Buying used books to resell can help you earn some extra income from home. If you love books and are familiar with many different authors and genres, you may enjoy buying books and reselling them online. With a little planning, some research and an eye for detail, you can learn how to buy used books to resell.
Set your weekly or monthly budget. If you love books, it’s easy to spend more than you had planned to when you’re buying books, even if you’re buying to resell. Staying within your budget will enable you to grow your book buying and selling business slowly.
Specialize or not. Decide whether or not you’re going to focus on only certain kinds of books to buy for reselling. Examples of specialties are children’s books, contemporary first editions, graphic novels, cookbooks, etc.
Focus on condition when buying used books to resell. Rarely is it worth buying or selling a book that isn’t in very good condition. Skip books that are not in very good or near fine condition, unless you know for sure that you’ve found a rare copy and it’s a good buy, even in fair or good condition. Avoid any water damage, highlighting, underlining and ex-library copies. Things such as book plates, former owner’s name in ink or price-clipped dust jackets are usually okay if there are no other flaws to the book, but you will want to note these things in the description when you list the book for sale.
Review book condition terms and descriptions on bookselling web sites, such as AbeBooks. When you’re reselling books, you need to be able to describe a book’s every flaw. If you plan to sell used books online, you will have satisfied customers when they receive books from you that are in exactly the condition that you described.
Familiarize yourself with first edition identification. Many publishers identify their first editions similarly, but if you plan to sell first editions, research some of the various ways that book publishers indicate first editions.
Familiarize yourself with book club edition identification. Many book collectors prefer not to buy book club editions, which are typically made more cheaply using inferior materials. If you want to sell used book club editions, just make sure to note that they’re book club editions in your detailed descriptions of the books.
Clean books well prior to selling by removing stickers and sticker residue, unfolding any folded page corners and removing any receipts, bookmarks, etc. from within the pages.
Explore as many locations as possible to buy used books. Thrift stores, estate sales, garage sales, church fundraising sales, library book sales, bulk lots of books on Craigslist and eBay are all good places to start looking for used books to buy and resell.
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