Books Found: A Bookselling Family's Journal

Is eBay just a fad?

2008-06-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

According to this Business Week article, it looks like this might be the first year that fixed price sales will surpass auction sales at eBay.

Speaking only for myself, I know I can hardly tolerate bidding on an auction anymore. I prefer Buy It Now items.

Are auctions on their way out?

Do you have backends?

2008-06-10T11:37:00.001-07:00

No, not *those* kind of backends.

I mean the kind of backend (i.e. upsell) that someone who ships products to customers should use.

That someone being you, of course.

Over on a forum I participate in there's a discussion about Amazon and how they could sell even MORE books, if such a thing is possible.

One of the veteran marketers in this forum said that he ordered a marketing book recently and inside the package was a print advertisement for a Harry Potter book. What a missed opportunity, according to him. Why not instead include a promotion for something similar to what he ordered?

It would be far more effective to include a flyer, handwritten note, or a suggestion list for similar books, and offer free shipping or a discount. Maybe even include a prepaid envelope.

When someone opens a package it's always a little bit like Christmas and you have a captive audience for a few moments. A special insert like that will increase your sales and repeat business. After all, it's easier to sell to a person who has already purchased from you.

Amazon does a great job of sending e-mails with book suggestions and luring you with those "customers who purchased __________ also purchased _________" suggestions on their website.

But here's one area where they could improve and where maybe even you could do better than Amazon.

If you use backends/upsells in your business, feel free to discuss in the comments what has worked (or not worked) for you.

Are you boycotting eBay this week?

2008-02-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

If so, I'd love to hear about that. If not, I'd love to hear about that too.

I don't participate in any eBay forums so I'm not as caught up in the drama about this as some sellers are but I do think eBay shot themselves in the foot. They want to make eBay more appealing to buyers but seem to be forgetting that there can be no buyers without the sellers. The sellers are eBay's customers too and should be treated accordingly. If something is ticking the sellers off this badly, I hope they will snap to attention.

Bring on the ebay changes!

2008-02-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

Most of my bookselling efforts are now focused on eBay because the types of books I enjoy selling sell best on eBay. Frankly, going to a library sale and standing in front of a stack of books with a scanner and scanning ISBNs does not interest me. Yawn. I focus instead on books the scanners leave behind because they don't have ISBNs.

So I probably should be upset about the eBay changes because they, on the surface, seem to hurt sellers.

But I'm not upset.

Bring on the changes! The more dramatic, the better.

Changes are a good wakeup call and a reminder that placing your inventory entirely in the hands of eBay and/or Amazon is similar to working for a corporation. You have very limited control.

The more changes you as a seller will be forced to endure, the more the more you will realize:

* You have excellent sales skills even though you might be an introvert.
* You know how to treat a customer with respect and good manners.
* You have an excellent working knowledge of e-commerce.
* You might even have learned some HTML basics along the way.

In short, your skills are invaluable and, ultimately, as a bookseller, you don't really need eBay or Amazon. In other words, you rule! :-)

Craig Stark recently said over at www.bookthink.com, a transaction takes place between two people. Trust is at the foundation of this transaction, no matter how many changes take place at eBay or Amazon.

I'll have more to say about this in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, I'll enjoy the new changes (yep, even the one that doesn't let me leave negative feedback for buyers).

Does anyone ever find books on these top ten lists?

2007-12-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

As you know, BookFinder publishes the top ten out of print books for the year each December. If you haven't seen the 2007 list yet the US list is here and the UK list is here.

These lists are very cool and interesting, of course. What I'm curious about, however, is if any of you have ever found one of these books while out scouting?

Do you carry these lists in your scouting books? Or do you commit any of these titles to memory? If so, have you ever found one of these books while you've been out and about looking for new inventory?

Or have you ever found one through dumb luck, not even realizing it was a valuable title?

Just curious.

I'll dutifully print out this year's list and dutifully carry it in my notebook. Maybe this year will be the year I finally find one of the titles.

For your eBay reading pleasure

2007-12-04T12:40:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine has started selling things on eBay. If you need some entertaining reading, check out her auction for some placemats and a flower art book.

I've seen countless eBay listings over the years and almost never have I seen listings as well done as these. I think booksellers especially tend to be rather uptight in describing their books and making sure to use proper lingo like "first edition, first state, with minor rubbing on the dust wrappers." But hardly anyone understands that lingo anyway. Most sellers, especially those with eBay stores, don't use any lingo at all and you're lucky to get a one line description.

That flower book only sold for five bucks but I looked it up on eBay and see it has a sales rank of four million and sells for $1 over there. So she did a good job of getting it out the door in a week, whereas it would've sat on Amazon indefinitely and would not have sold for as much as $5.00, if it ever sold at all.

She's received a lot of favorable comments about her fun descriptions and at least a few have placed bids just for the entertainment of it all. Way to go!

Perfume for the bookseller on your Christmas list

2007-12-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a perfume for book lovers. It's a unique website with fun copy. Be sure to click on "story" so you can read the full description of the perfume. Their other perfumes look good too and are so different from what you see at the perfume counter at Macy's.

I'm glad that websites aren't laden with perfume the way women's magazines always are but this is one time I wish I could smell samples on a website.

Cool eBay Tool

2007-11-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here's an eBay tool that let's you peruse the sold items of an eBay seller. It's easier to view than the completed auctions on eBay and also gives you statistics, such as the percentage of their auctions that sold and how much they spent in eBay fees.

In other words, it's a more efficient way to snoop on your favorite sellers.

The $10K Garage Sale

2007-10-31T19:36:00.000-07:00

We went back to Castle Arkdale last month.

I was going to tell you about it because I was pleased with the small amount of inventory I found there. Then I read about the $10,000 worth of inventory Guusje found at a garage sale. And I've been speechless ever since.

Congratulations Guusje! You deserve it.

Obviously I need to rethink garage sales. I've been burned several times and rarely do I see a garage sale that looks interesting. From now on I will be keeping my eye open for unadvertised sales in garage apartments owned by natural healers.

Unusual eBay Feedback

2007-09-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've bought and sold on eBay for seven years but have never seen eBay feedback like this before. Who knew that one could use feedback as a way to crank out funny one liners.

An online bookseller who makes $120K

2007-09-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a work at home mom who sells books online and grosses $120K per year. She sells overstocks and remainders. Here's another post about her.

Forty percent of her sales come from Amazon. She also has an eBay store and a website.

It's tempting to think that I'm in the wrong book business but Christine worked as a bookstore manager for 12 years. That gives her an advantage that I wouldn't have. It's interesting, though, to see what other booksellers do. Maybe learning a bit more about remainders and overstocks could be useful. Do any of you out there sell both used books and remainders?

Book Scouting in the Village that Time Forgot

2007-09-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Supposedly the main reason we went to the Cooksville, Wisconsin Fall Festival last Sunday was for book scouting purposes.

True, they have 3-4 tables full of used books for sale at the festival. Cooksville is a rural community and the festival isn't advertised in the Madison paper so it means I get the books to myself and don't have to share them with other dealers. Can't pass up on an opportunity like that.

In truth, however, I figured there was a good chance this could be a four hour vacation for me and my four daughters and we needed one. A trip to New England is out of question at this time but a trip to Cooksville is as good as a trip to a New England village.

The village green and mid-19th century homes make Cooksville "a wee bit of New England in Wisconsin." Most of Cooksville is listed in the National Historic Register. It was founded in 1842 before Wisconsin became a state. Its peak population was 200; now it's 67.

Anyway, we arrive and I immediately went to the book tables because I was here to work, right? I didn't find much. A bird book. The children's book Giants Come in Different Sizes by Jolly Roger Bradfield. Not much, but those two books will pay for the lunch and other incidental expenses we had that day.

Speaking of lunch, it was typical midwestern fare served in the church basement: hot dogs/burgers/brats, baked beans and chips:

There was a square dancing performance while the girls decorated cookies and made crafts:

And my favorite part: The village green. It is a large, open green space surrounded by brick and stone homes in the Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles. No play equipment, no benches, no picnic tables, just wide open space. Aaahhh:

It's hard to narrow it down to just a few photos of the brick houses but I'll try:

The original house built by the two Cook brothers in 1842:

This is the General Store, still standing and in full operation, with a functional gas pump on the front porch. On the inside there is no blaring TV and no blaring radio, like modern convenience stores always have. The only noise was the creaky wood floors:

The children thought it was necessary to purchase Cow Tales candy. It's a vintage candy but I had never heard of it before even though I was raised in Wisconsin:

It would've been extra cool if I had found some rare, valuable book there, but it's nice, at least, that what little we found will pay for the expenses of this mini vacation.

I wonder if this February I could travel to Hawaii and find enough used books there to pay for the trip....

Martha Stewart and Halloween

2007-09-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

I picked up nine 1995 Martha Stewart Living magazines at a book sale this weekend. Speaking of sales, what's with all the scanners these days? I went to three sales and not once did I whip out my cell phone. I pick through magazines and non-scannable books because, well, that's where the fun is, especially when eBay is one of your selling venues. Those that scan spend more time looking at their screens - do they even look at the title of the book? - than the books and it seems so opposite of fun to me.

But I digress!

I looked at completed auctions for Martha Stewart Living magazines today and noticed that the fall and Halloween issues from this era sell well. So there's a tip for you.

Inspired by the lady who wrote the Pokemon Card listing I loosened up a bit while writing my eBay listing for these mags. At least I had some fun. I'm writing 3000 words about venture capital for a client today so writing the Martha listing gave me a break from that.

I refrained from prison jokes and sarcasm. I figure the people looking at the listing are Martha fans. Actually, even though I'm so Not Martha, I've come to not mind her very much. At least she sticks to her niche - domestic perfection - and doesn't try to be all things to all people.

Keeping Hope Alive

2007-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today I had hoped to go to Castle Arkdale with my oldest daughter. They are open by appointment only and didn't answer their phone, alas, so we'll try again next week.

This weekend there are three sales to attend. woo hoo! Perhaps the inventory drought will be over. There are two library sales on Saturday morning. There's a library bag sale at 9:00 and then a library sale that starts at 9:30, approximately ten minutes away from the bag sale. It will be rush rush rush on Saturday morning and the children might whine whine whine. But it'll be worth it, I hope.

Then on Sunday is the fall festival at a rural church a half hour from here. We went to it three years ago and it was like walking into an Anne of Green Gables novel; it was almost excruciatingly quaint and charming. There was a cake walk. Classic midwestern food was served in the church basement, where the fixtures and furniture haven't changed in fifty years, I bet. There were several tables of used books outside on tables.

So that's four scouting trips in less than a week (assuming we make it to Castle Arkdale soon). It'll do me good to get away from the computer, blow the dust off my ScoutPal, and scour the shelves.

Leave Your Passwords in Your Will

2007-09-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

We are now in an era where we need to hand down passwords to our relatives the way we once handed down safe deposit boxes, safe combinations, etc. A commenter raised a good point about this yesterday in reference to my mention of Elaine Krieg Smith's now dormant blog.

I've never seen an article or blog post about this so I thought I'd mention it here. If you have a blog, it's ideal if someone could leave a post in the event of a tragic accident or if you otherwise become incapacitated. Even if you don't have a blog, you should consider making a list of user IDs and passwords for sites like the following:

Flickr or other online photo storage site.
Gmail, Yahoo mail or other web based e-mail that requires a password.
eBay.
PayPal.
Banking website.
Your blog, MySpace, Facebook and forum passwords.
Bookselling venues.

Give your list to a family member or other trustworthy person. That person should also check your e-mails. I've asked my oldest daughter to keep my list of passwords in a Google Documents file so that it will always be accessible from any computer. She knows how to use Blogger and she's internet-savvy.

A sad example of this is the late Cathy Seipp's blog. During her last few days as she was dying of lung cancer her daughter took over and wrote blog posts that kept readers informed.

I know Elaine subscribed to my blog's feed so if she's out there I hope we hear from her.

Bookselling Uninspiration

2007-09-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but this hasn't been a banner summer for finding new inventory. Church rummage sales used to be good to me but not this summer. There aren't any library sales to speak of in the summer. I haven't made a serious effort to use Craigslist to find inventory. I live near a major university so you'd think that would be a gold mine. Someday, maybe, I'll find a way to hit up professors - especially soon-to-retire professors - for inventory. There are undoubtedly many clever ways of finding new inventory.

Rather than be clever I think I will go to Castle Arkdale on Wednesday afternoon. With all those used books to choose from surely I will find things to give a much needed boost to my inventory. Even if I don't, the long drive in the country will be a nice break from the computer.

A side note: Elaine Krieg Smith hasn't updated her blog in six months. Does anyone know what's up with her? I e-mailed her some time ago but she didn't reply.

A final side note: I've added freelance writing to the mix and, as an internet marketing project, and also for personal reasons (my oldest daughter was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes on August 15 and my 12-year-old daughter has had diabetes for seven years), I started a blog about juvenile diabetes. If you know anyone affected by juvenile/type 1 diabetes please feel free to forward the link to them.

If you haven't already, you should take a peek at my recent blog entry for BookThink that describes the best eBay listing ever. Or, alternatively, you can look at a PDF of that eBay listing here. It's brilliant. And will make you laugh.

I hope you have a pleasant (and labor-free) Labor Day.

Looking for Something to Read?

2007-08-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

If you're a bookseller you probably are. Most of us booksellers seem to read less after we become booksellers.

A friend sent me an invite to Shelfari so I went ahead and created a profile. Shelfari is where you put your favorite books on your shelf. You can see what your friends are reading and get ideas for your reading list.

The last thing I probably need is another social networking site. I'm on MySpace and Facebook and use Twitter to post things on Facebook. But what the heck, this looks fun and takes very little time. It's also useful for helping you remember your favorite books.

Thirty Day Challenge Update

2007-08-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

Two readers of my last post about the Thirty Day Challenge wrote to me and said they have signed up for the challenge. The three of us are part of a team. Go team! It's not too late to join us.

For those of you who are interested in the challenge but don't have time, you might be interested in my daily summary of each day's teaching over at my MySpace blog page. Or if you are in the challenge but fall behind, feel free to read my summaries. You can also put the feed to my MySpace blog in your feed reader. Just paste in the link after you open the blog page.

If you are a bookseller perhaps you are like me and don't have a website for your books and rely exclusively on eBay, Amazon, etc. for your marketing. That's fine if your inventory is general stock and you don't have a bookselling niche.

There are, however, many niches about books which appeal to you, even if you don't actually sell those books. Perhaps you have a strong interest in certain science fiction authors, for instance. You can create information products and a website about that particular niche. Even an extra $200/month can be a tremendous boost, especially during the slow season for bookselling.

If you aren't a bookseller obviously this opportunity exists for you too. The internet has created almost endless opportunites for extra income. Job security no longer exists and in the bookselling world there are certainly challenges that face us in the future, such as electronic books. Bringing yourself up to speed about internet marketing and Web 2.0 is a good investment in your future. The investment in the Thirty Day Challenge and/or my humble little MySpace blog is free.

Thirty Day Challenge

2007-07-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

You already spend a lot of time in front of the computer, right? You might want to consider signing up for the Thirty Day Challenge and learn how to make your first $10 online without spending a cent. And without selling a used book.

Ed Dale made $5 million a few years ago selling a group of domains. He started the first Thirty Day Challenge two years ago as a way to help others learn internet marketing.

The emphasis this year is on Web 2.0. I've signed up and so has my 14-year-old daughter. A lot of kids participate too. There's a forum and a blog with daily instruction. Listening to Dale's Australian accent is certainly a perk.

The challenge officially starts August 1 so it's the "pre-season" right now. The things I've learned so far about Firefox add-ons have been life-changing.

When you earn part of your living selling used books online it certainly can't hurt to learn more about the Web 2.0 world. Did I mention it's free?

$30 for Shipping or $0 for Shipping?

2007-07-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Apparently thousands of people opt for the $30 option each month when they purchase Weight Loss Cure by Kevin Trudeau directly from his website.

You can purchase Trudeau's book on Amazon for $13.72 and pay only $3.99 for shipping. You could order all three of his books in hardcover for $49.96 and pay $0 for shipping.

If you prefer you can go to his website and pay $19.95 for the book and $9.95 for shipping. You can get his other two books for "free" as long as you pay the shipping charge of $9.95 per book. The total of the three books is $49.80. The same price as Amazon, basically, although you'd think that, psychologically, people prefer paying a smaller shipping fee. I guess the thought of getting a "free" book is more powerful.

The Amazon sales rank for his book is 24. As a bookseller I know how buyers hate to overpay for shipping. I naively assumed that the majority of his books sell through Amazon or local bookstores.

Wrong.

This month 199,244 books sold through infomercials at $29.95 each for a total of $5,967,357.80 according to the data card for his book. Sixty five percent of the buyers are women. The majority of his sales are through infomercials.

I used to think that Amazon was the big enchilada but today I learned that if you really want to sell a lot of books you need to use infomericals or direct mail. The internet is still a bit player in comparison.

I wonder how many of those 199,244 buyers who were sucked in by the infomercial this month are people who turn around and complain about paying $3.00 for media mail for a book they buy on eBay.

According to Wikipedia Trudeau has spent a fair amount of time in court and paid fines for FTC violations, so there's a downside. I think I'll stick with my humble little online book business.

4 Hour Work Week for Booksellers?

2007-07-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine jetting off to Europe for a few months with no interruption in your bookstore's cash flow? Timothy Ferris's new book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, attempts to make you think about just that.

Call it extreme outsourcing, if you will. Online bookselling would not seem to lend itself to outsourcing. There's Fulfillment by Amazon, of course. This program allows sellers to ship their entire inventory to an Amazon facility and Amazon processes and ships the orders. I have yet to hear of a seller who actually uses this service, however.

If your life depended on your bookstore functioning in your absence for three months what would you do? This is the question Ferriss tells readers to ask themselves whenever they think something is impossible.

Ferriss does an excellent job of describing how to set up a business and then eventually remove yourself from the picture. For the employees out there he gives advice about how to arrange a telecommuting situation with your employer.

Ferriss also gives good practical tips for handling business e-mail and a bookseller would do well to heed them.

He goes on at some length about mini-retirements vs. vacations. A person should have several mini-retirements per year (i.e. spending several weeks in a foreign city learning something new) rather than saving it all for the last 20 years of your life, he says. A nice concept but maybe some of us are content with stability and, say, spending time at a cottage a few hours from home - or even staying home - rather than constantly traveling the world. Not surprisingly, Ferriss is single and 29-years-old.

Even if this book does not appeal to you, treat yourself to the My Outsourced Life essay by A. J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire. Outsourcing to India never sounded so good.

Book Mooch: Training Ground for Future Booksellers

2007-07-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

A month ago First Daughter discovered Book Mooch. This site is a book swap site and is a way to unload of books that have worthless resale value.

Now, suddenly, she is interested in bookselling tasks that have never been of interest before. She has learned that it's a bother to fill out customs forms and learned the hard way that it is much too expensive to swap books with someone overseas.. She knows about the wonders of the Priority Mail flat rate envelope. She even knows how to package a book in b-flute and volunteered to package some of my orders. She designed her own shipping labels and, for cost-effectiveness, has decided to ditch the b-flute in favor of wrapping them in paper bags (they are cheap paperbacks).

Now I know what it's like to be on the other end. I have made trips to the post office and stood in line because she needed to ship books, not because I needed to ship anything. It's tedious. She dragged me to a library bag sale on Saturday - a sale that I would not normally attend. I wandered aimlessly and got bored and was ready to go home much sooner than she was. Just like my kids when I'm at a sale and engrossed in the task of finding inventory.

The amount of book clutter in the house is much reduced now, thanks to her efforts. She's starting a collection of books in a particular niche and Book Mooch packages arrive almost daily.

She doesn't seem ready to take the Amazon plunge yet and look for books with at least a $10 resale value. Someday, maybe, she'll be assimilated. For now I'll enjoy having someone to complain to the next time I have to fill out a customs form. And who knows. Maybe I'll start book mooching too.

Made a Bundle with BuyBundle

2007-06-27T07:52:00.001-07:00

Well, maybe not a bundle, but $45 in one day.

I had completely forgotten that I signed up for BuyBundle last fall as a way of effortlessly uploading my inventory to Google Base (I had tired of uploading it myself because it took much too long). BuyBundle takes your Amazon listings and lists them on Google Base for you. If someone does a Google search for your book they have the option of buying it directly from you through Google Base and not bothering with Amazon.

BuyBundle is a free service and there is a ten percent commission on sales, plus the PayPal fees. You don't have to do updates after the initial upload because it automatically updates your listings when you update them in Amazon.

Not surprisingly, Amazon announced a couple of months ago that Amazon Stores inventory could no longer be listed on Google Base. Google Base and BuyBundle fell off my radar screen as a result. I hadn't ever received a Google Base order anyway.

But yesterday I received two BuyBundle orders. The buyers payed with PayPal. I deleted the PayPal receipts, figuring they were spam because the e-mails said "BuyBundle" order and I didn't remember what BuyBundle was. Then I saw the e-mails from BuyBundle and it eventually dawned on me that these were legit orders.

If you're looking for more exposure for your inventory it couldn't hurt to consider listing your books on Google Base through BuyBundle.

Harlan Coben

2007-06-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

This might turn out to be one of those book series to read and to sell.

I haven't read Harlan Coben's books yet but after reading the recent Atlantic article about him I intend to read one because I enjoy the occasional mystery novel.

I also read the article from a "what's in this for me as a bookseller" perspective. Coben is a bestselling author but I hadn't heard of him before, which means he isn't hypercommon. I did some research on eBay and was happy to discover that lots that contain all eight of the books that feature detective Myron Bolitar fetch almost $5 per book for mass market paperbacks.

Not surprisingly, hardcover editions of his first book, Play Dead, fetch three figures. Any of his hardcovers are worth running through ScoutPal. I don't know yet how plentiful his books are at sales and thrifts.

The article is also interesting from a writing and marketing perspective. He understands that writing is a business and is successful because he brands himself and has a niche. If you have a wish to be published someday his story might be of interest to you. I admit, though, that I did have to work hard to suppress the urge to covet his seven figure advances and large Victorian home. Bookselling doesn't tend to be as lucrative. Alas.

There's a first time for everyone

2007-05-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget that buying used books online isn't the norm for everyone. This recent feedback comment by an Amazon customer reminded me of this:

"I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly my book got to me. I was wary at first to buy from an outside seller, but I was proven very wrong!"

Anxiety makes a lot of buyers hesitate. And when they hesitate they tend to ask questions. Ebay sellers in particular sometimes complain about this tendency. Someone on a forum said that there is one eBay seller who blocks buyers from bidding if they've asked a question.

You wouldn't ignore a customer if she was standing in front of your cash register and asking a question; you should speak to your potential online customers with the same courtesy. I admit that the questions are tedious. They'll ask for a photo of a $10.00 book. They'll ask you to double check and make sure the book has no marks. They'll want to know the copyright date.

Anxiety is at the root of most buyer questions and all they need is reassurance that you, the seller, are a real person who is attentive to their concerns. More than a few times I've received emails from buyers whotold me that they've had a bad experience with a previous seller and they just wanted to make sure they could trust me.

The next order you receive could be your customer's first online used book purchase ever. Make it a pleasant one.