Exactly What Books Will Sell For Me?

One thing I have learned with time is that every bookseller operates differently, and what works for one will not work for another.

I began by bringing home shopping carts of books - literally! Many of them were paperbacks, but they were books and I was listing them and they would sell, right? In the beginning many did. But as more people listed and number of books online increased, it slowed down dramatically. After all, they don't call them "mass market" paperbacks for nothing - EVERYBODY had some to sell!

I brought home a lot of biographies, and some religion, some health, some business. None sold well for me.

I grabbed what history I found, but didn't know enough about it to pick up what would sell and leave what would not.

I knew science fiction and fantasy had a market, and I love mysteries, so I had a lot of those. Some of those are still languishing on my shelves. But not many - I stopped buying them.

One thing I found that most people don't list are craft booklets. They don't draw big bucks for the most part, but they are steady sellers and bring me in a steady cash flow for expenses.

Another category that sells well for me are Children's Books. Now, I have to admit I'm a big kid and just love to read them myself. My very favorite are children's picture books.

The big reason more people don't deal with these two venues is that they can be hard to store. However, I'm creative. I found a lady who will weave me custom sized baskets and that is what I store my craft booklets in and the odd sized board books, Golden books, other children's books that don't go on a shelf well. Works real special.

Then I got real brave and bid on another dealer's stock on eBay. He had a wonderful collection of Western history, some of it rare, and it would really enhance my stock. However, it was in Montana and had to be transported, and I had to find some place to put it when it got here...

I won the bid, and then the race began! Time to cull shelves! I had already gone through my books a couple of times, getting rid of what booksellers fondly call "dogs" - those books that will NEVER sell no matter what. Sometimes you can't even give them away...

Then I did inventory once to make sure all my books were there, were in the right categories (made several new ones at that time) and I scanned them all for pictures. While doing that, I got rid of any that were not in the best condition (unless hard to find), and I upped prices on many. After all, six years into the business, I better knew what I could sell books for and what not to keep.

But now I had a major clean up to do.

I donate to Good Start, a local community non-profit, that does a really, really good job in our area and doesn't have pay money to a franchise for their name and isn't top heavy with administrators. So I knew I could send some there.

However, a bookseller I know moved here upon my recommendation, and he and his wife were hosting the first bookseller at the Jewish Temple. So I asked him if they wanted my culled stock and he said yes...

I gave Al and his wife, Eve, 3,000 books for their sale and still had some leftover for Good Start.

That just about equated the number of books I had purchased on Western History that were coming in from Montana with my hubby (who must really love me - he drove up there, loaded them in a U-Haul trailer and brought them back home and unloaded and set them in the house without complaining).

So now I'm back to having a backlog of unlisted books. They are sorted. I have some done. And now I'm refilling my craft baskets to keep my cash flow going. Then I'll go back to listing more of the Western History.

There were some very interesting characters back in the old west. More on that later.

Jo Ann Hakola, The Book Faerie, www.bookfaerie.com