Music Magpie - Book Alternative? Selling books etc?

klemutot

soolin wrote: »

Which ones in particular- I tend to stick mainly with Amazon although I do believe the market for second hand books is a dying one.

why do you think it is dying soo?

soolin

klemutot wrote: »

why do you think it is dying soo?

Until Autumn last year I could sell anything as long as I kept it cheaper than a brand new book on Amazon. Then suddenly overnight the market collapsed for me- Amazon got so cheap selling their own books that marketplace sellers were falling over themselves to keep cutting prices until the profit margins were very low. I went from selling around 70+ a month to aorund 10 and that has now fallen to around 6 a month. However I have started to really cull my stock- most paperbacks have been consigned to the charity shop and I stick with a stock of around 500-700 out of print or rare academic type books

I also think postage is a factor- a standard paperback costs £2.16 2nd class when many high street shops will sell a brand new paperback for around £3.50

The rise of e books as well must play some part- reading the business news it looks like even retailers themselves are struggling to keep the profits steady on 'real ' books.

Another reason I think the market is dead is that I used to buy from various sources, one of which was auctions and often paid around £10 a crate for around 30-40 books. I had lots of competition and sometimes came away with nothing.

Many bricks and mortar houses no longer carry books as it isn't worth their time- only this year I bought three huge great tea chests full for a total of £3. Out of that I listed maybe 20 books and the rest went to Oxfam.

HowardCreek

For what it's worth, if you're prepared to be creative with your sourcing as well as selective, it's still very possible to make money selling 'real' books. My stock is currently around 250 items compared to Soolin's 500-700 (meaning storage is still very simple), yet I'm turning around 30-40 books per week for a quite handsome hourly rate in terms of my time spent finding, packing and posting books.

But to be honest, the more people fall by the wayside because it's not 'as easy as it used to be', the better for those of us left behind...

Obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I'm appropriately registered for tax purposes etc.

klemutot

HowardCreek wrote: »

For what it's worth, if you're prepared to be creative with your sourcing as well as selective, it's still very possible to make money selling 'real' books. My stock is currently around 250 items compared to Soolin's 500-700 (meaning storage is still very simple), yet I'm turning around 30-40 books per week for a quite handsome hourly rate in terms of my time spent finding, packing and posting books.

But to be honest, the more people fall by the wayside because it's not 'as easy as it used to be', the better for those of us left behind...

Obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I'm appropriately registered for tax purposes etc.

Do you sell on ebay or in a shop?

soolin

klemutot wrote: »

Do you sell on ebay or in a shop?

I suspect Amazon

fiddiwebb

I think it very difficult to sell ordinary run of the mill books these days especially with the gaining popularity of E-readers.

There may be a dramatic change in a few years time in the way books are published, possibly very few printed and the majority available as electronic downloads, if that is the case then maybe in 5-10 years after millions/billions of books have been consigned to the dump then the books you can't sell now may be sellable in the future because of there rarity.

Mind you that raises the problem of where you store all these possible rarities for the next 10-20 years?

Of course there will always be a strong market for rare, collectable and out of print books and even more so for the future, I wonder if now is the time to start collecting those rarer books before values really sky rocket?

knightstyle

Have you seen WHS are selling bundles of new books at 5 for £4.99 and 10 for £9.99?? So that is why secondhand books are worth so little.