Hello All,
Many thanks for your thoughtful responses to my inquiry about your
experiences using AbeBooks, Ebay etc. in lieu of library book sales.
A number of your have requested a summary of responses.
Please see below. I have removed the names of individuals and institutions.
Cheers!
Margaret
AbeBooks:
* Monthly fee for selling 1-500 books: $25 After you become a
bookseller, you are able to close your account at any time. They
are unable to pro-rate subscription fees. However, so long as you
let them know about the closure before the 8th day of any given
month, they can refund you the fees for that month.
* I set up an account with Abebooks.com and I sell a lot of our
books there. I do not know how economical it is, they seem to
have a lot of fees, so much so that I won't list anything under
$5, as it is not worth it. I keep some books for an annual book
sale in the library
* I can't speak for my institution, but I have had wonderful
personal experiences selling textbooks [using the Book Buyback
feature: http://buyback.abebooks.com/] to AbeBooks. They offered
really good prices. No fee, and they paid shipping costs for me. I
don't know if they would charge shipping for larger buybacks.
* We sell the more valuable books through ABE books. I usually put
things there that I think will go for at least $50. Otherwise,
it's not worth it. I have generated over $40,000 in this way. We
also give many to Better World Books. This doesn't generate a lot
of income.
Amazon
* We sell these kinds of things on Amazon. We've had what I think is
reasonable success because some of the titles are pretty esoteric
as you can imagine. We always sell the cheap stuff in the
library. We started in January I think and have sold about 10
plus books. Not bad for a small library.
* We sell on Amazon.com (it does not cost anything other than their
percentage). We only sell ones that are worth all the work of
wrapping and sending etc.- which generally means higher value ($70
or so) but if it's small and can slip in an envelope for very
little postage and $$ we'll do $35 or so). We have some
volunteers. One searches Amazon to get a sense of the prices for a
book; the other posts the ones we decide to sell on Amazon--and,
when she can, takes care of coming in and wrapping them and taking
to the post office (we don't have a "mail room" staff here, and we
need to put "Delivery Confirmation" on each package.)Once your
account is set up with Amazon it's a breeze. For using their
service without a monthly fee, one can only list books which are
already listed. If you're willing to pay a monthly fee (we are
not) you can list any book. They need your institution's bank
account info and an institutional credit card to set it all up;
therefore our accounting dept. got involved. The ones which do not
qualify go into our "Ongoing Book Sale" (a book truck near the
entrance of the library). We made $1,500 last month, thanks to
Amazon & a couple of dealers who came in. We're doing major
weeding, so we have lots (too many) books!
Ebay
* I sell stuff on Ebay and Amazon for myself - and I can make
several suggestions -- first, look up some of the titles you are
considering to sell. Using Amazon, you can see what other copies
are being sold and for how much. The same thing for Ebay, which
also allows you to do a sold search and see if other copies have
been sold. Ebay also owns half.com. If you sell on Ebay, you
will need a Paypal account. You will pay an insertion fee for
listing the book (and it depends on what your starting bid will
be). You will also pay a final value fee if the book sells.
Starting in July, Ebay's final value fee will include the postage
cost. (YUCK). Here in the USA, one can send a book using media
mail. If you sell the book outside the US, the postage will be
higher as there is no separate rate for books. First class
international and heavy books will cost a lot.
* Amazon does not charge you to list, and they have a certain rate
for postage, but sometimes the book's postage costs more than what
Amazon has allowed for, and you pay the difference. Amazon does
take a percentage of the sale price. You can link your bank
account or checking account to Amazon, and get paid directly by
Amazon. They pay after you notify the shipper that the book has
been shipped. Ebay owns Paypal. You set up a paypal account
(linked to your own financial account), and Paypal also takes a
cut of the sale!
Other
* We are not allowed to sell donated books, even if they were never
part of our collection. As I understand our state law, once we
accept them as donations they are considered University property,
even if they aren't accessioned. We aren't allowed to have book
sales of our withdrawn titles OR donated books. At this point our
only option is to send them off to university surplus (I think
that's where they go...). At some point they presumably get
auctioned off as a lot, not sold individually, and the proceeds
don't come back to the library. I think this state law is meant to
discourage people from selling off university property. It also
prevents us from generating a bit of extra cash to build our
library collections. Oh well! I am always careful to explain this
to donors BEFORE they make a donation. Anyway, I wonder if other
states / provinces have this restriction as well?
--
Margaret English
Librarian
Department of Art Library
University of Toronto
100 St. George St. - 6th floor
Toronto, ON.
M5S 3G3
(416) 978-5006
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