On-line Book Sales
An Untapped Fundraising Stream
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
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
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
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
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and withdrawn books.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.
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
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
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
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