On-line Book Sales

1
On-line Book Sales

• An Untapped Fundraising Stream

2
How It Works

• Select special interest books with limited local
  market
• Monitor book selling websites to learn the market
  and prices
• Determine the best site for listing the book
• Signing up to sell is easy
• Monitor email daily
• Package and ship with a day or two

3
The Costs

• Selling on-line is time consuming
• Researching the metasearch sites is time
  consuming
• Packing supplies will be necessary
• Some sites charge up front or a monthly fee
• Shipping and returns

4
Going It Alone

• Resources amazon.com (library shop on main)
  abebooks.com bibliofind.com e.how.com
  bookfinder.com campusl.com
  thecheapestbook.com eBay.com upperbid.com
  IOffer.com
• Verifying author signatures historyforsale.com
  galleryofhistory.com
• Selling books at auction sites
• ARC sites
• Local book stores as jobbers
• Good reads - Stephen Windwalker books, blog and
  articles

5
Mississauga Library System

• New books sold at City of Mississauga e store
  billing, logistics, marketing handled by e store
  staff
• Friends of the Library used book sales listed
  on web site and work through local book store
  Turtlecreek Books
• Better World Books

6
Better World Books

• Better World Book offers a no cost program to
  help libraries manage their excess donations and
  withdrawn books.
• BWB sells on 23 online marketplaces and then
  shares the proceeds with the Library.
• BWB is a socially responsible company sharing
  finds and books with literacy groups around the
  world.

7
Betterworldbooks.com

• Take excess discards and generate revenue
• Cover all shipping costs
• No contracts or service agreements
• Prescreen tool (RUFIS) allows libraries to
  maximize returns (other language materials big
  hit)
• Antiquarian, rare and collectibles team
• Quarterly commission for directing customers
• Committed to the environment

8
C is for Collaboration

• In 2002, Amazon announced at year end that 50 of
  the orders it received were for used products
  coming from 100,000 different online sellers
• In 3 months increased to 150,000 different
  sellers and online sellers increasing
  exponentially

9
Issues

• Online book selling is at a saturation point for
  mass market paper backs and best sellers
• Price competition of third party sellers
• Increasing number of corporate sellers
  (publishers, distributors, book stores)
• Universal catalogs
• Low balling
• Library and charity competitors

10
HR Issues

• Volunteer power limited
• Staying up to date with message boards and
  researching is time consuming
• Subscriptions to publishers material is expensive
• Registering online
• Establishing an identity for your online book
  store
• Suppliers, shipping and handling returns and
  credits
• Lack of expertise especially ARC items