How would one go about making a living selling books on Amazon?

Answer 1

By used books. Advertise and pay something like 10 cents on the dollar. Clean them up and sell them on Amazon. You make most of your money on the shipping and handling charge. People who read paperbacks often give them away so buying for 10% of their value will get you more then you think. Be picky though. Don't buy books that are too badly damaged or you will get a bad reputation. For every 100$ you invest you might only make 150$ but it's something. Also book stores often go out of business. Keep a sharp eye and buy up all you can of their inventory when they go.

Answer 2

As a prolific seller in the UK on Amazon I can tell you there is very little profit to be made from selling books unless you find extremely rare items. Charity shops have very little in the way of gems and the average you will make back on a bog standard book once they take commission and you pay postage is around the £1-£1.20 mark. I have sold some cookery books lately and although they sell for £9 on Amazon you only end up with about £3 clear thanks to the new postage charges.

There is a lot more profit to be made in computer games, software and DVDs so I would suggest hitting car boot sales, raiding friends and family (especially if they have kids!!) and generally keeping an eye out. You can also buy in bulk from clearance sales and see if shops will give you deals if they want to shift excess stock as it costs them more to hang on to it more often than not.

Happy selling!

Answer 3

Start off slowly by selling what books you have and slowly increasing your stock.

There are a few pitfalls to watch out for - most of these revolve around the fact that many pro-sellers on amazon have postage discounts that mean they can profit from selling heavy books for pennys. If you try and match them you will make a loss! Also, am assuming you'll be selling on the UK site, so beware of competing against american sellers prices as they seem to set very stupid prices.

You'll need to be listing 3-400 books a week to be able to make a half reasonable income and that level should see your sales increase to about 100 a week. As long as not all of them are penny dreadfuls you should be making a profit from this.

Sourcing stock - You'll need to be sourcing a lot of stock regularly. If you can't source a regular 500+ books a week you won't be able to do this full-time. Very few pro-sellers on amazon will tell you where you can source stock as they don't want the competition. Library sales and charity shops are ok for the specialist or hobby seller, but won't provide enough stock to make a living from.

There was a very good book written about selling on amazon, though this has had quite an impact on how easy it is to make a living as so many people are now doing it. Which is impacting on availability and price of sourcing stock and driving the prices and profit down of selling on amazon.

heres a link to the book on the UK site -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0971577838?ie=UTF8&tag=astore.blog-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0971577838

and here is the US one (though why you're asking on a UK board if you are american is a puzzle!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971577838?ie=UTF8&tag=theboogar-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0971577838

Answer 4

In the UK, Charity Shops used to sell second-hand books at 30p to 50p each - unfortunately most have 'wised up' to the eBay/Amazon effect and now charge £2 to £5 although if you are prepared to hunt around you might still find a few hardbacks worth reselling.

The main place for bargains is the Car Boot sales = but only if you arrive just as they are opening, typically very early Sunday am.

Answer 5

I don't think you would make a very good living. And you'd have to invest in a lot of books that you would then turn around and sell.

Answer 6

One would go to a book store and ask how they would go about it wouldn't one.....?