Hello, all!  Yes, I’m still alive but judging from the last post I would have probably thought I was dead.  The reason for the long post hiatus was simply a strategic time management decision.  You see, this blog, my used book business, my new web app eBizControl, my full-time job and my family take up a lot of time.  Oh, don’t forget about sleep.  I’ve decided to trim some of the activities and regular blog posts was one of them.  I hope you understand.  In any case, I recently received an email from Susan Scheck for a request to write a blog post.  I said absolutely!  You’ll find that Susan’s stories may closely resemble your own.  This is why I really enjoy these types of posts.  Thanks for being a reader!  – Adam

I’d like to share with you a source that, on occasion, can turn up some decent, if not amazingly profitable, books: university and college libraries. Most libraries, as we know, have periodic or ongoing book sales, and university and college libraries are no different.  If you live in an urban or suburban area, there are likely to be several within a comfortable distance. For example, I live within a half-hour’s drive of six colleges and universities, and another three more can be found within a 45-minute drive, so there’s always a ready source of books close by.

Once you’ve called your local libraries to find out book sale details and to make sure they are open to the general public (chances are they are), you can start scouting. I use ScoutPal on my cell phone, which for the last week has been a free trial (I’m new to serious scouting). Yet, in the last week, I’ve purchased about 35 books from one library, all in new or used-like new condition, without the usual library markings. In fact, in speaking to the sales clerk I found out they had been donations—and she also told me that it happens frequently enough that dealers come there to buy books. Music to my ears, even though I have some competition.

Below are some paperback books I found today, typical of what I have found so far:

Exchange Is Not Robbery: More Stories of an African Bar Girl (Paperback)
New: 9 from $17.99
Used from: $7.48 (Used: acceptable)
Rank: #1,954,335 in Books

Religion and Healing in America (paperback)
12 new from $31.41
19 Used from $20.00
Amazon Sales Rank: 347,724

Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology
(Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
12 New from $22.00
4 Used from $22.85
Amazon Sales Rank:1,183,918

And now, the hidden gem:

Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism: Non-conformity in Eighteenth-Century
Politics and Society
List Price: $74.00
15 All from $71.46
12 New from $71.52
3 Used from $71.46

Amazon Sales Rank: 532,574

You will notice that this last book is selling used from within $3 of the list price, and the new and used prices are pennies apart. The icing on the cake: the sales ranking. This is an expensive book that is on track to sell fast. In fact, I suspect it might be on more than a few required reading lists for the upcoming semester.  That’s another plus when sourcing from university libraries: the books are scholarly or semi-scholarly, so they may command higher prices and be in high demand several times a year, at the start of each academic semester. The flip side of this is that it’s common to find rankings in the three or four millions, yet it’s just as likely you may find books with a higher rank and with the potential to command a higher price. When you pay 50 cents or $1 per book, like I did, it’s just too good an opportunity to pass up. So go back to school—and bring a backpack.

After many long months of delays I’m proud to announce my newest eBook entitled How to Source Used Books is finally done!  I originally hesitated writing this due to the amount of detail I reveal in it.  Frankly, I was a little scared at first for fear that revealing this information would somehow affect my own sources.  I don’t just say this for marketing fluff.  It really did take me awhile to get up the courage to write this eBook!  However, after I thought about it and how I regularly tell readers that I’m 100% open with everything it would be almost hypocritical of me to hold back this information.  Also, because my readership is on an international scale I think I can take my chances that no one that purchases this eBook lives close enough to me to matter.

What makes this eBook different is that I not only tell you all my sources and every source I’ve heard of but I teach you how to get your own sources!  I think giving you a list of sources and saying good luck isn’t enough.  Everyone’s situation is going to be different and what works in my area may not work in yours.  This is why I wanted to teach you skills and idea-generating topics so that you could apply the same principles I use just in your own way.  I’m very excited to finally get this newest eBook completed and hope that it really helps your business.

I’m also offering my always 100% money-back guarantee on this eBook so no need to feel like you’re taking a big risk.

If you value your business and are running short of books to sell this is the eBook for you.  It is the most important piece that has allowed me to grow my business and I’m sure it will help yours as well.

- Adam

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I’m always looking for new ways to acquire inventory and an estate sale has always intrigued me.  Finding new inventory is the critical piece in running an online book business.  If you’re not constantly listing new books you’re sales are dropping.  My mind is always racing and coming up with new ideas to increase my sales and I recently found a possibly very lucrative source of untouched used books that you could beat everyone else to the punch with!

Have you heard of an estate sale?  It’s basically an auction for when someone passes away and the family needs to liquidate their assets.  These sales are held all the time and contain all kinds of stuff; basically anything that the family wants to sell off.  You can buy a house, car, magazines, Lose Weight Exercise bike, pet rock and baseball cards all in one sitting!  Better yet, you can always find BOOKS!  Everyone has some number of books and elderly people generally have valuable books because they are either collectible or they are older non-fiction books in a topic they’re interested in.

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Where to find books to purchase is the #1 hot topic for online booksellers and rightly so.  There is a saying that goes something like “you make money when you buy not when you sell”.  If you’re making money when you’re buying books we all want to buy as much inventory as possible!  Common methods that are taught and used are Friends of the Library sales, thrift stores and yard sales just to name a few.  There are hundreds of different places where you can find books to resell.  In fact, Frank Florence has a product called Creative Inventory Sourcing that talks about where to find books for resell and that’s it’s only topic!  The places covered in his booklet aren’t rocket science and are actually pretty common sense if you think about it but I’ve found that you just need someone to point you in the right direction.

When I’ve got my index finger out pointing in a direction to a beginner, I’m usually pointing to the ol’ faithful sources that I used to use such as the aforementioned FOL sales, thrift stores and yard sales.  They were profitable and still are.  To this day, I can go into a Goodwill, spend $5 and easily come out with $50 worth of books.  It’s an easy $45 profit and I’m happy with that but the question I always asked myself afterwards was “Am I satisfied?” and the answer every time was a resounding NO every time.  Don’t think that I didn’t appreciate the profit.  This kind of buying just didn’t fit my goal of creating a large, self sustaining business.

My goal within 2 months of starting this adventure was to create a business than could support myself and my family.  That means a consistent, steady stream of income that could pay the bills, debt, mortgage or anything else our lifestyle may bring.  In making this goal, that means than a one-off $45 profit isn’t going to do much for me besides pay for a month of cell phone service.  I’m going to have to replicate that $45 hundreds of times over in order to reach my goal.  This is when I stopped looking at one-off profits and started thinking in bulk.

There are a lot of different ways you can buy books in large quantities for dirt cheap prices.  One of my main streams of income is buying leftovers from Friends of the Library sales.  As I quote in the revised edition of my popular eBook Used Books: Big Business “Taking the leftovers allows you to forgo all of the hassle and frenzy of the sale itself, get thousands of books for next to nothing and allows you all the time in the world to properly determine value of the books.”

Buying leftovers from FOL sales is only one way to buy books in bulk for next to nothing.  However, in order to buy these books you’ll typically have to shoot the owner an offer and see if it sticks or not.  This is where a lot of people get hung up on.  How much should you offer on these huge lots?  My answer to most answers is…it depends.  It depends on the quality of the books, where they came from, what they were used for previously, etc.

For example, if you’re at a library sale looking at 1,000 ex-library books that are in good condition chances are the Friends are going to just want to simply get rid of the books.  You’re going to get all ex-library books that can only be classified as good condition but at the same time they will sell.  Offer $50 and see what they say.  I bet you they’d take it.  However, if you’re at a used bookstore going out of business these are typically higher quality books.  Depending on if these books were ever tried to sell online I’d offer $0 if they’ve ever been scanned for value from Amazon or up to $400 if I notice that they aren’t newer, mass produced books and most are non-fiction.

Here are some examples of my bulk purchases so you can get an idea on what to offer at your next opportunity:

1. 10,000 most ex-library for $40.

2. 25,000 60% pre-1970 books, 20% donated and 10% ex-library for $400.

3. 250 already all looked up, like new religion books for $400.

I hope that this gives you a good idea on buying in bulk and some examples of real world pricing.  I don’t recommend buying in bulk if you’re a beginner but if you’ve been at it for awhile and have the gumption and storage space take a gamble and take action now!

A business, depending on the size, can be made up of dozens to thousands of different processes and each business runs these processes differently.  An online used book selling business is no different.  Have you counted how many different processes that you’ve grown to just do day in and day out without even thinking?  What do I mean by a process?  A process is a vague term for any task that requires more than one action in  sequential order.  Think about an assembly line in a automobile factory.  An auto manufacturer first needs to find suppliers to build the cars.  Once the suppliers are found, they then need to bring in the raw materials to a factory.  In this factory, they have different stations setup to transform these raw materials into a finished product which would be a beautiful, new car!

What core processes constitute a typical online used book business?

1. Sourcing
2. Inventory Receiving
3. Inventory Management
4. Order Fulfillment
5. Customer Service

Under each of these processes, you’ll have other processes such as what you typically do at a library sale, how you pack books, answer customer questions, etc.  Each of these processes makes up your entire business and it is very important for you to periodically evaluate each process and determine if you’re truly meeting your goals in each area.  It is very important to set a a goal in each area in order for you to evaluate how you’re doing.  If you don’t have a goal, you have nothing to shoot for.  You’ll just continue poking along and continuing your ho-hum, mediocre process and then blame the economy when your sales tank.

There are numerous changes that you can make to your processes to improve efficiency, decrease time and leverage more resources to make each process a success.  From my experience, I will try to list and explain some of these changes to the core processes that I’ve made in my business that may help you in your business as well.

Tips for improving each core process of an online used book business

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