Selling Used Books The Lazy Man's Way

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People often ask me where the best places are online to sell used books. I've gathered a pretty good list so far, and I've used a few of these sites in my own tenure as a book scouter.

1. http://www.amazon.com

The Amazon Marketplace is the first obvious choice for me. This is where I sell nearly 99% of my used books and garner most of my profits. I expound on this further in my ebook Book Scouting Success.

2. http://www.alibris.com

Alibris claims to have over 60 million used, new, and out-of-print books in their stock. I don't doubt it. Millions of independent booksellers from around the world submit their inventory to Alibris, and they offer excellent service.

3. http://www.half.ebay.com/

Half is a subsidiary of Ebay. I've used it a few times myself, and I really like it (not as much as Amazon, but it'll work). The good thing about Half is that, unlike Ebay, they don't require a fee for listing a product. They will however take a commission of every sale you make. Kind of like Amazon, the sellers on Half 'bid' against each other for sales.

That's it for now. I'll add more great places to sell used books online in the future.

Even if you're not religious, stopping by a church during a book sell is a very smart move if you want to find cheap, used books.

You can look for church book sells in classified ads or on one of my favorite ad sites - craigslist. You can also call churches individually to see when the dates are for their book sells (if they're having one, which is pretty common these days). Most of them are planned in advance, and some of them are annual events that are a big deal to a lot of people in the community.

In a lot of churches, church members will donate their used books to the church and thus the church will lower the price significantly. Just like a garage sale, valuable or quality books will often go unnoticed by the people donating and selling (as opposed to professional sellers).

If you do go to a church sale, arrive as early as possible...most of the good books are bought within the first 30 minutes to an hour.

Good luck!

After watching John Stossel's Stupid in America, I've come to the conclusion that entrepreneurship, especially starting a home or small business, is discouraged in American public schools.

Why are teachers discouraging our children from learning the principles and action needed to start home businesses? From the research I've done, I believe it's because they want a dumbed down population that's ignorant of monetary and fiscal policies, and how to handle their money.

Almost everyone in the 20th and 21st centuries have gone to high school and remember those confusing years. In our Junior and Senior years, we had to take the SAT and/or the ACT and pick our college majors while still young adults. Dissent was always discouraged; and anything other than going to college and working for somebody else was the only true path in life according to our higher ups in the school system. Inventing and coming up with new and interesting ideas, it seemed to me, was frowned upon as well. Being free and independent individuals was also looked down on from the teachers and bureaucrats that ran the school. You couldn't go to the restroom unless you raised your hand and asked, you couldn't do the math work your way (even if you got the right answer!), and at least in my school, we were all forced to follow a certain dress code. It also seemed to me that everything we did in high school was just a test for what was coming next, but whatever came next was always just another test! I seriously didn't feel prepared for life after high school.

That's because they wanted us to be obedient, non-determined workers with no goals or ambition. If a country has a non-questioning, non-thinking population, they can get away with anything they want and keep the entire country in a stupefied daze (that's what happens when you live paycheck to paycheck). This isn't a hard task with our valueless monetary system and the horrible indoctrination centers that we refer to as 'public schools'.

If more people would break free of the day-to-day grind and start their own business...selling used books, starting a lawn care service, opening a brick-and-mortar store, whatever - I think there would be a lot more prosperity and wealth in the United States.

This is why I preach about selling used books so much. I honestly have not found an easier business to get started at that makes the amount of money that book scouting does. Break free of your chains and shackles - become a book scouter.

I've been asked before if one should invest in a scanner for their book scouting business, and yes, I do consider buying a scanner an investment because of the high price tag on most of them and the fact that once you buy one, you'll probably have it for life.

My answer: yes and no. I believe a scanner can be a good thing to purchase once you're settled in and comfortable with book scouting, but if you're just beginning I would advise against it.

For one thing, you're just starting in a completely new environment and business world if you've never done anything like book scouting before. To go all out and buy a very expensive piece of equipment seems like a rash decision to me, because there's a chance that you might never use it. What if you decide that book scouting isn't for you? If that happens, you're stuck with an expensive electronic device that you'll probably never use. Be smart when it comes to selling books, and don't waste your money on high-tech gear.

So when is the right time to buy a scanner? I bought one six months after I started book scouting because I knew I was going to do this for a living after seeing what book selling is capable of. Once you have a decent inventory and experience on Amazon or eBay, and you've been out there in "the trenches" day to day, you should consider purchasing one.

The single most rewarding thing a scanner can offer you is saved time...and as we all know, time equals money. The more time you have at your disposal, the more books you can ultimately buy and sell. Scanners remove the monotony of typing in a 10-digit ISBN every time you want to check the price of a book too, and can save your fingers a lot of unneeded stress.

Now, scanners aren't always the right choice in a particular book hunting situation. Most older and rarer books won't have bar codes and you'll find that your scanner is useless in these kind of endeavors. That's why a lot of people are buying scanner phones, which combine the average cell phone with a PDA scanner. They work great and I can't recommend them enough.

All in all, scanners are your best bet if you want to maximize your time and efficiency, but some people enjoy hanging around the thrift stores and garage sales typing in the ISBN numbers because it gives them a chance to be around the thing that most of us love and are in this business for - the books.