I am now a hardened seller of books on Amazon. After watching the books pile up on the bedroom floor it finally dawned on me that I could sell them on Amazon, make a little extra cash, and clean up my bedroom at the same time.
A good plan … right?
Well … er … maybe not.
There are some realities of selling books on Amazon that I hadn’t counted on, and I share them with you now for your edification (because, face it, who can’t use a little edification – like Pop Tarts – in their lives every now and then).
Lesson #1: Any book that you can find in an airport bookstore will make you very little money
A book that sells in an airport bookstore is most likely a mass-market book, meaning that a lot of them have been published, meaning that a lot of people have probably bought them, meaning a lot of people probably own them, meaning that a significant percentage of people probably want to now (having read it) get rid of it.
Lets take Tim O’Briens’s excellent book, The Things They Carried (which I highly recommend … and which I’m no longer selling).
This book can be bought used, in good condition, for $0.99. Amazon will charge the buyer $3.99 for shipping, and keep $0.99 of that for themselves (their commission). Problem is, it costs me $4.66 to ship it domestically with USPS, leaving me with an investment-bank-like profit (ok, maybe not) of $0.32 cents for selling this book. Worth my time? I think not.
So, unless you’re a professional bookseller, or a masochist (and what’s the difference, honestly?) stick with textbooks (usually priced highly to begin with), and other books that did not enjoy a prolonged print run.
Lesson #2: The best way to sell your book is to be the lowest price
I listed 22 books, 16 of these I priced so that they would be the lowest price. These books sold like hot cakes. All the others languish somewhere below the top of the list.
And it makes sense, since all other things being equal, people buy on price alone. Of course sometimes people won’t buy the lowest priced book if it has highlighting, or some other malformation, but generally speaking, people know what they’re getting into, and price is the only thing that matters. And there is no chance to establish a relationship with a buyer. And no way to really differentiate yourself on the Amazon platform.
All this is bad for sellers, but great for buyers.
Lesson #3: It’s hard to be the lowest price for long
Price wars are common among sellers. After all, for many sellers their costs are sunk – they’ve already purchased the book – so any profit is good profit (as long as they feel it compensates them for their time). So when you put your book on Amazon at the lowest price, it’s not unlikely, in fact probably very likely, that someone will soon reprice their book to be just a little bit lower. Sometimes even by just 1 cent.
And honestly, that’s enough for their book to be sold over yours.
Lesson #4: Unless you have a lot of hard to find books, and you’re willing to engage in price wars, you’re better off giving your books to the Salvation Army
I mean, who needs this hassle? ;-)
Pity the poor book seller
As always, thanks for listening.
~alex
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I sell books which don’t net any profit on Amazon from an environmental perspective.
Book donations don’t always get taken up by people on the other side. Selling something via Amazon, if even for a $1 profit, will ensure that it enters someone’s library and stay there as opposed to a landfill, which is a possibility with donations.
I do the same with things around the house. You would be amazed how people fight for free mattresses, for instance, listed on Craigslist.
PS – Amazon postage reimbursement rates are marked to USPS, not UPS, which is more expensive. They’ve got it down to a science, and even know a book’s weight by ISBN. They add some buffer too, so I rarely lose money and sometimes made a little back using USPS Media Mail.
LOL.
I go by a simple rule; if no one is competing, sell a book at least $3 less than Amazon. If others do compete, no book should sell at less than $9.99. That said, most of my books no longer sell. On principle, I just won’t sell at a penny, for one reason alone: if I was in business, as a small bookshop, would I want someone off the street to do this to me? It is futile, why sell it, if you make nothing on the deal? Why list if you are the 100th seller dumping it at a penny? Quite silly if you ask me :-)
On a more serious note, I really feel for the little guy, and we as a society should stop acting like pigs. If we have something to sell, sell it at a high enough price so you don’t drive a smaller person out of business! Capitalism may not have a social component, but, by God, doesn’t anyone have personal values anymore?
P.S. I sell books online, rarely :), so I have my bias, I know. But then, don’t we all?
i have a friend that claims he makes over 100k selling books on amazon – by going to the flee markets and library book sales ? is this possible ? – he does this part time he claims.
Helpful post. The problem with donating books is that they are often not picked up again. It’s ideal to be able to recycle the book back to someone who wants to read it even if you don’t make much money on it.
I found hundreds of good books in a dumpster two summers ago and put them all out on display. Over the course of 2 weeks people came and picked the ones they liked to clear them all out.
There are some used bookstores which will buy books but fewer are doing it. They also often only take certain types of books and/or pay very little per volume unless it is special or rare.
You probably can make some money on books if you are willing to find large inventories of cheap used books and study up on the ones that will fetch a good price on Amazon. Making a $100K a year on a part time sounds like a stretch to me.
If you are crafty there are some books that look fairly plain but are out of print and command high prices. Of course these books are hard to find so if you spend days searching you might find one or two but that won’t result in anything above the minimum wage.
I just started selling books on Amazon. I do not understand what makes a book collectible. If a 1974 copy called 1st edition is collectible than musy not a 1973 copy be even more so? But i do not se the 1973 copy there as a collectible nor doesit say 1st edition inside. Confused!!
Books are collectible for many reasons. Strong demand and few quantities for sale set high prices.
About your first edition question: The word “edition” means different things in the book world. Here’s a brief explanation about the meaning your question refers to. When talking about collectible books, especially literary books, the term “first edition” really means “first printing”, meaning the first time the book has been published. And in most cases, that means first hardcover printing. For the last 25 or 30 years, most publishers have used a number line on the copyright page to indicate which printing a book belongs to. If the number line runs ” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10″, for example, then it is probably a first printing. Most publishers put the words “First Pirinting” on this page too. If another copy reads “2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10″ then it is a second printing, even if the words “First Printing/Edition still appear on the page. Be careful though; there is no single industry-wide method publishers use to identify printing history. At least one major publisher drops the “1″ to indicate its first printings.
About price, with few exceptions, a second printing — or any printing besides the first — adds no value for collectors. Let’s say that a first printing of some collectible mystery is worth $100 in fine condition; a second printing in the same condition might be worth $3. The exceptions are too detailed to go into here, but you can trust that most non-first edition copies of a collectible book have little value.
The use of number lines to indicate printing history didn’t become common until the 1970s, so when you find books printed earlier, you really need to have a first edition identification guide. Before the 1970s, it seems that every publisher had its own way to indicate its printings, and this identification information can easily fill a book. Dealers and serious collectors buy books to help them identify first editions/printings. You can find both hardcover versions and handy paperback formats that fit into a pocket. If you want to sell collectible books, the first step is getting a identification guide for yourself.
Otherwise you’ll never know if you’re really offering a first edition for sale. I can tell you that many collectors shy away from buying collectible books online from novice booksellers because the seller’s description makes it obvious they don’t know how to identify a first edition.
Finally, what makes a book “collectible” can’t be answered with a short reply. But again, strong demand and low supply affects the prices in any field of collecting. And here are two basics every seller of collectible needs to know. For most collectible hardcover books, especially those printed in the 20th century, the presence of the book jacket is essential. There are always exceptions, but you can be sure in most cases that no collecter will buy a first edition copy that lacks the jacket. Second, condition is absolutely paramount. To a collector, words used to describe a collectible book (any book actually), words like “Fine” and “Very Good” and “Good” refer to generally accepted meanings. A book’s condition is always a matter of opinion, but most dealers agree on what these terms mean, so make sure you understand them. Collectors are usually very fussy about condition. I guess I’m one of these fussy types because not long ago I returned a $100 online book purchase to its seller because he failed to mention some minor-but-noticeable scratches on the book’s jacket.
Finally, I suggest you look at the website for the ABAA, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America. It has a lot of good information for beginners and links to some of the key dealers in the business. You can learn a lot by looking at how the pros describe books.
Hope this helps.
I learned the hard way that selling a book online can be costly. I sold a book for $3.00. The buyer was also charged $3.99 for shipping. So final sale is $6.99. Amazon took $2.79 of my profit leaving me with only $4.20. The problem with all this is that it cost me $7.60 to ship the book. So in the end I lost money. With shipping cost being so high it seems that it is virtually impossible to make any money selling on Amazon.
Selling books online is a great way to make money from home. I agree that the lowest price is a good indicator but it’s not the ONLY indicator of a sale. Buyers look at other thing such as feedback.
I run a blog at sellyourbooksonline.com that is dedicated to online bookselling so if you or your readers are interested, please feel free to stop by.
I’ve seen a person at a library book sale that buys books there and sells them on Amazon. She had some sort of computer thing that she was scanning the barcodes. What is that called and does anyone here use that? Also, if you have the cost, that would be appreciated it.
Thanks.
The scanner is an expensive item for serious sellers, they are usually looking for books that will at the very least net them 5x profit and can usually make 10x – 30x profit on most books. Prices range anywhere from $300 to $900 and require a monthly subscription between $10 – $50. It basically holds a database of all books with a barcode and gives a instant result of the lowest price of the book on Amazon along with the sales rank (to know how fast it sells).
I got as much out of reading the comments here as I did out of reading the article! Thanks.