Selling books online can be a rewarding business.  There are a few major pitfalls in starting a business selling books online.  I wanted to share some that I have made in order to help out others and I would love to hear from others about some of the mistakes you have made.

The below is an edited excerpt from my eGuide called “An Insider’s Guide to Selling Books Online” which is available here www.booksellingguide.com.

·    Too vague in my book descriptions – call a tear on the dust jacket a “tear” and not something else such as “light wear”.

·    Not being careful enough in examining books for underlining/highlighting then listing and selling them as having “clean text”.

·    Attach the mailing label to the wrong package – make sure what you print comes out in the right order.

·    Losing inventory – I have sold a few books then torn up my office looking for it because god knows where it is.  I end up with a refund and a lost book

·    Entering an ISBN and for some reason it is recognized as a title different than the book I have.  ISBNs are sometimes misprinted on the back of a book or on the copyright page.  The mistake here is I don’t catch the mix-up until after I have listed the wrong title and sold it.

·    Listing a really heavy book and accidentally allowing expedited shipping or international shipping.  You can lose a lot of money shipping really heavy books this way.  I once had to spend $34 to send a book to Australia of which Amazon only gave me $5.64.

·    Not updating the price info on my scanner.  I try to do this every week but sometimes I forget and I scan books that seem like winners only to list them and find out their prices have dropped.  Prices can drop quickly on books that have great sales ranks.

·   Taking feedback to personally.  If a customer is not happy with the book it is their privilege to comment.  Do not respond to negative feedback when you first read it and are upset.  Contact the buyer and try to work it out but be professional.  Do not post a response until you contact the buyer directly.  Empathize, apologize and offer a refund if you feel their complaint is legitimate.  I try to recognize that they are upset and then gently prod them that it is more productive for them to contact you directly rather than post negative feedback.  Request that they remove their feedback (which can be done on Amazon) and when they do provide them their refund.  These situations can be uncomfortable so be calm and do not make it personal.

·    Not re-pricing my books.  Many of my books are high value and high sales rank which means they do not sell frequently but there is a lot of profit.  I do not ever get wed to the idea of how much my inventory should sell for.  This is a market and prices fluctuate.  If the book does not sell because all the competition has lowered their prices to make mine the most expensive then I need to re-visit my price.  Never price my books to be the lowest – I will match the lowest price at times but never set the lowest price.

·    Using cheap, unpadded mailers – I had a stack of cheap unpadded mailers that my wife had left-over from something she did.  I thought I could use them for my smaller paperbacks and save money (and make some more profit on the shipping).  I had to refund two buyers because the books got damaged in the mail.  Don’t get so driven to make a profit that you skimp where you should not. 

Do not let your mistakes stop you from enjoying this business.  Learn from them and get back online and sell more books. 

Will a recession hurt online booksellers?  Two interesting news bits in the business section of today’s New York Times.  The first is titled “Internet Sales in a Slump, Too” and stated online spending growth grew by 6% in the 3^rd quarter of 2008 down from 13% from the same time last year.  Good that it is still growing but sales are slowing. 

The second bit of news was a chart showing the share of visitors for retail web sites and the growth in those visitors (not in sales).  Amazon was shown as having 10.8% share of visitors to retail websites up 6%.  The increased traffic can only be good for online booksellers.

My impression of the economy and how it relates to online bookselling is that it will have a neutral to slightly positive effect. 

The used book market on Amazon offers tremendous value to book buyers.  Cost conscious buyers can get great deals on books.  The increased traffic to Amazon can only help.  I have seen traffic statistics for eBay but I would guess that they may have an increase in traffic given that the items there are perceived to be a value.

Personally, my sales volume is up over last year but it is hard to compare because I recently added a lot of quality inventory that has sold well.  My average sales price is also up this month (to about $14.25 per sale).  My international orders are doing well and I am seeing good sales from all the marketplaces I sell on (Amazon, eBay, Alibris and Biblio).

Hopefully the upcoming holiday season will be robust for online booksellers.

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.