Selling books online. Where would you sell yours?
By eveeee
@eveeee (659)
July 21, 2008 8:55am CST
I have a HUGE collection of books in my house, both children and adults, dated back from the early 1900's to the 21st century. Some are on topics, others are fiction. In fact I reckon I probably have pretty much something on everything.
In the first place years ago, I used to pick up books from boot sales and charity shops and sell them on Ebay making good money on some. I soon got to know what people were after and used to hunt out certain types of book.
I have tried Amazon, but I was left bad feedback on there, due to a book that went missing at home, and despite me giving full apologies and refund, I got bad feedback, so I stopped using the site.
The collection has been built up further by buying in bulk deals from people having a clear out, and now they are all over my house. It would be a mammoth task to sort them all out, and I have started many times but given it up. For some reason they don't seem to be selling as well on Ebay as they used to, so I was wondering if anyone knows of any good sites, that I can list all types on not just older ones. Something a bit like Amazon I suppose.
If their are any collectors out their that are interested in buying any specific type of book, feel free to let me know. I do occassionally get a book collector magazine, but have yet to contact anyone from it.
Any information from either book collectors and/or sellers would be more than welcome :)
2 people like this
3 responses
@Wolfechu (1193)
• United States
21 Jul 08
When I bothered, I cleared out a lot of my books on eBay: I was emigrating shortly, had most of them in eBook format anyhow, and figured the extra cash wouldn't hurt. To be honest, by the time you've covered postage, you're making a couple of dollars, tops. Unless it's something special, first edition and/or signed, I would probably just donate them to the nearest charity shop should it come up again.
@eveeee (659)
•
21 Jul 08
Thanks for the reply. I have made some good money on some of them and they are usually ones I don't expect to make much on. The best sale to date on ebay was selling one for nearly £15 when I picked it up from a boot sale for 20p. The problem is now I have so many, that listing them takes forever, to find the odd ones that do sell well. I know some are worthless though so i think I might take your advice and box a load of them up for donation. Actually I might drop some at the charity shop tomorrow :)
1 person likes this
@Wolfechu (1193)
• United States
21 Jul 08
I know you don't want to actually buy any more books at this point, but... ;)
I know there's price guides for these things. There's certainly such things for comic books, and there's the equivalent for actual novels and reference books, prices sorted for edition, condition, etc. Might be worth asking in somewhere like Waterstones if they carry such a thing, if you're in the UK.
Failing that, look up the ISBNs on Amazon, and see what they're fetching in similar condition. Depending on who they're by, and when they were printed, they can be worth more than you think. If they're regularly going for a penny on Amazon, that'd be a candidate for the charity box ;) If they're looking to be worth something, then you have a rough price range for eBay.
2 people like this
@Bluepatch (2476)
• Trinidad And Tobago
25 Jul 08
Ebay or any auction site, I guess, I don't know much about this.
I would like to offer to buy some off you but with the exchange rate and my own lack of money I doubt it would be practical.
I know thats sites can be finicky when things go wrong so I could understand about Amazon.
Basically check for auction sites.
@paid2write (5201)
•
23 Jul 08
I think there's a big difference between old books and valuable old books. If you have a good collection of books there could be one or two rare titles which someone would pay good money for, but the majority of second hand books have little value.
I tried listing some of my books on an internet site but they could all have been bought cheaper locally. The cost of postage is so high in the UK there's little point in anyone paying the extra cost of postage, even if the book is bought for one penny.
I usually give mine back to charity after reading, and when I last moved home I donated hundreds of books to Amnesty International, which has a chain of shops selling books, and they paid for collection from my home.
