Selling Your Books To Other Textbook Companies

Whenever you want to sell to textbook companies  you simply go to their websites and check to see if there is a market for the books you would like to sell. If there is and if the purchase price offered by the company is agreeable you can go ahead and ship the books to them. Then you wait for your check to arrive from the textbook company. Generally speaking it takes about a month to receive your payment for the books.

When you sell to other textbook companies they often provide printable shipping labels that you affix to your shipping box. I avoid selling to companies that want to reimburse me for shipping cost. Whenever I have
dealt with companies which promise to reimburse shipping cost they have always found an excuse to only pay back a portion of what it actually cost to send them the books. Or not reimburse me for the cost at all.

Here is a short list of companies who will purchase books from you. Be aware that textbook companies pay less for books than you can make for them by listing them on Amazon.com or Half.com . The only time I sell to companies like the ones listed below is when I have far too many copies of a particular title.

•  www.bigwords.com
•  www.valorebooks.com
• www.ecampus.com
• www.Bookbyte.com
• www.webuytextbooks.com
• http://buyback.abebooks.com
• www.cash4books.net

You can offer your books for sale to multiple textbooks companies conveniently and at once through a single site. The site is located at: www.bigwords.com .

Updating The Prices Of Your Books

There will often be other individuals and companies selling the same books that you are attempting to sell. The book which is selling for the least amount of money will appear first in the search results when someone types in the IBN on Amazon or Half.com. For this reason you must always try to sell your books at a cheaper price than others who are attempting to sell their copies of the same book.

You do this by regularly updating the prices of the books in your inventory. Drop the price of your book .01 (one cent) lower than the lowest price listed by other sellers. For example, lets say seller XYZ is selling a copy of Intermediate Algebra for $35.00. XYZ’s $35.00 sales price is lower than all other sellers of the same book. XYZ’s copy of the book will be offered for sale first as the result of an ISBN search. Simply because XYZ has the lowest sales price. You must update the price of your copy of Intermediate Algebra to $34.99. This will make your copy of the book .01 lower than seller XYZ’s price. Now your copy of Intermediate Algebra will appear before every one else's whenever a buyer goes to the site searching for a copy of Intermediate Algebra. Buyers often purchase the least expensive book listed. Even if they will only save one cent. I update the prices of the books in my inventory every 2-3 days. There is currently 416 individual titles in my inventory. It takes me about 1 hour to update all 416 book prices.

Three Business Days To Ship Orders

When a book is purchased from you through Amazon.com or Half.com you will be sent an email notifying you that you have received an order which must be filled.  You will have up to 3 business days to prepare the book(s) for shipping and to get them into the mail and on their way to the customer.  Your books will be sent at Media Mail rates through the United States Postal Service.  This is by far the least expensive way to ship books.  The shipping amount that the customer pays you when they order your book will be based on USP Media Mail rates.  After you mail off your order yo may be required to send a confirmation email to your customer letting them know that their order has been shipped.  This is very easy to do and only involves a couple of keystrokes on your part.

Every now and then a book will get lost in the mail and you may have to send a replacement book to the customer or provide a refund for the order.  This is a rare occurrence but can and sometimes does happen.  For orders of $20 dollars or more I pay for Post Office delivery confirmation at my own expense.  In the event that the book gets lost it can be tracked if it has delivery confirmation.  This is only my way of doing things.  You may elect not to add delivery confirmation to any of your book orders. If you feel confident that a book will arrive safely without delivery confirmation that will be your call.  Because it is your textbook business you can do most things however you want.

Dealing With Impatient Customers

Occasionally you will get an email or number of emails from customers who

want their book order YESTERDAY! What follows is an actual email notification that came to me earlier this week from a Half.com buyer.

This email was sent by a Half.com member via Half.com's email forwarding

system. If you reply to this email, your response will go directly to the member and not through Half.com.

You have received a question/comment from member Shane Johnson

concerning the Half.com transaction #: 43245545101.

Item: Electricity & Basic Electronics : Harper Lee (Hardcover, 2004) Reason: Other

Comment/ Question: Can you please let me know when this item is going to ship?  I have a class that starts on Wednesday, and I would like to have it by then.  Is there any way you can expedite this order?

The following information has been added to the sender's original email by Half.com:

TRANSACTION DETAILS . . .

This customers email arrived one day before he needed to have the book for his class. I have a standard response for these types of emails. It will make your business run much smoother if you adapt this response or one like it to your own textbook business. Here it is:

All orders are shipped within three business days of being received. All orders are shipped in the order that they are received. Would you like a refund for your order?

Customers will almost never want a refund. Unless you ship them the wrong book.

You must respond to each and every email from your customers that you  find in your email box.  You will be excluded from selling on Amazon.com or Half.com if you do not respond to customer emails.  But you do not have to do anything above and beyond what is agreed to when you signed on as a seller on the websites.  Respond to all emails and ship all orders in a timely manner and everything will go well in your textbook business.  If you begin to cater to customer special needs you will soon regret it.  Often by losing money.

Preparing Individual Textbooks For Shipping

How you prepare your individual textbooks for shipping will become an individual matter based on your own tastes. I know of one book seller who places each book in a padded envelope and ships the book off that way. Using a padded envelope is a very fast way to get books ready for shipping. But the price of an individual padded envelope can cut into your overall profit considerably. I personally have only used padded envelopes once. I had fallen far behind on getting my orders out during peak selling season and was attempting to catch up. The padded envelopes saved me lots of shipping preparation time and caught me up on my shipping obligations very quickly.

Another book seller that I have encountered wraps his books in heavy brown paper. The paper that he uses for his books comes from Home Depot. It is the same paper used by painters in lieu of drop cloth. The paper comes in roll form and is very thick. His books are wrapped in the paper and taped closed in the same manner that you might wrap and tape a Christmas package. I only use paper from a roll to wrap my books when the book is over-sized dimensionally, or is thick and heavy. Art and Biology books are examples which sometimes require paper from a roll to prepare.

Under normal circumstances I use 10’ X 13’ (25.4X33.0 cm) Heavy Duty, Brown Kraft, Gummed Seal envelopes for shipping. I buy my envelopes in boxes. 250 envelopes come in a single box. My technique is to I lay an envelope flat on my desk and pull apart the back and bottom glued seams of the envelope. I lay the book to be shipped in the center of the opened envelope and then wrap the book like a Christmas present. Finished examples of what my books look like can be seen in my You Tube video. If the method that I use to wrap textbooks for mailing appeals to your style and taste you can buy the 10’ X 13’ envelopes from: http://www.buyonlinenow.com/ 

A box of 250 envelopes costs about $30 plus $8.00 shipping.

Remember to secure your packaging well regardless of the method you choose for shipping. Books take a brutal beating as they move through the mail toward their destination. Make certain your packaging will be strong enough to survive the trip.

Things You Should Know About Media Mail Rate Shipping

Media Mail service is a cost efficient way to mail books, sound recordings, recorded video tapes, printed music, and recorded computer-readable media (such as CDs, DVDs, and diskettes). Media Mail can not contain advertising except for incidental announcements of books.

The maximum weight for Media Mail is 70 lbs. (this bit of information will be helpful whenever you have to ship a box or boxes of textbooks to fill an order)

There are presorted rates available for bulk quantities of Media Mail (minimum quantity is 300 pieces).

A barcode discount is available for Media Mail.

Rates are based on weight and size

Each piece of Media Mail must include complete delivery and return addresses with correct ZIP Code or ZIP+4 code.

Media Mail usually travels by train to its destination.

Items sent by Media Mail are allowed up to 14 days to reach their destination by the U.S. Postal Service. In my experience, in nearly all cases,

my textbook orders have arrived in approximately the same amount of time that it takes first class mail to travel the same distance. There have been some cases when it took a textbook a full 14 days to reach the customer. But those instances have been extremely rare.

Listing The Condition Of Your Books

After you acquire your textbooks and begin listing them on Amazon and Half.com you will have to select a condition category for the books. Your options will be New condition, Like New condition, Very Good condition, Good condition and Acceptable condition. List each book as appropriately as possible.

The price range of the book will be determined by the demand for and condition of the book. Do not try to place a book in a higher category in an attempt to get a better sales price for it. For instance, do not list a book that is in Acceptable Condition  in the Good or Very Good Condition categories. Your customers will complain. Too many customer complaints will unravel your business and ultimately drive you out of business. So be as honest and objective as possible when listing the condition of your inventory.  Your books will eventually sell regardless of their condition.

After you place the book titles in their condition categories report any flaws that the books may have. There will be a comment box where you can list any flaws associated with the books you are selling. Here is a quick example of what I mean. Lets say I list a used copy of a Coordinated Science book as being in Good condition. When I open the book I might see a barcode sticker adhering to the inside cover.

Additionally some ex-student’s nick name is written in pink highlighter on the inside cover sheet. These defects will be what I will make note of in the comments box when I list the book for sale. Reporting these flaws will allow the potential customer to know in advance what they will be getting. With this information the potential customer can make an informed decision about buying the book. The potential customer will be buying the book unseen over the internet. Your description of the book and its price is all they will have to base their buying decision on. They are depending on you, the seller, not to surprise them

Here is a list of some of the flaws I have come across and have listed with my inventory.with a less a less than expected product. You don’t want to be the reason for any buyers remorse.

1. Barcode sticker on inside cover of book
2. Barcode sticker on the spine of the book
3. Number written on inside cover of the book
4. Book number written on the bottom edge of the pages of the book
5.  Edges of cover slightly frayed 
6. Slightly frayed corners 
7. School stamp on inside cover 
8. Writing on inside coversheet of book 
9. Library card pocket glued to inside cover bookplate

There will be times when a single book will have two or three or even four of the imperfections mentioned above. Report all of the flaws no matter how many there may be.