Selling your stuff on Amazon - Part 6- Advice for newbies in first post

MattOsprey

Made possibly my biggest mistake yet.
I looked at my emails tonight and found I had sold a £75 BOOK!!!
Only problem is I have the only new copy listed but I also said it is a 1st Edition. On looking the number 1 is missing from the sequence. Gutted as this could lose me the sale.
Take care all.
Matt

Kazonline

Ooo, Matt. I hope it all works out for you. I'm totally new to this so I'm afraid I've no advice to offer, just fingers crossed for you that the buyer wasn't worried about it being a first edition...

I've just popped on tonight to let you know that I seem to be bitten by the bug - but am doing it backwards I think really I should've started with listing the books, but at the bootsale today I saw a few that I thought might go well and came home laden with books!
In fairness I've chosen some that I'd like to read first too, so if I can break even with them I'll be happy. At least I'll gain a bit of experience and some feedback
Thanks for the encouragement,
Kaz x

Bella13_2

Matt - my fingers are crossed that you still get the sale at that fantastic price!!

One of the two books I sold the other day I managed to send as a large letter :j - I am finding that the larger post offices are more likely to use the size guide to judge a package, whereas the smaller ones seem to just guess. Now I have my cardboard size guide from Royal Mail, with its proper slot, it will give me some confidence to *suggest* at smaller POs that they try certain packages as large letters.

I use my kitchen scales at the moment to weigh items, but as they are rather small, I have been looking at buying some. I tend to try standing books on their end when I weigh them, as I think this gives the most accurate reading (and it means you can see the readout!!) It can be a bit of a balancing act though.

Sold another book today - yippee :j !! Had my customary hunt for the book - couldn't find it, bit worried then remembered FFM's (?) advice about the listing id, so looked for some others with similar start of id, and found it straight away!! So thanks FFM!!

numberthree

Hi MattOsprey,

I thought that if the number 1 was missing then that meant it was a 1st Edition.

I may have got that around my neck, but if you Google something like 'book 1st editions' you can usually find some info from a few sites.

Amazombie

numberthree wrote:

I thought that if the number 1 was missing then that meant it was a 1st Edition.

You got that the wrong way round! The number 1 has to be present for it to be a First Edition and even then doesnt always mean it is a First. There are numerous exceptions to the rule but its a start!

greentomato

hello, I'm quite new to this too but I was also trying to identify if one of my books was a 1st edition and found this website really useful:

http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/bookguide/firsteditionbooks/firsteditionbooks.htm

(discovered that my book whilst being a 1st edition was not a 1st printing which seems to make a lot of difference. Luckily it was only a 10p book!)

hth

apprentice_tycoon

There is a link to a helpful website in the first post too -

numberthree

Thanks for correcting me Amazombie.

Must admit that it isn't something I tend to look out for personally!

greentomato

Annie021063 wrote:

Have you tried online postage??
as long as it fits through a normal postbox slot you don't even have to visit a PO
Try it - it's easy and quick

I like the idea of online postage but then you wouldn't get a Certificate of Posting? Could this cause problems if the book went missing in the post?

greentomato

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

There is a link to a helpful website in the first post too -

Thanks - I did look at that link first, but couldn't find any 'first editions' information on it - maybe the website has changed?
It seemed to be mainly a list of searchable sites for rare books, which was helpful to give me an idea how to price my book, but didn't tell me how I know what a first edition actually is! Maybe I was looking in the wrong place though? I'm quite an Amazonian newbie, so forgive me if I'm being dense!

I think I'm going to steer clear of this rare books stuff in future as it seems like a bit of a minefield to me!!!