Friday, July 24, 2015

Hey why not sell it on Amazon



I have been busy downsizing and I have decided to sell some of my books. Actually all of my books. You see I have a library of about 6,000 titles. Yeah I know. Very wasteful. But I was always buying books and over the years I have accumulated a bunch. The wife freaks out about how much room they take up.

In any event I have totally converted to E Books. I stock up my kindle all the time and of course I get some of the books I already own in the new format. It is sort of the same thing that you must have experienced when CD's first came out. I mean you had your favorite records on vinyl. Then you taped it or bought the cassette. Then it came out on CD and you bought it again. So you end up with "Bat Out of Hell" or "Aqualung" in all three formats.

So I decided to investigate selling my books on Amazon. They have a great little system that lets you market your books on their website. They make it very easy. You put in one number and all of the info on the book is inscribed and added to their website and it is offered for sale. They even have a mechanism to print an invoice and the shipping documents. They tell you the range of prices including what other people are selling it for which kind of sucks. It seems that some people are selling stuff for two cents. I always put two dollars down as my lowest price no matter what the matching price is supposed to be. Otherwise it is not worth it.

Most of my books are not worth much. Surprisingly the science fiction and fanatasy books have the best resale value. I did have one sale so far. James Michener's "Hawaii" which surprisingly was worth about $50.

So far so good. Now I just have to unload all of those mystery and history books. I have a whole collection of alternative histories where the South won the Civil War. I bet there will be a big market for them. Just sayn'

11 comments:

edutcher said...

There's also half.com.

Still Ebay, but you may get a better deal.

Trooper York said...

This is a lot less work ed. With 6000 books to put up it is a full time job. Plus just printing out the postage works a lot better for me.

Thanks for the tip though.

ndspinelli said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ricpic said...

The whole point of books is reading them in bed. Can you read an ebook in bed? Even if you can I'll bet it's not the same.

First game I ever saw was at Ebbets Field against the Stan Musial Cards. No bull. Musial got his usual homer and a double if memory serves but the Dodgers won on a bottom of the ninth walk-off homer by Gil Hodges. Final score: Dodgers 5 Cards 4. The term walk-off didn't even exist back then. I just threw it in to be au courant.

Mumpsimus said...

Is there a listing of all your books somewhere on Amazon? If so, give us a link.

ndspinelli said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ndspinelli said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ricpic said...

spinelli -- The thing that surprised me about Hodges was the titanic rage that he kept at bay most of the time. When he managed The Mets (which had to be hugely frustrating to a perfectionist like Hodges) if there was a disputed play he would come storming out of the dugout and really let go on the umpire. It was something to see, like a volcano going off. There had to be something in his private personal history behind that. He never exploded during his playing career. And he used to go into terrible batting slumps that had to be agony for his kind of temperament. But he held it in. It was when he became a manager that he let his temper get the better of him. Those poor umpires he let go on.

ampersand said...

Very interesting? How many books were you able to sell? I have my books all boxed up and can't decide what to do with them. Ebay seems like too big of a hassle. Does Amazon take a cut?

Trooper York said...

Yes they do. $10 on the $50 sale. It is a percentage. They make it really easy for you.

I sold a second book today. A bio of George Washington.

Most of them are not worth much but why not put it out there.

Sign into your Amazon account and click on "Sell on Amazon."

Trooper York said...

It's not like I have anything else to do so I started a new blog "Brooklyn Reads" which lists the books I am putting up on Amazon.

Check it out to find out what I am putting up for sale.

And use Lem's Amazon portal to purchase stuff. Just sayn'