:10 PM new
Hi keziak,
My specialty is books, both fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction is easier to sell, but the fiction is still a steady seller for me. It's always a surprise. Books that I couldn't sell over the summer or fall, went during the Christmas season. Books that I swear I'll be lucky to sell, go for way more than I anticipate. Books that I'm sure will be hot, I can barely move out the door.
But my passion is books anyway, so I'm not about to change my ways.
And also, I've had no trouble selling those ex-library copies, either.
Paperbacks do much better when grouped as a set, either by author or genre.
