Loving & Selling Old Books, Paper & Ephemera

A Letter from Neil Armstrong
Loving, Selling, Old Books Paper & Ephemera
Old Letters, Documents, Postcards & Such from Claudia's Corner Auctions
Vintage Photographs from Claudia's Corner Auctions
My Current eBay Listings

I "eBay" because it's fun, and because it brings in a little money to help supplement my husband's income. For me, it's not a full-time business, but it can be depending upon what you are offering, if you gain enough experience, and if you devote as much time to eBay as you would to a full-time job.

I'm going to tell you my story...I'm sure there's a few things you'll learn just from reading it.

For me, it started back in 1999. I had always heard of eBay, saw links to eBay, wondered what eBay was. Then I found out! A someone helped me to sell an autographed item I had acquired. I watched and watched as people bid, and the price went up higher and higher...it was fun!! I was hooked right then and there!

The first thing I had to do before selling was sign up with eBay with a user-name & password. You can use any user-name you want, but it's fun to be creative. Don't use your email address, or you'll start receiving "spam".

Once you've picked a name, you can change it, but it's nice to chose one you like right away so people get to know who you are. If you do change your name, be aware that people who have "bookmarked" you will not be able to find you. I settled on simply using claudias_corner_auctions :-)

(Now, page to Part 2 as Squidoo only allows me to use a certain number of characters in each module.)

Next, it would be wise to have a PayPal account as eBay owns and works together with PayPal. After a sale, if you are paid through PayPal, you can print your shipping label and postage right through PayPal. It is a wonderful feature that saves you a trip to the post office. You can arrange for post office pick up if your packages are large, or put smaller items out in the box for the mailman to take when he delivers your mail.

Okay, back to my story!! Once I got "hooked" on eBay, I had to have something to sell. I started going to auctions and garage sales with fellow eBayers. It wasn't long before we realized we had become so addicted that we had WAY more things than we could ever sell...but it was fun!

How do you decide what to sell? Though I started out selling just about anything, I finally decided to settle on what I loved. If you love something, you know more about it than you do other things. My love is vintage books, old paper items like postcards, magazines, letters, and other ephemera, so that is what I have been selling for the past 7+ years.

How do you know what price to start with? Spend some time at the site doing searches on things you think you might like to sell. When your search results come up, along the left there is a list. In the list, find where it says "completed items" and check it, then search. You'll see a list of the same items that have sold, and will see how much they went for. From this, you can determine whether your item is even worth listing, if none are selling, and there is a LONG list of them that didn't sell, it may not be worth it.

If you see one that went for a good price, look at the item in more detail, see what category it was listed in, study it a bit. I did most of my learning by looking at what others did. There is SO much more I could share, but I think I better let you get some "hands on" experience.

Ebay has many good helps at the site.

If you're new to eBay, you'll need a way to take a picture of the item you want to sell and "upload" it to a folder "in" your computer. I call my folder simply "Auction Pictures".

If you're not an ebay member, Click here for eBay!

Garage sale season runs from spring through fall in this part of the country, and longer in warmer states...this is a great way find things to sell on eBay.

Garage Sale Strategies is a guide that will teach you all you need to know to find treasures to sell on eBay, the only thing I can think of right now is get there early...but I've found many great things at great prices to resell throughout the day. Click here for more information.

Chances are you may already know about article writing, article marketing, whatever you'd like to call it...may I offer you another place post your articles, it's free to submit articles, and can be a wonderful way to promote whatever you are "into".

Several new authors and writers join each day, and I'd love to have you be a part. Visit Selling With Articles and join us.