Lynn’s eBay Ezine Volume IV, Issue Number 41

It sold to South Korea and has been paid for and shipped off. I even purchased insurance for it on Auctiva!!!!

Here is the email that I got from Serena this week, (a 2007 La Quinta Live Boot Camp Grad). Awesome information. Thanks to Serena! Please check out her eBay store here.

Hi Lynn,

I was listening to your CD of the call with Joel Elad recently and thought I’d share some thoughts with you on selling books on eBay. Some of this stuff I’ve learned through trial and error and some of it I’ve learned from other booksellers.

I mainly sell in two categories, children’s books and cookbooks. Some of the info I’ll be relaying are specific to a category and some are general to book selling on eBay. I’ve not tried selling outside eBay, so it may be different for Amazon, Alibris, or Abe Books.

Remember what your grandmother was always saying, and what you teach us over and over again? People are trying to relive their childhoods by buying things that remind them of their youth. Well, it’s true with books, too, especially with children’s books, which is why I collect and sell them :0) If you remember a book from childhood that brings back warm memories, buy it! In this case, go for the hardbacks instead of paperbacks. If there is a dust jacket, even better!

As you probably know, a lot of adults are buying things for their children that they had when they were little. Most children’s books sell for $9.99, so I won’t pay more than $2 a book. I’ve heard from another seller that pop-up books in good condition and vintage children’s books with really good illustrations sell well. People will buy the latter just for the illustrations, so it’s a good idea to include a sampling of the illustrations in your listing.

A recent children’s book listing from Serena.

[Please click here to see how much it sold for. More than the usual $9.99. Way to go Serena!]

As for cookbooks, I am a cookbook lover and collector myself, so I am always on the look-out for cookbooks. Ones to look out for are those written by a Food Network star, ones with lots of full color photos, especially dessert cookbooks, ones about more obscure cuisines in which not a whole lot has been written (e.g., Scandinavian, Russian, etc, especially Scandinavian), and ones that are of historical interest.

Community/fundraising/church cookbooks sell well if you pay no more than $0.25 each and you sell them in a lot. I’ve found that any book, especially baking books, that contain recipes that people remember their mothers or grandmothers making for them when they were children, tend to sell. (Remember what you said about reliving our childhoods?) A lot of times, people will want to pass on the experience of baking with their mothers/grandmothers to their own children.

There was a story about a woman a few years ago who discovered a book of handwritten dessert recipes from a woman of another generation. She created several cookbooks with those recipes, and the books sold like hotcakes.

For cookbooks that are filled with photos, I like to show a sampling of them in my listings. Even one would be good. Like children’s books, I focus on hardback editions and try not to pay more than $2 per cookbook, unless it’s rare and in demand.

Here is a cookbook that Serena recently sold. Visit the auction here to see how cute her template listing is from Auctiva.