Make 9000% profit with this book

Bookseller Profit Club eLetter
3rd October 2006

Hi,
I'm happy I paid over a fiver to post one book. Let me tell you why...

You'd think that £5.31 seems a hefty amount to pay to post one book... It certainly far exceeds my average postal costs for a single book. Why then can I possibly be happy to pay such high amount?

Well, because this book cost me 20p, 3 weeks ago at a car boot. The book is called the Glenans Manual of Sailing by Peter Davison. It was actually the second copy I had
obtained in the last 3 months.

The first copy was an ex library purchase and I received £19.99 for it. But this second copy was like new and when I came to list it on Amazon the price had risen and I received over
£25! In anyone's book (scuse the pun) the profit between 20p and £20 is huuuuge...over a 9000% increase. It's a win win situation!

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Everyone's happy!
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The car booter is happy because he got rid of some clutter, the buyer's happy because he has a book that cost at least half of the used selling price. Amazon are happy because they made
some commission, Royal Mail are happy because they made money too!

Of course I think I am the happiest because it made such a fantastic profit for me. If you have a copy or can get hold of a copy of this particular book, get it listed quick because current
copies are listed in excess of £50.00.This example is not rare but common, in most cases the books will be much lighter in weight, increasing profits even further. So instead of feeling negative about postage costs and Amazon commission deductions, think of the difference between what you pay for a book and what you receive percentage wise, often thousands of %, certainly 100s. How many retailers command this sort of mark up? Not many I would guess.

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Save money on postage!
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Talking of postage it has been a month now since royal mail has changed to pricing in proportion. I know prior to its introduction I was quite optimistic as to whether my profits would increase, decrease or remain the same.

So one month on I thought I would do another comparison to check it out. After comparing a range of weights and sizes, results have shown that the difference between the old and new
price is £4.08p in extra profit for me!!! Ok some pricing has remained the same, and some have increased, but overall the results show that I am saving money - leading to higher profits. Obviously it will all depend on what books you sell, but I have still found that overall I have gained by the changes.

Thank you Royal Mail!

Last week I found a great product from a local post office. It is a plastic template for pricing in proportion, but it's on the same lines as a ruler and cost £4.50, it's really useful to check books before listing. Ask your post office if they can get them in - it's a lot cheaper than buying an actual template at £32.00. Its made by Helix and it has all the measurement you
need printed on the product.

Did you notice that Royal Mail are bringing in a new service where you can pay online and download a bar code to stick on letters? There is an up side and down side to this. Upside: no
more visits to the post office. Down side: no proof of posting and you have to use the label within 2 days of purchase. As far as I can see it only applies to letters, so is unlikely to benefit us book sellers!! Go to http://www.royalmail.com for more info.

And a final note: Do not forget these changes only affect inland post not overseas postage.

Good luck with your selling!

Until next time,

Sharon

A Tale of Hidden Treasure

Hi

Last time I promised to relate the story of my first book buying experience at an auction, so here goes...

First impression was how much tat andabsolute rubbish is put into 'lots'. I could not believe how people were buying items that I would be ashamed to put in my bin in case the bin men saw it and attributed it to me! But I suppose it all comes down to the old adage 'ones mans rubbish is another mans treasure'.

So anyway my husband Clive and I set off to the auction, both of us complete novices, not knowing what to expect and what do when we got there. It appeared we had to pay £1 for a numbered card and when we returned the card at the end of the auction we received our money back. The number was used by the auctioneer if we bought something.

We diligently walked around the huge trestle tables laden with goods, until we found boxes of books. They were with the miscellaneous items that included boxes of ornaments and Christmas decorations left over from the 1st world war (I think). However, as we viewed the boxes of books we were not widely enthusiastic, until Clive spotted a box with a book that we both recognised by a man called Charles Handy - a management guru.

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Treasure ahoy!
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I had used his books in university and I knew how popular his work is. In the box were loads of other management books and our hearts started to beat a little because we suddenly saw not books but TREASURE. We noticed that one of the books was signed by the great man himself, we were on to a sure winner here! We tried to keep calm and we buried the signed copy of Charles Handy under some of the other books in the lot (naughty!). All in all there were two lots we were interested in, consisting of 4 boxes of books. Unfortunately you have to buy all the items in the lot even if you only want 1 item.

Most of the other books looked ancient and were something to do with electronics and there were also books on composers and music-again ancient in my opinion.

'They are bound not to have IBSN numbers' I thought 'and they will be useless to us'. But no matter, with each 'lot' demanding a £2 minimum bid we knew that the Charles Handy book would more than cover the cost of two 'lots' and some. We had to hope that others in the room would not realise the potential of the books we wanted.

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Our 'lots' were numbered 399 and 420 and so we had to patiently wait whilst the 'lots'
before ours were auctioned starting with 'lot' 1. The problem was neither of us could
understand a word the auctioneer was saying.

He spoke so fast 3 'lots' were sold before we had even realised he had started selling!! I was dreading missing our book 'lots', Clive was assigned the job of actually bidding as I felt far too scared, I had heard stories of people scratching their noses and ending up purchasing goods they did not want.

He had to try and decipher the auctioneers spiel so we did not miss out on our treasure.
Then with about 4 lots to go before our 'lot' numbers the auctioneer handed his gravel to a young boy - a trainee - he took over and thank goodness he spoke in English and was much more civilised than the original guy.

When it came to our turn no one else bid against us and we paid £4.00 for two 'lots'
of books. A bargain indeed, especially in light of what treasure we believed was contained in one of the boxes.

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So, what were they worth?
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When we got home we could not wait to look at the 'worth' of the books to us on Amazon.
Well imagine our surprise when we inserted the old books titles and authors (it was as I thought many of the books had no IBSNs written in the books-but amazingly were in amazons catalogue) they were worth a fortune, from £30 upwards! Wow. Then we put in the signed copy of Charles Handy and waited with baited breath for the lowest price to come up and guess what? It was worth... er ziltch!

Yup the book we though was worth a fortune was being sold for about 50p and there were
83 other copies. Ok we did have a collectable signed copy and we could have put our own price on the book, but what a let down!

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The moral of the story
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Nearly a year on from that experience we have sold many of the electronic books the music books and most of the management books.

But we still have the signed Charles Handy book. It failed to sell on Ebay too. So I suppose the moral of this story is 'do not discard books that YOU think are 'rubbish' as you just do not know what books will sell and who is out there wanting books no matter what their age or content. And most importantly DO NOT get too attached to yourbooks- as just because YOU like it-does not mean that buyers will hold it in the same esteem!

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And finally...
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By now you should all have received a free red template from Royal Mail to use when posting your books. If not contact Royal Mail for your free copy. http://www.royalmail.com
For those of you that have purchased Sold Dispatch Now and have failed to put it into action take note of the following quotes

"I know more ways not to do something than any man alive" -Thomas Edison

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood" -Marie Curie

Good luck and do not forget to keep in touch!

Until next time,

Sharon