Is there an app on the iPhone that can take the place of your pda book scanner and book scouting software? Almost but not quite yet though it is clear the capability is there. So do not cancel your book scouting subscription and throw away your PDA yet. Hopefully the day will come soon when you can.

There are several apps for the iPhone that try to replicate a scanner by taking a photo or video of a barcode and transmit back price info. These scanning apps will often have trouble reading a barcode and the info they give back isn’t all the info booksellers need. Amazon has their own app that when you take a photo of an item it emails you back the info – this is a bit slow if you are at a library sale but okay if you are just out at one of your book buying haunts. SnapTell is another app that is pretty good and like the Amazon app it is free.

If you have an iPhone it is clear the capability is there to provide an application that will be able to integrate with the Amazon database and provide Amazon sales rank info, book conditions and price info. At the very least the app would enable you to download the database and be able to get the info you want from it the catch is going to be getting the isbn’s entered into the iPhone quickly.

The camera on the new iPhone has been improved and hopefully we are close to seeing the potential uses for booksellers come to fruition.

I received an email today from A1Books asking me to list my books on their site.  I never really considered listing my books on A1 before as I viewed them as a competitor.  A1 has thousands of books for sales on Amazon and they are priced low (and their seller rating is lousy).  Something about listing my books on their site just bugged me plus I did not like their fee structure.

A few years have passed since I last even thought of them as a marketplace which show a lack of diligence on my part.  I should always be looking for new venues. I need to start looking around to see if the fee structures and traffic have improved at other marketplaces – I am annoyed with myself for not looking. I generally focus on growing my inventory.

I am not sure if A1Books gets much traffic but given that they are not charging a monthly fee to list (like the crappy Abe Books) then I figure A1Books is worth a shot.  I will let you know if I get any sales.

I will also give some feedback on other marketplaces and take a look at their fee structures in some future posts.

If you are interested in selling on A1Books you can click here to go to A1Books.

I have been selling books online for a few years now and over the course of that time have done a lot of research on other ways of making money online without giving up  too much time.  I consider my book business successful in terms of the goals I have set and space for inventory keeps my business at a certain level.  I love it and it is my primary business focus but there are other opportunities.

So I have branched out a little to find ways to make more revenue while still working from home.  I have sold  items like game consoles, GPS systems and other small electronics and, though profitable, they were time consuming and I did not really enjoy the process. Plus these tied up cash that I wanted for book inventory.

I wanted something that would:

• Not require inventory,
• Had very little start up costs,
• Not technically complex,
• Somewhat related to my book-selling
• Did not need a lot of tending to and
• I could reasonably expect to make some money

The product I found that matched the above criteria is Build A Niche Store (or BANS) so I went ahead and bought it.  Build A Niche Store is a program that lets you easily build a website around products for sale on eBay.  How it works is if someone goes to your Build A Niche Store website and click on an item they will be sent to eBay to bid on that item.  Now if they are the winning bidder on any item then you get a commission.  You also get a commission if they are new to eBay and register.

I actually use Build A Niche Store – here is a link to one of my stores (I have four) – www.EastonSigned.com.  I consistently make an extra $50 to $100 a month from these stores and I do nothing on them.  I researched the products I wanted to promote and set up the store around the.  I do no work promoting them or anything else – though if you did you could make more money.

Setting up a store is pretty easy and the tutorial, forums and BANS site are all incredibly useful.

So I strayed from online book-selling but I wanted those of you who may have the extra time or are already established at book-selling to learn about some other tangential opportunities.  If you are still starting out in online Book-selling I would recommend keeping your focus on that for now and not put too much on your plate.

I recently wrote about some of the tools Ebay provides to sellers and one of their best is the ability to allow buyers to put out “Best Offers” on items. I wanted to highlight this feature and how it comes into play using Amazon Sales Rank.

Yesterday I sold two items using Ebay’s Best Offer. Both were sold for less than the current lowest price the item was listed for on Amazon but based on each items sales rank I accepted. Here are both items:

• Photoshop CS3 Sharpening Images (CD Rom) – listed for $89 with a Amazon Sales Rank of #1,643,176.  The CD was listed for sale on 12/18/08. I accepted a Best Offer on Ebay of $50.  My cost was $4 to buy the CD.
• UVB Instrumentation and Applications-  listed for $68 with a Amazon Sales Rank of #3,783,937 .   The book was listed for sale on by me on 10/13/08.  I accepted a Best Offer on Ebay of $50.  My cost was $3 to buy the book.

Did I leave some money on the table?  Possibly – especially with the Photoshop CD but look at those sales ranks.  When would be the next time I even get interest in them?  The UVB book could sit in inventory for a couple of years before it sells.  Remember over time the price of your books will likely drop in terms of other sellers under-pricing you which is to say that you may not ever get your asking price anyway.

This is why I always use Best Offer because of the flexibility it gives me.  I do not have to accept the first offer.  Many buyers likely expect you to counter with a higher offer so it makes sense to do so.  For the two books above I saw a quick $100 in sales with some monster profits on slow selling inventory so I just accepted the offers.

What would you have done?  Let me knw

Selling Books on Ebay is a little different than selling books on Amazon.  One of the great things about selling books on Ebay is the flexibility you have over promoting your listings.  I have an Ebay Seller Store (not a ProStore) and here are some of the tools I use to maximize it:

• Flexible Shipping Costs – for my expensive books I provide Free Shipping.  This might catch a buyers eye and help with the seller scores Ebay has plus it does not really eat into profits.
• Sales Tool – I use the markdown manager to offer discounts on certain books (up to 250 at one time).  Again the listing reflects that the book is “on sale” and might help get the potential buyer to actually buy.
• International Shipping – is much easier on Ebay then the other marketplaces since you can charge the actual shipping cost and not just a flat fee like Amazon.  I allow for international shipping for most of my books on Ebay.
• Photos – Many of my older books do not have stock photos.  I can’t say a photograph them all and upload them to my listings but I do provide photos on request.  You can also state in your listing that you will provide them
• Best Offer – This feature is the best.  Everyone loves getting a great deal and Best Offer allows them to.  Best Offer helps sell some of my more expensive inventory or some of my more esoteric academic/religious texts.  I find students always use Best Offer.  This provides me flexibility to either wait for the full asking price or if I want to sell for the lower offer if I want the cash flow.  There is no cost to offering Best Offer.

The only major concern I have with Ebay is the monthly costs which can add up with the per book fee.  I do not list my full inventory on Ebay because of this and I still find how they charge sellers to be difficult to follow. 

Also – the inability to leave neutral or negative feeback to a buyer makes no sense.  I have never left either for a buyer but it was nice to know I could if a buyer was being completely unreasonable.