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!