Selling Books on Amazon

107 Pages·2008·0.84 MB·English

by  Dan Morrill

Copyright © 2008 Dan Morrill
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4392-0269-9
ISBN-13: 9781439202692
Visit www.booksurge.com to order additional copies.
Table of Contents

Table of Contents 1
Introduction 5
Why Sell Books on Line 7
Why Write a Book that gives away tips and tricks 9
Before you get started Selling Books 10
Do you need a business plan? 11
Creating the simple business plan 13
The Name of your Business 14
Brand Recognition 15
Vision 16
Goals and Objectives 16
Financial Plan 17
Measuring and evaluation 18
Find Space in your house for Books 18
Have a ―staging area‖ 19
Decide on how you want to manage shipping 20
Plan for angry customers 20
Get a business license 21
Build a web site when you get your store name registered as a domain name and get
hosting 22
Advertising 23
Amazon Associates Program 24
Web store by Amazon 25
Fulfillment by Amazon 26
Amazon Auctions 27
The more you know 27
Getting Started 28
The Amazon culture for third party sellers 30
Help for new sellers 30
Listing Management and Reports 31
Order Management, shipping, feedback and returns 31
Third Party software and services 32
Seller Soap Box 32
Third party selling taboo forum subjects 32
Where do you get books? 33
Anything about being an ―eBay refugee‖ 34
Whining about being shut down by Amazon 35
Getting the hang of the culture 35
Using Amazon forums, feedback and pricing to your best advantage 36
Where to find books 36
Wholesale 37
A1Overstock 37
2 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
Book Depot 38
Love for Books 38
American Book Company 39
Retail 39
Goodwill and other stores 39
Book Publishers 40
FOL (Friends of the Library) 42
Craig‘s List 42
Newspaper Ads for Garage Sales and Estate Sales 43
Auctions 43
Book Fairs 43
Treasury Department Auctions 44
Postal Service Auctions 44
Used Book Stores 44
What to do if your wholesale or other supplier goes out of business 45
What books do you want to buy and how cheap can you get them 45
Amazon Sales Rank 45
Penny Books 46
Hardbacks 47
Paper Backs or Soft Cover Books 47
Mass Market paperbacks 48
Unusual Books 48
Textbooks 49
Books by style (what sells well by Genre) 49
Books to avoid 50
Selling Books 51
Amazon.com 52
eBay 53
Half.com (part of eBay) 53
AbeBooks 54
Alibris 54
Grading your books 56
Examples of bad book grading 58
Good examples of grading 59
Be careful how you grade 61
Navigating the Seller Interface at Amazon 62
The initial Screen 62
The right hand side of the screen 63
Your Orders 64
Printing the packing slip 65
The actual order 65
Feedback 65
Performance Summary 67
Listing Books 68
Viewing your inventory 68
Page Hogging 69
3 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
Dealing with Pricing Variances 70
Bargain Books and Normal Hardcover‘s 70
Repricing 71
Getting rid of ―dead wood‖ 71
Blocking Customers 72
Book Selling by Month 73
Service 74
Fulfillment 75
Organization 76
Shipping 76
Tracking 77
International Orders 78
Feedback 78
Lowest price to find shipping supplies 80
Office Supply Stores 80
On Line Postage 81
US Post Office 81
Stamps.com 81
Endicia 82
Making actual postage costs fit the price Amazon gives you 82
Keeping track of your business 83
Book Organization 83
Shipping Costs 84
Home based business 84
Local Laws and Taxes 85
Sales Taxes and other Taxes 85
Income taxes 86
Insurance 86
Serial Bookstore Startups 86
Professional organizations 87
National and International organizations 87
Local State Organizations 88
Know and Use Amazon Best Practices 89
Growing Past Amazon 90
End Thoughts 92
Appendix A – Case Studies 93
Amazon Store Case Study #1 93
Amazon Store Case Study #2 94
Amazon Store Case Study #3 94
Amazon Store Case Study #4 96
Amazon Store Case Study #5 97
Amazon Store Case Study #6 97
Amazon Store Case Study #7 98
Amazon Store Case Study #8 99
Appendix B - Other remainder book companies 102
Endnotes 105
4 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
This book is dedicated to Tammy, Tony, Ralph, Nancy, Amazon, and Amazon
sellers everywhere.
5 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
Introduction

Many people want to work out a method on how to accomplish financial freedom, and
while books might seem like a contradictory way of accomplishing financial freedom is a
world where physical items are changing in favor of digital delivery, books are still
popular. Books have been with us since we started recording information on clay tablets,
and it is unlikely that the joy of holding a book in someone‘s hands is going to go away.
There is always a compelling reason to own a book, that is a book‘s enduring quality and
the reason why selling books can be profitable.

Many people promise to help you make millions on the internet, and have the life style of
the rich and famous. The good thing about pitches like this is that they are obviously too
good to be true. The reality of selling books on line as an independent store is to know
that you are only going to get out of this what you have the time and money to put into
this. Realistically though, making money in selling books, or indeed anything, is not
going to happen overnight for anyone, even with minimal work, there are still things you
will need to do. Even if part time, there will be time spent on prepping, shipping,
handling, buying, and selling books on Amazon.

The good thing about selling on Amazon is that people still want books, with sales in the
14 Billion dollar rangei there is plenty of room in the Amazon third party system for a
new bookseller. The very real problem is getting set up, finding quality high rank books
to sell, and engaging the customer. As an Amazon third party seller, you are using their
system to sell you books. They have no obligation to you, yet there are major obligations
that you owe them.

6 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
Why Sell Books on Line

Selling books on line is one of the few businesses you can start on a small budget, get
immediate success at, and build up as you go along. Starting off with as little as 200
dollars in stock or less, you can turn that around into a decent sized business fairly
quickly once you get the hang of selling books on line.

Books are not the only thing you can sell on line, short of controlled objects, firearms,
and other items that have restrictions on their sale, you can sell just about anything on
line. There are many ways of getting stock to sell at wholesale or reduced prices, put a
fair markup on them, and turn them around to sell on other venues.

Most businesses have what are called ―barriers to entry‖; a barrier to entry can be as
simple as money, the money it takes to open up a franchise store or any other store. They
can be as complex as the credit and reference checks it takes to open up a franchise store
or any other store. Selling used media or books on line has the lowest entry pointii of
anything you can do as a startup. This is called an easy access business that it does not
take a lot of money to get started. In some respects, this is a good thing, in that anyone
can do it. The bad side to this is that anyone can get into it. The crowding of the markets
on Amazon and eBay with both bad sellers and bad buyers demonstrates the idea of an
easy access business.

The barrier to entry is as simple as ―I have a couple hundred books, what do I do with
them‖. To get started all you need is a computer, some inventory that can simply come
off the bookshelves in your house, or books that your friends give you that can be
immediately turned around for a profit.

This is what makes the market crowded; this is also, what is working against your success
as an online seller of goods. The only real barrier at any point is your ability to deliver
customer service, making the shipping and receiving of the book as painless on buyers as
possible. There will be many things outside your control, but there are many things you
can do to be successful in selling on line.

You do not need a Masters degree, or even a bachelors degree, you can do this by reading
books like this, reading the sellers community, and working out how best to do what you
want to do, with the knowledge that you have. Book selling on line has become a
―turnkey‖ industry, as long as you have stock, shipping materials, and time, there is no
limit to how far you can go in this business. You can even find readymade Amazon stores
for sale on Craig‘s list, or on business sales directories.

While the world is still working out how to manage the digital delivery of goods, there is
something clean and honest about a book. This is something that we have grown up with,
even modern kids, in modern schools, still have to buy, own, and use books. Books are
deeply embedded into our human culture, that to do away with books completely in favor
7 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
of digital delivery will take many decades to work out, if book printing and reading ever
stops at all. There will always be someone wanting to buy a book for pleasure.

You will find bookstores in almost every environment that people live in. From small
towns to major cities you will find a bookstore. You will find books at Starbucks, you can
find a boarders or a Barnes and Noble everywhere, independent booksellers are on line,
and own physical stores. Book selling is as fun and rewarding now, as it ever was since
the printing press. Bookstores and books are not going away any time soon.

Books compete with other forms of entertainment, Television, video games, music, and
the internet. The good part to books is that you can take them to bed to read, where the
television is too noisy, it is hard to go to sleep when playing a video game, hard to fall
asleep to motorhead, and the internet is hard to take to bed with you.

You do not have to ―turn off a book on plane take off and landing‖; you do not need a
wireless connection or power to read a book. Books work great in full sunlight and in low
light. Books are easily transported, come in a variety of colors, types, genres, and there is
a book for everyone. Books require minimal attention and care to last for decades. There
is nothing in the retail market right now that matches the simple durability of a book.

Perceptive shoppers are learning that the used book business is a great way to pick up a
book they have wanted to read, at a deeply discounted price. There are even web sites out
there dedicated to finding the lowest cost book by title and conditioniii. These web sites
track all the listings on the major book reseller systems like Amazon, Alibris, eBay, and
others, to find the best deal. Used books are a booming business, in an otherwise slowly
constricting and consolidating book printing and selling business.

Selling books on line also gives shoppers the chance to find rebel books, or books that go
against convention that will not be found in the big box Boarders or Barnes and Nobel
stores. If you want to find something as controversial as the ―Turner Diaries‖ or as
frequently banned as ―The Anarchists Cookbook‖ odds are most likely that the only place
you can find them at a reasonable price if you can find them at all, is to find them on line.

Selling books on line is something that everyone can win at, from the deaf, to the
physically impaired; anyone can sell a book on line as long as they can make it to the post
office. Even that is not required anymore, if you use on line postage, if you can make it to
your mailbox, and your mailbox is big enough, you can sell books on line.

No one is going to say that ―You will make millions overnight‖, selling books is what
you put into it, how smart you shop for inventory, and what your overall goals are, and
what your ambition looks like. Anyone offering millions overnight is glossing over the
work, and likely making one of those ―too good to be true‖ offers that we hear about so
often. People will always be sucked into the ―too good to be true‖ offer, scammers know
that.

8 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
On line book selling can become a lifestyle, or it can become a way to bring in a little
extra money while you are enjoying retirement, or college life. That the part where
selling books on line is so compelling, it can be done anywhere as long as there is enough
storage for stock, a ready mail person, and the desire to provide exceptional customer
service.
Why Write a Book that gives away tips and tricks

There are always reasons that people write books about selling on popular ecommerce
platforms like Amazon and Ebay, and there are a number of very good books already out
there. Some of the better books out there are falling quickly out of print. Ecommerce,
selling books on Amazon is also not something that stays the same all the time, tastes
change, systems change, updates and upgrades will change how you interact with the
ecommerce platform of choice. Many of the better books on how to sell on Amazon are
out of print, or in need of updating to reflect more about how these systems work. As
well as ways to use those ecommerce systems to their best effect for the book seller.

Some of the out of print books are:

How to Sell Used Books on Amazon: The Stay-at-Home Mom's Secret Step-by-Step
Guide to Making Thousands of Dollars a Month by Christine Miller. There is some
controversy about this book that is well worth reading about and finding more about.

Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips by
Michael E. Mould

Some of the still in print books are:

Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret "How-
to" Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
by Brent Sampson and Dan Poynter

The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon,
eBay or Your Own Web Site by Steve Weber

There are also many good books on how to open up a brick and mortar bookstore with its
associated overhead, along with selling on line through any other ecommerce system. All
these books are good in helping a seller learn about how to use the Amazon and other
ecommerce systems to sell items on the internet. Some even take personal experience and
put them together into a great book to read, but still leaves the reader wanting more.

The reason to write a book like this is to share personal experience, the trials, the fun, the
not so fun, and the approaches to working with a modern ecommerce system, with a
business that has few barriers to access like selling books. There is nothing better than
your first sale, there is nothing better than your 1000th sale, and there is nothing worse
than your first negative feedback that drops your seller rating into the ground. There is
9 | S ec ret s and T i ps for S uccess ful l y S el l i ng on Am az on
also nothing worse than the customer who cannot, under any circumstances, be made
happy. Books like this help you through the joy and pain of running any kind of retail
shop, and are important to read before and while you are engaged in customer facing
retail.

This book takes the seller story further that other books, by tying in all the back end
support systems like Sellers discussion forums which you should read and know, going
through the seller interface screen by screen. New and even experienced sellers can gain
a lot of knowledge about Amazon by following along in this book. Readers will have a
real opportunity to use the experiences of many sellers, to build out an effective way of
selling books on line that works for them. That is where the tips and secrets comes into
play, there is so much to learn, that actual experience from sellers can help new sellers
learn the tricks of the trade.
Before you get started Selling Books

There are some things to think about before you start selling books. Book selling is not
for everyone even if there are low barriers to entry. You should ask these general
questions so that you can help define how you want to sell books on line, and where your
ambitions truly lay when it comes to selling things on Amazon. There are many people
who will start an on line book store at Amazon, there are few that will turn this into a
continual growth business that over time can bring in enough income to live comfortably.
As you watch the Amazon or any other e-commerce site bulletin board or forum system,
you will see booksellers with high ambitions, but flame out and close after 60 days. You
will see people with 96 items in stock and on the site for five years. Amazon caters to all
levels of book selling, from the casual student to the dedicated ambitious bookseller. The
question you need to ask yourself is what kind of bookseller do you want to be?

You will see that people who actually stay in business for an extended period of time are
few. Sellers who have been on line for years have a wealth of experience that they give
out free on the Amazon Seller Community. They will help sellers who do not know how
to grade a book properly, how to deal with penny sellers and all the associated issues
from having an account frozen, to the AtoZ claim service. The seller community is an
excellent resource to help you understand how to grade books, what are the best
strategies for selling books are on ―The River.‖ It is easy to find those sellers that have no
business plan, and no goals for their business. They start quickly, provide very bad
customer support, and are banned by Amazon very quickly.

When you are selling books on line, you are in business, and that means you are in
business ―for profit.‖ Every businessperson has to ask the question, ―What am I in
business to do‖? Am I in business to make a lot of money and get rich? On the other
hand, am I in business to make a little side money to help pay bills, pay for that vacation,
and generally make life a little easier for the family?

Are you doing this as a way to make a little extra money while you are on retirement?

10 | S ec ret s and Ti ps for S ucces sful l y S el l i ng o n Am az on