Learn to buy and sell antiques and collectibles

Review of Elaine Smith's How To Sell Books On eBay

A Success Story About eBay And Books

One of the reasons I wrote the Auction Revolution was to help other people follow my path to success. The package teaches you how to sell on eBay, then takes it a step farther and shows you how to leverage yourself.

eBay is a great way to start your own business. You can learn while you earn.

But, I don't want to talk about me in this issue. I want to introduce you to a successful eBay seller who is using the materials in my Auction Revolution package to change her life.

I know you can learn from her - I did.

Her name is Elaine Smith, and like most of you is a part time eBayer and is also a collector. Elaine collects old books.

Anyway, Elaine contacted me after reading the Auction Revolution. She was thinking about writing a book about finding old books and selling them on eBay.

Elaine told me she sells books mostly to build her library, and also to make some money to buy other books. She wanted to know if others would want to learn her techniques.

Now, I know a quite a few people who also specialize in books. Many of them do very well. Also, a lot of my newsletter readers have purchased Gary Hendrickson's book about Half.com. I am sure there is a market for the book Elaine was thinking about writing.

A few months went by with sporadic emailed questions from Elaine, mixed in with notes about how busy she was getting the kids back to school and her family trips.

Elaine seems like a really busy person. After all, life tends to intrude on our plans. Persistence means coming back to a project after being distracted, then finding a few hours here and there to work on it.

I read the early drafts of How To Sell Books Using Online Auctions, and was really captured by the whole idea.

You see, I love books. I have maybe 20,000 books - most of which I have read. Do you think that sounds believable?

Let me tell you a funny story about reading books.

I met Mike Vance a few months ago. Mike was the employment education director for Walt Disney, and created the training manuals for Disney World in Florida. Mike always shares great stories about the early days at Disney, but they are not relevant here.

One of Mike's stories is relevant though.

You see, Mike told me he reads 300 books a year. He said when he first told people he read 300 books a year, most people doubted him. They thought he was exaggerating.

So he started telling people he read 200 books a year. People still thought he was exaggerating. He dropped the number to 100 books a year. Still disbelief. Dropped it down to 50 books a year, and not surprisingly, most people doubted his ability to read fifty books a year.

He now tells people he reads 300 books a year. He said he decided if people are going to doubt him anyway, he might as well tell the truth.

Now for those of you who aren't book lovers or readers, you will surely doubt the numbers. For those of us who read books it doesn't seem a stretch.

Books Are Easy To Find

Back to Elaine now. New books can be expensive. Luckily it is easy to find used books. In her book, Elaine shares her techniques for finding used books at great prices, and selling the ones you don't want to keep on eBay.

I think the only thing missing from How To Sell Books Using Online Auctions is how to decide what to sell. I am compulsive and keep everything. I couldn't make money as a book dealer because I would keep them all.

If you have more will power than I do, or are more picky about what you keep, Elaine's techniques will help you buy and sell used books.

Elaine says that in the past year she has added 4,000 books to her library at no cost. Imagine what she could have made if she had sold those other 4,000 books.

Whether you want to take your profit in books or cash, I am sure Elaine's system will help you profit from books. After all, books are everywhere.

Here's a mini review of Elaine's book. The book starts out with information about how to sell books on eBay. It explains the listing steps, and provides some tips for getting the highest prices for your books.

If you have the Auction Revolution, or have been selling on eBay for a while some of the material will be familiar to you. Treat it as a quick refresher course, and pick out the book specific advice.

How To Sell Books Using Online Auctions is about selling books on eBay. It's written for book lovers and book dealers.

I think the advantage of selling books on eBay rather than Half.com or Amazon is they sell faster. The disadvantage is you don't have as much control over what the books sell for because eBay is an auction rather than a fixed price venue.

Elaine has solved the problem of lack of control over selling prices, and does a really good job of explaining how to get higher prices for books. She has figured out how to remove the risk that a book will sell too cheaply.

In addition to showing you how to get higher prices, Elaine also covers increasing your sell through rates. I never spent much time considering sell through rates because only 1 item out of every 250 items I list fails to sell. Then again, I don't sell books.

In order to check how well the average book seller does, I took a quick look at the completed book auctions on eBay. I did a search on eBay and brought up 100 completed auctions with the word book in the title. Most books never get any bids. In fact, only 14 closed with bids. That's terrible.

Actually my quick look is worse than normal. Elaine says that typically less than 40 percent of book listings sell. Elaine's system allows her to sell over 80 percent of her books the first time they are listed.

This means she is selling twice as many of her listings as the average eBay book seller. When you factor in the higher prices she must be doing pretty well.

Can You Sell Books On eBay?

At this point the question is, "Can anyone reading her book duplicate her results?

I think the answer is yes. Anyone should be able to duplicate her results. Elaine does a great job of explaining everything so it is easy to understand. I'll keep my eyes open for books to test out her techniques in the future.

For now I will take a guess and say anyone who uses her system will see higher prices and sell more listings.

If you are interested in selling books on eBay, Elaine's book is a must read. If you already have Gary's book about Half.com, Elaine's book will certainly show you some new techniques. If you don't have Gary's book, but are interested in books, you should get Elaine's book.

Here's a link to Elaine's Website.

Terry

PS. Mike Vance has a book called Think Outside The Box. It's about encouraging creativity. You can find it at Amazon or almost any bookstore. It's a great read.

PPS. I was talking to a friend on the phone while I finishing writing this review. He asked me why anyone would want a book about selling books on eBay if they already had my book about selling anything on eBay. My response was for the specific knowledge. The similar techniques are a good refresher, the book specific techniques are gold.

Another reason for getting more than one book of advice is reaching an epiphany. Frequently after reading a few different books on a single subject, something within one book will make everything clear. I don't think this is about the writers or the books, I think it is about saturation.

Someone once said, "To be an expert on a subject, just read books on the topic for at least an hour a day for a year." How much have you read this week?

Here's the link to Elaine's site again.

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Terry Gibbs has taught over 7,000 people how to make a good living on eBay. Terry's most recent eBay instruction manual is The Auction Revolution . The Auction Revolution is your guide to eBay and beyond. Here on Iwantcollectibles.com, you will learn about buying and selling antiques and collectibles, and about eBay.