Sell Books Online | Start An Online Book Store!

There are a few things I would like to point out. First, the home book business is like any other endeavor, you get out of it what you put into it. There are lots of folks out there making a living at working hard to sell books online, but just like a job you have to put in the time to earn the check. Second, there is another option to sell books online that is not as profitable, but is far easier. A good example is Cash4Books, which is a site that allows you to input your books ISBN numbers for an immediate valuation. If they are interested in purchasing the book and you are happy with their price, then just ship it to them (they cover the shipping costs) and wait for your check! While you could probably have made more money with the book selling it yourself on Amazon or eBay, you will have avoided the hassles of listing the item yourself and dealing with customer support. This type of site is really ideal for used textbooks you might have lying around, as their price is still much higher than that offered by the local college bookstore buyback program! So if you want to sell books online without dealing with the listing process, give them a try! Or for more info on Cash 4 Books check out my blog! Cash 4 Books

This is the first of a series of posts on how to sell books online on Amazon or eBay. I'm not sure how many segments this will entail, it will be an ongoing process as I am continually learning new things myself! I have been selling books on eBay for several years, and just last year started selling on Amazon, which I have found to be much more successful (as well as a lot easier). Now, before you start getting excited and envisioning yourself rolling around in the heaps of cash you are gonna rake in, realize that this is like anything else in life, the more effort you put in, the more reward you get out of it. I rarely work more than 4 or 5 hours a week to sell books online, and I usually make about $300-$400 a month in profit. I have made as much as $1400, or as little as $20!! Some months are just better (think textbook season), than others. This makes timing and inventory choice an important aspect when you decide to sell books online!

Also, a word to the wise... There are a lot of eBooks out of there that offer much of the same advice on how to sell books online that I'm giving you here for free. While I'm not saying that it's wrong to look into these (I have purchased a couple myself), I am saying that your money might be better spent on building your own inventory to sell books online than lining the pockets of the eBook authors. If you want additional resources, there are lots of options on Amazon that are legitimate and packed with information. My personal favorite? The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site by Steve Weber. This is the book that really got me going on Amazon!

The Home-Based Bookstore:
Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site

Well, I guess the first thing in any endeavor is to just take the first step! Luckily this is easy when it comes to learning to sell books online, as there is very little in the way of start-up costs or time investment. Potential sellers can usually start getting a "feel" for the business by utilizing some merchandise they have laying right around their home. So where to begin? Amazon! They are the place to start if you want to sell books online and start an online book store! Grab a few books that you are willing to part with, head on over to the computer and pull up the Amazon home page. If your books are newer (say 1975 or later), they should have an ISBN number on the back cover and/or on one of the title pages at the beginning of the book. You can enter this number right into the search field, and your exact edition should pop up. Now, what you want to note on this results page are two things. One is the used price that will show up, and if you click on it a list of all of the used editions and their prices will show up. The other item you want to look for is the sales ranking, which can be found near the bottom of the "Product Details" section.

One note, a great option for selling books online quickly and efficiently is a buyback site offering free shipping and good payment amounts for textbooks and technical manuals. Check out Sell My Books 4 Cash!for a good example.

So what's next then? You now have some material to make a test run with to sell books online, and you've looked up their values and sales ranking on Amazon. Your next step will be to decide what type of seller you want to be. It is invariable that at least one (if not most of) the values that you have looked up are in the .01 to .99 cent range. This is due to the mass availability of best sellers, the market is simply flooded with them in most cases, and according to the laws of supply and demand this drives the price downwards. This directly ties in with the sales rankings of the books you have looked up. Amazon sells and ranks millions of books, and obviously the lower the sales rank the more popular it is with readers. If you want to sell books online this is an important bit of information to take note of, as this also has a direct correlation with your sales, as more popular books (say anywhere up to 100,000 in ranking) are likely to sell much more quickly than one in the millions. This is not however, a universal and immutable law of sales on Amazon. I have listed books that cost upwards of 30 or 40 dollars and had a sales ranking of more than 4 million that sold within a week, and conversely waited several months to sell a book that was less than 50,000 in rankings. Much of it depends on your price, condition, seller rating and other factors, including good old timing! You may list a rarely purchased book at just the time a collector is looking for it, and make an immediate sale! If you want to sell books online you have to look at every opportunity!

So what does this have to do with what type of seller you want to be? Well, there are thousands and thousands of folks on Amazon who sell books online for .01, hoping to make a slim margin of profit on the dollar or so that they can make from shipping costs charged by Amazon, and then credited to the seller. Currently, Amazon charges 3.99 per book for standard shipping, and 6.99 for expedited shipping. This money is then deposited to the sellers account, along with the price charged for the book minus Amazon's fees. More on these fees later, but this is about all I will cover on selling low priced books, as it is not a practice in which I personally engage. I have made a few attempts to sell books online at this price in the past, but after the cost of packaging and postage, it just seems like too much work for little or no profit. That being said, I will focus more on how to sell books online for $5.00 or more, but the principles can be applied to lower costs books as well.

As promised in part one, I talked of learning how to sell books onine on both Amazon and eBay. While I have started to delve into the Amazon side of things, this might be an opportune moment to discuss eBay a bit. Book selling on eBay is VERY different than Amazon! First off, you will have to create a much more time-consuming listing and include pictures as well. But don't let this scare you off, eBay can be a great place to sell books online, but it must be approached differently than Amazon. In my experience, the best option for selling by auction is in lots, or groupings of books. Surprisingly, the most successful auctions that I have listed and sold have been in the categories that I thought were the least likely to perform. Historical romance, James Bond paperbacks, V.C. Andrews complete series, these are kind of "bread and butter" sellers on eBay, and they always seem to command good prices. The key to discovering what sells well by auction if you want to start an online book store on eBay is to use the "Advanced" search feature. You have to have a registered account on eBay in order to do this, but it's free and only takes a few minutes! What you want to do is entere the word "lot" or "series" in the search bar under advanced search, then choose the category "books", and put a check in the "completed listings" field. This will give you a ton of results, which you can then sort by price from high to low. Those showing in green are items that actually sold, so you want to focus on them. Browse through and find listings that have sold well and for good money that you think you might be able to find, and then hit the local thrift stores and rummage sales to gather your offerings!

A good resource for tips on eBay sales is also by Steve Weber: eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days

eBay 101:
Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days