posted on June 15, 2001 05:44:39 AM
We have just stuck our toe into the water in selling books. The only problem is that we wouldn't know a first edition from a book club edition.
Where do you list? Ebay? Half? Amazon?
What should we look for in all those mystifying numbers?
What if some of the books you have are really old and do not have isbn numbers nor can you find them in searches?
Which books sell? Which don't?
How do you price them? Seems like Half would have you list books for pennies!?
Any help that you fellow AWers can provide would be Greatly Appreciated!!!
posted on June 15, 2001 05:49:44 AMharmonygrove there were some excellent threads on this board a while back about selling books. The originator of those threads is also authoring a multi-part series on the same subject.
posted on June 15, 2001 06:42:40 AM
If you are just starting out, the main thing you need to do is take whatever books you have to sell and spend a lot of time looking them up on ebay, half.com, and Amazon. They will tell the tale. For example, most books on half are NOT listed for pennies...only the too-common books that anyone can find in the local thrift shop or remainder catalog or whatever.
Good luck. I find book selling interesting in that it's so easy, anyone can take a book and list it on Amazon and make some nice money. But as a business it takes a LOT of learning and experience to routinely find "winners" in a hugely competitive marketplace
Go to the site search at the bottom of the page and type in "bookselling". There will be some threads titled "Bookselling for idiots" that are a fountain of information.
posted on June 15, 2001 07:46:38 AM
Booksellers are highly opinionated. Some won't sell this or that book type or work in some markets or not.
This is all nonsense. In order to do really well or adequately to live, it's largely by volume. You need lots of books. It helps to work in areas that other sellers avoid. I prefer non-fiction, but I do offer limited fiction titles if they are good. I also specialties that I know better than most other sellers. Knowing a couple of markets helps you leverage.
There's a lot of downward price pressure. This is why you need a lot of books to sell.
posted on June 15, 2001 08:09:13 AM
a lot of downward price pressure?????
soon everyone and his brother will be listing books on internet!!
cost of books have been going up,wholesalers are raising both quanity and $$ of orders placed by retailers.
be careful not to get stuck with too many books you cant sell.
posted on June 15, 2001 08:28:20 AM
---also don't go on the assumption that if a book is old it is valuable. Condition, edition etc is necessary to figure out it's value.
posted on June 15, 2001 08:37:14 AM
downward pressure therefore one needs a lot of books to sell,sound like the old OPEC.
when western world goes into a recession,opec needs to sell more to make the same money to pay its bills.
we have done a good job flooding the collectibles market,now we are ready to do the same with books!!!!!!!
posted on June 15, 2001 02:38:01 PM
I don't know, I honestly feel it's not possible to truly flood the book market because of the staggering amount of desirable books that you just can't find. To take just one small example, every year hundreds of lovely gardening books are published....but where are they? I never see them in the used bookstores, all they have is "vintage" 1970s dreary dusty books, or generic gardening books you can buy at Home Depot.
Sometimes they show up at library sales, but by then they are pretty worn out.
I would personally love to build my collection of nice gardening books, but they sure don't go for 1-cent at half.com!
I think the same is true for just about any hobbyist field, craft, etc.
So the challenge of making money on books is not that they are all already for sale on the Internet for $1.99. It's tracking down the good stuff whereever it happens to surface, knowing your values well enough that you know when it's OK to plunk down "real money" for one, vs only spending $1 per book.
posted on June 17, 2001 09:10:24 PM
What fs a used bookstore carries a $30 book (priced on mysimon.com) but they are selling it for $3. Is that worth picking up? Is half.com a good indicator of whether a book is generic or not?
posted on June 17, 2001 09:18:35 PM
used books dealer have traditionally priced certain books as if they are the only one who have these books.
this is true before internet,individual cannot afford to enage a booksearch service to find him a copy ,but now he can search free on internet.
also bookdealers do not check market prices frequently as they are busy buying and selling,they also have a huge inventory which makes it hard to keep track of individual copies.
half.com does have books at good prices,but you have to pay shipping for each book,2.99 i believe.
you have to know your books,if you see them at a good price,dont be afraid to buy more than one copy,the longer they stay out of print,the scarcer they become.
posted on June 18, 2001 12:09:58 AM
If you have a WaldenBooks in your area, you can get great deals on their Bargain Books, which often sell very, very well on Ebay, especially if they are a topic that people really look for, like Civil War or World War II. I jot down books I think will sell and either look them up when I get home, or go to one of the many internet access areas malls are getting now that are free, and research them there and go back and buy them. WaldenBooks offers a preferred reader card where you get 10% off the books when you buy them, and for every $100.00 you spend you get a $5.00 certificate in the mail. My latest great buys are Stephen King Audio books which retail for $59.99 each, got 5 sets of them today for a grand total of $45.02 (including my discount and tax). I've already sold two of them for $19.00 buy it now on Ebay. Small profit, but every little bit helps!
