Selling Books on eBay: Adding Value Secret

You run into a common problem. Of all the books that you collect, only a portion is worth selling. If only all paperbacks were worth twenty dollars each, if only the pile of discards beside your chair did not keep growing taller until it tilts over with a crash, if only those books that are worth only pennies had more value, you might be able to reach Power Seller status.

We share this problem, so we both might ask, just what are we to do with all of these books that we cannot sell? Guilt will not allow us to toss them. Even libraries often reject them.

Well, I have a solution, a simple eBay strategy that works and that will increase your profits and allow you to sell all of those "useless" books.

Here is how it works.

You will need some space, some boxes, and all of those worthless books.

First, stop looking at those books as individual products and start looking at them as one part of a set that you are going to sell. An individual romance novel might be worth pennies. If you put twenty of them together, though, you can get ten dollars for them.

Second, when you get a "worthless" romance, you drop it into the romance box. When you get a war book, drop it into the war box. When you get one of those horrible Readers Digest Condensed books, drop it into the Readers Digest Condensed Novels box. When you get a mystery book, drop it into the mystery box. With each toss into the wholesale box, you are creating value.

Think about that. That is what real competitors do. They take raw materials, in this case, your worthless, dross books, and they add value. You are adding value by gathering one type of book, one genre, into one place. It isn't hard to imagine the guy who just broke both of his legs who only reads horror books and who is going to need a bunch of them to read while he's down, or the fanatical romance reader who only wants Zebra romances, not Harlequins, or the girl who wants to start her collection of Agatha Christie novels. They might not have the time or the money to pay for each individual book, to ferret it out in garage sales. You are doing that for them.

Third, when the box hits a certain level, place the books face up, take a picture, and list them as a lot, setting your minimum price. I would not start them low and rely on the market to bid them up. With this strategy, they might stay low. Make the buyer pay your minimum to get them, and just keep relisting them until you get the sale. You can pad the shipping cost just a tad to compensate you for your handling fees. In this case, it is fair. You are "handling" the books, sorting and storing and adding value.

This strategy has one big advantage, and, as usual, some drawbacks. The advantage is that all books now have value. You used to frown at Harlequin romances, but now you can use them. Fewer book acquisition trips are a waste now, because even marginal books are worth grabbing. You used to think about it before taking a free book, but now you don't even have to think-you take it because it will help you to top off one of your boxes. The disadvantage is that it is more labor intensive and you need some storage room.

One thing that I have found, though, is that it solves the problem of "what do I sell." There is always something to sell, now. Naturally, I sell the high value individual books when I have them, but I always have piles of those "valueless" books to fill the gaps.