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OK, you've determined the value of your books, and now you want to sell them yourself on e-bay.
We have sold hundreds of books on e-Bay since 1997. Here are some of the "secrets" that we believe have helped us maximize the final auction
prices of the books that we have sold there.
To learn about the basics of setting up an e-Bay auction, click HERE and we’ll take
you to the e-Bay “Selling basics” page.
“Credibility, a guarantee, and an exemplary feedback record are key to maximizing your auction prices.”
Use images.
This is probably the most important factor in realizing a high final auction price. Since condition is an all-important factor in the value of a book, it's crucial to let your buyers view an image of your book and allow them to judge the condition for themselves. This is especially true for amateur booksellers who may not have the knowledge of how to accurately grade and describe the condition of a book. If you don't own a digital camera, borrow one. If you can't borrow one, take conventional photographs using film and either scan them, or take your film to a developer that will provide you with a digital version of your photos on a CD-ROM disc. Many sellers do not use images - A lot of those books end-up being bargains. We
can't stress this enough - use images in your listings.
What type, and how many photos should I take?
It depends upon how rare and collectible the book is. For inexpensive books, a single photo of the front cover, and perhaps even the back cover should probably suffice. For rare and very collectible books, the following is a good guide to the types of photos you should take. 1. A photo of the front cover with the dust jacket in place if it has one. 2. If the book has a dust jacket, remove it and take a photo of it laying flat, with the flaps unfolded. If the book does not have a dust jacket, take a photo of the spine of the book. 3. Take a close-up photo of any copyright, edition and date information. If it is signed, take a close-up photo of the signature. 4. Take a photo of the book cover without the dust jacket in place. If there are any severe defects in the book, try and take a good photo of them.
This may seem obvious to most, but when setting up book photo shoots, avoid using your hand to hold or position the book if there is no way that you can
avoid seeing your hand in the photo. Even though it looks unprofessional, we see it all the time on e-Bay. Part of the game of selling on e-Bay is looking respectable and professional,
We have found that using a large square of cloth such as velvet or corduroy or other somewhat "fuzzy" material, makes an excellent and
inexpensive background for book photo shoots. Fuzzy materials absorb light and inhibit glare. We recommend A dark colored piece (black) be used as a background for light colored books and a light colored piece
(light blue) be used as a background for dark colored books.
Use photo editing software (normally provide with digital cameras) to crop the photos so that only the book is shown in the image. Cropping results in a
more professional looking photograph, and also decreases the size of the image file. Upload times are shorter and you'll use less disk space.
How big should the photos be?
That’s hard to answer, because there is no easy way of measuring a digital photo and then ensuring that the same size is transferred to a viewing area on an auction page. We have found however that using digital photos of around 640 x 480 pixels in resolution to be a good starting point. We normally crop the photos down from there. Most digital cameras have a selectable resolution feature. 640 x 480 is a good compromise between detail and file size. If the resolution is too high, the image file will be too large and it will take an excessive amount of time to load. If the resolution is too low, the photo will not have enough detail and customers will be turned away because they’re not able to determine the condition of your book.
How do I get the photos into my listing?
You'll need to upload those images to a location where they can be accessed by anyone on the internet (via your e-bay listing). E-Bay will host a single image for free. However, we strongly recommend using multiple images. Therefore if you use e-bay's image hosting service, it's going to add more to the cost of your listing. e-Bay provides a tutorial on how to add photos to your listings - click HERE. If you use AOL, you're in luck. AOL provides 2MB of "FTP" space to host any files that you desire. After you have uploaded the image files to a host FTP location, it’s then just a matter of placing a link to those images into your listing. There are also third party image hosting services (with AOL image listing tutorials) at: Pongo, Twaze, and PixHost.
Book descriptions.
A well crafted book description by itself can instill confidence in your buyers. Remember, you are striving to establish credibility. Simply listing a title and an author will normally not be enough to satisfy discriminating buyers. In the book selling community, there are a set of commonly used book description protocols, but these may not be easily understood by less experienced e-bay buyers. We have assembled our own list of easily understood “points” that should be understood by both novice and experts alike and should provide a level of detail adequate to accurately describe most books. Although less valuable books may not require all of these points to be adressed, the seller should strive to address as many of these points as possible for more valuable books. You have our permission to use the below descriptive points verbatim in your auction listings.
The full title (from the title page):
Author or editor:
Publisher and publisher location:
Date published (latest):
Number of pages:
Stated edition and/or printing:
Signed by the author?:
Are there illustrations?:
Who created the Illustrations?:
How many Illustrations (prints/woodcuts/chromolithographs)?:
What are the dimensions of the book in inches (length and width)?:
What is the cover made of? Leather? Cloth? Softcover (Paperback)?:
What color is the cover?:
Is there some type of design or photo on the cover?:
What is the condition of the cover?:
Does the cover have any tears or creases?:
Is the cover detached from the pages?:
Does it have a dust jacket?:
What is the condition of the dust jacket? Chipped, tears?:
Is there a price on the dust jacket and what is it?:
Have the page edges been dyed by the publisher and what color are they?:
Or are the page edges gilded?:
Are there any pages missing?:
Any staining?:
Writing?:
Dog-eared pages?:
Is there page “foxing” (browning)? Tears?:
Keywords and item descriptions. Most e-Bay
buyers use keyword searches to find specific items that they are looking for. Keep in mind however, humans can be persuaded to buy things that they weren't searching for. Your goal is to show up in the results of as
many keyword searches as possible that relate to the area of interest. You do that by providing plenty of keyword rich text in your listing. You should strive to find sources of keyword rich text closely related to
the subject of your book that you can incorporate into your listing. E-Bay prohibits the use of keywords lists; i.e. a list of words separated by commas that are related to the subject of the listing and meant to
draw in hits during searches. They call it “keyword spamming". They do allow keywords that are imbedded in the text of a listing. The challenge to the seller is to create a sizeable keyword list and incorporate
those words in a listing that is not awkward in its syntax. A great source of quality information rich with pertinent keywords about books for auction listings, is the book description located on the dust jacket
inner flaps or the back of the book.
Conduct a survey on e-Bay. Do some research first. Search
for auction examples for your book on e-Bay. Note the way that other sellers list the book. If there are multiple examples of your book that sold, take particular note of those that sold for the highest prices (sort
the listing by highest price). Try and make your listing look like theirs. They were obviously successful in attracting buyers. Pay special attention to the title line. Compare condition information to ensure that
your book is similar. If you have time, or if there are no examples of your book on e-Bay, try Abebooks.com for listing ideas. As a fallback, search Yahoo or any other search engine for background information ideas.
Offer a 100% satisfaction money-back guarantee. Buyers
don't like to see the term "as is" used in an auction listing. It’s a big turn-off. Advertise your guarantee in big bold letters - not in fine print. Make your guarantee a selling point. We at
Fadedgiant.net will not buy a book from a seller who uses the term "as is" in their auction. In 5 years of selling on e-Bay, we've had only 3 items returned. Use photographs, and ensure that you describe
your books accurately, and you'll rarely have a book sent back to you. We have provided below, the verbiage that we have used in our auction listings. Feel free to copy and paste it verbatim into your own listings.
Although you may have noticed that it states that listing fees, commission, and postage will be subtracted from a refund, in practice, in those few occasions where a buyer has requested a refund, we have always
refunded the entire payment. The promise of a guarantee will maximize your auction prices, keep your customers happy, and will result in lots of "positive" feedback.
“Your satisfaction is guaranteed! All of our auctions have a 15-day return privilege.
We try to describe and image my items as accurately as possible, but because of the limitations of the internet we understand that it is difficult for you to determine the condition or nature of our items listed on
e-Bay. WE WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY WITH YOUR PURCHASE! You may return this item(s) for any reason (as long as the item has not been materially changed or modified). We will refund payment minus e-Bay listing
fee/commission and postage.”
Plan your auction listing around the closing day. There are good days, and there are bad days to have your auction close. We generally like having our auctions close on the weekend. Avoid listing auctions that close on major holidays. You would not want to have your auction close on Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, or any other days where people are very likely to be away from home and their computer.
Start the bidding low.
The obvious reason: Because the initial listing fee is tied to a schedule that is dependent upon initial listing price, the lower your starting bid price, the less the initial listing will cost you. In addition, although this is purely conjecture, we also suspect that a low initial bid price attracts more buyer interest. Because the price starts at a level that is well below most buyers' maximum price threshold, more buyers on average, are able to place a bid well before the bid price approaches the market value. Once a buyer has placed a bid, it's likely that you've captured that bidder's interest and the odds increase that they will re-visit the auction. If a re-visit occurs, even though the bids may already have exceeded that buyers maximum price threshold, there's always the chance that they might reassess and increase their maximum price threshold, and possibly bid again.
Reserves.
"Reserves" are a turn-off to most buyers. If you have a certain amount invested in a book, start the minimum bid at that price. Buyers don't like to be the highest bidder, only to have the auction close and have their bid not meet the reserve.
Sign up for and use Paypal.
Buyers want their books as quickly as possible and many buyers won't buy from a seller unless they can use this payment service. We have found that over 75% of our customers make payment to us using Paypal. It's easy. It's quick. You don't have to go to the bank to cash checks or money orders; you can simply log on to Paypal and transfer the funds from your Paypal account to a checking, savings, or even a brokerage account. Paypal is a reliable, well-respected and widely accepted method of payment.
You can sign up for Paypal HERE
Accept all forms of payment.
Make it as easy as possible for buyers to purchase your books. State in your auction listing that you'll accept "checks, money orders, or Paypal", but discourage the use of cash by not listing it as an auction payment option. Here's an example of why it's a bad idea: Let us suppose that a buyer sends cash. Somehow, its intercepted and you the seller never receive it. What do you do? It ends up being a "lose-lose" situation. If you insist that payment be re-sent, the buyer has a less than enjoyable transaction and you may receive neutral or negative feedback which you should avoid at all costs.
The e-Bay "buy it now" feature.
We generally have not used this for collectible and rare books, especially now that it is no longer free. If a buyer makes a purchase using "buy it now", it's probably because they realized that the book was a very good value and therefore the seller did not receive a maximum price for their book. The "buy it now" feature is much more useful when dealing with commodities where the value of an item is well established.
Always use insurance. Almost always. Unless you're
willing to provide a complete refund at YOUR expense if the book fails to be delivered to the buyer, you should use insurance. Insurance protects both parties. Build the cost of insurance into your quoted shipping
costs. We do concede that shipping without insurance is certainly an option for extremely low value books.
Ship your items promptly. Seems obvious, but some
sellers openly state in their listings that they only mail on select days such as "Tuesdays and Thursdays" because that fits into their schedule. Perhaps YOU can’t ship on every day of the week, but keep
in mind that shipping faster results in happier customers. Shipping as quickly as possible builds buyer loyalty and will garner glowing feedback.
“Excellent service and a professional approach will garner exemplary feedback”
Maintain a spotless feedback rating.
When we buy on e-bay, we always check the seller's feedback. Many buyers do this, so it is critical to keep your record spotless. Even one or two negative comments can turn away a whole class of buyers that don't want to take the chance of getting burned. How do you establish a spotless feedback record? Keep the buyers happy. Offer a no questions asked money back guarantee, be polite, provide good service, and you'll never have neutral or negative feedback.
International buyers.
Accept bids from international buyers. It will open up the universe of buyers that might bid on your books. Shipping overseas is not as difficult as you might think. One of the downsides to selling to international buyers is that insurance is not available for mailing to most other countries. However, we have had numerous overseas buyers, mailed their books without insurance and never failed to have one delivered.
What if my books don’t sell?
Don’t be surprised if some of your books don’t sell on the first try. It may be because your listing did not attract enough potential buyers or because your initial listing price was too high. If you’re confident that your listing was well written and incorporated an adequate number of keywords, lower your initial listing price by 25% to 50%. A re-list of your auction is free AS LONG AS IT SELLS ON THE SECOND TRY.
Shipping cost calculations. Use the USPS website.
Questions? If you have any questions about how to sell your books on e-Bay, please feel free to contact us.
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