Easiest way to sell books

A question about : Easiest way to sell books

I have 100's of books to sell - basic fiction paperbacks. I can see from the forums that there are a number of places such as Amazon & Ebay where these can be sold but as I work full time it isn't always easy to get to the post office and there are obviously fees to pay.

What I am looking for is peoples opinions on the easiest way to sell them and taking into account fees, p&p etc which actually gets the best return.

Something like the book equivalent of music magpie would be ideal - I know they don't pay a lot but it means that you know what you will get for them in advance, you have no outlay and you can send them all in one go.

All advice and opinions welcome

Thank you

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Best answers:

• Not sure about fees on Amazon but eBay and Amazon are your best options they deal with massive search results on books. For fast sales those 2 are the best way to go.
  Ebay you will have your standard listing fees, for postage charges you can pass this on to the customer.
• With Amazon you don't pay to list, just when you sell.
• A site that was recommended in the Daily Express on January 1st is https://www.greenmetropolis.com/ You list your books at a set price, with the postage included in the cost so that both seller and buyer know what the costs involved will be. For larger/thicker books you can choose to set your own postage cost, but for normal sized paperbacks the site has worked out all costs based on the weight. You don't even need to describe the books - they have them all done for you already!
  They also donate 5p from every book sale to the Woodland Trust, so you're helping a good cause too
  I haven't used the site yet but plan to when I get around to selling some books (clothes and candles are on my list for the moment hehe).
  There are a few other sites who offer a similar service if you google for book selling, or similar search words.
• I've used green metropolis, they are very good.
• I use a mix of Amazon, Ebay and Greenmwtropolis although for recent paperback novels I just recycle them as they are very difficult to sell for a profit as Amazon tends to get flooded with hundreds of 1p copies.
  To sell a lot of in bulk very quickly the best way has got to be an indoor boot sale. Load your car up, hire a table at a local indoor sale and sell the lot cheaply.
• A boot sale may be a good option for me. I really don't have the time to be parceling them up and going to the Post Office every few days and I expect that buyers would want them to be sent out promptly.
  Thanks for all the replies so far
• If you will struggle to post them off to people then a car boot sale may be the best option. Maybe worth checking that you arent giving away any gems that would go for millions on ebay first though
• we have a local second hand book shop that buys books, mainly under 50p each but some a bit more, we have even done this as a fundraiser for school where people send in unwanted books then i took them to him and got Ј10-Ј20 a box for them
  you may get more at a car boot and definitely easier than ebay but it all depends on how much time you want to put in and how much you expect to get.
• ejunkie will be a good option.
• liebe911 please remove the link from your signature
• I always sell on auction sites. I hear what you are saying about fees and getting to the slow post office - but they get max exposure on so I always sell most things I list.
• GreenMetropolis is a great idea but can be very very slow to sell your books.
  I've done quite well on there in the past but currently still have about 300 books listed (all top-class condition and currently popular titles) and haven't had a sale since New Years Day
  If you want to clear your books quickly an indoor car boot sale is the way to go (can you guess from my username that I just love car boot sales???) but don't expect people to be prepared to pay much for them. At the last sale I went to I was selling 'as new' (carefully read once) top class paperbacks for 20 pence each or 3 for 50p. I was competing with another stall with similar condition books selling for 10p each
  Good Luck
• Just a thought, but have you considered setting up your own sales website and then advertising it locally? Or a self-service stall?
  One hassle when selling online, by whatever route, is cataloguing the stuff in the first place. There's a Mac program called Delicious Library that makes this job easier by turning your webcam into a scanner for books, CDs and DVDs -- anything with a UPC barcode. It sounds unlikely, but it works brilliantly. Unfortunately I don't know if there's a Windows equivalent.
• Hi there. So far I've only sold books on Amazon. I've only got 250 or so books to sell but I find it a bit annoying having to reenter the data to Amazon after 60 days when the listing expires. Is there a way of uploading a database or simple spreadsheet? I don't have MS Office Suite but I do have OpenOffice.
  Might the database be used to upload them onto Ebay too?
  Help much appreciated.
• Another query (sorry, couldn't edit last post). Is it better to use the 'buy it now' option on ebay or stick to the standard 99p start price? I expect there are no hard and fast rules but any help would be gratefully received.
• Don't bother selling them online - it'll take forever and cost a packet in selling fees plus the buyers will be put off by the postage costs. Find a nice friendly second hand bookshop and they'll tell you exactly how much they'll give you for them. Any that they don't want will only be good for the charity shop. You're best of selling them to a shop in an area which has an elderly demographic - they have time to read and don't mind second hand books (and don't go online to buy them!). You're lucky you have paperback fiction - they're not keen on reading hardbacks - too heavy to lift in bed!
• You could try listing them on green metropolis and doing online postage through the Royal Mail website then just popping them in the post box. That saves standing in post office queues