Used Library Books Bring
Big Profits!

Did you know that you can buy discarded used library books for pennies and resell them for $10, $20, $50, or even $100 and MORE?

Sounds hard to believe, but it’s true! In fact, thousands of ordinary people like you do it every single day. And many of them earn a good full-time income working from home.

You’re probably aware that you can buy used books from online bookstores like Amazon.com, Half.com, and BarnesAndNoble.com. Since Amazon doesn’t sell used merchandise, who provides those books? Used books are actually sold by independent booksellers as a part-time or full-time business.

But where do those used books come from? Well, the answer is they come from a number of sources. But one of the most lucrative places online booksellers get their books for resale are from public libraries.

What’s Wrong With Used Library Books?

You see, used library books are the ugly stepchild of the online bookselling business. Many Internet booksellers won’t even look at them, let alone buy them at Library Book Sales. The reason is that library discards usually aren’t in the best of shape. Consequently, most of them don’t have much value online.

For example, used library books often sport several special stickers made only for library books. They will also carry rubber stamps that say, “Discarded,” “Withdrawn,” or “Public Library.” Many of them are wrapped in a mylar cover that’s difficult to remove without damaging the book. Finally, it may have an old fashioned card pocket glued to the inside front or back cover.

Be Ready To Act!

When you book scout, should you pass up used library books? Absolutely not! You can sell used library books for fantastic profits if you know what to look for.

Once, I got called by the head of the county purchasing department of a large public library system. He said they over purchased current year best selling fiction books and they didn’t know what to do with them. He wanted to know if I was interested.

Boy was I ever.

Every single book had been published less than 10 months ago and each was written by a big name author like Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Michael Crichton, Lisa Scottoline, and many others. In fact, they had over 3,000 best sellers written by dozens of different authors.

When he told me they only wanted 50c per book, I didn’t hesitate for one second. I immediately said, “I’ll take them all.” Right over the phone, sight unseen.

When an opportunity like this suddenly appears, there’s no time to do a library book search with my scanner and cherry pick the lot. I took them all knowing that since they were all current year best sellers, my winners would far outweigh my losers.

The Early Bird Gets The Sale

I didn’t even have to wonder where to sell used books when I made this buy. Since 90% of them had an Amazon sales ranking better than 25,000 I went straight to the river.

I sold all 3,000 books within 90 days. My average sale was around $6.50, plus $3.99 shipping for total revenues of $10.49 per book.

Most of them weighed less than one pound, leaving me with a healthy $4.50 gross profit per sale after expenses. That means I made a $13,500 profit in less than 90 days on a $1,500 investment!

You Can Do It Too

Deals like the one I just described don’t come along every day. But I buy hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of library books every time I attend a library book sale. Just stick to clean books, that are as current as possible, and sell for $8 or more online, and you’ll do fine.

Frequently, you can find these little gems on those rolling library book carts. Many library patrons overlook them. But savvy booksellers always go out of their way to find them.

If you have questions about Internet bookselling, join me in the Internet Booksellers Forum for free advice and consultations offered to readers of my book, Internet Bookselling Made Easy!

Good hunting.
Joe

There are many great books chock full of ideas about how to profit from selling used books online. To find them just click the “GO” link next to the Search box below and you’ll be shown hundreds of titles like the sample books you see pictured:

Joe Waynick is author of several eCommerce books covering the bookselling and publishing industry. His books are available on Amazon.com.You can also follow him on Twitter @JoeWaynick.

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