| This book has everything you need to start your own home-based online bookstore and more. It covers: where to buy the books worth reselling, the various available online marketplaces and the advantages/disadvantages of each, how to price and grade your books, how to safely store your books with ease of locating them in mind, how to plan your business, the legal structures of online bookselling businesses, in-state retail sales tax and Schedule C tax issues, how to pack your books to minimize "escapees," thrid-party wireless lookup service, inventory management software providers, re-pricing tools, online postage services, websites & advertising, shipping methods & trade-offs, how much to pay for books, shipping material suppliers, an exhaustive list of wholesale & remainder book distributors, and much more. The author has included graphs to demonstrate how long you might expect to wait to sell a book with a given Amazon sales rank, histograms of profit distributions you might expect, tables of Roman Numerals, photographs of packing procedures & bookseller terminology, etc. With this book as your guide you are well on your way to being a successful online bookseller. Printed in Times New Roman 9 pt font. |
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 A little bit of worthwhile data, but basically outdated info. |
| Review Date: June 8, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Jonathan E. Woodall, Cleveland Suburbs, OH USA |
The author suggests that you can make a solid full-time living in online bookselling by buying books at library shops, thrift stores and Friends Of The Library sales.
This may have been true when the book was written, but the following has messed things up:
- an economic downturn,
- libraries letting large booksellers pick their good books before offerring these books for sale to the public (and lying about it)
- E-Books and
- thousands of new entrants into the online bookselling market
As a result, using any of the sources suggested by the book will yield sub-minimum-wage income or perhaps a net loss.
When this was originally written, it may have been entirely accurate. I don't know, as I started online bookselling a year after it was written, and by that time things had certainly changed.
I will note that there are sources besides what are outlined, and they may sometimes still be profitable.
Around the year 2000, getting into online bookselling was easy for the amateur.
In 2010, it's hard for experienced pros to stay afloat.
It would be very, very hard to make money if you were a newcomer to the field.
The business used to be 'low start-up cost' but now you may need substantial sums of cash to acquire your inventory, if it is even possible to do so.
Mould is an engineer by trade. He likes making charts. This is good, and arguably the best parts of the book (though not wholly accurate today) are when he discusses inventory turn vs Amazon Sales Rank. Mould has weak writing skills when he is discussing non-quantitative matters, and sometimes you feel like you're listening to a guy droning on enthusiastically about a trivial matter in front of an audience that probably doesn't care.
If you've been selling books online for two or three years, Mould likely has little to tell you.
If you haven't been selling for more than a year and you're already stuck selling books for a living, this book might help.
If you aren't selling books already, this book is dangerous in that it may encourage you to enter a field that will wind up bankrupting you or your family. |
Absolutely Excellent
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| Review Date: May 23, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Edward J. Barton, Mill Creek, WA |
| An excellent guide - full of specifics, useful tools, up to date information, realistic expectations and practical advice. Having read a few of these books over the last 6 months, this one is the best and most useful of the bunch. The CD that he includes with his own spreadsheets and other business tools are prbably sufficient for most beginners/hobbyists. His suggestions on how to sell, where to sell and where to find inventory - as well as data driven metrics and rules of thumb are very welcome to me as a CPA. If you are thinking about this as a sideline, as a way to cull your book collection, or to grow a fun hobby, read this book. |
JoAnna's Review
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| Review Date: January 21, 2010 |
| Reviewer: bookbargains_andmore3208, Many, LA USA |
This book has been on my "Wish List" for quite some time. I always feel guilty buying for myself when I'm supposed to be SELLING (lol). I'm glad I finally splurged & bought it. I've been selling for awhile, but there was loads of new info./tips in the book that I will be able to apply to my selling practices.
The info. I found to be most useful included:
- Detailed information about the meaning of the numbers on the barcodes of books (I'm not referring to the ISBN numbers. I'm talking about the 5 numbers above the barcode that previously held no meaning for me before reading this book. Information about the meaning of ISBNs IS included, but if you're already a bookseller, you probably know about these.)
- Economical way to make your own bookshelves in limited space
- Very interesting y-intercept/slope equation Mr. Mould came up with that shows a high correlation between the ranking number of a book and the number of days it takes to sell it. (I always wondered why we had to learn y-intercept/slope in high school. (lol) It's nice to finally be able to apply it in real life.)
- "Firewood" vs. Keepers - He shows you the information for several books (ranking, used $, new $, etc.) he looked up while out bookscouting using his look-up service. Then, he tells you if its a keeper or not and explains why. Pretty cool!)
- Advantages/Disadvantages of selling on various online marketplaces
- Chart illustrating the cost of postage vs. package weight (It will make you think twice about using Priority Mail as an incentive for your customers.)
- Info. about legal structures and business plans (for those interested in making their online bookselling a legal business)
- Sample Business Plan Projection chart and Break-Even Analysis chart (as well as the Excel spreadsheets for these found on the CD)
- Detailed information concerning bookkeeping and records
- Various appendices that provide lists of various services and their corresponding web addresses (The services for online postage, re-pricing tools, inventory management, and look-up services were the ones I found most useful.)
The book is very detailed and brutally honest. As noted by the author, this is not a "get rich quick" method for making money, and he does a good job conveying this to the reader. He emphasizes the hard work, dedication, and motivation required to make an online bookselling business successful.
In my opinion, the majority of the information is for those new to the business. However, as noted previously, it does include a wealth of info./tips for those who already sell online. I found some of the information included in various sections to be redundant at times. For example, in more than one section the author discusses the disadvantages of always setting your price as the lowest price (low-balling). The information in the shipping section regarding Media Mail and Priority Mail is also redundant at times. However, these topics are important, so I suppose I understand the need for emphasis.
One topic I wish the book would have discussed in more detail concerns the types of books to look for and the types to avoid. Having high-quality books in one's inventory is essential to earning big profits and can ultimately mean the difference between success and failure, so I wish there were more details about this topic. However, the other useful information I listed above made up for this.
To sum up, this is a stellar reference book for those interested in selling books online and those who are already in the business. I definitely plan to keep this one on my personal bookshelf for future reference!
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It doesn't get any easier than ABC
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| Review Date: October 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: rec552, Bakersfield |
| There are so many books that talk about being a "how to" book but after reading them you realize that its only a summary of what to do to be succsessful. Michael's book is like having a mentor who actually wants you to succeed by your side. |
Great Help!!!
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| Review Date: September 2, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Brenda, Johns Creek GA |
For anyone who wants to start selling books online, this book is a must. Michael not only gives you the pros, but he gives you the cons of online bookselling and lets you make up your own mind as to whether you want to start selling books online. He covers every detail and there are lots of them! It contains a wealth of information not only about selling, but shipping, storing, accounting, etc. I continue to refer to it often.
This book is truly a treaure. Thanks Michael! |
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