For online booksellers, finding new inventory is the toughest part of the job – not only do you have to find books that you can sell, but you have to find them at a price that works. This can take a lot of time and effort, and the demands of churning up new stock can lead to burnout, particularly for those sellers who are new to the game.

There’s always an easier way, and for me it’s making the right connections with people who can help me turn up new inventory faster and more efficiently. All it takes is a willingness to get to know people, the ability bring a smile to someone’s face, and a soft touch, and it can save you the trouble of multiple trips, fruitless searches, and empty-handed excursions. Having a friend on the inside could be the most valuable tool in your professional arsenal.

The Secret to Making Friends

Hopefully, it’s not that big a secret to you – just be friendly! Most of the people you’ll want to interact with are used to dealing with customers as part of their job, and they get asked the same dumb questions all the time, or are confronted with unreasonable demands or outright rudeness. All you need to do is stand out by being funny, friendly, or having something interesting to say – if you can brighten up a boring day, even if it’s just for a moment, you have just provided the motivation for someone to lend you a helping hand.

Tell a joke, ask them what’s the most interesting thing they’ve seen all week, comment on the weird looking guy on the other side of the room, whatever. You just want to break the ice and let them know that you’re not here with the same tedious demands as everyone else they’re going to talk to. Once you’ve got the person on your side, that’s when you see if they have information that can help you do your job.

Thrift Stores

The kind-hearted folks that work at thrift centers each wear a lot of hats, and take turns working the register, stocking shelves, sorting donations, etc. Anyone you talk to there is sure to be able to help you get a better handle on how the store operates: turnaround time for processing donations, when they typically hit the shelves… you might even get a heads-up on when a book-laden batch is due in the store.

Friends of the Library

Getting to know your local FOL head is invaluable, as you can get an early warning on the arrival of valuable books. It can also get you to the head of the line to buy up the leftovers. Obviously, the best way in is to volunteer your time to help out, and make friends from there.

Chain Bookstores

Timing the book bin sales at places like Barnes & Noble and Borders can be difficult – often the managers are notified only at the last minute that ‘corporate’ wants them to get rid of their slowest-moving titles. But if you have an in and can ask around, you might get a heads-up on titles that are due to have their price slashed.

For real-world bookstore owners, customers are your most important relationship, but for online booksellers staying close to the people who can get you new inventory is just as important a relationship, if not more. Forgetting the human dimension of our job is easy when we spend a lot of time waist-deep in books, on the computer tracking them, etc… but always try to keep the human element in mind. Treat people to a laugh or a smile, and they’ll treat you right in return!

Have you ever been to a Friends of the Library book sale to pick up some new inventory and found other online booksellers there?  You most likely have because I have no idea how many of us are out there but I’ve encountered other online booksellers at just about every Friends of the Library sale I’ve ever been to.  It’s been mostly a cordial experience because there have been more than enough books to go around.  While I’m in the medical section, another may be in the biographies while another may be scanning away in the animal section.

In a perfect world, I would be the only online bookseller at the sale and would have an infinite amount of time and energy to buy every single resellable book at the entire sale.  Because this is not possible, I’m completely fine with seeing my competition there.  Unfortunately, not all people are as happy to see online booksellers come through the doors with scanner in hand.

I recently received an email from a reader that subscribes to a Friends of the Library listserv mailing list and asked for my input on the issue of online booksellers at Friends of the Library sales.  I had a few things to say and with her permission, decided to make a post about it and ask for everyone’s input on this issue.

Here is the email I received:

I’m a librarian AND an online bookseller.  Recently I got this email on one of the librarian listserves I belong to:

“Our Friends have three book sales a year, and there are a few buyers (the same ones each time) who sell books for a living online and can be rude and aggressive toward other people at the sale, which is why we are searching for some guidelines or rules for book sales.  Does anyone out there have rules governing their Friends book sales as far as the use of scanners, number of books that can be stockpiled, and behavior of people frequenting the sale?  Has anyone purchased a scanner to scan donated materials?  If so, how has that worked for you?

Our prices for sale materials are:    $3 per hardcover; $2 per paperback; $1 for children’s hardcover materials; 50 cents for children’s paperbacks; $1 for other media (DVDs, VHS, CDs, cassettes, records, audiobooks), and $1 for puzzles and games.  I’d be interested to know what others are charging; recently we started a collectibles section for the more valuable materials, and that has done well thanks to the work of a wonderful retired librarian.”

I’ve left the names and library off so that they stay unknown… but I worked at this library for five years and have used the FOL sales to source my bookselling business for three years.  I understand the library director’s frustration because there are (I can really only think of one person) that is rude and has even pushed my husband while he was carrying our child.

I hate it when booksellers set bad examples.  My concern is that things like banning scanning devices (one suggestion on the list serve), limiting the number of books you can buy at one time (another) etc. will become common place and hurt booksellers as well as FOL organizations.

My business has supported the library generously with lots of donations and $$$ at the booksales.  I was at one library booksale recently where my business provided 5% of the money that was earned overall.  I also wonder what would happen to all of the books purchased if there were no online booksellers providing their service of finding and making books available to waiting buyers.

I want to respond to this email constructively… What would be your suggestion?

Here is my response:

Online booksellers and FOL sales go hand in hand.  On the same note, not all online booksellers are cordial.  There are simply generally rude people in this world that make things worse for all of us.  I’ve heard of this kind of behavior a lot and it’s very unfortunate.  I’ve been at a lot of FOL sales and they all have varied rules to combat this kind of behavior because unfortunately there are assholes at just about every sale.  It doesn’t matter to me if you’re making a living or not at selling books online.  If you can’t find more sources than just FOL sales anyway, you’re not going to be doing too much living.

The best approach I have seen a FOL group do is to allow scanners and allow people to buy as many books as they want.   As one book sale coordinator told me, “I don’t care how many books you buy for a dollar, as long as we get the dollar”.  That’s all FOL members should be concerned about because at the end of the sale, they have to pack up all the books that didn’t sell anyway.  Allowing scanners gives online booksellers a tool to use to buy more books and thus more money for the FOL.  Disallowing scanners would be a really bad idea for FOL groups as it would probably greatly hinder their sales.

One thing that should not be allowed is stock piling.  At some sales, the online booksellers will take entire tables of books at one time, run off to a corner, scan them and, if the FOL is lucky, put them back on the table.  Some people simply leave the ones they don’t want in a pile.  It’s horrendously rude.  That’s why I would put a rule in place that forbids this practice and enforce it strictly.

I agree about the relationship between libraries and online booksellers.  Libraries probably account for 75% of my inventory and most of the time they love me when I come in because I’ll either buy hundreds at the sales or offer them a few hundred bucks for all the leftovers so they don’t have to deal with them.  It’s been nothing but a good relationship so far for me.

So what does everyone else think?  Do you think scanners should be allowed?  Stockpiling?  Kicking online booksellers out all together?  I’m curious to hear other people’s opinion on this issue.