Not every book is worth money. In fact, the sad truth is that most acim aren’t worth the paper they are written on. In general, non-fiction does much better in the used book world than fiction. There is, however, a quick way to decide which books to sell on Amazon.
First you’re going to want to go to Amazon’s home page and type in the title or better yet the ISBN number in the search bar. The ISBN number is found near the bar code. It will be nine or thirteen digits long. If your book doesn’t have an ISBN number just, type in the title.
Your book, along with others, will pop up on the next screen. Click on the book that matches yours. That will take you to the listing page. On the listing page you’ll see how many people are selling the same book you are thinking of selling. There will be people selling new copies, used copies, and collectable copies. Amazon might be selling the book as well.
As your book will be used, you are mostly concerned with the used sellers. Before you click on that link, scroll down the page to the product information area. Here you will see what rank the book has on Amazon. This is important information.
Not only do you want to determine if you will make any money selling your book, you also need to determine how quickly it will sell. The Amazon rank of the book isn’t a perfect way to determine this, but it does help.
Amazon has over ten million book titles on its site. Books are ranked from 1 to 10,000,000. The lower the number the more popular the book and the faster it will sell. A book with a rank of 500 will sell within minutes of being listed if priced correctly. A book with a rank of 4,000,000 might take months to sell. Keep in mind that ranks can change very quickly. This does however give you an idea of what to expect and which books to sell on Amazon.
Once you know the rank of the book, scroll back up and click on the link to the used sellers’ page. This page will show you who is selling the book, what condition their books are in, and how much they are selling the book for.
Amazon lists books from the least expensive to the most expensive. The price includes the dollar amount the seller is charging for their book and the shipping cost. Amazon charges a shipping fee of $3.99 to the buyer of a book. That shipping fee is passed on to the seller along with the seller’s selling price minus all Amazon fees.
If there are people selling the book for $3.99 or less, these are penny sellers. They are only making a few cents on their book. It is impossible to compete with them, so don’t try. Depending on your business model, you’re going to want to make a least a couple dollars of profit after all the fees are subtracted, minus what you paid for the book if anything, you’re your shipping costs.
If the rank is good, you can price a bit higher because the book will sell quickly. If the rank is over 1,000,000 you want to make sure there is more profit in the book as it will take you longer to sell it. You don’t need to be, nor should you want to be the lowest priced book. That is just a race to the bottom and no one wins.