Also, this rare book sold for BIG profits on eBay. If you would like to learn what books are selling for me please click here: th-cam.com/video/nfwJUhcIGiY/w-d-xo.html
Wow. I got so ecited when the fourth red book came out of that box. James Herbet was really popular when horror was at it's peak in the 80s. Stephen King was leading a pack of such authors. Your videos are addictive Mel!
wow Mel so interesting and fun watching you open the boxes and working out the sales. thanks for taking us along, i loved it. Also big congrats on hittting 4000 subscribers, thoroughly deserved! x
For me in NYC July/ August I call moving season. We get overwhelmed with folks selling stuff during those months. I call it moving season because it relates to the school year, leases often end in the summer. I am not sure when people move the most often in Australia, but I bet if you know when that is if you post books wanted on facebook, craiglist or other places that people buy and sell online you would be overloaded with loads of books like this. Very fun video.
Since I have been adding more and more stuff to ebay I was excited to see that I now can use a listing system they offer. I have been writing all my listings down on paper, which is good but very very time consuming and daunting. I am just having a time it seems like it's taking way longer to get things listed. I use my phone to take photos then list. My phone works way better with better lighting than my camera 📸
I cry every time I watch the movie Eat, Pray, and Love, lol... I swear it's like I feel or someone was tapped into my thoughts as to what I was thinking
Great haul video 😀 I give you big credit, I definitely don't have the patience to handle that amount of volume .. I get anxiety just looking at it, lol. Have you considered sending some in to Amazon?
I have several books (though maybe not as many as you found in that haul) and each time I check to see how much they're selling for on ebay, it doesn't seem like much at all. Then I heard Chris and Technsport suggest books are a tough route to go. All that to say, I'm still looking through what I have and have considered taking them to the thrift store.
I think books in America may be different as you have Amazon to compete with. In Australia we are not allowed to sell second hand books on Amazon so eBay is our only real platform so the books do really well here.
After watching your videos I have decided to do bundle sales. So far I have sold some but miss hearing the cha chings on my phone as often as I would like to hear. I was able to land a ton of Jehovah's Witnesses books. I seen that ppl like them and they sell
interested to see actual sell through rate. My experience with these type of items you need to constantly list as the sell through rate is low .. So if you could track some of the larger lots and see actual and time spent. I can see if you scale to 20,000 books you can earn a living. Although the item cost you 23c . Storage cost and cost of running the business means the actual cost to hold stock is a lot more. I believe selling books is viable but not sure if it would sustain more storage overheads on going basis.
My sell through rate sits at about 40% currently. To do books full time you do need a lot of them. I should get to What I expect of about 6k books in these storage rooms and then I will need to re-asses if I continue to grow or if I am happy to stay in maintenance mode.
Thanks Ian, yes, so much opportunity for one cheap haul. I only have to sell one of those more expensive bundles to cover the cost of the haul and the rest is basically free! :)
The UK book market is hard from what I can gather as you compete with World of Books. But I have seen resellers selling sets/lots of books there for good money so still keep an eye out for those. But the UK market does seem to need to find the sets or the more rare books.
I was going to say exactly the same, Other than the Harry Potter and Twilights I didn't see anything that would even cover the cost of shipping here in the UK. Charity shops (when they eventually get to reopen) are selling at 5 for £1 around here and still sending them for recycling. Paperbacks are almost uniformly worthless about the only exceptions are university textbooks. The mega-sellers have basically killed the second hand book market; they are selling 'common' books at less than the cost of shipping for we smaller resellers (because of their heavily discounted courier rates). It is possible to get a very occasional decent win--I had a book on the history of Jaguar racing cars, bought for 20p, sell for £40 plus shipping Germany--but it is increasingly rare. I do better with sets of hardbacks from the 50s/60s. For some reason these are almost always overlooked at auction and it's not uncommon to get £100+ out of a £6 lot. As an indication of how poorly valued books are here, just last week I bought a mixed lot of electronics at auction (almost unseen--in our current lockdown conditions there is no viewing, just a single catalogue photo). The catalogue ended its brief description of the lot with "also some books". I have to admit I didn't notice until I came to collect and they wheeled out a packing crate of books. Around 30-40 hardback books of all genres including (of course) a healthy smattering of cookery books. I spoke to the auctioneer and he told me they had failed to attract a bid in the previous auction so the vendor asked then to 'throw them in' with another lot to get rid of them. I've not yet looked in detail but nothing jumped out as having _any_ resale value. Literally, I couldn't cover the cost of shipping. I'll probably end up burying them in one of my storage units in the hope of shifting them as and when car boot sales restart (although the pile in that corner is getting disturbingly large after a year without).
Hey Mel, really enjoyed this vid. Was hoping you were gonna get the whole HP set but no luck lol hopefully next time if you don't have the last laying around.
Do you have competition from the big ebay book sellers where you are? UK has a few big ones which means, smaller sellers have to sell cheaper to compete
I am a newbie in the book reselling business. I learn a lot from your videos. What do you mean when you recycle a book? Do you re-donate or actually trash it in recycling?
This is a great question Nicki. Pricing items can be hard. I'd like to make a video on this topic to discuss more. I try to price mine mid range. I don't really want to be the lowest or the highest. But if it's a popular item that is competing with the masses (say Jamie Oliver) then I have to price to sell. After a month of full price now I'm putting everything on 30% off sale. I want stock moving all the time.
Yes thats correct. All his books are in abundance to buy or come in hauls. I get them often in hauls and they do still sell but they don't always sell for a lot. But when you get them cheap in the hauls then that's ok. :)
I have to try and stay in this as long as possible and make best use of my space. I think I should be able to grow to about 5k listed items here and then I might need to re-asses to see if I keep growing or go into more maintaining my levels. It's all something I will need to work through as I expand but I'm excited to share my journey here with everyone and see what it becomes :)
@@backfromburnout It's surprising how many books you can fit into a relatively small space with the proper shelving. Although I wasn't selling then (seems like a lifetime ago!) back before I was married I had close to 3,000 books in my own collection and they all fitted comfortably in my study - which still had space (just about) to double as a dining room. Moving storage is something I dread. I currently have two units side by side and every time I see her the facility manager tells me it would be cheaper to move into a single larger unit but I just can't face moving everything. Besides, I only took the second unit for a couple of weeks while I sorted some excess stock... about six months ago!
Slim Dusty wife book good, Wally Lewis good, Richard North into the recycling bin,. 3 of us from the book shop are sitting here - crap, good, crap, good lol
@@backfromburnout wonder how the market is in AU vs USA for books - I sell a variety of stuff - afraid to get stuck in niche - sold over 200 books though in December.
Also, this rare book sold for BIG profits on eBay. If you would like to learn what books are selling for me please click here:
th-cam.com/video/nfwJUhcIGiY/w-d-xo.html
That was fun lol! I was hanging off my seat as you were opening each box!
Glad you enjoyed it! I sure got some great books!
Wow. I got so ecited when the fourth red book came out of that box. James Herbet was really popular when horror was at it's peak in the 80s. Stephen King was leading a pack of such authors. Your videos are addictive Mel!
James is a great seller! He has some great books.
Enjoyed seeing what all u got
It was a great haul, thank you so much for watching
wow Mel so interesting and fun watching you open the boxes and working out the sales. thanks for taking us along, i loved it. Also big congrats on hittting 4000 subscribers, thoroughly deserved! x
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching!
Great vid Mel. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about what sells and what does not. Really appreciate it. Lots to learn from your videos.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the feedback and for watching!
For me in NYC July/ August I call moving season. We get overwhelmed with folks selling stuff during those months. I call it moving season because it relates to the school year, leases often end in the summer. I am not sure when people move the most often in Australia, but I bet if you know when that is if you post books wanted on facebook, craiglist or other places that people buy and sell online you would be overloaded with loads of books like this. Very fun video.
Such a great idea! I'll do this
great prices examples
Since I have been adding more and more stuff to ebay I was excited to see that I now can use a listing system they offer. I have been writing all my listings down on paper, which is good but very very time consuming and daunting. I am just having a time it seems like it's taking way longer to get things listed. I use my phone to take photos then list. My phone works way better with better lighting than my camera 📸
As a used bookseller myself I felt your pain with Cornwell, Picoult and Dan Brown!
Ohhh I love the unboxing.. The anticipation!!
Yes, it was so much fun! Thanks for watching!
Awesome video Mel, really enjoyed it. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for watching!
Have you done a video on how you look up your comps?
I think I do have some old videos on price comping yes.
Another great video Mel...so informative.
Thanks Gaye, I'm glad I am helping you.
I cry every time I watch the movie Eat, Pray, and Love, lol... I swear it's like I feel or someone was tapped into my thoughts as to what I was thinking
I love love love that book so much.
Great haul video 😀 I give you big credit, I definitely don't have the patience to handle that amount of volume .. I get anxiety just looking at it, lol. Have you considered sending some in to Amazon?
It is a lot of work and more than I think people realise. But I do enjoy it and that's the most important thing.
You are making me think about going in to book selling now heheee. Nice one, definitely AWESOME! All the best for the year.
You could just try and seek a few of the higher end books to start testing :)
@@backfromburnout Sounds like a good idea. Thanks
Children's picture books are a good seller for me. I sell them in big bundles of 20-40 books for €2 per book.
Yes I love selling children’s books in bundles
I’ve pass over and recycled so many paperbacks like that before . I’m amazed
Crazy how different it is! I will sell it all!!
I have several books (though maybe not as many as you found in that haul) and each time I check to see how much they're selling for on ebay, it doesn't seem like much at all. Then I heard Chris and Technsport suggest books are a tough route to go. All that to say, I'm still looking through what I have and have considered taking them to the thrift store.
I think books in America may be different as you have Amazon to compete with. In Australia we are not allowed to sell second hand books on Amazon so eBay is our only real platform so the books do really well here.
@@backfromburnout Thanks for sharing that.
Great video!!
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching
I loved your glamorous pose for that one book! Sounds like you’ve learned so much in a short time!!
Did you like me striking a pose Clay ha ha
Thanks for watching!
Great tip no... Patricia Cornwell!
After watching your videos I have decided to do bundle sales. So far I have sold some but miss hearing the cha chings on my phone as often as I would like to hear. I was able to land a ton of Jehovah's Witnesses books. I seen that ppl like them and they sell
interested to see actual sell through rate. My experience with these type of items you need to constantly list as the sell through rate is low .. So if you could track some of the larger lots and see actual and time spent. I can see if you scale to 20,000 books you can earn a living. Although the item cost you 23c . Storage cost and cost of running the business means the actual cost to hold stock is a lot more. I believe selling books is viable but not sure if it would sustain more storage overheads on going basis.
My sell through rate sits at about 40% currently. To do books full time you do need a lot of them. I should get to What I expect of about 6k books in these storage rooms and then I will need to re-asses if I continue to grow or if I am happy to stay in maintenance mode.
Great video, amazing to see the substantial potential profits to be gained from book hauls. Thanks, enjoyed it.
Thanks Ian, yes, so much opportunity for one cheap haul. I only have to sell one of those more expensive bundles to cover the cost of the haul and the rest is basically free! :)
You got a few Michael palmers there. He has good medical mysteries
Yes, his books looked interesting. I haven't sold him before so am interested to see how he goes. Thank you for watching!
Just wondering how to you pack the bundled books when they sell so they don't get messed up?
Wow, it’s amazing much they were worth. Also how hard you work too!
Amazing stuff Mel, in the UK we'd have no chance of selling most of those for profit!
The UK book market is hard from what I can gather as you compete with World of Books. But I have seen resellers selling sets/lots of books there for good money so still keep an eye out for those. But the UK market does seem to need to find the sets or the more rare books.
I was going to say exactly the same, Other than the Harry Potter and Twilights I didn't see anything that would even cover the cost of shipping here in the UK. Charity shops (when they eventually get to reopen) are selling at 5 for £1 around here and still sending them for recycling.
Paperbacks are almost uniformly worthless about the only exceptions are university textbooks. The mega-sellers have basically killed the second hand book market; they are selling 'common' books at less than the cost of shipping for we smaller resellers (because of their heavily discounted courier rates). It is possible to get a very occasional decent win--I had a book on the history of Jaguar racing cars, bought for 20p, sell for £40 plus shipping Germany--but it is increasingly rare.
I do better with sets of hardbacks from the 50s/60s. For some reason these are almost always overlooked at auction and it's not uncommon to get £100+ out of a £6 lot. As an indication of how poorly valued books are here, just last week I bought a mixed lot of electronics at auction (almost unseen--in our current lockdown conditions there is no viewing, just a single catalogue photo). The catalogue ended its brief description of the lot with "also some books". I have to admit I didn't notice until I came to collect and they wheeled out a packing crate of books. Around 30-40 hardback books of all genres including (of course) a healthy smattering of cookery books. I spoke to the auctioneer and he told me they had failed to attract a bid in the previous auction so the vendor asked then to 'throw them in' with another lot to get rid of them. I've not yet looked in detail but nothing jumped out as having _any_ resale value. Literally, I couldn't cover the cost of shipping. I'll probably end up burying them in one of my storage units in the hope of shifting them as and when car boot sales restart (although the pile in that corner is getting disturbingly large after a year without).
Hey Mel, really enjoyed this vid. Was hoping you were gonna get the whole HP set but no luck lol hopefully next time if you don't have the last laying around.
I know! I might have it here but either way I’ll still get about $60 for that set which is more than the entire haul :) score!
Thank you for the feedback!
Do you have competition from the big ebay book sellers where you are? UK has a few big ones which means, smaller sellers have to sell cheaper to compete
I am a newbie in the book reselling business. I learn a lot from your videos. What do you mean when you recycle a book? Do you re-donate or actually trash it in recycling?
Thanks Donna,
I re-donate them if I can to a charity shop/thrift store or if they are just unacceptable they go in the recycling bin.
I have a very hard time with how to price my items where I can sell not have them sitting for so long.
This is a great question Nicki. Pricing items can be hard. I'd like to make a video on this topic to discuss more. I try to price mine mid range. I don't really want to be the lowest or the highest. But if it's a popular item that is competing with the masses (say Jamie Oliver) then I have to price to sell. After a month of full price now I'm putting everything on 30% off sale. I want stock moving all the time.
Hi Mel, would you generally steer clear of children's books unless they were something special?
I sell a lot of children's books but mostly in sets or bundles :)
nice haul
it was freat to see you fo this
Thank you
hope no one had to get down that hallway. lol,
Isn't the dan brown that wrote digital fortress a different dan brown that the DaVinci code author?
Yes thats correct. All his books are in abundance to buy or come in hauls. I get them often in hauls and they do still sell but they don't always sell for a lot. But when you get them cheap in the hauls then that's ok. :)
@@backfromburnout used to always read the ones from the series, but stopped reading as much so I haven't seen his most recent books
Vintage Where's Waldo hardcover can be good. That didnt look like it though
So many great books out there!
good 'what sells' video
you are a freakin inspiration. thank you for all you do
You rock! Thanks so much for your kind comment and thanks for watching my videos
Do you happen to ship orders outside of Australia, or does the low profit margin make international sales not worthwhile?
I've never done international orders but it's something I do want to experiment with very soon
Thumbs up from me as always.... maybe let us know the top 20 books to be on the lookout for in January or each month. etc
Sounds great!
I sold the scandi coffee table book on its own for $40 plus post 🤷♀️
Amazing! I'll list the scandi one for $45 for sure!
Think your be looking for a new storage unit soon
I have to try and stay in this as long as possible and make best use of my space. I think I should be able to grow to about 5k listed items here and then I might need to re-asses to see if I keep growing or go into more maintaining my levels. It's all something I will need to work through as I expand but I'm excited to share my journey here with everyone and see what it becomes :)
@@backfromburnout yes I really enjoyed watching you change
@@backfromburnout It's surprising how many books you can fit into a relatively small space with the proper shelving. Although I wasn't selling then (seems like a lifetime ago!) back before I was married I had close to 3,000 books in my own collection and they all fitted comfortably in my study - which still had space (just about) to double as a dining room.
Moving storage is something I dread. I currently have two units side by side and every time I see her the facility manager tells me it would be cheaper to move into a single larger unit but I just can't face moving everything. Besides, I only took the second unit for a couple of weeks while I sorted some excess stock... about six months ago!
What genre sells the best for you
Hmmmm, hard to say as I sell such a variety. Fantasy books do sell well though!
This makes me want to find my friends who are moving! 😁😁
Ha ha! Everybody move house and downsize! LOL
Amazing !!
Thank you for watching! Mel doing a haul - now that's a change! LOL
Slim Dusty wife book good, Wally Lewis good, Richard North into the recycling bin,. 3 of us from the book shop are sitting here - crap, good, crap, good lol
Still pretty good for $50 though hey lol
definitely - well done
Do you do this full time?
Yes I do :)
Hit the like button 👍👍👍
Thanks Jeff!
Picoult is a French name and pronounced like pee-co 😁
Oh ha ha, I'm terrible with name's! Even though I know that now I will probably still call it Picoult ha ha
hello Mel - just books your selling ?
I'm specialising in books for 2021 now Pat and trying to wean away from clothes
@@backfromburnout wonder how the market is in AU vs USA for books - I sell a variety of stuff - afraid to get stuck in niche - sold over 200 books though in December.
!!!!! 😁😁😁😁😁