Selling books online can be fun and profitable and I have already mentioned a few reasons why it is a good home-based business.  There are a few frustrating aspects to it also.  The downsides of selling books online mostly have to do with customer service, the markets, and seller mistakes.

Here are my Top Five Reasons Why Selling Books Online Can be NO Fun

1. Customers – Please read the book description before buying it.  It drives me nuts when a customer gets a book and wants a refund or threatens negative feedback because the dust jacket of the book is torn (even though it said so in the item description).
2. Customers – please stop sending me the “How much for shipping to Canada” (or whatever country) email when the book is listed as not eligible for international shipping.  I get it – you didn’t read the item description.  This is more of a pet peeve then a real frustration.
3. Alibris – Please give me my money more than once a month.  I would appreciate the ability to get it transferred to my account whenever I want – like Amazon allows.
4. Penny Sellers – is making a nickel on the shipping worth it.  You are the bane of the online bookselling world.
5. Library Sales – people these sales are not rugby scrums.  If someone dropped $10 in front of you would you push me and grab the money and quickly stuff in your pocket?  Likely not but somehow this behavior is ok when going for a $10 book.

The above list is not enough to make selling books online a “tough” business.  Despite any frustrations I do love selling books online.  The above list is mostly tongue-in-cheek (except for the penny sellers) and could be tripled in size as I continue to nit-pick.  

The biggest frustrations are not even on the above list.  I have saved them for another post which will focus on all the mistakes I have made as an online bookseller.

If you are new to selling books online or thinking about getting into this profitable home based business you may be wondering why should you?  There are so many different things to do to try to make money online.  Selling books on online is an easy choice if you love books.  Most of the other booksellers I have met are passionate readers and simply enjoy being around books.  If you meet this criteria then what are some of the other benefits of selling books online. 

Here are my top five reasons why I sell books online:

·    Online bookselling is a scalable business – you can start small with simply using books you already own.   There are very few start-up costs and not too much overhead once you get started.

·    Easy access to a worldwide market – Selling used books on Amazon is easy – simply enter the title of your book and some other info and you book is for sale.  Plus you can sell books on eBay, alibris, abebooks and many other markets.  I have shipped books to many countries.

·   High Profit Margins – margins of 200% to 1000% are common.  I have bought many a different book for $1 and sold it for anywhere from $5 to $300.

·    Easy to find inventory – finding books to sell is the key to this business.  Where they get there books is every booksellers most closely guarded secret.

·    Easy to manage business.  There are so many resources out there for booksellers such as book scouting software, inventory management systems, postage and more

There are, of course, some drawbacks to selling books online which I will post about later.

Hello and Welcome to the Bookselling Blog. I have been selling books online for over two years.  Selling books online can be fun and profitable and I intend to use this blog to talk about how it is both.  If there is a topic relevant to selling books online that you would like to hear about send me a line and I will gladly post about it.

How I Got Started in Online Bookselling

Before I begin posting about other topics in the world of online bookselling I would like to tell about how I ended up in this business.  First – I love books and always wanted to own a used bookstore but this was something I envisioned occurring well into the future. The desire to own a used bookstore was based on how much I enjoyed the experience of shopping in them.  Anyway I lost my “regular” job and was provided a fair severance and was encouraged to explore opening a bookstore.  A bit of research showed me that the cost and time commitment of opening and running a bookstore was beyond what I was willing to do.  In the course of this research I came across the idea of selling books online. 

I had boxes of books in my attic and listed some on Amazon and thus began my new career of selling books online.  If you sell used books online let me know how you got into this business.

In future posts I will delve more into the getting inventory, some of the mistakes I have made, product reviews and many other facets of the business of selling books online.