To my own surprise, I recently sold a lot of about 25 books on World War II in Europe for $70. Another lot of 12 Vietnam nonfiction paperbacks, with a bonus of four novels on the same topic, sold for $46.50. A lot of 26 books on psychic phenomena and the paranormal did well at $21.
You can pick up extra cash from selling used paperback or hardcover books on eBay which, despite recent increases in their charges, remains the 800-lb gorilla.
The fact is, there are a number of ways to approach book-selling on eBay. You can go after antique and collectible books. eBay even has a subcategory with that as the title. Individual titles can bring in quite a bit of money. (Whatever you do, you should always check your books against eBay to see what they are bringing.)
You can also sell books individually on eBay, Half.com, and Amazon.
However, the approach I tend to favor is selling common books, usually paperbacks (due to storage limitations and concerns about shipping costs) on eBay. Individual titles I sell at auction or on my eBay store if they’re bringing a few bucks each. Lots are usually made of books that, individually, are not selling well or, conversely, may bring substantially more when part of a larger, related set.
Book Lots Bring Cash
One way to realize the best profit on common paperbacks is to sell in lots.
The reason I was surprised by the results on those lots mentioned before is that the closing bids were higher than I expected. Maybe I did better with these lots in focusing the group, maybe it was just a really good time to list on eBay. One of the things I always keep in mind about eBay is that it has a huge following but there are just some times when the people who would most want what you offer is not looking at eBay that week.
The result is a single interested party who knocks it down at rock-bottom price.
The paranormal lot I mentioned brought $21 for 26 books, something in the neighborhood of 80-85 cents a book. That’s higher than paranormal book lots I”ve sold before. I can’t be certain if it was the make-up of the lot, which didn’t strike me as too different from usual, or just timing. If there’s a real lesson here, it is that you should make a reasonable profit on a regular basis selling books or anything else, and once in awhile you’ll get an unexpectedly nice payday.
Who buys these lots? Does that enlighten us as sellers? Depending on the size of the lot, it can be a voracious reader wanting to build up his library of books on a specific subject. It can also be, and I suspect more often is, a book dealer wanting to build up his inventory.
Specialize for Profits
You can certainly sell generic lots of books. I imagine your likeliest customer for a generic lot will be a dealer since a reader will have more specific interests that will send them elsewhere. Nothing wrong with selling to dealers. Many have bought my lots, including the specialized ones. The problem should be obvious, however; you won’t get, can’t get, top dollar from them because they need to mark them up to resell them and make their profit. It makes a generic lot a really bad approach.
If you are getting plenty of books in from library sales and other sources, you need to break your lots down into groups for maximum profit.
