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Selling books on Amazon
- This topic has 66 replies, 17 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 9 months ago by
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Bookworm, I’m sorry if you felt I wasn’t being up front about costs. I’m still not sure what you mean. I did mention I wasn’t finished explaining about it. I sure don’t have anything to gain from telling you all about it. I am just excited about finally finding a way to make income since my husband has required it of me.
This is a great way for a mom to make some money. It isn’t a simple and easy way, though and that’s why I wanted to help anyone wanting to know about it.
If anyone else is interested, maybe we should just talk about this privately. I don’t like where this is going.
Grace and peace,
Jenn
Jenn, I’m not upset or thinking you are doing anything wrong. I think, though, that saying that a barcode reader phone is only $100 is misleading. You also have to purchase a data plan for that phone–those are much more expensive than the phone plans many of us have. I just didn’t want an excited mom to run to her dh and say “Look what I can do and it’ll only cost $100 for a phone!” and then be upset to learn that the phone is really going to cost much more than that.
I’ve been selling books for years and am a little suspicious of the thought that it is really easy to do and make tons of money, is all. Kind of like when the Amway lady tells you how easy it is to make money hand over fist. You are very different in that you are not making money OFF of anyone and you do want to help, but getting rich selling used books is NOT all that easy to do. Just saying. I do think it can be a fine thing to do at times, I just want everyone to go into it with open eyes about the costs and difficulties.
Jenn, I am leery about those prices as well. As a book buyer, I want the cheapest possible price for the best quality used book I can get. I rarely buy an “acceptable” book, even if it’s FBA. I’d rather pay a few cents more and have a good or very good copy. The books I have (or had) to sell are doubles of my HS collection, or twaddle kids’ books I want to get rid of. There are SO MANY used copies of some books, that they sell for $.01 + $3.99 shipping. They are losing money big time on those books, guaranteed. The buyers are not going to go straight to the middle priced books, they go for the cheapest they can get for the best quality possible. I have no idea how professional sellers make any money selling used books. The vast majority of books sold go for less than $3 + shipping. I also have vintage books I’d like to sell. There are no barcodes, so that won’t help me in the least. I have to actually look them up one by one to see 1) IF they’re worth anything and 2) IF they’re worth my time to try to keep in the same condition during storage and shipping. I have a vintage book right now I’m looking to sell. On ebay, it’s listed at $10 give or take. But will it sell? No guarantees….. I didn’t even look at the “already sold” prices. I also have other things I am looking to sell (not books), again looking at ebay list prices to get a gauge of where I can price my stuff. I placed it at or near lowest prices because that’s where it’s most competitive.
Anything is only worth as much as someone will pay for it. If they won’t buy it, it’s worth $0.
Like the others, I don’t wish to rain on your parade. After hearing more about what you are doing and how, I think you maybe are getting into something that you weren’t expecting, and I want to make sure you understand the risks and bottom line.
Jenn…thanks for taking the time to post this as a way to help other moms! I sell on Amazon the spare book here and there and have found it a great way to make a few dollars here and there (to buy more books!). I don’t have a scanner, but know that people that have worked through the start up costs have gone on to make really good money. Thanks again and bless your endeavors to help support your family!
Bookworm- but I didn’t say it “only” cost $100, although that is all that it cost for us. And I guess I was (wrongly?) assuming that the ladies on here would know to look up on their own what a cell phone would cost for them as plans are all different. Because I agree, Bookworm- we should all go into it with open eyes. Just thought that was understood. I know I’m not trying to be misleading and still can’t see why one would think it was misleading.
One should be very suspicious if someone tells them selling books is really easy to do and that you can get rich doing it. This is a great way to make money. Easy and no start-up costs? No. But a superb way to make money, with relatively little start-up costs and relatively easy once you learn the ropes.
Ladies that are still interested, I will post some more info on this all when I get a chance.
Grace and peace,
Jenn
Thank you, blkateri14, for your kind words! 🙂
Sara B.- you are leery about which prices? Are you talking about the book I mentioned that was selling for over $200? If so, I was leery about that price as well. The other prices are reasonable. This is not a book that a frugal homeschooling mom like myself is wanting to buy. It is a college textbook and that book will sell at those prices. No guarantees, yes. But highly likely.
As an FBA seller, your customer gets free shipping, so the self-fulfilling sellers pricing their books at a penny- that makes no sense to me. Either they are foolish or know something I don’t know. What I *do* know is that if you happen to acquire the same title for free, you can list it at the same price the buyer would end up paying- $4(one penny+$3.99shipping). So if you were a self-fulfilling seller, you would profit a penny. As an FBA seller, you would profit $4. Both sellers would have fees, too. Trying not to mislead. 😉 That is why FBA makes sense. Well, not the only reason, just one of many.
Someone else said that they didn’t have space to have a ton of books taking up space in their home. Me neither. You mail all of them to the FBA warehouse to solve that problem.
Sara- you said that the buyer doesn’t go to the middle priced books. But you are thinking like a homeschooling frugal wise mama! The average Amazon customer is not like us. They have tons of money and sometimes will buy a higher priced book because the seller has a better rating or even because they think if it is priced cheap it must *be* cheap. But let’s pretend that they are all wise and frugal. If you are wise as a seller when buying books to sell, you will pick books that you know will sell. So someone comes along and buys the lowest priced book, it’s gone, then someone else buys the next cheapest book and because as a seller you’ve picked a good book, someone will eventually buy your book that you priced half-way down the page in the beginning. But as a wise seller, you don’t always purchase fast sellers. Some are going to take a while to sell, maybe a year. But if you are constantly sending books to Amazon, you will always be making something. A numbers game. Just from spending one morning going around to thrift stores and estate sales and such, I found about 50 books, paying a little over $50 for them. Because I invested in my cell phone and good scouting app, I didn’t chose any books that I will profit less than $6 on. A good number of them I will profit about $12 each, and several for #20-30, two were $100.
Ok, I’m getting all passionate about this. It boils down to this. There is a loooooot to learn about this business. I have spent time learning about it and would love to share that knowledge with anyone wanting to learn it. I have a genuine love for other homeschooling mamas and I want to give when I can. This is a *superb* way to make money. The start up costs end up being wise investments in very little time. I have prayed a ton about this, and I believe this is what God wants me to do. If I could have it my way, I wouldn’t even own a cell phone, I would love to live more simply. But my dh has asked me to make money and this is what I know God wants me to do. I know it will work if I do not grow weary! 😉
Much love, grace and peace to you all,
Jenn
Good luck ladies with this if you decide to go ahead – however I am pretty certain it is not an easy or superb way to make money – it is maybe a chance to make a little. I go back to the old adage if it sounds too good to be true it probably is….Jenn I can tell you are passionate about this, and I don’t think for a second you are trying to mislead anyone, however I really doubt many people are going to make a lot of income doing this…also if perchance you do make income then of course you have to look into paying taxes – another little detail that cannot or should not be forgotten. There are a lot of schemes out there, few of them are worth the time and effort. I think those of us who are less enthusiastic about this are just trying to let people know to be careful, and to get all the facts before outlaying any money. As for people having tons of money being willing to spend a fortune for a book, I doubt that as well – even when I had discretionary spending, I would buy a reasonably priced book and not go for the most expensive – one of the reasons rich people are rich is because they are smart about their money and don’t waste it, a fool and his money are easily parted is a good expression. I hope that this works well for you, I hope you don’t end up disappointed in the end – I wish you good luck. Linda
Just went through all the posts to make sure I had answered everyone’s questions.
Sue Mom- you had said you didn’t know how much 50 lbs of books was- to explain, if you chose to do FBA, you would prepare your books, box them all up and mail them to Amazon (through a deep discount shipping agreement Amazon has with UPS which makes FBA even more appealing). Amazon’s rule to get this discount is that the box can’t weigh *more* than 50 lbs. To get a good idea of how many books that is, each book listed on Amazon has the weight of that book listed in the product info. About a laundry basket full of mostly softbacks is about that much. But anyway, you can send in less, it just makes more sense to get it close to that 50 lbs. Does that answer your question?
Sara B- you had said that you didn’t know how it would be worth your time and effort, but it sounds like maybe you were hoping to just clean house and sell what you didn’t want anymore? If so, no, you probably wouldn’t make much money. You have to go out scouting and look for the profitable books. Paying $1 for obscure very specific topics in non-fiction is the way to go. There are other categories, but that is one I feel most knowledgable about in the short amount of time I’ve been doing this. VHS is also a hot seller, believe it or not. I paid 50 cents for a PBS dance video I can’t even remember the title, but it is so rare that it is listing close to $100. Will I make $100 this month on it? Doubt it, but over the course of a year, someone will likely buy it. If not, I can lower the price little by little until it does sell. Why sell it for $12 when someone wants to pay $100?
Anyway, just wanted to clarify, if you are thinking you will profit by selling the books you happen to have, you likely will not profit much. But if you have the desire to spend half a day or so going around to thrift stores, estate sales, etc., this is profitable.
There are other ways to acquire books to sell. Let your friends know you want books they don’t want any more, if you know college professors (there are 2 at my church) they apparently get lots of free textbooks they might give you which are highly profitable, doctors get medical books free if you know any doctors, you can go to recycling centers if you live in a small town (big cities usually don’t have any, mine doesn’t), you can put an ad on craiglist offering to buy people’s books to take them off their hands, etc., etc., etc.
I pray that I am helping some of you…… 🙂
Hmmmm….I do not own a phone with these capabilities and am not able to afford one. I am not going to pursue this for that and other reasons. I am just not so sure about it all. It sounds too good to be true.
Hi Jenn,
I want to thank you so much for this information. While I realize that this may not be for everyone, and that’s fine…. You got excited about this and wanted to share. I really appreciate this information. I have been selling on various sources for a while now, and my hubby has been asking me to try and do Amazon for while now, so thanks for this motivation and I would def. be interested in learning more. I had never heard of the FBA program before.
I am not looking to get rich, only supplement my families income. I know personally MANY friends who have sold over the years, and with not a lot of time invested have been able to do quite well to suplement their income.
Thanks once again and I would be interested form hearing more 🙂
Erica
Ladies, I do understand being cautious, but I guess I’m just doing a horrible job at describing it. This is not a scheme, comparible to Amway or anything close to that. There is absolutely nothing to loose. You don’t *have* to invest anything to try it out. You could go around your house, pick some obscure titles (how to make necklaces out of corn, how to learn to draw with pencils, how to decorate your house with pickles- I’m joking around, but anyway, very specific titles) and look them up on Amazon. If they are the right book, (Amazon isn’t selling it- only individual sellers, there aren’t a million copies- maybe just 15ish or so, and the lowest used price is over, say $8), you can click “sell yours here”, list the condition and wait. If it sells, hey, you just made around $6, if not, you loose nothing. Try that for a while, and you might start to realize if you spent a little bit of time going around buying books for not much at all, you could list them and make even more. Then it would start to get big enough that shipping and handling customer service problems was beginning to be a headache, you’re selling more than 40 a month anyway, so you decide to do FBA. At that point maybe you can afford to invest in the small amount of equipment you need to take it to the next, more efficient level.
This is not “too good to be true”. I just was trying to show you what it could grow to to show you the big picture. You can do as little as you want or more. I first heard about this from a friend of a friend- she is a homeschooling mom who does this and she has built it to making $3000/month with the help of her two teenage boys. What a great thing to teach your children to work for themselves rather than the paradigm of going to college to get a job. Goodness, if that’s the only thing that results from this, it will be worth it. We are entrepreneurs in this family, so I already know all about taxes, missingtheshire.
Still would love to help anyone that is able to see that this works! 🙂
Hey, I really respect you all and love this forum, hope I haven’t lost your respect and we can be friends on here.
Grace and peace,
Jenn
btw Jenn… I haven’t commented at all yet, but want to let you know that I’m busily reading this all up and am considering it from all angles… I am interested… not sure if I’m going to do it or not… but busy reading this.
Not sure how it would work from Canada as shipping books is more expensive etc (I will research that…)… and I suspect I already gave away the textbooks that might be of interest to people from around the house… but I do think it could have potential…
@Jenn, Thanks for your estimate on what 50 lbs. of books looks like (visuals are great for me, can you tell?), and the brief explanation of why 50 lbs. I cannot afford the phone expense right now, so I would have to figure out some sort of work-around to find the right books. We have two Goodwill stores within 7 miles of my home, so I’m still intrigued.
Currently, my kids and I live with my elderly dad in his home so expenses are relatively low, my husband only provides sporadic support (he’s on temporary disability and support is minimal anyway), and I am working from home making phone calls to solicit household discard items that are donated to a non-profit agency. This work has become very competitive among the various agencies who do this, so I am blessed if I make $50 in a given two-week period. Why do I do this? Because I knew that God called me to homeschool my kids and I know that I am to continue that.
My bottom line is that I need to find more income where I can, but my time is taken up by school (of course), my dad’s needs (he’s still mostly able to care for himself in general), and the often unpredictable needs of my autistic son. I would consider Amazon selling even if it took extra work to find the right books, as long as it could generate enough income for me. What is “enough” for me right now is probably a lot less than for others, unless they are just looking for extra money to pay for one child’s piano lessons or to have a little money to offset high gas prices–you know, things like that.
I have sold Tupperware and made a little money. Others I knew sold a lot more than I did, but I just ran out of party hostesses….and I never quite figured out how to get people to have a party! Probably, either I’m too shy about how I approach people for that, or I just don’t have that type of sales personality. It seemed to come naturally to those who were having lots of parties and making more money. Not really my thing, I suppose.
Hey, Jenn, I’m not saying this is a bad thing, and I do know that people DO make lots of good money doing this. But for what I had, it wouldn’t have been worth it. I am perfectly willing to search for books at thrift stores, etc – it’s my dh who doesn’t want me to. LOL Honestly, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to do this for a living – I really would! I just don’t know if/when I’d be able to get started with it.
I guess my point was to say, there are lots of “main” books out there, too, which are what the vast majority of people are buying. Maybe that’s why they’re cheaper, but that’s also how you get money every month and not just once in a while.
I hadn’t even considered taxes, Linda! Thanks for pointing that out!
I probably would never do the shipping/handling myself, just because that is a lot of walking to the post office! Not far away (small town), but still, with 4 kids to drag along… That’s just too much for me. And too many boxes and books hanging out in my house.
I will have to think about this a lot more, and send hubby the link to this discussion here. I have often mentioned this to him – he’s been skeptical of all the books sitting around.I was sure you would know about taxes Jenn I just wanted to be sure that others do as well – newbies to this kind of thing often forget about taxes. Are there storage fees with this I believe there are for some items and I also believe that whereas through normal selling through a third party you can be refunded up to 90 days, with this FBA Amazon have control over the account and can refund money without sellers permission or knowledge at any time even a year later. There are some things which people should look closely at prior to going into this. There is plenty of positive and negative about this online if you choose to look – I looked and don’t really care for what I see, but otherrs may be more willing and as I said before I wish you luck. Linda
I will have to think about this a lot more, and send hubby the link to this discussion here. I have often mentioned this to him – he’s been skeptical of all the books sitting around.- The topic ‘Selling books on Amazon’ is closed to new replies.