Even if you are a busy homemaker or you have a fulltime job – you can still earn extra bucks by selling books online.   Sound difficult? It’s not when you learn some time management skills.  When you are able to manage your time effectively you can accomplish a lot of things in your home or in your fulltime job while successfully running your online bookstore.  You don’t need to be in front of your computer the whole time also to be able to sell your books.

Time management is all about the proper scheduling of your tasks and accomplishing them at the right time in the right amount of time.  Time management goes well with both your fulltime job as well as your online bookshop.  First, you have to identify your priorities then rate them according to their urgency and importance.  Next write down your plan and set the time you will do these tasks.  Lastly, do your tasks within the scheduled time and put your best effort to accomplish them within that period. This way, there’s no need for you to go back to the same task again.

Here are some tips on how you can run your online bookstore with proper time management:

• Since most inquiries sent to your online bookshop is received through email, you may set a schedule when to check them and respond to these queries. Say, twice a day, you will respond to orders and inquiries.
• Shipping the books is another thing that you can set a schedule with.  You don’t need to go to the post office every time you want to ship a book.  Invest in a service like Endicia to print all your postage online and then schedule a pickup with the USPS for them to come to you!
• If you’re a small seller, to get your current inventory, download an inventory listing report from Amazon and keep it up to date with attributes that Amazon does not track such as what shelf the book is located on, where you got the book from or how much you paid for the book.  If you’re a larger seller, invest in some software that will give you this capability such as an all-inclusive software like Monsoon.
• Speed up your listing.  This topic is contested by some due to the different business models that exist out there.  Some large sellers have a boiler plate that is used for a specific condition book.  To list a book, they’ll simply assign a condition and then paste a generic description in.  This saves time but does not give the buyer a real clear idea on what kind of condition the book is in.  On the other hand, if you are you an antiquarian bookseller that needs a degree of detail then, by all means, continue to create detailed descriptions but if you are selling typical, commodity used books then the buyer may not really care if the book has a crease in the cover or a rip in a page.

If you follow some of these tips then you will have a start on managing your time and getting the most out of the limited time you may have.