01.15How Not To Make Money Online
This past weekend was suppose to be my greatest achievement at making money from online and real world sources.
It failed to be such an event.
There is a chain of used bookstores in the northwest and across the U.S that buy back books. In the summer I had exchanged a few books for a massive amount of money, and figured I could duplicate the success this year by buying lots of books on ebay, accumulating a large amount and then trading them into the store entitled Half Price Books. I though for sure it would work, seeing that ebay is not a great place to sell books but definitely a great place to get a lot of used books at a low price.
So I went out to see what would be the most books I could get for a low price, and I narrowed it down to a few authors. I noticed that Stephen King and John Grisham would be a good place to start. I saw that a lot of lots on ebay were as low as 99 cents! So I bought thirty books total in ebay auctions and a total of twenty dollars spent. I felt really good about the score because these books were still in good condition.
Now for the thing that I didn’t account for:
Stephen King and John Grisham sell millions of copies of their books all the time. Seriously, they are huge sellers both new and used, paperback and hardcover, but I figured that the demand for their books would outweigh the ubiquitous supply.
I was wrong.
I marched into Half Price Books with a few boxes of books and was expecting big things. After a fifteen minute wait, they gave me their offer.
$10
That’s right, $10, and my heart sank. That’s it? I had originally thought about saying no, but these books don’t even sell on amazon.com or half.com so I took the loss. What was I suppose to do? Try to sell them on ebay? The weight alone would raise the shipping prices to astronomical levels, and so I just took it.
I ended up losing ten dollars and bruising my ego. I thought for sure this was going to be my meal ticket to earning a few extra dollars this year, but instead, I learned a valuable lesson.
If you want to lose money, buy used books on ebay and try to sell them to a used book store. It doesn’t work.
I’m going back to the drawing board on this one. Online money is not easily earned for me anymore. I’ll figure it out, it just is going to take more effort than previously expected.
Further Reading- Books Never Sell
- Value Village Tale
- Enjoi’s Presidential Collection Complete!
- More Book Sales
- Less Is More…Sometimes
- Things I Learned on 2007
- No Holiday For Me
At least you learned and it only cost you $10.
Ratchet’s last blog post..Marvel Heroes Mug (1994)
January 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Ouch! Yeah, used book stores never pay a good amount for books, they don’t even have good trade in deals. They gotta make their money somehow, I guess; basically they’re in the market of screwing the customer and hoping they don’t notice or either are willing to take it.
Reese’s last blog post..Mike Huckabee?
January 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Oh that sucks. Books are a tough market… been there. I love books so much I always think everyone is like me but never made money out of it.
Zhu’s last blog post..Call Me (Not), Part II
January 15th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Or local used book store won’t even TRADE for the more popular authors books because their shelves are SATURATED with them.
YummY!’s last blog post..No Means NO!
January 15th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Ouch. Sorry to hear that….
Let’s open that comic book store!
January 15th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
You had a very good idea, and I see that you have learned half of the lesson. I have made a lot of money selling books to a used book store. The key is to bring them books that there is a market for. The best is to gather your books in one area, then drive to a another town/market where interests may be a little different.
You can even do pretty well buying books from one used store and selling/trading them to another.
@Stephen | Productivity in Context’s last blog post..Tuesday Focused Thread
January 16th, 2008 at 3:34 am
I would have sold them back on Ebay. If you use Media Mail shipping and perhaps broke the books down into smaller lots, it would have been doable. I think I sent 9 books via Media Mail and it cost about $3-$4.
ANO’s last blog post..Meet Hobo!
January 16th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I don’t believe in all these make money online quick methods. If a first timer can make loads of money. Why isn’t anyone doing it?
Causalien’s last blog post..!!!!!
January 16th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
lol, I’m sorry to hear that… Lesson learned.
Alex Kay’s last blog post..How To Tackle A Blind Date
January 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Hi there. I used to sell books on line. It’s difficult to make a lot of money unless you’re selling a huge amount.
I found that non-fiction ones sold better and I always made more selling them on Amazon than ebay.
CatherineL’s last blog post..107 Great Resources To Unleash The Entrepreneur Within You
January 21st, 2008 at 1:17 am
I have made a living selling books online but it take a lot of volume-at least 5,000 books or more.
February 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pm