How to Make Money Selling Your Books on Amazon.com

January 25th, 2013

Jessica

In the past 6 months I have sold 46 books on Amazon.com, and been paid $554.68. Part of my earnings on each book is a $3.99 stipend to cover shipping costs. So if I substract $3.99 for each book sold (though most don’t cost that much to mail), then I have earned (about) $371.14 in the last 6 months, just by selling off our old books. That’s an average of $8.07 per book! A lot of my friends have been asking for tips lately, so here are some of things I have learned along the way:

Choose the right books to sell: Non-Fiction Sells. Only 4 of the 46 books I sold were Fiction. My Art Classroom Resource books sold well. Graduate and Undergraduate textbooks sold well. Christian, Religion, Classics, Marriage, Parenting, and even a Cookbook sold well. Ironically, New York Times Best-Sellers do not sell well (maybe because everyone has them already?) If it’s only selling for $0.99 or less, I don’t even waste time listing it–I just donate it to the library the next time I’m there. Books in “New” condition will sell better than those in lesser conditions.
Listing your books on Amazon is WAY easier than listing on Craigslist, eBay, or other similar sites. You don’t have to take any photos, spend time trying to assess the value of your items, research all the details about your items and their condition, or pay additional charges if your items don’t sell immediately. All you need is the ISBN number off the back cover. Then choose the condition and the price. Your book will be listed indefinitely, and it comes with a photo already.
Amazon takes some of your profit, but reimburses you for shipping: Amazon keeps $0.99 per book, plus a referral fee and a percentage. Generally, the more you make, the more they take. This week I sold an old art book for $34.78. Amazon took $7.56, but gave me $3.99 for shipping. So Amazon paid me $31.21 for the book.
Leave your items up for sale indefinitely (at no charge), but check your inventory regularly to see that your items are still the lowest price: I recently discovered that the far right column of my active inventory page allows me to see the lowest price of all listings in the same sub-condition. Now I can easily check on my inventory more than once a day to see that I have the lowest prices available for my books.
At the Post Office, ship your books using “Media Mail”: My husband learned this trick years ago when he was selling off his vast CD collection. “Media Mail” is the cheapest way to go. It’s a little slower, but it will still get there on time.
Keep a small supply of inexpensive shipping materials on hand at all times: I’ve mailed my books in paper grocery bags turned inside out, or I’ve recycled used envelopes and bubble wrap. I use double-wide masking tape, duct tape, or packaging tape to seal them, and then I use a black permanent marker to address them. Brad preferred to buy a box full of small manilla envelopes just the right size for his CDs. As a rule, if you spend a lot on your packaging or your packaging adds significant weight to your items, then your shipping costs will be higher and your profits will be lower.

I have to say that I have loved selling our books on Amazon. We have acquired many nice books over the years as we acquired 5 college degrees between the two of us and taught in multiple schools. Some books were inherited, gifted, or gained in other ways. Many of our books have set on our shelves or in boxes, unread for many years. Many of our books have moved with us…6 times in 6 years. I am so happy to know that we will not have to move them again! It is great to clean out our garage and bookshelves, and to have some money to spend on other things that we need at this time.

I hope you will give selling on Amazon.com a try! If you have sold on Amazon before, what tips would you offer to others just getting started?

Posted in Making Money

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15 Responses to “How to Make Money Selling Your Books on Amazon.com”

Jennifer says:

January 26, 2013 at 9:43 am

Thank you for this. I had been contemplating selling some of my books but wasn’t sure if it would be worth the effort. I will definitely be using these tips when I sell my books in the next few months. And because fiction doesn’t sell I will take them to a local used book store and get some credit. So again thank you.
- Jessica says:
  
  January 26, 2013 at 10:18 am
  
  I’m glad I was able to help!
Christie says:

January 26, 2013 at 12:23 pm

Thanks for the tips! We had to leave a lot of our books behind when we moved but I have some homeschool ones I’m thinking of selling somewhere. Also thinking of putting a list together of ones that I know are popular in homeschool circles and just keeping an eye out for them at Goodwill. Might be able to turn them around on Amazon :).
- Jessica says:
  
  January 26, 2013 at 3:02 pm
  
  That’s a great idea! I know a lot of homeschool co-ops also share their books (kind of a mini-library) so maybe you could get hooked up with some other local moms to share your resources. 🙂
6 Ways to Find Inexpensive Books | The Abundant Wife says:

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Monkey See, Monkey Do | The Abundant Wife says:

July 20, 2013 at 12:36 am

[…] only took me a moment to realize that they were wrapping up a book to sell on Amazon, just like I do! I called Brad to come see and we got a good laugh out of it. Naomi told me that she was done […]
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Robert says:

July 1, 2016 at 1:51 pm

You say, “Leave your items up for sale indefinitely (at no charge), but check your inventory regularly to see that your items are still the lowest price…”
QUESTION: How can you leave them up with “no charge?”
Thanks for reply,
Robert
25 Businesses You Can Start for Less Than $100 – Entrepreneur Road Through Leadership says:

August 4, 2016 at 5:19 am

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Ethan May says:

December 15, 2017 at 12:50 am

I’m doing OA for books.It saves a lot of my time as I don’t have time for sourcing books. I’m doing OA with http://www.bookspatrol.us it helps me in finding books as per my preference. I prefer books with a sales rank between 100k-500k whose Avg. sales rank is less than 600k. I had very good sales this year because my inventory was full of good books

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How to Make Money Selling Your Books on Amazon.com

15 Responses to “How to Make Money Selling Your Books on Amazon.com”

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