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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

I've recently aquired several large boxes of books that are mostly in good to like new condition, a few in fair condition. Most are WWII and/or AirForce topics, many of which are signed. I'm slowly starting to list. Last month listed 10 and sold 2 😞

Although I've learned a lot about Flying Tigers and Project Nanook, I'm very confused with the pricing. Amazon and ViaLibri, for instance, list a particular book from $125 to $225. I did $38 with BIN $50 and it sits there! Did I list too low?? Am I impatient?? Should I do 30 day fixed price? Add "best offer"?? What ratio in comparison to sites like ViaLibri is rule of thumb? I can't even find "sold listings" on eBay for a LOT of these books.

ANY tips greatly appreciated!! Thanks

 

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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

WWII is a good subject area for selling used & out of print books but be aware that there are lot of common titles for which there is little demand. I have never heard of ViaLibri , my experience with Amazon is limited and I found eBay disappointing, a poor site for books.. Over all patience is required in selling books. I am sure others will disagree with me.
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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

I have sold books 4 years after listing on azon site and it was not a pricing issue since I was the only seller with reasonable pricing.

And of course Ebay is not the first place for book buyers to buy books.

My instinct tells me that your book could have bought by dealers on Ebay.

 

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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

 

 

 

No other way to put it. Bookselling is about experience and feel for the most part. You have to have a comprehension for the current market demands as well as the current market supply of any given title or genre. For the most part, commodity books are very plentiful and price is the driving factor, this leads in most cases to very low priced books that are a dime a dozen. Most common titles, can be found for $1-10, any day of the week on multiple sites, so if you are listing these books even in the $20 range you will not be competitive and your sales will reflect this fact. This is where most people fail, assessing the current market conditions and thus get dejected by lack of sales. Just remember, just because something is interesting to you, or looks "old" or whatever other subjective rationalizations a bookseller can make for selling a particular title, the fact remains, if few are looking for it and there are handfuls of copies available, what would make the few buy yours? Generally, you can use good standard bookselling methods of description to give a little step up above competitors but that only really makes a difference when the details matter, such as signed copies,first edition id, condition, picky buyers, etc.

 

The expectation for common book sales should be thought of in "many months" if not "years". Sometimes they sell very fast, most times they do not. The first thing to check is how many copies are currently available on ebay and amazon. Then check ebay solds. If you see more than a handful listed on ebay but no solds, or more than a dozen on amazon with a rank lower than 1,000,000, the title is not worth selling in most cases. 

 

Personally, I use addall to assess the market for the most part, it is somewhat challenging to get a complere picture because there are a lot of extraneous factors\noise to sort through to determine what you want to know, but I have found it the most useful site over my years as a bookseller. It gives a good picture of current available examples and an idea of what others are asking. It must be said, that addall is ladened with inexperienced sellers and trolls, but if you know what you are looking for then it really is a gold mine of info. 

 

For better books, often times you can look at physical auction house records, available in many different iterations, sometimes published online, or compiled in databases such as American Book Prices Current, etc. camel camel camel is useful for amazon sold prices, and there are many more sites to use to analyze the market.

 

For books that are not worth listing but have a similar theme, I suggest lots, which can entice buyers especially when they feel like they are getting a deal on a per book basis. 

 

Bottom line, details matter and bookselling is hard as hell. Unless you have something special, just move the books in lots, at an inexpensive price, and find easier stuff to sell. The market demand for common books is just plain weak and your time and energy could be spent elsewhere with more efficacy. 

 

If you do have something decent or scarce in commerce then price it high and wait it out, the market is very strong for strong material and it will sell, but again, it can take time. 

 

If you have a few years or a dew decades to learn the trade then bookselling can be quite enjoyable and profitable, but for the most part once people get into the shallow end of the pool, they realize they do not or can not swim. Find a different pool or learn to swim.

 

Good luck.

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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

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I don't know much about books or bookselling, but I do know that the worst place to learn to swim is in the shark tank.  It's also the best place to learn to swim.

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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!

A signature may be a value added feature. But it may not be.

All comments here are good and pertinent. Here's my anecdote:

Five or six years ago I bought a brand new set of Time Life WWII books--common as deer pellets in a corn field, averaging about a penny a piece on Amazon. Now the thing about these books is this: when I bought them they were still sealed in the mailers. I've long since ceased wondering about people who spend that kind of money on things they never enjoy--the only flaws to the box amounted to USPS repairs to damaged on receipt (with stamp) and the invoice labels removed.

So I opened them, and found them all to be first printings. In New condition. Not fine condition, New condition. Truly a rarity.

I had them up on Amazon. Every Christmas season I'd sell one or two at $50 to $60 or so. One collector came back three times.  I'll be putting the rest up here soon.

Book selling relies on knowledge: the less you know the longer you hold on to books. Take Fine.books. He holds on to his stock for as long as thirty and forty years before he finds a buyer sometimes.  But then he says he knows almost nothing about selling books because he only sells a couple books a year.

So... the first thing you need to do is decide what you want to get from selling books. If you want to make a living selling a handful of books a year, then you need much better stock than WWII has to offer.

I've been selling online since 1999, coming late to the party. I have always viewed it as a side stream income. So selling one or two books for $50 is fine.

You have a pile of books that should be selling in that range--not knowing the titles. But the subject matter is not current, so that will require some patience. Summer time is not a general collecting time. The holidays broadens the market a great deal for a short window of time as givers buy for collectors books which the collectors might not be so interested in because they are popular.

I've had a scholarly work on the history of aviation in war, signed and inscribed to a young WWII pilot, on sale for quite some time.

I'll be taking it down soon because it is stale and maybe I'll put it up or send it else where.

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New to books* Desperately need TIPS in determining starting sales price.. Any advice appreciated!


@fine.books wrote:

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I don't know much about books or bookselling, but I do know that the worst place to learn to swim is in the shark tank.  It's also the best place to learn to swim.

.


 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boV0t-riFuw

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