[Michlib-l] Selling books online

[Christine Hage]

Our Friends of the Library have been selling books online for several years
and have had great success.  They've earned $17,000 so far THIS year.  It
is completely a volunteer operation and none of them had any special
training or experience in book selling.

Volunteers scan donations to the library and all library withdrawals.  The
scanner and its software costs us about $400 a year.  We recently got a
second scanner and because it was the second it was slightly less.  The
scanner matches the ISBN number against items on sale at Amazon, ABE and
maybe a few other databases.  If the item pops up as selling on line for
more than $10 we list it.

A separate team of 4 or 5 people who were self-taught and now train our new
volunteers do the listings.  We often can find the same book online and
don't have to come up with original posting information.  We make excellent
money on library withdrawals too.

Another team of volunteers have someone in every morning that handling the
packaging and shipping of materials.  We can have anywhere to 700 - 800
titles listed on Amazon at any one time.  We list them for 4 or 5 months
and then reduce the price if they aren't moving.

We have 100% satisfaction rating on Amazon.

It is a lot of work, but our volunteers love it.  They are able to sell a
lot books.  I would highly recommend online selling to you.


Christine Lind Garden , Library Director
Rochester Hills Public Library
500 Olde Towne Road
Rochester, MI 48307-2043
248/650-7122

Raising a reader is: Talking * Singing * Reading * Writing * Playing
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