In the spirit of preemptive spring cleaning, I have decided to finally get rid of my old books from college that I have been needlessly clinging to in case I may want to revisit them one day. I figure that if I haven’t had the urge for the past 4 years, I probably never will. Even if by chance the urge to reminisce does come over me in the future, I think a library could successfully satisfy my nostalgia.



My lazy side just wanted to dump them all into a recycling bin and call it a day, but I decided to give them a chance at a new life by selling them on Amazon instead. I’ve never sold anything on Amazon before, so I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it at first. It turns out that it is actually really easy. I used the same account I already had set up for purchasing and simply added a “seller account” to it. I had to fill in a few extra bits of info such as the name of my new “bookstore” (to avoid thinking too hard, I just called my new bookstore Green Goose Books), my shipping preferences and my bank account info for payment. Then I just added all the books I wanted to sell, one by one. I added them easily by just entering the ISBN number on the back of the book, specifying the condition of my book and choosing the price I wanted to sell it at. It took me about 2 hours to add 40 books to my inventory. By later that evening, I had already sold 3 books! Once your books have sold you have 2 days to ship them. Amazon gives you a fixed allowance for shipping costs (paid for by the buyer) depending on whether the buyer has requested Standard, Expedited or International Shipping and regardless of what your actual shipping costs are. Amazon also subtracts a percent commission from the sale of your book (which is waived if you pay for a monthly plan).

Even if I just break even, I still think it is worth it to sell my old books on Amazon so that someone else can get some use out of them and to reduce the demand for newly printed books.

Here is an example of a book I sold to show how the financials break down: I sold a “like new” reference book for$49.99 that I had purchased brand new for $64.00. Amazon gave me $3.99 for shipping, but the actual cost of shipping was $4.99. Amazon also took a commission of $9.84. Therefore, in the end I earned $43.14. I was actually pretty happy with this sale. Unfortunately most of my book sales will not net such a profit. I have learned that textbooks, reference books and hardcovers sell the best. Since I have mostly softcover books, I will most likely earn only $2-$3 dollars per book or maybe even just break even after paying for shipping, if they sell at all. However, even if I just break even, I still think it is worth it to sell my old books on Amazon so that someone else can get some use out of them and to reduce the demand for newly printed books. Who knew becoming an Amazon bookseller could help me reduce and reuse?!

1. Is that heroes on your shelf?

   Posted by Vishal | February 10, 2009, 5:29 pm

2. UPDATE: I started selling my old books on amazon about a month ago and have sold 25 of the 40 books I started out with. After subtracting the Amazon commissions, shipping costs and costs for envelopes/boxes to ship in, I have earned a net profit of about $250. Not bad.
   I will most likely spend it all on new(used) books

   Posted by 1sillygreengoose | March 19, 2009, 2:20 pm

3. Great idea! I think I will try and do the same!

   Posted by Smearah | May 18, 2009, 12:39 pm