My Amazon Book Selling World

Selling books Amazon FBA has never been a dream carrier for me but It was a decision I will never regret taking. Starting my own business and working for me has always been my story. I realized the internet was the best place to start with.

It was not any stress for me back in the days as it may be to some other people with limited computer skills as I have always been learning and researching online. I have also tried other ventures online and I currently run my own EMC (Export Management business) prior to selling books FBA.

Despite any engagement, I always keep my eyes open for any new business opportunities I can jump in and make some extra cash. With my never-ending curiosity with what’s the next thing, I can do? I stumbled on a seminar on selling books Amazon FBA.

During the call, I was able to see how easy it was to flip books for some extra cash and I went all in and took the offer to start selling books on Amazon.  I bought the program to source books online and started the training as I was “brand new” in the business.

Selling Books Amazon FBA A Rewarding Experience?

Well just as with any other business, I made some mistakes, bought the wrong books, fail to understand the fundamentals and was almost ready to give up. I was so excited with my head fixed up to the “dangling profit” and I forgot to master the steps for the guaranteed success. What kept me was the success of other group members.

I decided to slow down and start all over again. Step by step, day in day out, decided to learn something new each day and implement immediately, which slowly but surely kept me on track.

I went back and build my foundation and looked out for all the things I will need to achieve the desired success. I decided not to only sell books but to read from the resources of successful booksellers.

Tip # 1 Get A Mentor

In the beginning, I was reluctant to take my book venture as an actual business. I had no strategy in place. I just wanted to buy books I can sell, send them in and get the cash to supplement my monthly income. But once I changed my perception of the business a lot changed with it.

Tip # 2 Get The Right Mindset

I decided to buy books every single day and concentrated on building a valuable inventory.  Since I am an international seller, I can only buy my books online so I spent a few hours every day scanning amazon pages for books I can buy.  Through the continuous exercise of buying books, I learned how to buy the right books I can re-sell.

I learned in the book business, you only make money when you buy. If you buy right and at the best price your profits will always be guaranteed. The right buying strategy will bring in all the profit you need.

Tip # 3 Set A Flexible Strategy

As I mentioned above, I am an international seller on Amazon. Many people wonder how on earth can that be possible selling books in the US while you are very far away on another continent and without even touching the books.

I know the majority of people selling books on Amazon are locally based sellers but it is also possible to sell books on Amazon from anywhere in the world and still make some decent amount of cash.

Here is how it works, I buy my books online and send them to a prep service where my books are prepared for $1 per book and ship to Amazon. Amazon on its part provides fulfillment centers where the books are kept until an order is made.

Tip # 4 Buy at least one book every day.

When an order comes through, Amazon takes care of fulfillment, packaging, shipping and customer service for me.  This makes it very possible for me to relax on a beach in Asia drinking Corona beer without worrying about my business.

The maximum I can spend a day for my book business is just 3 hours. For some days just an hour making sure I am staying competitive by re-pricing. All I need to do is just to buy books when I have the time and all the rest is done for me.

Tip # 5 Re-price and stay competitive.

In my book business, I spend the majority of my time sourcing books online on Amazon and re-pricing my current listings. My typical book business day can max 3 hours if I decide to source books to trade directly to Amazon.

Let me break down my complete activities for my book business. Once I get up in the morning I will check my seller central account for sales on that day. Since I currently based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we are at least 11 -12 hours ahead. Which means, 7 am in Kuala Lumpur will be approximately 6 or 7 pm in the US.

During this time businesses are rounding up in the US so I check my sales for that day. Then, I will spend 1 hour scanning Amazon pages for possible trade-ins. Trade-in is a program offered by Amazon whereby you can buy books and trade them to Amazon for an immediate gift card balance.

Tip #6 Use the Trade-in Program to raise extra capital.

As I look out for possible trade-ins, I also keep an eye on profitable buy and sell offers. Once done, I will focus on sourcing books for re-selling FBA. I can buy at least 10 books within an hour and sometimes up to 15 books a day. If I stumble on a honeypot, then I keep buying until I run out of offers.

My final hour allocated for my book business is spent re-pricing my current offers and making any adjustments and account maintenance.

A typical day for a US based seller will not look exactly like mine if they carry out offline sourcing. Offline sourcing can be through garage sales, Library sales, visiting thrift stores and other sources for inventory.

A part-time US base seller can take a few hours after work to source books from the available sourcing outlets in his/her area and use more of the weekends to source the majority of their inventory.

A full-time US seller can spend few hours during the day sourcing book at least 4 hours depending on the available opportunities and spend about 2 hours listing books on their seller central account and another 3 hours at the end of the week to prepare and ship the books to Amazon.

Tip # 7 Keep sending in books on a regular basis.

All the hassle of sales, delivery and customer service becomes the duty of Amazon at this time. Once the books are becoming active for sale on Amazon, all you need to do is to re-price to stay competitive and start counting your sales. More sales will be made from re-pricing and staying competitive.

I have only been doing this for over a year now and I am already making 5 figure sales. My long-term goal is to be able to make 7 figures in sales by 2020. I am looking forward to hiring some extra hands to take over the sourcing side of the business by the end of the year. Hiring “mercenaries” whom I can train to bring in at least 1000 books a week will be the next best option. That sounds like becoming a mega-seller. But to achieve my long-term goals, I do not have any other choice.

Now Here Are Some My Good Experiences and Bad Experiences.

During the whole year on selling books on Amazon, I have had some good experiences and some bad ones along the way. But I will like to start with the good ones.

Over the year, I have been able to break even and standing on a 113% ROI so far. The moment I came across selling books on Amazon I realized it was a no-brainer and would never have reconciled with myself if I had passed on the offer.

I have been able to make up to 518 % ROI on a single sale. This was a case where I bought a book for $5.99 with an additional prep service fee of $2.5 which sum it to a cost of $8.49. This book was sold for $71.09. After Amazon fees ($18.58) and the cost of the book, I was left with $44.02 as profit.

A few months ago I decided not to go below a 100% ROI on any sales made. This was immediately after I mastered the art of buying the right books. These values may not be the same for you but It is 100 percent possible. I know sellers who are doing much better than me. The key is to buy right because that is when you make the money

Tip # 7 Buy low sell high

Another good experience was being able to hit 5 figures in sales during the August/September textbook season. A goal I had set for the year which I considered a very huge development in my bookselling carrier on Amazon. Before the August/ September textbook season of the year 2018, my highest sales in a month was $8872 (June 2018).

I was able to sell a total of 220 books in the month of June which gave me the assurance I am on the right track.  As of this day, ( 10 of October 2018) I have made a total annual sale of $96641

but in the month of September 2018, I made $33086 which makes about one-third of my annual sales. This enabled me to increase my inventory by 200% which implies more sales and profits.

I started the book business with very limited capital, so the early months were slow coupled with a series of mistakes but today it is rewarding

Another great experience was being able to make $986.00 in a single day with the Amazon trade-in program. I spent at least 1-hour scanning for available trade-in opportunities. Trade-in sometimes can be hard to find and will not show up every day. But there are peak periods whereby you can make all the money you need to invest in your book business.

This is one of the ways I raised capital for my book business and even though my business can survive from my sales revenue, I still once in a while go around looking for trade-in opportunities.

Now let me share some bad experiences

When I started selling books on Amazon, I got so excited for such a great opportunity and went right in spending thousands of dollars buying textbooks during the textbook season which was August of last year.

Textbook seasons are peak periods where books prices are at the highest. With my little knowledge in the business, I was going crazy and buying at the worst prices.

Tip # 8 Never Rush A New Business. Take your time to learn all there is to learn.

Due to my poor buying experience, I was hit with a long-term storage fee of over $167 in the month of August.  I made a mistake buying the wrong books at the wrong price which made it impossible to sell. These books have been sitting over in Amazons warehouse for over a year and I have to be paying long-term storage fees until they are completely sold out.

Tip # 9 Learn how to buy the right books

Another poor experience was Amazon placing a couple of my books as restricted despite the fact that the books have been in their inventory already. Normally, before listing any books, I make sure to confirm I can sell that specific book.

But Amazon has the sole right to restrict me from selling specific books even after I have listed them.

Tip # 10 Get Useful Tools and Resources

There you get it, a complete feel of how I run my book business without even touching a single book. Leave a comment below with your experience selling books on Amazon.

Which would you prefer to become? a full-time seller or part-time seller? Will you prefer to source offline, online or both if you are a US based seller? How does your bookselling world feels like?