Why You Shouldn’t Depend On Some Specific Books To Sell On Amazon

Are you looking to start your Amazon book business? or already in the biz and just being curious about what books you can sell on Amazon to make some money? Either way, I would like to congratulate you on taking the decision on selling books on Amazon because If I am making some money selling books on Amazon you can as well.

As a matter of fact, selling books on Amazon is one of the best businesses I have done online. You can find opportunities to make some profits that will amaze you. Imagine you come across a book selling for about $10.00 and on Amazon you see a “window” to sell that same book for $60.00. I am not just picking numbers from thin air but writing out of my first-hand experience.

By the way, I would like to let you know you might not have the same experience as me but I can guarantee you, yours can still be amazing and even better.

In 2010 a total of 15.6 million hardcover books were sold on Amazon alone (1).

Annual book sales revenue on Amazon in 2014 was estimated to a $5.2 billion which means 7% of the annual total sales revenue of Amazon for that year which was at a $75 billion, comes from book sales. (1a) Now many years have gone by, have you ever thought of what piece of the pie your small amazon bookstore can get for you today?

It has also been stated the revenue from the global publishing market is believe to increase from $113 billion (2015) to $123 billion by the year 2020. Which are just to show there will be more than a lot of money to be made by selling books be it on Amazon or any other platforms out there.

Let’s say we don’t want to be greedy in any way and we just want to settle for 0.01% for just a billion-dollar every year. Do you have any idea how much you will be making? A $100,000 USD annually. Wouldn’t you go to bed at night and sleep like a baby knowing you have secured a new source of income?

With all this information, I am just trying to let you know it is possible to make money selling books on Amazon, But what I will also like to let you know is, you don’t need some specific books to sell to make money.

I don’t know much about the other items being sold on Amazon but when it comes to the Amazon book market space, it is very volatile and ever-changing. You cannot succeed in selling books on Amazon by assuming some specific books will guarantee your success.

What I am trying to say is, with an ever-changing marketplace you should let the market determine what books you can sell and make money. You cannot just assume a book will sell but rather have a peep at the market and see what the possibilities can be to sell a book and for the desired profits.

There are many variables and factors that can determine the sale of a book and it is these same factors that will guide you in deciding what books you can sell and what books you cannot sell.

You should also, understand the conditions for a book today, will not be the same tomorrow, next week, next month and even the next year.

I have seen so many amazing things in the book business but what I have not seen is a seller having just a specific set of books that he is selling and making money. Unless this seller is just printing these books from his/her living room and just keep reselling them until the book is not in demand anymore.

As a bookseller, we spend most of our time sourcing books to sell and one of the reasons we can’t just build a specific list to keep selling is due to the fact that the books we find today will not be there tomorrow. The price might not be suitable for a resell, the sales rank must have gone up and you worry if the book will sell within your desired time frame and many other factors that contribute to our buying decision.

So what determines the book you can sell at any point in time is the market. For this reason, you will always find booksellers referring to the market condition for a specific book before they decide if they can go ahead and buy a specific book or look for another opportunity.

Here are some factors that can determine what books we can sell to make money.

Price

Price is one of the key factors you need to consider before deciding to make a purchase of a book to re-sell. What you need to ask is at this price, will you be able to make a profit if you decide to buy a book to re-sell? In other to get this information you will have to refer to the market. At what price is this book selling on Amazon? If the competition is against you, then it will not be wise to buy the book.

Sales Rank

Sales rank is another key factor that says a lot about if a book can be sold and how soon can that be? The sales rank tells us how fast a book can sell. Sales ranks in the Amazon marketplace are never stable. They are ever-changing which makes it difficult to maintain the same flow of sales for a specific book especially if you are only stocking specific books.

Season

Textbooks sell all year round but more sales are experienced during textbook seasons. Typical textbook seasons are experienced during the periods of late August to mid-September and late January to early February. During these periods, your interest in books will be on textbooks the market indicates will sell during this period. But during offseasons, looking at the market you will be reluctant to buy certain books that only sell best during the textbook season.

A Huge Variety of Opportunities

When sourcing books to resell, you often come across opportunities for profitable books. Every day in the book business comes in with new buying opportunities. You can come across your previously sold books but at that time these books might not be profitable to invest in. You will be coming across books you have never analyzed before, which can even be better than your previously sold books.

Supply

Since our main concern as individual sellers on Amazon is to source used books to re-sell for a profit, it will be quite difficult to have a regular supply of some specific books you are only willing to sell. If our business was solely to sell new books directly from the publishers, then we would have been able to sell just a specific set of books which obviously must be profitable. Since we are dealing with used books, the regular supply of a set of books will not be an option. It is possible to find multiple copies of a specific book but as I said earlier that opportunity will not be available every day.

Even if you managed to generate a list of books that you can always stock to make continuous sales, I must say it won’t be the best idea. New books are published every day. Schools change textbooks almost all the time. The textbook that was used last year or a couple of years back can be changed or a new edition might be available in the market which can cause you to have a book you can’t sell any more or even if you can, it might take some extra time.

Thinking about looking at just a specific type or genre of books?

If you are looking at just a specific genre or type of books to sell then you will be leaving money on the table. Going for just fiction books, or Non-fiction books will not be a good idea as you will be limiting yourself from tapping into the huge and varied book market.

The amount of opportunity available every day for books is limitless. If you are stepping into this business to make some money, then you don’t have to limit yourself or limiting your market.

The same will apply even if you decide to sell only textbooks or children’s books. Then a huge portion of the market will be left out. You will deprive yourself of making enormous gains from this business. We can simply describe such action as going to get water from the ocean with a teaspoon. Do you get the picture?

EndNote

The Amazon book business is comprised of limitless opportunities that will show up every day of your carrier as a bookseller. Some will be very profitable and some won’t be. The way to determine this is by letting the market tell you what books to buy and books not to buy.  The only important thing in this business is to buy the right books. The money made in this business is when we buy books and not when we sell them. So, it is very important not to assume or adopt a specific list of books to buy and sell but let the market be your sole guide. Share your thoughts by commenting below and we can only learn more from sharing.