Who is Adam Bertram and why am I here?

Hi, I’m Adam.  I’m an avid online book seller that has thousands of sales under my belt.  I have a background in technology that has allowed me to excel in finding books to sell online as well as getting all of the online marketplaces in check.  I currently list my inventory on 10 different marketplaces.  Remember, the more eyes see you inventory, the better are the odds that they will sell!

I am here to provide you with expert guidance and assistance in pursuing a very small side business in selling books online to launching a successful full time business selling books online.  I’m here to help you along the way in acquiring good books for resale, inventorying your books, making the sale and to finally shipping them out quickly!  I will be your guide and shoulder to lean on when you want to take book selling from a one time eBay sale to however big you want a book business to go!  I can help you reach sales goals of $1K, $2K, $3K even $10K/month revenue!  All it will take is your hard work, my help and some determination but it IS possible. As of June of 2009, I wrote an ebook titled Used Books: Big Business – The Secrets to Selling Books Online for Big Profits that outlines all of my knowledge into a nice package.  I highly recommend it to increase your knowledge of this great business but also to help support this blog!

My History

I started selling books online in July of 2008.  It all started with trying to get rid of some of my personal books that I didn’t want anymore.  Since I was so new to doing this, I listed them all for much less than what everyone else was listing theirs for essentially “lowballing” the competition.  All of 50 or so of them sold in a few weeks; some for a penny and some for upwards of $30.  I was ecstatic!  However, I came to realize that I left a lot of money on the table by pricing them so low and I also actually lost money on the few that I priced for under a dollar.

I was hooked after that.  I started going to thrift stores, yard sales, library sales, friends and anywhere else I could get books from.  You could ask my wife and she would say that I was obsessed!  I would find people that wanted to get rid of thousands of books for one reason or another and haul them home.  I had to enlist the help of my father and friends to haul that first load of over 8,000 books to my warehouse that first time.  It paid off though, big time!  I paid $200 for them and have since made over $5,000.  I learned so much by diving in head first like I usually do on most endeavors.  Of course, it cost me some money but, in my opinion, it’s all a cost of the learning curve.

I was listing on Amazon exclusively for 6 months until I thought about selling on other websites.  I brought up my inventory then on Half.com and tried to manually manage the orders and inventory across two platforms.  It didn’t work out too well at all, but I was getting increased sales!  Eventually, I decided to break down and buy a monthly service that would manage my inventory and orders across multiple marketplaces.  I now list on on about 10 websites.  Amazon, however, is still my biggest money maker and I will continue to sell on Amazon until I decide to stop this business.  It is my business’s life blood.

I have since registered my business as a sole proprietorship, written off business expenses and had my accountant do my taxes for the first time in April of 2009.  It was my biggest refund ever!  It was nice to write off a small family trip to Gatlinburg, TN as a business expense since I went to a few book stores *wink*.

I have also managed to acquire a small “warehouse” that my father gave me which is just a large one room house where I store my large book inventory.  I have thousands of books, rows and rows of shelves, a laser printer, label printer, scanner for pictures, packing tape, cleaning solution, hundreds of bubble mailers for shipping, high speed Internet connection, online postage software and my multi-venue service.  This is my online book-selling world.  I typically ship out about 10-40 books/day depending on new inventory levels from this warehouse and make anywhere from $50 – $300/day 7 days/weeks.  I run out there every day after work since I still have a full time job to do order fulfillment which takes about an hour or less.

Since I subscribed to my multi-venue book-selling service where I can get nice reports, I’ve made over $25K since the middle of November last year.  I could go back and try my July through November stats but I think you get the point.

I believe that you could make as much money as you want in this business.  It all depends on how big you want it to grow!  As long as you can keep acquiring inventory and listing it, you will make money.

Amazon and online book-selling has changed my life and has allowed my wife to stay at home with our 5 month old daughter which is priceless to me.  If it weren’t for online book-selling, my wife would have to go back to work, we couldn’t afford the nice house and the lifestyle we live now and I will be forever grateful to it.

Adam’s “Warehouse”

A lot of people that know me always ask me about my “warehouse”.  I put it in quotes because it’s basically just a one room studio apartment-like building with one large room, a kitchenette area and a bathroom.  I decided to post some pictures here to show you my home away from home.