Selling Books on Amazon - Worth It?

[ejchase]

I had a box of books in my hallway for a year, with the intention of selling them on Amazon. Some of my friends, though, have told me that that would probably be more hassle than it's worth, so today, I sold some of the books to a nearby used bookstore and donated others to a public library.

I'm sure I will have many, many more books to get rid of in the coming weeks as I'm planning a big purge this month and next, and I'm wondering if I should give Amazon a try. I have to admit, I'm hesitant to spend a lot of time dealing with packing books up and running to and from the post office.

Thoughts? Advice?

[CeciliaW]

I suppose it depends on the book. We sell 1 or 2 a month. Just cleared the books we didn't want and listed them. The lowest I'll list something is $3.99. Below that you'd be better off using them for kindling, in other words, you get about 60 cents for taking it to the Post Office. When we're down to just a few I'll probably donate them to the Library sale.

[iris lilies]

It completely depends on the book.

If you don't have specialty items it's probably not worth your time. If you have specialized science, tech, hobby books where print runs were low and the field is in demand--you may make some money. Bestseller type materials, unlikely to make money. But there is a lot of titles in-between that are in demand.

There are people who comb thrift stores and garage sales using smart phone apps that read ISBN's to match against a database to show what's selling and for how much. You are competing against these pros.

I was cleaning out books a few years ago and checked a few of the big coffee table books against Amazon and Alibris and Halfcom. If there were copies listed at $10 and above, I donated that batch to my local used bookstore. The other stuff I pitched. Yes I did not recycle. But there weren't tons.

Right now I've got a book for which I paid $7 listed on consignment with an Antiquarian book dealer for $750. He's had it for nearly 2 years and it hasn't sold. So, I guess I'll go fetch it, take it off the market for a bit, and re-list it later at a much lower price. I asked him to lower the price, but he wouldn't. It's been the only one on the market in the past 6+ years and it's by a well-known Scottish illustrator, Jessie King.

[catherine]

I listed a whole bunch of books online at one point, and simply tried to match the cheapest price, which was really, really cheap, and I got very little response. Not worth it.

I never thought I'd be faced with throwing books in the recycling bin--horrors! But very few have any value at all--given the glut of sales from stores like Barnes and Noble over the past couple of decades + the advent of e-readers.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I never thought I'd be faced with throwing books in the recycling bin--horrors! But very few have any value at all--given the glut of sales from stores like Barnes and Noble over the past couple of decades + the advent of e-readers.

I don't know, I usually at least glance at the books at the thrift store, they may hae value to someone if donated (unless they're really weird specialized books).

[Bethers]

I’ve sold lots of books on Amazon. Generally if there are “a million” people trying to sell the same book for a penny, it’s a no go. If there aren’t that many people trying to sell a title, and I can get at least $5.00 for it I’ll list it. A good way to ship books is through media mail. Other than books, I’ve also sold a lot of exercise dvds which are very light and can ship first class.

[rosarugosa]

Powell's looks like another option, although I personally haven't tried it. It appears that they won't take a lot more titles than they will take.

http://www.powells.com/sellonline?p_sb_2&PID=34744

I'm actually interested in this site as a buyer too. They have a lot of great titles for small $$.

[Tradd]

Nope, changed my mind. If you would like a good tutorial on Amazon book selling, PM me.

[try2bfrugal]

I sometimes sell mine back to Amazon for gift cards. Otherwise I just take them to the Half Price book store and have them recycle what they do not want. I usually never have any books worth enough to make listing them on Amazon and going to the post office worth the gas and time.

[Float On]

I sold a lot on half.com in it's heyday. Still sold some on it when half.com was taken over by ebay but find it's not worth my time anymore. I do better to just take a laundry basket full to our used bookstore. Any books we buy at the used bookstore I just donate to the thrift shop that is tied to our local privately run library.

[ejchase]

Thanks, All. It's very helpful to have your perspectives!

[Gardenarian]

I also take them to the used bookstore where I usually exchange them for credit. The store also sells new books and this comes in handy when I'm shopping for a gift.

[stuboyle]

As other have said, it depends on the book. If it's selling for big money on Amazon, sell it there. If not, then take it to our local used book store. Though you have to be patient if you are selling it on Amazon.

[softweave]

I've been happy trading in books to Amazon for store credit. Amazon sets the trade in price and provides a pre-paid UPS label. All I had to do was box them securely and drop them off at the UPS store. YMMD. I also traded in my old iPhone 4, which was no longer under contract.

[Rogar]

I have a friend who made a small supplemental income selling used books on Amazon. He claims the bottom has dropped out of the market due in part to libraries purging their hard copy. Any more he only sells college text books, which can bring a tidy sum, and other higher priced books. He usually lists at slightly below the lowest price on the list of used books and has a bookcase of books waiting for a buyer.

Alternately, I consider it a buyers market and buy quite a few used books from Amazon. I'm a slow reader and usually have two or three books going at once, so library lending periods are often not long enough for me. Some of the used books on Amazon are ridiculously cheap even with media mail shipping.

I take my used books to the library as donations.

[Gardenarian]

Softweave - i hadn't heard about the Amazon trade-in program. Thanks! - my dh has thousands of CDs that he might be interested in trading.

[martha]

I never thought I'd be faced with throwing books in the recycling bin--horrors!

A professor in the criminal justice program at the local university accepts donations of books, and then delivers them to prisons for use by the prisoners. This is where my decluttered books go. It's easier for me to let books go thinking that they might benefit someone who's incarcerated. I don't know how one would go about donating books to prisons without that accommodating go-between, but haven't investigated, either. Maybe that would be a possibility?