There is a case to be made for selling your books on Amazon only.  The argument is not perfect but it merits some consideration given the volume of sales and fee structure on Amazon versus other marketplaces.  Amazon account for approximately 55% to 70% of my monthly sales with a fee structure that is pretty straight-forward (though not great).  Ebay and Alibris account for anywhere from 20% to 35% of my monthly sales with Biblio getting around 1%-2%.

I sell books only on a four markets.  When I first started selling books online I only sold on Amazon and it was the perfect way to start.  More marketplaces meant more fees, more time and (for me) more confusion.  I eventually expanded to six markets and acutally found my profit margins declining.

Selling books on Ebay is the wildcard in this.  Their fee structure is almost incomprehensible once you include Paypal fees, powerseller discounts, shipping caps, listing fees and more.  It can be hard to track your profitability on Ebay.

Abebooks is not a great market even if you have decent sales volume as their fees can be almost 50% of your gross (at least in my experience).  This is far too high for a market that pales in traffic relative to Amazon and eBay.  All the other markets out there do not seem worthwhile for general booksellers.  If you specialize in 1st editions or antiquarian books or some ther specialty book then other markets make sense.

So why sell your books only on Amazon or at least only a few markets?  Savings – you will potentially offset some of the income loss on savings if you are using subscription based tools to help you manage multiple marketplaces.  Amazon gives you quick access to your funds with the ability to transfer your money daily.

If you are new to selling books online I highly encourage you to start on Amazon only.  If you are more experienced it makes sense to branch out but do the math on the profit margins.  I thought grossing more was great until I realized that a lot of the gross was going to the marketplaces.

Again,  not the most convincing argument to sell on Amazon but I think there is a great case to minimize the amount of markets you sell your books on.

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.

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.