The eBay Book Guy

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2011-02-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

New Item Condition Listings from eBay

2010-07-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

Got a new newsletter out with a “hot” tip on getting a ton of brand new free books to sell. The trick is, you have to make friends with your local librarian or bookseller, and you have to go to New York.
Email me at Bookguy@ebaybookguy.com and I’ll send you a copy.
In other news, eBay is punching up their Item Descriptions with a new Condition category.
Here’s the skinny from eBay:
“A more descriptive set of item condition values is being introduced in many categories. In selected categories, sellers will be required to specify item condition in most listings over the coming months.
The good news is that if you use Turbo Lister, the newer versions have the item conditions ready-made for your item. The bad news is, if you have a hundred listings in the old format, you’ll have to fix them. EBay has promised changes to the bulk editing tool already in use to allow you to make changes more easily.
More bad news: even if you already use the “item condition” description currently in use on eBay, you’ll have to edit your ads for the new one. The old condition descriptions will not “map” to the new categories.

Here’s a link to an eBay video with some explanations:

For you booksellers the new item condition category is the same as the previous one, it’s just in a new location. Here are eBay’s definitions:
Brand New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages. See the seller's listing for full details.
Like New: A book that looks new but has been read. Cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket (if applicable) is included for hard covers. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, and no underlining/highlighting of text or writing in the margins. May be very minimal identifying marks on the inside cover. Very minimal wear and tear.
Very Good: A book that does not look new and has been read but is in excellent condition. No obvious damage to the cover, with the dust jacket (if applicable) included for hard covers. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, and no underlining/highlighting of text or writing in the margins. May be very minimal identifying marks on the inside cover. Very minimal wear and tear.
Good: A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including scuff marks, but no holes or tears. The dust jacket for hard covers may not be included. Binding has minimal wear. The majority of pages are undamaged with minimal creasing or tearing, minimal pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. No missing pages.
Acceptable: A book with obvious wear. May have some damage to the cover but integrity still intact. The binding may be slightly damaged but integrity is still intact. Possible writing in margins, possible underlining and highlighting of text, but no missing pages or anything that would compromise the legibility or understanding of the text.

Selling Books: eBay or Listing Sites?

2010-05-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

You’ve got three choices when it comes to selling your books online: your own website, book listing services or eBay. We’ll look at the last two briefly.

Book Listing services

A book listing service is just as its name implies: a directory of books for sale. They make money when you list your book, when you sell your book, or both. But you can list your books for years with no additional fee. Amazon, ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) and Alibris, generate the lion's share of sales.
Amazon has been a great platform for selling new and in-print books, and now has expanded into hosting rare and out-of-print books (A friend of mine, owner of a brick and mortar science fiction and fantasy bookstore, has remained in business because Amazon refers customers to him).
ABE (Advanced Book Exchange), is the largest of the out-of-print and rare bookselling venues, claiming 13,000 dealers listing 70 million books. Alibris is another major player.
Both ABE and Alibris offer their sellers "affiliate programs," wherein the seller's books are computer listed for sale in all Barnes & Noble stores, library and international sites.
The listing services allow the seller to run a book store in a worldwide marketplace for a tiny fraction of the cost of maintaining a brick and mortar store.
One problem is that more and more people are listing their books, and book prices are going down.
Another problem is that books sell slowly on the listing services. The vast majority of books take months or years to sell.
The book listing services are best suited for sellers with big inventories or other sources of income.

eBay Auctions

Although Amazon recently outranked them in daily searches, eBay remains a giant competitor in online bookselling. People who’d never think of browsing Bookfinder or Alibris have eBay bookmarked in their browser. If I want a certain book, it’s the first place I look.
At this point a majority, if not the vast majority, of online booksellers list at least some of their wares in eBay auctions. eBay works, and it works quickly. Books that can take years to sell on the listing services can be sold in seven days or less on eBay. eBay shoppers are more ready to click on the ‘Buy’ button than those who use the book listing services.
eBay auctions quick turnover allows a seller to sell more, generating profits that can be used to purchase other books. eBay, at any given time, enjoys huge traffic on its site and users who are ready to buy. Also, many eBay book buyers do not check for book availability outside of eBay, and this leads to bidding wars that can drive the selling price of a book to, and well above, retail.
Some problems: books auctioned on eBay sell for a lot less than on the retail selling platforms
eBay is a crap shoot. Success in any area of eBay auctions depends on who is up and using the service at any given time, and it varies widely
The majority of listed books do not sell on eBay. The novice seller who buys a few boxes of common books at a flea market or auction and piles them indiscriminately onto eBay will lose money.
Learning what sells and what does not sell on eBay can be costly in time and money.
Listing eBay auctions is a time-consuming process. You can sell a whole bunch of $1-$10 books and be working for less than minimum wage.

In What Condition is Your Book? -- Some facts on grading

2010-04-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been selling your books for a while, you already know the importance of accurately describing the condition of your book. As much as any other element, your customers will come back to you again and again if your description of your book’s condition matches their views. Conversely, you will lose customers and get negative feedback if you misinform your buyers.

Here’s a rough guide to book conditions. For a more detailed description, buy my book, The Booksellers’ Guide to eBay Success, or visit any one of a number of bookselling websites:

Here are the main categories:

Pristine or Mint

Completely free from defects. Books and dust jackets graded Pristine or Mint are just that - new, unread books. Dealers often store these collectible volumes in plastic bags to protect them from damage.

F - Fine

As free from defects as possible. Books and dust jackets graded as Fine look like they have just come from the printer. These are virtually new books also, but perhaps have been opened or on a shelf. You will be hard pressed to find many used books in this condition.

NF - Near Fine

Minor defects, light wear, generally no open tears—small rips that don’t close by themselves—on the dust jacket. Small closed tears (say less than 1/2 inch), while they must be disclosed, are OK.

These books and dust jackets are much better than the average used book but they may be slightly scuffed. Please note that a Near Fine book can have other types of flaws. For example, a bookplate or a previous owner’s name written in the book are flaws but in an otherwise Fine book, the book may be rated as Near Fine. All flaws must be disclosed.

VG - Very Good

Show some signs of wear, some, perhaps more than one, closed tears, light soiling of pages or scuffing of dust jacket, etc.
This is the average used book after it has been read and passed from one reader to another. All major flaws such as loose bindings, slanted spines, or other damage (especially water damage) must be disclosed.

G - Good

This is commonly termed a "Reading Copy". It may be good for hauling to the beach to read, but contains flaws like rips and stains. Heavily worn, in other words.
This is the average used book after it has been read and passed through many people’s hands and not protected correctly. It may be sun faded, the spine may be slanted from improper storage, and the spine may actually be broken.

Finally...

Most eBay shoppers are looking for a good read, not a “Fine” copy, unless the book you’re selling is rare or valuable. You’ll find that 99 out of a hundred bidders are satisfied with a bare-bone “Book is in very good condition” description. But you still ought to know how to describe a really great book that comes your way.

Setting up an Amazon store

2010-04-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

In my newsletter, available via subscription at www.ebaybookguy.com, I’ve started talking about other bookselling markets, particularly Amazon. The thing I just discovered is that Amazon will set up a bookstore for you on your website, called an ‘aStore.’
This is cool. You can cross-promote the heck out of your business via Amazon, eBay and your website, plus plant your URL on your email sig to encourage people to visit. Offer new visitors free shipping on their first order. Collect their email addresses. Mention your sales on you eBay “About me” page.
The possibilities are limited only by your time and imagination.

eBay's half.com

2010-03-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

A subscriber asked me about Half.com. I used the site as a sales channel, but visit on occasion to check prices for books in my inventory. I’ll do some checking and see if there’s a newsletter article there.

Selling Books on Amazon

2010-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a new article in the upcoming Book Guy News about selling on Amazon. For your F*R*E*E sub, just drop by www.ebaybookguy.com.

The fact is that Amazon has been beating eBay in sales since October, 2009.
Amazon had 81,565,525 unique visitors in January of this year versus eBay’s 72,024,418. Also consider that many eBay visitors are sellers checking on their auctions. By and large, Amazon visitors are buyers.

Don’t give up your eBay store, but don’t neglect opportunities to market on more than one channel. You can offer the same books in both markets (just make sure you don’t sell the same book twice!). Prices for books on Amazon tend to be higher, but you have to run your own price comparisons on books in your inventory.

Amazon has no auctions; you offer all your books at a fixed price. You can test sales at a price, then change it at any time.

It costs nothing to list, and your listing is good for 60 days. At the end of that time, Amazon will send you an alert email. You can then renew it for another 60 days.
When you book sells, Amazon charges a $.99 fee plus a percentage – from 10% to 15% -- of your sale. Amazon deposits the money in the checking account you choose.
I haven’t been doing it long enough to say whether it’s a great sales channel yet, but I can tell you that hundreds of eBay sellers are selling on Amazon and are happy with it.

eBay Booksellers: Sell Your Books on Amazon, Too!

2010-01-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

Most eBay booksellers are focusing all their attention on eBay and missing out on some other bookselling opportunities. Amazon.com offers as large a global market and even more traffic... two factors that ought to persuade anyone now selling books.
In addition, although Amazon sells as much non-book items as eBay, it is without a doubt "America's biggest online bookstore." Amazon.com visitors are likely to be looking for books.
It's even easier than eBay to set up an account. If you've ever bought anything from Amazon (and who hasn't?) you're already in their database, so you can just sign up to open a store, pick a name. Mine is "The eBay Book Guy." So far Amazon hasn't complained.Your store choices are also a bit limited: You don't have much room for a description, and you can't post an image of your book, or links to other items, as you can in an eBay ad.
The next issue of my Book Guy News will have a complete "how-to" for opening an Amazon store.

Your phone as a bookselling tool

2010-01-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a new cell phone—a Motorola Droid–and I’ve found a new downloadable f*r*e*e app that’s proving really useful in bookselling. I go into how to use it in detail in my January issue of Book Guy News. You can sign up for a no-cost subscription at http://www.ebaybookguy.com.
Here’s the once-over-lightly: the app is a Bar Code Scanner, like the ones they use in stores for inventory. It turns your smartphone camera into a scanner. As a bookseller, you can use it at book sales to see if a book you’re thinking about buying is worth anything.
Of course at library sales (of which I’m a big fan), you can get most books for under $1 anyway. But all those books you “guessed” might sell (and guessed wrong) are taking up shelf space that could have hot items, books you know will fetch a good price.
Here’s how it works: Scan the barcode on the book’s cover. The app syncs up with Google shops and tells you how many copies of that particular book are selling and the price range. I have an autographed Neil Gaiman book I thought might be worth $15 - $25. Turns out this particular edition (with the Newbery Award logo on the jacket) is selling for over $200!
You can access all the publisher info, book description (for your ad copy as well as prices. Save the data to your phone or send it to your computer.

Research What Books Are Selling on eBay

2009-12-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

You can take the most luscious photos, write the most compelling ad copy and promote the heck out of your book auctions… but it won’t do any good if no one wants the book.
eBay gets a cut whether or not your book sells. Fees are 25¢ to list a book under $10, 35¢ for a book over $10. If it doesn’t sell, you get one free relist. After that, you pay every time you relist. If you’re selling a hundred or more books at a time, and most don’t sell (only about one-third of listed books sell the first time), repeatedly relisting can eat up your profits in a hurry.
Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to find out which books are selling and which are better donated to your church yard sale or the Goodwill.
Do research.
Start on eBay, both open and closed auctions. Go to Advanced Search at http://shop.ebay.com/ebayadvsearch/. eBay only keeps 2 weeks’ worth of closed auctions, so it is possible your book would sell, but no one has offered it in the last two weeks.
You can specify author, title, keywords, both open and ended sales, auctions, stores and classified, and exclude words (like, for example, “paperback”) from your search.

If the book you are looking for doesn’t show up, you can save your search, by clicking on “Add to Favorites”. You will then be given the option to check a box which says “Email me daily whenever there are new items.” As you watch the auctions close, you should have a better idea what a particular book may sell for.
While you wait for your saved search to produce results, you can get a general idea of the value of a book, by looking it up on AddAll (http://www.AddAll.com/used). This is a service which searches the inventory of over both brick-and mortar bookstores and online book dealers. Be sure to set the search to sort by price.
I have a signed first edition of The City & The City, by China Miéville. AddAll shows comparable books selling for between $40 and $68.
The prices on AddAll tend to be higher than on eBay. Most eBay buyers are bargain hunters. Online bookstores don’t care. They can wait to get their price.
If you really really insist on selling that high price book, put it in your eBay store, where you can list it for 3¢ to 5¢ for 30 days.

eBay Seller Updates

2009-11-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

Last June, eBay changed its new item page and new product pages. Here are the details:

New Item Page:

Bigger, better pictures, with photo zoom coming later this summer

Real-time countdown timer for Auction-style listings

Key information right upfront

Cross-merchandising: Sellers' relevant listings show up on other each other's item pages. You can opt out of cross-merchandising with other sellers, but consider the trade-offs carefully—this is a great opportunity to boost exposure.

New Product page:

"Great Value, Great Seller" box highlights an item at the top of the page. Sellers can't pay to get this position—every seller has an opportunity to be displayed. To appear in the "value box" you need to have a competitively priced item, competitive shipping (free shipping is a plus), and a raised search standing. You can monitor your search standing in your Seller Dashboard.

Product pages are available in many categories now, including Books, Movies & DVDs, Music, Video Games, Cell Phones, and Tickets, with more categories to follow.

As a best practice, list using product details whenever they’re available. Product details help your exposure.

Faster and easier to add products to eBay's growing catalog.

Whether or not they are actually improving things for booksellers nobody knows. Certainly eBay has rolled out other "improvements" that made things better mostly for their shareholders. But we shall see.

The one improvement I’m looking at with some optimism is something called a “smart FAQ.” It draws on your listings to answer the top 20 questions buyers ask most often. You can sign up for it on a page that looks like this:

You will access smart FAQ from the My Account > Seller Preferences page. If you have more than 20 or 30 auctions running at once, you will save some time by directing bidders to look at your FAQ page before emailing your with a question. I intend to create a “Read my FAQ” email to send to people.

Other changes next month include:
• New way to list in Fixed Price. Offer all variations of one product—e.g. all colors and sizes—in a single low-cost listing.
• Buyer incentives and loyalty programs expanded to drive more traffic.
• Package tracking information right in My eBay—print labels on eBay and tracking will show up automatically, or you can upload your own tracking information.
• Return policy and handling time required for new listings and re-listings beginning June 15. Deadline for updating your Good 'Til Cancelled listings extended to mid-September.
• Use Item Specifics! Now you can customize when the available choices don't apply to your item.
• Category and Item Specifics changes now consolidated with the rest of updates—find out if your listings are impacted.
• New, more efficient process for handling disputes.
• Selling Manager FREE for all sellers—with powerful new Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro applications coming later this summer.
• Easier, faster way to pay for shipping, print labels, and update buyers—right from eBay.
• Bulk editing tools to make it fast and easy to update your listings.
On this last item, if you’ve read my book, The Booksellers’ Guide to eBay Success, you know I use eBay’s Turbo Lister. It’s a lot faster than hand editing your listings, and the templates make everything even faster. Turbo Lister lets you revise multiple auctions at once.
I’ve written a handy Turbo Lister Guide that you can download here. It’s free.

“Over-Auctioning”

2009-11-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

That’s a phrase I invented, and it defines a symptom of all too many eBay booksellers: the inability to end an auction when a book isn’t selling. Let’s say you got a lot of books from a yard sale, or library book sale. You bought them “cold,” i.e., you didn’t research their popularity beforehand, because you couldn’t know what you would find in advance.
But you chose book categories you are familiar with, some good looking first editions, hardbounds and paperbacks, and at a great price.
You get them home and start researching on eBay, AbeBooks, Amazon and elsewhere for prices. The results are promising, but there are no clear winners (like the signed Michael Moorcock I found at a library sale for 50¢). You write your ads, take your photos and put up auctions.
And, then life intervenes. You forget about paying attention to your listings, other than to check your email for PayPal payments. The auctions end with few sales, you renew the rest—or worse, you’ve set your auctions to auto-renew, which eBay loves!. Before you know it, you’ve run up a big eBay bill… and have hardly any sales!
You just got hosed. More accurately, you hosed yourself, because you didn’t follow the rule: if it doesn’t sell, get rid of it. Be smart! Don’t keep renewing your loser books for weeks or months at a time. EBay collects 25¢ per auction for books under $10. You get one freebie if the book doesn’t sell. Then 25¢ every week, until the crack of doom.
You shouldn't necessarily give away your non-selling books. If your research has shown there is a market, relist your book as a store item. That costs 3¢ - 5¢ for thirty days.
The take-away: unless you’re a rare bookseller, you are not in a high-profit-margin business. The closer tabs you keep on your winners and losers, the more money you’ll make.

eBay Book Guy Newsletter #6

2009-09-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

The newest edition of my monthly newsletter, The Book Guy News, will be out tomorrow. For subscribers, there's a link to a $1.99 guide to using eBay's Turbo Lister, a pretty good bulk auction posting tool.
Sign up at The eBay Book Guy and find out about other stuff you can get.

Cheney-Palin in 2012

2009-09-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

I've registered a new website (actually two): www.cheney-palin2012.com, and www.cheney-palin2012.org.
I admit it; I was at first puzzled the complete idiocy of this Odd Couple candidacy and then realized the genius of it all.
I've even created a bumper sticker which I'm sellling on the site and on eBay:

2009-08-06T08:21:00.001-07:00

Back from ComicCon in San Diego. Lots of people, the same comic book sellers using the same ideas to sell their books. See if you can figure out how to sell comic books on eBay.

New Video on Book Buying at Library Sales

2009-07-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

With my delayed July newsletter published (out today), here's the YouTube video on the Manhattan Beach Library sale: what to buy and what NOT to buy.

It is a very basic intro on how to find books at library sales that will sell on eBay and what to look for to avoid buying books that won't sell.

How to Buy Books to sell on eBay

2009-07-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a video I shot of my visit to the Manhattan Beach, CA library sale. It's a basic course in buying books for resale.

Drop me a line at bookguy@ebaybookguy.com and let me know what you think.
Later this month I'll have the second video -- about how to know what books to buy and what ones NOT to buy -- posted here and on YouTube.

The worst eBay experience I've ever had

2009-06-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

Horror story

I had a hundred or so books to list, and was hurrying. I decided to change my Turbo Lister template to reflect the new eBay rules requiring sellers to state handling time and specific return policies.

I tend to create a separate Turbo Lister template for each kind of book or item I sell: for author-signed books, I create a two-cell table for photos, one of the cover, one of the signature; for Advance Readers’ Copies (ARCs), I have a boilerplate description; and another one for hardbounds and trade or mass market paperback. I do not know if anyone actually reads these descriptions, but I’m a fan of full disclosure.

Anyway, I entered all my data, shot and edited photos, wrote and rewrote ad copy and headlines, researched pricing and was generally a busy little worker until I had enough auctions to upload a bunch (over a hundred).

The first few auctions ended, I had winning bidders pay me – but payments weren’t showing up in my PayPal account. Instead, eBay had marked payments s “pending.”

Now I’d seen that before; it usually means someone is paying by e-check, and PayPal won’t issue payment until the check clears. However, in this case twelve auctions had pending payments. I’ve NEVER had twelve e-checks.

Also, the auction-handling program I use, AuctionSage, reports e-checks as pending, and wasn’t reporting any payments.

After telephone calls to both eBay and PayPal, I took another look at my ad.

I had mistyped my email address.

And since I used a master template, EVERY ONE OF MY HUNDRED ADS had the wrong email address on it!

Imagine my surprise. I had to revise every single ad. Of course auctions with bids, or those ending within 24 hours couldn’t be revised. Then I contacted each one of the winning bidders to tell them the kind of hoops they had to jump through to get their book (and so I could get paid).

The bidder’s payment to a non-existent email address in PayPal was sitting there unclaimed (Guess I was lucky no one actually had that email address!). They had to cancel that payment, then issue one to the correct email address. It’s very complicated to explain in an email. I wound up writing four emails to try to make it clear.

Of course they had to believe me when I told them what happened. one bidder was sure I was pulling a fast one (“and as soon as I figure out what it is, I’m reporting you to eBay!”). I got briefly insulted, but then decided just to suggest we mutually agree to cancel the auction. He agreed.

Add to that the fact that I am going out of town and winning bidders who had paid to the wrong account wouldn't get their book until I return.

As a seller with a 100% positive feedback rating, I tend to take good customer relations seriously. This was a nightmare for me.

So, kids what’s the moral of this story?

Simple… it’s “Pay attention.”

How to Take eBay Photos That Sell

2009-04-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

(Excerpted from my eBook, The Bookseller's Guide to eBay Success, available at www.ebaybookguy.com)
A look at eBay’s book auctions will tell you one thing: most people don’t think about the look of their book. Most booksellers use a stock photo of the book, from the publisher or eBay’s Pre-filled item information.
When I began selling on eBay, I was the same way. “Who cares? It’s a book! They all look alike!” I had a camera, but mostly I scanned my book covers. I wasn’t selling rare books, so I didn‘t think it mattered.
But my sales weren’t all that great. It took me a while to realize that an interesting “pose” for my book makes it stand out from the crowd.
Here are the hard, cold facts. Items on auction at eBay that have a photo:
have a 17% higher sell-through rate than items without;
get 73% more bids; and
sell for 189% higher price!
You have to take pictures that appeal to a buyer’s heart. In book buying, the emotions rule.
Here are some photo tips to help you grab buyers.

Choose color over black and white. For most modern books, that’s a kind of “Duuuh!” suggestion. But if you have an older book, or a biography with a mixture of black and white and color images, go for the color, all things being equal.
Choose detail over absence of detail. A well-lit and composed photo makes you feel like you can touch the item. This makes a potential buyer stop and look, and the longer she does, the more likely you are to sell.

Choose specific over general. A photo of (for example) an old factory might be interesting; but it’s more interesting to see a man toiling at one of the machines.

Choose action over inaction, emotion over scenery. Battle scenes are not unusual; but an image of a man at the moment of his death (See Fig. 1) moves us. This is the essence of the book (the Pictorial History of the Second World War) itself, and a key selling point. Capturing it is the bookselling equivalent of a home run.

Choose unusual over usual. Given a choice between this relatively staid portrait of actor Bruce Dern’s family, and him wearing a dress (Figure 2), go for the boy in the dress every time.

Choose pain over comfort. It may be difficult to look at some pictures because they give rise to pain, but anything that evokes a response is preferable to something that doesn't. For example, in Fig. 3, we may wince at the image of a baby seal being clubbed to death, but the fact that it stirs us at all makes it effective. It grabs and holds our attention.

Choose old over new. Nostalgia - that fuel that drives the collector's engine - is rooted in the past, not the future. All other things being equal, choose the vintage photograph or illustration first.

Remember, while all hardbound first printings of Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas may be equal, the bookseller who grabs the prospective buyer’s emotions gets the sale.

More Free Photo Editors

2009-03-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

Following up on last month's free photo editor survey, here are the rest of them. My recommendation? Download them and try them all.

6. PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre offers a simple, but elegant user interface and a lot of one-click image adjustments, filters, and effects. There is a built in image explorer panel for visually navigating your file system, basic drawing, painting, retouching and selection tools, and batch processing capabilities. PhotoFiltre is free for private, non commercial or educational use (including non-profit organizations).

7. Ultimate Paint

Ultimate Paint is available in both shareware and freeware versions for image creation, viewing, and manipulation. It has been designed to be fast and compact, and if you're familiar with the old Deluxe Paint program from Electronic Arts, Ultimate Paint is said to be very similar. The freeware version is an older release of the full-featured shareware product.

8. ImageForge

ImageForge is a freeware image editor with painting and editing tools. Allows you to import images from scanners and digital cameras, apply special effects filters, and create photo albums and slideshows. Although this is teaser program for the shareware ImageForge PRO, it's probably a few steps above Microsoft Paint.

9. Picasa

Last but not least, Google has Picasa, currently at version 3. I doesn't do much fancy editing beyond cropping and color correction, but it catalogs the image files on your disk, making them easy to find, and works great downloading from most digital cameras.

Tools for editing your book photos

2009-02-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

Top 9 Free Photo Editors for Windows

In my book, The Booksellers’ Guide to eBay Success, I rant about the importance of a good photo of your book in your eBay ad. There are lots of good digital cameras out there, but taking the picture is really less than half the battle: The impact of your book photo will be determined mostly by the image editing software you use.
I use Macromedia (now Adobe) Dreamweaver. You can spend more (on Adobe Photoshop, for instance) but Dreamweaver does all you need. Order the new version, CS4, from Amazon, and pay around $390. Find the CS3 edition (ca. 2007) for as little as $35 on eBay. I’m using the 2004 version and it’s just fine.
But maybe you’re just getting started with bookselling and photo editing, and can't afford to purchase software. You can still find free software to create and edit images. Some of this software is developed by individuals, and some is feature limited or an earlier version of a more advanced program. In some rare instances, there are no strings attached, but most often you will need to provide information to the company by registering, or endure ads or "nag" screens.
I’ll cover the first five today, and the last ones next time.

1. GIMP for Windows

GIMP is a popular open-source image editor originally developed for Unix/Linux. Often lauded as the "free Photoshop," it does have an interface and features similar to Photoshop. Because it's volunteer-developed beta software, stability and frequency of updates could be an issue; however, many happy users report using GIMP for Windows without significant problems.

2.
Serif PhotoPlus

For a long time, Serif has given away previous versions of their software to entice users to purchase the current version. Currently you can download a completely free, fully-functional version of PhotoPlus 6. PhotoPlus 6 features an export optimizer, editable text, image slicing and image maps, selection tools, smart shapes, third-party plug-in support, red-eye removal tool, and photo enhancement tools. PhotoPlus 6 works on Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, 2000, NT4, and XP.

3. Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free image and photo manipulation software for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. Paint.NET started development at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft, and continues to be updated and maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Paint.NET features layers, painting and drawing tools, special effects, unlimited undo history, and levels adjustments. Paint.NET is completely free, and the source code is also available for free.

4. Pixia

Pixia is the English version of a popular free painting and retouching software that originated in Japan. It features custom brush tips, multiple layers, masking, vector- and bitmap-based drawing tools, color, tone, and lighting adjustments, and multiple undo/redo. Like many freeware editors, there is no support for saving GIF format. Pixia is also available for many other languages. Pixia works with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, and XP.

5. VCW VicMan's Photo Editor

This award-winning graphic editor offers a variety of painting and editing tools and features including a text tool, gradients, selections by color or region, color replacement, editing in any scale, special effects and so on. The free version used to be an enticement to upgrade to the Pro version, but as of December 2006, the Pro version is free.

Google AdWords

2009-01-22T15:25:00.000-08:00

The bad news is, even Google is feeling the economy's pinch. They're laying off staff, not filling open jobs and abandoning their print media initiatives.
The good news is, you can bid a fair amount less on your favorite bookselling keywords. For us booksellers who operate on thin margins, this is good news. Sure the universe of interested readers has shrunk; but so has the competition.

Don't Get Caught Up in the Gloom & Doom!

2008-10-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here's what we know: the stockmarkets and the mortgage industry are taking a huge financial dump. We are all worried about our futures.
In today's Los Angeles Times, futurist Faith Popcorn spoke about how people are going to respond to the crisis:

"The nuclear family is going to emerge stronger. Friends are going to become more like family. We're going to see more communal living... they'll be car-sharing, house-sharing... We're going to simplify, reduce and reuse."

What does this mean? People will be staying home more and reading more books.
Here are some rules for eBay booksellers to get us through these hard times. And remember, these rules apply not just in hard times, but all the time.

10 Rules For eBay Booksellers

1. If your book isn’t ‘hot’ – make it hot.
2. Create perceived value for your customers – shipping, quality, guarantee.
3. You’ve gotta make money. Turn down cheapo books that friends ask you to sell.
4. Answer the customer’s question: why you instead of the other bookseller?
5. Get paid before you ship.
6. Prioritize. Don’t spend too much time on activities that don’t provide a benefit for your business. Don’t spend an hour tweaking the photo when you could be out looking for books.
7. Don’t hang on to deadwood. If a book doesn’t go at auction in two weeks, put it in your store or donate it.
8. Guard your reputation as if it were your life. It IS the life of your business. Find out how to protect your feedback with this FREE report, 10 Tips on Dealing with eBay’s New Feedback Rules.
9. Measure and track your ad performance. It’s hard when you’re not selling identical products, but you can do it.
10. Keep in touch with your customers. If they had a good experience buying from you, they will buy again.

eBay: The next Bailout Target?

2008-09-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

September 15, 2008:

NEW YORK - U.S. online auctioneer eBay Inc may cut 1,500 jobs, according to an article in Barron's weekly, citing a report published last week by investment-research firm Wedge Partners.

The Wedge report, according to Barron's, said eBay's business was "deteriorating" and the company was readying layoffs that could affect 10 percent of its 15,000 employees.

From PC magazine, Aug 2008:

EBay on Wednesday revamped the pricing structure of its "buy it now" offering, a move that speaks to rumors of eBay looking to shift from an auction model to a more traditional, e-commerce role.

Starting September 16, members listing items via "buy it now" will pay a flat rate of 35 cents for a 30-day listing. Previously, members paid between 35 cents and $4, depending on the price of their item, for a seven-day listing.

EBay will also accept multiple listings of the same item for 35 cents.

"A 35 cent listing fee virtually eliminates the upfront cost for sellers to put more of their great inventory on eBay and creates more opportunity than ever for sellers to build successful businesses," Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay Marketplaces, said in a statement.

EBay said its final value fees have been "rebalanced" with this new offering. When eBay changed its pricing scheme earlier this year, community members reacted strongly to the hike in final value fees, prompting several boycotts and online protests.

"The Bookseller's Guide to eBay Success" is here!

2008-09-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

I know you've all been holding your breaths... you can exhale. My new eBook, The Bookseller's Guide to eBay success is finally out. You can get your copy plus some great bonuses at my website.
It's 130-plus pages of great all new content, with really thorough walk-throughs on creating killer photos and ad copy to boost your book sales. I'll be posting some feedback here as it arrives and updating the sales page as well.

But wait no longer. Get the book.

More Trouble at eBay

2008-08-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Some people who sell things on eBay are fed up with rules the company has been imposing in hopes of making the auction site more attractive to online shoppers.

More changes are coming in the next few weeks, but this time eBay Inc. hopes it can cool tempers.

Already this year, eBay has tinkered with its fee structure, search results and feedback system. These changes might be meeting eBay's intention to improve the experience for buyers, but several sellers say their relationship with eBay is worse than ever, and some have left the site entirely.

Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance and head of Gotham City Online, which sells shoes on eBay, said his group's members are seeing fewer of their listed items sell, and lower average prices for things that do sell.

EBay has been tweaking its vast Internet marketplace in hopes of turning around a troubling trend: The number of active users is barely rising. In the most recent quarter, the figure rose 1.4 percent to 84.5 million.

Bookseller's Guide News

2008-05-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been working on the Bookseller's Guide to eBay Success, cranking it out to make the June 1 deadline.
The good news is I'm close. The bad news is, I ain't gonna make it. So for everyone who's holding your breath, waiting for THE seminal work on selling books on eBay... exhale.
Doing it quick just isn't in my repertoire. I'd rather be a couple of weeks late and have it be as good as it can be. I've paid good cash money for information products that did not live up to their hype, and I am not going to join that gang.
On the other hand, the posts from the booksellers' forums on eBay confirm my belief in how badly sellers need an authoritative guide to selling books.
I aim to meet that need.

Francis Moss
www.eBayBookGuy.com

F DAY! They're coming! Plus revised website

2008-04-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is F Day (Feedback Day) on eBay. From tomorrow on, sellers can only leave positive (or no) feedback for buyers, who, OTOH, can leave any feedback they want to for sellers.
Do not miss my Report, Ten Tips for Surviving eBay's New Feedback Rules,
which is yours in exchange for your name and email address.
I do need to reassure you that I will NEVER sell or give away your information to anyone.
===========
Also, I've revised the sales copy on the site (http://www.ebaybookguy.com). Any feedback will be appreciated. In case you haven't been there (which is apparently all but about ten of the one billion people on the 'net), I am promoting my upcoming eBook, The Bookseller's Guide to eBay Success, due out in June. I will have a full blown launch then (bands, dancing girls, fireworks), but it's available NOW for pre-order for $17, a savings of $20 over the release price.

Revolt of the Supersellers

2008-04-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

eBay's new feedback rules have a lot of people very unhappy.
Here's a sample from the Feedback Forum on eBay:

No one has ever won a libel lawsuit over ebay feedback, and it's highly unlikely anyone ever will, in America anyway.

People are talking about going to court over feedback! The fact is, you cannot protect yourself against psychotic or angry bidders. Gooing to court will get satisfaction only for the lawyers.

As I say in my report, 10 Tips for Surviving eBay's New Feedback Rules, the best defense is a good offense. Cover your bases, avoid fishy bidders and keep your blocked bidder list handy.

All a-Twitter...

2008-04-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

Just signed up with Twitter. IAmTheBookGuy is my handle or ID. I changed my eBay user name from websterwebfoot1 to IAmTheBookGuy as well. All part of my grand plan to brand that name all over cyberspace.
Altho' the eBay Book Guy' is also a brand. Problem is, can't use the name eBay for a user or store on eBay.
Having second thoughts about my AdSense on www.ebaybookguy.com. Marketing opinion is that you don't run other people's ads on a page where you're trying to sell something.

Adding news and info (non-sales) pages to the site will solve that problem, bujt I wonder about traffic.

Tips for eBay Sellers plus some other stuff

2008-04-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

I just put the revised 10 Tips for Surviving eBay's New Feedback Rules up at my website, www.ebaybookguy.com.

Plus, I am adding two more bonus eBooks: 101 eBay Success Secrets, and How to Create an Automated eBay Money Machine. Both are packed with great tips for both eBay beginners and pros.

It's all leading up to the June launch of my eBook, The Bookseller's Guide to eBay Success.

I know, this is all sounding very self-promotional. Maybe I should talk about something else. Tomorrow...

eBooks on eBay? No Way!

2008-04-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Until recently, there were a lot of sellers making a living selling 99-cent eBooks. This came to a screeching halt at the end of March when eBay banned, or severely restricted, all sales of digital goods. Here's a link to their policy:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/downloadable.html

They CLAIM that it's to prevent theft of intellectual property, but I suspect that their new rule was designed to prevent less-than-legitimate sellers and buyers from inflating each other's feedback ratings.

There is a discussion thread on eBay about this policy here:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000671814

For now, you can use eBay's Classified Ad format to sell your digital goods. Ads cost $9.95 per month and you will have to host your own products and make your own PayPal links. but it is probably worth it.

In the near future I will have an e-class on writing classified ad on my website www.ebaybookguy.com, and I'll let you know here.

How to Survive eBay's New Feedback Rules

2008-04-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

I've finished the report on surviving eBay's new feedback rules for sellers. Send me an email here and I'll send you th link to it.

Trouble at eBay - the new Feedback Rules

2008-04-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

Announced in late February, eBay's new Feedback rules are creating massive unhappiness among sellers.
Here's an excerpt from Scripps Howard news on the uproar (written by James Derek):
************************************

Turmoil at eBay

You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't make a mess in your own nest. And, most of all, you don't tick off eBay PowerSellers.

Those would be some of the most powerful adages these days. And eBay is learning the last one the hard way. Ever since the auction giant decided to fiddle with its fees and feedback structure this year, it is really feeling the wrath of its largest sellers, some of whom are dropping off the platform.

A May 1 boycott is being organized to protest the latest changes, namely that sellers no longer will be able to leave negative feedback for buyers, and the new fees structure, which reduces the up-front fees for some auctions but increases the back-end percentages for others.

************************************************************

You can read the entire article at: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=COMPUTE-03-18-08.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a special white paper, "How to Survive eBay's New Feedback Rules," which I'll publish next week. I'll post a link to it here, and also on my website www.ebaybookguy.com.

The eBay Book Guy is here

2008-03-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

Hi to All:
I've started this blog as a companion to my website www.ebaybookguy.com. I'm going to be mostly taking about my passion, selling (and sometimes buying) books on eBay. Please leave a post if you have any questions.

Francis Moss