Lessons learned about selling used books

May 21st, 2008

I’ve sold three out of 9 books now for a profit; so I went to the library yesterday to see if they were selling some good ones. I found several excellent quality used books…one is an older first edition. Listed 6 more books on Amazon now. Trying to keep a good thing going.

I used the computer at the library to check which books might be profit makers. It can be a bit tricky as when I entered the ISBN, sometimes I didn’t see any used books listed at all. I was falsely led to think one of the books would sell with no used book competition and later when I got home found it would not sell for over fifty cents.

The library was selling hardbacks for $1.00, paperbacks 3/$1.00 and children’s soft cover for ten cents. I wasted $1.00 on one book that will not bring me profit. I can’t sell books over a certain weight for a under a dollar and make a profit; so this one will have to be donated to charity or sold at a garage sale.

Complication: My Uncle has died and now I have to leave town for some days. Amazon lets me put my book listings on “vacation” but it takes 36 hours to be effective. My business is small now… I’ll just put all the books I have listed in a cardboard box to take along and check my emails while away. It’s easy to quickly pack up a book and run to the PO with it anywhere… but if/when I have a thousand books listed, this will be impossible and could result in lost sales. This won’t be a business that runs on autopilot while I travel around the world!

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Used books do sell on Amazon

May 17th, 2008

I’m amazed. On May 14, I listed 9 books from my shelf here. First I researched to see which ones would sell for over a dollar. There is not much sense in selling anything that cheap. The fees and expense is too much.

It was pretty cool to get that email telling me to ship one of them late last night. I have a pile more books to get busy and list now. When I finish listing what’s in the house, I’ll begin scouting thrift stores and garage sales.

Maybe by then I’ll know what kind of books are in demand and which sell for a nice price. People selling penny books on Amazon are not making any money at all. I’m not sure why they are doing that.

The book I sold was $4 with $3.99 shipping. Amazon took their commission from that: $2.94 and sent my payment account $5.05. From that I had to pay for shipping and handling (package and gasoline). Postage for this book was $2.93; so I grossed $2.12 for that sold book (not considering my tape and gasoline). Of course it would be smart to have 10 sold books to carry in one trip to the PO. This thing just has to get rolling now.

gotta getta meez

May 16th, 2008

Meez 3D avatar avatars games

If you put cursia in the referral box, we both get some extra meez coin.
This is fun!  Just click on my picture if you want to get one too.

Stimulus payment – still waiting

May 15th, 2008

According to the IRS site our payment should come no later than tomorrow (I think by direct deposit).  Wouldn’t’ you know I married a man whose Soc# ends in 99.  Those are the last to be paid.  I don’t really mind as the money will stay in the bank for now.  I just want to be finished watching out for it.

new forum sig file

May 14th, 2008

It just seemed fitting to use that pretty header file in a forum sig… this is what I came up with:

signature file

It needs some sparkle to brighten up the lettering, but for my first attempt, it’s not too bad. I need to learn how to make sparkles… they are animated gifs… I know how to make them, but it’s a lot of work…there has to be an easier way than the way I do it.