When I first started selling books on the Internet I had no idea where it would go.  I sold a few here and there from my shelf at home and that first big group of  books that I bought from a local FOL sale was kind of like a shot in the dark.  My wife nearly killed me because, at the time, I had no idea where I was going to even put them all let alone know how to sell all of them.  This is how I’ve been and always will be.  I guess it’s just a personality trait of mine.  I don’t typically plan a whole lot.  If I want to try something new I’ll jump and then ask questions later even if it means throwing some cash at it.

This is what I’ve done with Monsoon.  If you’re new to this blog you can find my first post on this huge change in business that I’ve done at the post Making the Leap into the Unknown.  To summarize that post if you’re too lazy to go look at it I basically explain that sometimes you just have to take the leap and do it.  No amount of planning in the world is going to be enough and eventually you’ll just have to just do it.  This can be applied to the situation I’m in now or even if you’re never sold a book in your life!  Doing days upon days of research and more research, deciding on exactly what type of book scouting setup you need, knowing exactly which books to buy before you even start is ridiculous.  This might work if you’re going to invest in a franchise that would cost you $50K to get started but it’s used books!  Used books are a dime a dozen and if they’re not that cheap the most you’d be out for a few dozen books to try out is $20 or less.  There is no excuse for not trying because if you don’t try you’ll never succeed.  Want to know a good starting point?  My eBook!

I’m interrupting my regularly scheduled book scouting series post this week.  I wanted to take this time to update everyone on why I haven’t been too active posting as well as not living up to my promise of getting the Amazon Sales Spreadsheet out much, much sooner.  Sometimes, it’s very hard to balance a full-time traditional 9-5 job, successful online bookselling business as well as writing about it but I’m doing my best!

OK, that’s about enough of my pity party.  This post is all about my experience getting started with Monsoon.  This post will most likely not apply to new sellers as Monsoon can be very pricey and is geared towards sellers in the likes of Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.  I don’t pretend to even be close to their sales volume but this is the first step of achieving that goal!

Here is how things have been going for me for the past few weeks.

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It’s that time again to release another informative review of a popular book scouting service.  This week is it Media Scouter!  If you’ve missed any of the other review posts on book scouting services please check the 3 posts previous to this one and you will find them.

A book scouting service is a piece of software that allows you to look up prices for books at a library sale, yard sales, used bookstores or just about wherever  you are.  The only thing you need to get these prices is a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a cell phone running the Windows Mobile operating system.  If you don’t want to manually key in each ISBN you should also bring with you a barcode scanner.  Each scouting service provides this similar functionality but it’s important to pay attention to which one may fit your need the best.  If you’d like more information about getting started with book scouting or getting some additional reviews please take a look at my eBook Used Books: Big Business.  Book scouting is an entire chapter in the newly revised edition.

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It’s time yet again for another review of a book scouting service!  This week’s pick is asellertool.  Asellertool is third in the list of book scouting service being reviewed in this series.  If you missed the previous two you can get Scoutpal or Neatoscan at their respective links.

The very first thing I noticed while doing some research on Asellertool is that’s it’s the cheapest real-time book scouting service you’ll find.  At $6/month they’re practically giving the service away but keep in mind the term “real-time”.  This is the codename for “Internet access required”.  For Asellertool’s $6/month plan you’ll have to have a cell phone with Wifi or some sort of other data connection or you’ll have to get yourself a PDA with a WiFi connection.  If you go scouting don’t depend on WiFi being available.  You’ll get lucky sometimes but more times than not you’ll not have any WiFi.  With this being said, don’t get excited about this being the cheapest there is.  Since Scoutpal provides both services; real-time and a downloadable database at $9.95/month Scoutpal is the king of price here.

If you want to step up to their typical “download the database onto your PDA/cell phone and scan books instantly” program you’ll pay $25.50/month.  Admittingly, it’s still not too expensive but don’t get the two service mixed up.  You’ll always want to go with the “offline” method to where you don’t have to worry about having an Internet connection when you’re out scouting.

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Neatoscan is another popular book scouting service.  It is a service started in 2004 and has grown drastically over that time.  Neatoscan offers a few different services to a potential online bookseller.  The first is their typical database download and sync to your PDA for offline book scouting.  They have a lot of robust features in this software such as native sound notification for you to discreetly put some earbuds in and start scanning.  If you scan a book that meets the criteria that you have set previously it will give you a cash register sound, for example.  There are many other configurable options in this software which allows you to do just about whatever you’d like in terms of what criteria you’d like met before you buy a book.

They also have a service called Neatoscan Inventory Evaluator.  This is a piece of software that you install on your PC that allows you to input hundreds or thousands of ISBNs at once to evaluate books in bulk.  I have used this service for many months now and really like it a lot.  It’s very powerful if you decide to purchase books from wholesalers or remainder distributors or even to look up eBay lots in which the seller provides you the ISBN list.

Neatoscan is also very customizable.  If you need a change to the software or require some sort of special circumstance they will accommodate you.  However, it’s not going to  be cheap.  They’re standard rate is $150/hr.  I’ve had some work done by them and it’s top notch though and well worth it if you’re planning on really diving into this business.  Dennis is the man when it comes to programming.

Neatoscan’s book scouting service is $50/month for 1 account for standard level service or they offer a business level service at $100/month which comes with better support and some extra features that you don’t get with the standard account.  Consider Neatoscan once you’ve got your feet wet and know what book scouting is all about.  They seem to be placing themselves as more of the luxury line of book scouting services.

Book scouting has been the #1 question I get from readers of the blog.  Actually, it has been far and away the biggest question that I get.  I think it’s because of a combination of a few different things such as which fancy tech gadgetry to get, how to use it once it’s in your hand, the vast combination of scanner/PDAs that you can use and which service to use out of all of them.  I may not be able to answer all of these questions in a few blog posts but I can do my best to get you started on some review of all the book scouting services that I know of.

In this series of posts I will be reviewing the following services: Scoutpal, Neatoscan, Media Scouter, Bookscout Pro and finally Book Spy.  If you know of any more please let me know.

For full and fair disclosure I have not used any of my book scouting equipment in well over 6 months but I still stay abreast of changes in the book scouting area.  I haven’t been book scouting because, if you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’d know that I don’t typically buy a few books at a time.  I started buying books in huge quantities some time ago and simply have not had the need to purchase a few dozen at a time.  Sure, I occasionally go out and whip out my iPhone in a pinch and manually punch in the ISBNs of some books but I no means have the ultimate setup of the lightning fast PDA with the bluetooth scanner and use it all the time.

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