In the book selling business

When Mom retired she disposed of her rather large library in several ways; Julie got the Children’s books, a number of books were sold to her co-workers, Goodwill got boxes of remnants, and I asked for and got the left-over Teacher’s books. Two big tubs of Teacher’s books, which have been sitting in our bedroom/office/computer room all this time, waiting for me to do something with them.

I finally got motivated (okay, there were some rather pointed hints involved) and I have gone into business as a seller of books. Amazon makes this fairly easy – you sign up as a merchant, promise to abide by all the rules, give them a bank account to deposit the sales proceeds into (they already have a credit card number if there needs to be a charge-back), list your books (“Never read, only opened once by a little old lady schoolteacher”) and sit back and wait for the orders to come flooding in.

In fact, the orders have come in – okay, not a flood – but the 1^st day I listed 23 books and had 3 orders before I finished entering all the books! I have since listed a total of 67 books and sold and shipped 13 as of today.

So what am I going to do with all this money I’m making? Well, let’s talk about the used book business. The first thing you do when you list a book is look it up in Amazon and see what’s for sale, and at what price. Usually you see a link that says something like “9 used and new available from $14.67.” This is a good thing, because you don’t have too many competitors, and the price is in a range that will make this a profitable transaction if sold.

However, it is not uncommon to see “87 used and new from $.01.” Yes, 1 cent! This basically means that a merchant who is really in the book selling business is unloading a dog that he hasn’t been able to otherwise sell. If your volume is high enough, there is no minimum fee to Amazon (normally $.99) and 6% of the selling price can’t be calculated, so if the merchant can get his postage and handling below the minimum $3.99 shipping charge, he makes a few cents, adds to his volume, and irritates the little guys. So, if I see “87 from $.01,” it’s “Hello Goodwill” regardless if it is a 360 page 4-color text.

Which is the other interesting thing about pricing books; you simply have no way of knowing what the book will bring in the marketplace. Some of the highest listings I have are small, 40 page booklets. Some of the lowest are 360 page 4-color texts. Mom looks at the pricing and says, “Wait! That’s a great book! It’s worth ever so much more than that!” or she says, “You are asking how much for that old thing?”

So what does it really add up to? If I sell a book for $9.99, Amazon will deposit $10.14 in my account ($9.99 + $3.99 shipping allowance minus $3.84 for their cut). I will spend $1.02 for a bubble-wrap mailer and $2.47 for postage. Not counting a few cents for labels and gas for a trip to the Post Office (I’m required to personally hand any package weighing more than 13 oz. to a Postal clerk – thank you HomeLand Security), $6.65 is mine, all mine. You might say, “Wait! Doesn’t Mom get a share of that? They were her books.” Think about that for a minute. What is it worth to Mom for me to stay occupied and out from underfoot for hours at a time? She’s getting her money’s worth!