Selling books on eBay

ps I have only sold two things on eBay, out of print CDs that I sold $25 and $80 dollars respectively. I doubt my books - most of which are paperbacks and not special editions - would go for anywhere that much amount. I have already donated some to charity and sorted my favourites to keep that I may reread in the future, but frankly I don't have the space and I need the money.

See what they're selling for on Amazon Marketplace to give yourself an idea of their value, then price yours for less. It's a lot easier to sell on Amazon, though individual sellers are prohibited in certain categories. I don't know if books is one of them.

If you need the money, I suggest sitting down with a pile of books and a laptop and looking them up on Amazon. If they're selling for pennies, put them in the donation pile. If they're selling for a decent amount, look them up on eBay, too. If the price is worthwhile on eBay, list it. Make sure you include costs for shipping them Media Mail.

You can get through a pretty decent pile of books in an hour. Do it a few times a week and you'll be done in no time. Keep them listed on eBay until they sell.

Make sure you price them enough that it'll cover both packing materials (envelopes and bubble wrap) plus roughly 25% that goes to eBay and Paypal fees.

Thanks for the advice r2 and r3. I am in Australia, so Amazon Marketplace isn't really an option, though.

Donate to the aborigines and deadly animals

You can ship media rate, which is pretty cheap.

International shipping would be a problem as it is hugely expensive and people would only pay it for something special, so your market is in Australia.

Media rate takes four weeks. I made that mistake once

pmbt lives!!!

They are worthless.

Donate them.

If you're in the US, you can try Powell's bookstore. They have a sell your books section and will pay postage to ship them. You may not get a whole bunch of money, but you can get store credit or cash to paypal.

It's a wonderful bookstore.

I add any paperbacks which are not good enough to sell to the shelves of the patients lounge at the local rehab hospital a few times a year.

The slightly racy ones are very popular with the older men. Jilly Cooper goes down a treat.

Most places won't even take them. My friend lived in Chicago and she couldn't give them to the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, numerous homeless shelter and the Chicago Library wouldn't take them either.

Shipping means unless you have a rare collector's edition, it's not worth it to even try to sell it, as you won't break even.

I would donate them. I have donated thousands of books, including to prisoners. There's an organization in my city that handles that. The main books the prisoners wanted were gay books, popular detective fiction, and paperback cookbooks.

Do you have craigslist, or an equivalent, in Australia?

Yes, we have gumtree. That’s a thought, actually.

the paperbacks, especially recent ones (past 20 years) or mass market ones that have not turned yellow, you can just recycle. will that cut into the pile quite a bit?

I want to make money, even if it’s $1 per book that’s $2000 for me.

Here's a really cute booktuber whose collection probably has over 10,000 books in his collection, including mass market paperbacks. I can not figure out how he's had the chance to read most of them.