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