A few days ago, a customer asked me whether or not the name they used for their online bookselling business mattered. Before being asked, I guess I never really gave it much thought. I do know that when I came up with my own bookseller name I opted not to use "Mould Books" for fear that buyers would cringe or be apprehensive just because of the name, even worse, I could have made sure nobody bought from me by using "Mouldy Books." Instead of dooming my business before i even got started, I chose veverkabooks; veverka is the Czech word for squirrel.
Recently, it has become apparent from sales data and orders of my book, placed by other booksellers, that there just might be something to be said for carefully choosing your bookseller name. Catchy and cute names for booksellers seem to be appealing to buyers and it seems to be independent of seller feedback ratings or how the marketplaces present the books offered. These sellers for the most part have similar feedback ratings, and all offer my book at the same price, but those selling the greatest number of copies all have catchy or cute names for their online bookselling business.
There just might be an attraction to buyers associated with catchy and/or cute bookseller names. So when you are considering a name for your bookseller identity, give it some thought. You might even take a look at the names of the booksellers offering a top selling novel and see if you find yourself attracted to one particular bookseller offering the book over others simply owing to name appeal.
Hey, if there is anything to the little data that I have seen that might give one bookseller an advantage over another owing simply to name appeal, it is at least worth considering when you come up with your own bookseller name.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
What Do You Get For Your Money?
When it comes to buying "How To" books, all of us at times get wrapped up in marketing hype and lose track of identifying what we really want in the way of information. So, while not wanting to put down any other book or author, and because I am not one to hype things, I will show you what you can expect from my book versus the other most popular books about selling books online, and I will let the numbers tell the story.
I also want to apologize for not being as effective at marketing as some other authors because I know that if you bought one of the more popular books on this subject, you still have questions that my book may have answered for you, if you knew about it and bought it in the first place.
The text statistics come from Amazon.com or are noted below. You can be the judge of which book provides more for your money and which is more popular because it is marketed better.
You might wonder how my book could be only 60 pages longer than the most popular book and have 89% more characters, over 100% more words, 69% more sentences, 36 photos, 37 graphs, charts, illustrations, and diagrams. You can also see similar differences between my book and the second most popular book on the subject with my book having only 54 more pages. Well, the answer is simple, my book is printed in a normal Times New Roman 9 point font instead of a large font that fills pages more quickly and makes a book seem like it has more than it does.
I also want to apologize for not being as effective at marketing as some other authors because I know that if you bought one of the more popular books on this subject, you still have questions that my book may have answered for you, if you knew about it and bought it in the first place.
The text statistics come from Amazon.com or are noted below. You can be the judge of which book provides more for your money and which is more popular because it is marketed better.
You might wonder how my book could be only 60 pages longer than the most popular book and have 89% more characters, over 100% more words, 69% more sentences, 36 photos, 37 graphs, charts, illustrations, and diagrams. You can also see similar differences between my book and the second most popular book on the subject with my book having only 54 more pages. Well, the answer is simple, my book is printed in a normal Times New Roman 9 point font instead of a large font that fills pages more quickly and makes a book seem like it has more than it does.
The plain and simple truth is that I am not as good at marketing my book as some other authors, they are masters of marketing. On the other hand, I am very much interested in my reputation and providing all of my customers with the best value for their money. That is why I opted to pack my book with more information, pictures to make what I write about clear, graphs, diagrams, illustrations, and charts to show comparisons, a CD with spreadsheets covering break even analysis, business growth planning, inventory forecasting, and bookkeeping to make taxes easier and the performance tracking of your business clear. I even host a free "customer only" forum where all of my customers can learn from each other and get follow-on questions answered by me and other experienced online booksellers.If you had difficulty before in deciding which book gives you the most information for your money, it should be clear now that with my book, you get:
1) Over twice as many words as the best selling book on this topic, and 90% more than the second best selling book.
2) Many more pictures, graphs, and diagrams than either of the best selling books
3) Free access to a "customer only" forum where you can interact and discuss the business with hundreds of other booksellers that is not offered by either of the best sellers.
4) A free CD included (a $29.99 value alone) that will help you keep your records, prepare your taxes easier, plan your business growth, determine your break-even point, provide you with monthly, quarterly, and annual summary reports, and show you exactly how your business is performing with 55 graphs and charts. Neither of the other books offers anything of the sort.
If all you are looking for is a pamphlet with an outline of the online bookselling business, one of the other books will suffice, but if you are serious about learning the business, the best alternative is Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips (ISBN 1427600708).
** There are no available numerical statistics for this book available online. I took my copy, counted words on several pages, and determined the numbers myself. There is a potential margin of error on the order of 5%.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Why Are Scanners Being Banned At Booksales?
A few people have recently asked me why some of the big book sales are banning scanners and it has been a topic of discussion in our forum as well.Some of the reasons I have read include a desire by some to curtail the profiteers (a.k.a. online booksellers) and assure that there are some good books left when the sale opens to the general public. Certainly, this hinders the online bookseller and limits the number of books that he/she is able to check, but I do not think this is the reason.
Another hypothesis I have heard is that booksellers rummaging through the books and scanning them leave the unwanted books in disarray, thus making more work for the volunteers to straighten out the mess, but I do not think this is the reason either.
Another hypothesis I have heard is that booksellers rummaging through the books and scanning them leave the unwanted books in disarray, thus making more work for the volunteers to straighten out the mess, but I do not think this is the reason either.
There are also some that believe the cashiers do not like ringing up hundreds of books for booksellers, but this does not make any sense because it is a lot easier to make one sale of hundreds of books to one buyer than to ring up two books for hundreds of customers, so I do not think this is the reason.
I do not doubt that there a people working the book sales and attending them that are jealous of dealers coming in and buying up the valuable books, and this probably does play into the decision to ban scanners, but I do not think it is the primary reason either.
I believe there is a genuine concern for safety. If you have ever been zapped in the eyes by a careless bookseller with a total disregard for where he/she is pointing their scanner, you know exactly what I mean. You will see spots and/or floaters for a good half hour. If exposed to a direct laser of the intensity of my HP 5P (class II) scanner, I do not doubt that you would suffer some permanent eye damage. I was personally zapped accidentally by someone using their scanner and I couldn't read ISBN's or the screen on my PDA for almost 45 minutes. I believe scanners are being banned from book sales because of liability issues and with our society being so focused on taking someone to court, the book sale organizers do not want to risk being held responsible for the actions of a careless bookseller.
As obnoxious as some of the booksellers I have seen can be, I wouldn't put it past some of them to intentionally zap me if for no other reason than to temporarily give them an edge in buying while my eyes recover.
Friday, December 8, 2006
Enter Microsoft - Another Player In The Online Bookselling Arena
Well, Microsoft is not really getting into the online bookselling arena - yet, but they did announce today that next week they will launch their Beta Book Search program. There isn't a lot of information available about it yet, but from the information that is available, it sounds like Microsoft is launching something similar to the Google book search program Froogle.
A distinct difference is that Microsoft is not intending to put all books in their system like Google initially announced. Microsoft intends to make available only books that are in the public domain and those specifically requested by publishers that are still copyright protected.
Where does all of this lead and why are Google and Microsoft interested in books? My suspicion - and it was arrived at by following the trail of money as it pertains to online bookselling - is that both will ultimately offer marketplaces similar to Amazon.com. Google has already launched Google Base and is allowing booksellers to list their Amazon.com inventory on Base, the next logical step is to develop a system for purchase/sale transaction completion through Base. Will Microsoft follow suit? Who knows, but they are about where Google was only a few years ago.
The big question for online booksellers is being answered right before our eyes. Yes, there is a future in online bookselling as evidenced by more heavy hitters getting into the game and making some big investments to be players. It seems to me that marketplace growth is exceeding the number of new online booksellers, and with growth at Google and potentially similar opportunities to be offered by Microsoft in the future, it seems a very good time to be an online bookseller or at least getting into the business.
A distinct difference is that Microsoft is not intending to put all books in their system like Google initially announced. Microsoft intends to make available only books that are in the public domain and those specifically requested by publishers that are still copyright protected.
Where does all of this lead and why are Google and Microsoft interested in books? My suspicion - and it was arrived at by following the trail of money as it pertains to online bookselling - is that both will ultimately offer marketplaces similar to Amazon.com. Google has already launched Google Base and is allowing booksellers to list their Amazon.com inventory on Base, the next logical step is to develop a system for purchase/sale transaction completion through Base. Will Microsoft follow suit? Who knows, but they are about where Google was only a few years ago.
The big question for online booksellers is being answered right before our eyes. Yes, there is a future in online bookselling as evidenced by more heavy hitters getting into the game and making some big investments to be players. It seems to me that marketplace growth is exceeding the number of new online booksellers, and with growth at Google and potentially similar opportunities to be offered by Microsoft in the future, it seems a very good time to be an online bookseller or at least getting into the business.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Online Bookseller Tips - How Should Books be Packaged for Shipment?
The object of the packing materials used is to ensure that the contents, i.e., the book, arrive at the intended destination without damage, but what extremes are necessary?
The dilema facing most online booksellers is to find a sweet spot where the marketplace reimbursements completely cover the costs of packaging and shipping the books they sell. For penny booksellers, the postage margins are really a part of their business model and they rely on making a quarter to fifty cents per book from the postage paid, so packaging is even more important to them.
There are all kinds of ways to reduce your packaging costs, but there are consequences with most that usually mean spending more of your time packaging to save on spending for packaging materials. Some resourceful booksellers have found ways to recycle materials and have no real cost (except for tape) in their packaging of books. I have even resorted to fabricating boxes myself when I was faced with shipping a valuable book that would not conveniently fit into a box I already had, but this usually meant spending fifteen minutes to a half hour custom making a box. Doing this for a $100 book may seem worthwhile, but doing it for a $20 book can mean reducing the value of my time to minimum wage.
Still, there is a lot to be said for being creative and coming up with ways to adequately and efficiently package your books while minimizing your costs.
Back when online bookselling first started, there were buyers that would not accept books packaged in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes; they insisted on corrugated book packs.. Books sent to them in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes were returned. Today, the norm is a self-sealing bubble pack envelope which sufficiently protects most books, but does not suffice for more valuable books and is really deficient for many hard cover books for two principle reasons. First, a bubble pack envelope will not protect the corners of a hard cover book from being bumped, and we all know that once our books are turned over to the Post Office, they are tossed into large containers with much bigger and heavier items like refrigerators, boat anchors, and other well packaged bricks. This inevitably leads to damaged corners on hard backed books. The second reason that bubble pack envelopes do not suffice for some hard backs is that the corners of the book are sharp and they tear through the envelope. This can lead to corner bumps as described above, or worse, continued tearing of the envelope and the escape of the book.
For all of these reasons and scenarios, you need to evaluate each book you sell and determine what the appropriate packaging should be, or you need to take the profit hit and provide boxes/bookfolds for all of your books.
Personally, I prefer to strike a balance that results in the maximum protection for the books with minimal demand of my time. This means that the majority of my books are packed in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes, while the smallest and least valuable books are wrapped in clean newsprint paper and shipped in manilla envelopes and the more valuable and bigger books are put in either a custom fitting box, or a suitable available box.
Another step in preparing your books for shipment that is appreciated by customers and added protection for your book against moisture is thin film stretch wrap. This is much like the clear plastic wrap used for leftover food that stretches and clings to the sides of food storage containers. The cost is probably on the order of a penny per book and you can buy this kind of stretch wrap in three inch widths from most industrial suppliers. I like to wrap all new books with this with the customer receipt on the cover of the book.
When you are making the decisions for your business and how you will package books for shipment, think about how you would want the book to arrive if you were the buyer. If you do not provide the level of shipping protection for your books that your customers expect, you can expect negative feedback, so if you opt to use cheaper shipping materials, make sure you are not cutting too much cost out and giving your customers the wrong impression.
The dilema facing most online booksellers is to find a sweet spot where the marketplace reimbursements completely cover the costs of packaging and shipping the books they sell. For penny booksellers, the postage margins are really a part of their business model and they rely on making a quarter to fifty cents per book from the postage paid, so packaging is even more important to them.
There are all kinds of ways to reduce your packaging costs, but there are consequences with most that usually mean spending more of your time packaging to save on spending for packaging materials. Some resourceful booksellers have found ways to recycle materials and have no real cost (except for tape) in their packaging of books. I have even resorted to fabricating boxes myself when I was faced with shipping a valuable book that would not conveniently fit into a box I already had, but this usually meant spending fifteen minutes to a half hour custom making a box. Doing this for a $100 book may seem worthwhile, but doing it for a $20 book can mean reducing the value of my time to minimum wage.
Still, there is a lot to be said for being creative and coming up with ways to adequately and efficiently package your books while minimizing your costs.
Back when online bookselling first started, there were buyers that would not accept books packaged in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes; they insisted on corrugated book packs.. Books sent to them in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes were returned. Today, the norm is a self-sealing bubble pack envelope which sufficiently protects most books, but does not suffice for more valuable books and is really deficient for many hard cover books for two principle reasons. First, a bubble pack envelope will not protect the corners of a hard cover book from being bumped, and we all know that once our books are turned over to the Post Office, they are tossed into large containers with much bigger and heavier items like refrigerators, boat anchors, and other well packaged bricks. This inevitably leads to damaged corners on hard backed books. The second reason that bubble pack envelopes do not suffice for some hard backs is that the corners of the book are sharp and they tear through the envelope. This can lead to corner bumps as described above, or worse, continued tearing of the envelope and the escape of the book.
For all of these reasons and scenarios, you need to evaluate each book you sell and determine what the appropriate packaging should be, or you need to take the profit hit and provide boxes/bookfolds for all of your books.
Personally, I prefer to strike a balance that results in the maximum protection for the books with minimal demand of my time. This means that the majority of my books are packed in self-sealing bubble pack envelopes, while the smallest and least valuable books are wrapped in clean newsprint paper and shipped in manilla envelopes and the more valuable and bigger books are put in either a custom fitting box, or a suitable available box.
Another step in preparing your books for shipment that is appreciated by customers and added protection for your book against moisture is thin film stretch wrap. This is much like the clear plastic wrap used for leftover food that stretches and clings to the sides of food storage containers. The cost is probably on the order of a penny per book and you can buy this kind of stretch wrap in three inch widths from most industrial suppliers. I like to wrap all new books with this with the customer receipt on the cover of the book.
When you are making the decisions for your business and how you will package books for shipment, think about how you would want the book to arrive if you were the buyer. If you do not provide the level of shipping protection for your books that your customers expect, you can expect negative feedback, so if you opt to use cheaper shipping materials, make sure you are not cutting too much cost out and giving your customers the wrong impression.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
What are the Best Kinds of Books to Sell as an Online Bookseller?
Many online booksellers like to specialize in a particular type or theme such as, rare books, first editions, or just about any other category you can imagine, but there is definitely a best way to go.
Like any other business or investment, the objective is to make a proft, so the best books to sell online are the ones you can get cheap and sell at much higher prices. This is much easier said than done, which is why some booksellers opt to specialize.
Because the assumed objective of all online booksellers is to turn a profit and find homes for books in need, a better question to ask might be, "Why do some booksellers specialize?"
Of the booksellers that specialize, most do so because they know one type of book better than other types. A popular theme is children's books. If someone has children or spends time with children, they may know which types of children's books are more valuable than other types and they may feel more comfortable dealing exclusively in that category. Still other online booksellers are very good at identifying and locating first editions or rare books. What does seem to be a central theme with booksellers that specialize in one category or another is more knowledge about their category of specialty.
Still, most online booksellers do not specialize, they just find books that will resell at prices higher than what they have to pay for them. This does not mean they do not know anything about specialized categories, it just means they are willing to sell books in any category where there is a profit to be had. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach, as this is exactly what bookstores and even publishers have done for years.
Another question might be whether it is a good idea to exclude particular categories. There are probably as many arguments in support of excluding categories as there are against doing it. Personally, unless I have a lot of time that I want to waste (maybe an hour each year), I avoid romance, cookbooks, book club editions, promotional books (Advance Reading Copies, principally because so many marketplaces prohibit the sale of this type of book) and popular novels. I am sure I have passed over some real gems in all of these categories, but my experiences in the past suggest I will be spending hours going through them only to find nothing of value. However, I know a few booksellers that make a nice living in these categories by finding valuable first editions and/or sets of books by a particular author that can be auctioned for considerable profit.
To be a successful online bookseller, you need only find a sufficient quantity of books that will sell online for a profit and to continue to add to your inventory more books than you sell. What value a book has to you is not really relevant if you want to sell it, the only thing that matters is its demand and what a customer is willing to pay for it. That said, I would encourage you to specialize if there is a category that you know well, but even then, if and only if you can find adequate inventory that will sell. It might be a lot of fun to specialize in a category of interest to you, but if you do not sell the books, you are not an online bookseller; you are a collector building a personal library.
Like any other business or investment, the objective is to make a proft, so the best books to sell online are the ones you can get cheap and sell at much higher prices. This is much easier said than done, which is why some booksellers opt to specialize.
Because the assumed objective of all online booksellers is to turn a profit and find homes for books in need, a better question to ask might be, "Why do some booksellers specialize?"
Of the booksellers that specialize, most do so because they know one type of book better than other types. A popular theme is children's books. If someone has children or spends time with children, they may know which types of children's books are more valuable than other types and they may feel more comfortable dealing exclusively in that category. Still other online booksellers are very good at identifying and locating first editions or rare books. What does seem to be a central theme with booksellers that specialize in one category or another is more knowledge about their category of specialty.
Still, most online booksellers do not specialize, they just find books that will resell at prices higher than what they have to pay for them. This does not mean they do not know anything about specialized categories, it just means they are willing to sell books in any category where there is a profit to be had. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach, as this is exactly what bookstores and even publishers have done for years.
Another question might be whether it is a good idea to exclude particular categories. There are probably as many arguments in support of excluding categories as there are against doing it. Personally, unless I have a lot of time that I want to waste (maybe an hour each year), I avoid romance, cookbooks, book club editions, promotional books (Advance Reading Copies, principally because so many marketplaces prohibit the sale of this type of book) and popular novels. I am sure I have passed over some real gems in all of these categories, but my experiences in the past suggest I will be spending hours going through them only to find nothing of value. However, I know a few booksellers that make a nice living in these categories by finding valuable first editions and/or sets of books by a particular author that can be auctioned for considerable profit.
To be a successful online bookseller, you need only find a sufficient quantity of books that will sell online for a profit and to continue to add to your inventory more books than you sell. What value a book has to you is not really relevant if you want to sell it, the only thing that matters is its demand and what a customer is willing to pay for it. That said, I would encourage you to specialize if there is a category that you know well, but even then, if and only if you can find adequate inventory that will sell. It might be a lot of fun to specialize in a category of interest to you, but if you do not sell the books, you are not an online bookseller; you are a collector building a personal library.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Beware of Increased Fraud During Holidays
The holidays are here and they bring with them some good and bad for online booksellers. The good part is that the holidays normally bring an increase in sales volume, the bad part is an increase in fraud activity.
For most online booksellers that accept orders only through the major marketplaces, e.g., Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Abebooks.com, Half.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc., there is not too much to worry about with respect to credit card fraud, but you should still take some precautions, particularly for those expensive books ordered by overseas customers.
A frequent scam involves the purchasing of expensive books (e.g., law books, medical books, and specialized engineering books) using a stolen credit card. The card is initially accepted, but once the book has been shipped, problems arise.
If you ship internationally and sell valuable books, keep a record of the Customs form number (it is printed on your Post Office receipt) since no other tracking method is really viable for international orders. You could pay for registered or certified deliveries, and they will certainly confirm delivery, but the Customs form will do the same.
Typically, you will be covered by the marketplace that accepts the credit card, but it is wise to keep the record in case there is any dispute.
A mistake that many new online booksellers make is responding to the offers of buyers asking to purchase from you through an off-site payment service like PayPal. If you do this, you risk having your marketplace account suspended for circumventing the marketplace, and if the off-site purchase indicates the sale is not covered by seller protection, you risk losing the book, the shipping fees, and a credit card chargeback fee if the card turns out to be stolen.
I am not suggesting that you not accept international orders during the holiday season, I only want to make sure you are aware of possible fraud. In five years of online bookselling, I have not been stung by a fraudulent international order, and I don’t want you to be either.
For most online booksellers that accept orders only through the major marketplaces, e.g., Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Abebooks.com, Half.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc., there is not too much to worry about with respect to credit card fraud, but you should still take some precautions, particularly for those expensive books ordered by overseas customers.
A frequent scam involves the purchasing of expensive books (e.g., law books, medical books, and specialized engineering books) using a stolen credit card. The card is initially accepted, but once the book has been shipped, problems arise.
If you ship internationally and sell valuable books, keep a record of the Customs form number (it is printed on your Post Office receipt) since no other tracking method is really viable for international orders. You could pay for registered or certified deliveries, and they will certainly confirm delivery, but the Customs form will do the same.
Typically, you will be covered by the marketplace that accepts the credit card, but it is wise to keep the record in case there is any dispute.
A mistake that many new online booksellers make is responding to the offers of buyers asking to purchase from you through an off-site payment service like PayPal. If you do this, you risk having your marketplace account suspended for circumventing the marketplace, and if the off-site purchase indicates the sale is not covered by seller protection, you risk losing the book, the shipping fees, and a credit card chargeback fee if the card turns out to be stolen.
I am not suggesting that you not accept international orders during the holiday season, I only want to make sure you are aware of possible fraud. In five years of online bookselling, I have not been stung by a fraudulent international order, and I don’t want you to be either.
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