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Starting an online bookstore is an excellent opportunity for making cash on the side, especially with the increasing demand for physical and digital books, e-books, and audiobooks. Selling books on Amazon is the best way to sell books online, since you'll not only make money, but learn a) how to start your own Amazon business and b) about the types of books that sell best on this huge marketplace.
The variety of books you can sell online is vast, ranging from new and used books, fiction and nonfiction, textbooks, comic books, graphic novels, and more. The convenience of buying books online, the ability to find rare books, and the potential to reach a new audience make online bookselling an attractive option for booksellers and authors.
This guide covers the complete process of selling books online, providing all the necessary information to get started.
Before you begin, you’ll have to do three things:
Once you’ve done all this, you can start listing your books on the platform.
Let’s break it down further:
Amazon offers sellers two ways to fulfill their orders: Fulfillment by Merchant (FBA) and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBM).
When using this method, the seller—after a sale is made—will pack and ship the book themselves using a delivery carrier of their choice. FBM sellers must store their own inventory, and can't use Amazon's warehouses to do this.
When working out the total costs, the seller must include the storage fees in this equation—unless they’re storing books at home. Sellers also need to figure out the shipping and handling costs, as well as the time it takes to pack and ship the orders that come in. There is a lot to work out if it’s worth doing the work.
Sellers use FBM mainly if they have a small number of orders to carry out or a large enough business—so the cost to ship books is lower than that it would be on Amazon. And again, sellers need a place to store their books, so if you’re thinking of going for this system then be aware.
If you choose to use FBA to sell books on Amazon, whenever you make a sale, Amazon picks, packs, and ships the products on your behalf and also look after customer service. With this method, you can also store your inventory at Amazon's Warehouse, so you won’t need to pay storage, shipping or handling fee, or labor costs. instead, you pay an all-in-one fee to Amazon that covers your inclusion in the FBA program.
Sellers generally use FBA if they have a lot of orders to carry out and their operation isn't big enough to pay lower shipping costs than the requisite FBA fees. Remember, you can store your books as Amazon’s fulfillment center until you make a sale, so you won’t need space to store them yourself.
There are two types of Amazon sellers you need to consider when signing up for Amazon.
If you're an individual seller, you typically sell less than 40 products per month. This is the recommended method for those selling on the side as a hobby or with only a few products for sale. With this method, you have fewer FEES to pay
Professional sellers trade more than 40 products every month. If you have a large number of products to sell and are interested in regular monthly income from your Amazon products, then this is what you should go for.
Most people who sell books online sell ones they already have in their possession. You can also source books from several different places if you want to grow your book sales on Amazon. Here are some popular ways to source books:
One of the most straightforward ways to source books is in your own house or garage. You need only to look around in your home—and even beyond—and you’ll realize how easy it is to sell and find books.
If you're wondering what types of books to sell, know that there is no limit. You can consider selling comic books, rare books, textbooks, recipe books, art books, and children's books. Make sure you check out the FAQ section on Amazon for more detailed information.
Another great way to source boxes is through book sales. You can take some time to go to book sales and you might even enjoy it—as it's a little like hunting for treasure. You can always find a book sale somewhere on a weekend, too, such as at a school fair, a garage sale, a sidewalk sale or an estate sale.
Make sure you take a book scanner with you so that you can find out which books are most suitable to list on Amazon. If you use a Bluetooth scanner—along with a book scanning app–-you will be able to locate which books are more profitable and will sell faster than others.
Don't forget that on the internet, the world is your oyster. You can source books on websites to sell on Amazon—often, you will find lower prices than what you're paying on Amazon. You buy the book from a website for a lower price, then sell it on Amazon for a higher price. The term for this is online arbitrage.
You can also buy books in bulk online for much less than you would on Amazon on websites such as eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook. If you are buying in bulk from these websites, make sure that the books you purchase have not previously been sorted or scanned. If they have been, it would mean that you are purchasing an Amazon seller’s failed books and therefore, they won’t be in any way profitable on Amazon.
Estate sales and moving sales are excellent ways to find cheap books in large quantities. Usually, people are eager to move these books and will often take good offers. Don't be afraid to ask for a bulk discount.
Even though nothing in life is free, it turns—well, actually, sometimes it is. If you check out Craigslist, Gumtree, or Facebook Marketplace, you might find people desperate to get rid of all their old books if they are, say, moving house or selling a place. All you have to do is go get the books and haul them out.
Sell your e-books globally by self-publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP allows you to keep control over your rights, set your own prices, make updates at any time, and earn royalties on sales. Start reaching a wider audience today.
Anyone can find books to list on Amazon, but finding the right book at the best price means that you don't waste your time listing book that nobody will buy. It’s very important to know which books are the best for Amazon sales.
Here are a few tips:
Each product on Amazon has a best-seller ranking. The lower the best seller ranking, the more often that particular product makes a sale on the Amazon Marketplace.
As an example, a book that is ranked number one will sell 1500 copies monthly on Amazon. but a book ranked number 1 million will not sell many copies at all.
You can find the books BSR on its page listing in the product details section.
Note: The Amazon Best Sellers Rank you need to focus on is the BSR for the Books category. You can ignore the BSRs for the subcategories.
It's best in my experience to sell books whose BSR is beneath 100,000 this means you have a pretty good likelihood that the book will sell within 24 hours
You can use various tools and software to estimate the likelihood of a book selling on Amazon on. Most booksellers use a scanner to help them search for inventory. You can always use Amazon's mobile seller, too, as it comes with its own scanner that provides you with the product price, BSR, and other official Amazon stats.
You can also use an app like Scout IQ to scan books (available for iPhone and Android smartphones), allowing you to download the entire book database to your device and scan books at a rapid pace. You can also access the database without Wi-Fi or cellular connection. ScoutIQ outperforms other database solutions like Neatoscan and FBAScan, offering better data to make your scouting easier and more effective. A monthly membership costs a little money, but you can pay less by paying upfront or purchasing multiple licenses.
So now you have registered to sell on Amazon, that means you can start listing your books.
What is the easiest way to list your books? Go to the actual product detail page for the book you want to list. That’s right—you can actually list your books from the Amazon page itself instead of creating an entirely new listing. Then, once you list your book, it appears on the same page.
Here’s what we mean:
To find the product listing page, look for the book’s ISBN (ie: the book’s registration code) and log it in Amazon’s search bar—just as you would do when searching for something to buy.
You will find the ISBN on the barcode or somewhere within the book’s actual dust jacket.
Take note, booksellers, if the book was created pre-1970, it won’t have an ISBN. If this is the case, then you will need to type in the title manually.
Once you are at the product listing page, you can look for a gray button that reads “Sell on Amazon,” which lies a little below the Buy Box.
Click on that button, and—assuming you’re permitted to actually sell this book—you should then have this screen:
Now, please type in the following:
Once the information is entered, one of the following will occur:
You may also decide to place the book for sale in your Seller Central account.
In our opinion, Amazon is the better platform to sell books than eBay. Here are a few reasons why:
Textbooks, niche books, comic books, collectible books, non-fiction, and hardcover books are generally considered to be the most popular and sell well on Amazon. These books tend to have high demand and high prices, making them great choices for reselling. However, remember that some publishers may restrict sales of certain textbooks, and certain fiction books may lose value faster than non-fiction books.
Fiction, children's books, cookbooks, mass-market paperbacks, and popular new books have low sales on Amazon due to factors such as high print runs, low cover prices, competition from Amazon itself, and low sales prices.
Key to success: On Amazon, the performance of a used book is primarily determined by supply and demand. If there is high demand for a book but limited sellers, the book is likely to perform well.
Like most e-commerce marketplaces, Amazon charges certain fees to sell on its platform.
Here are some fees you should know about.
Individual sellers on Amazon are defined as those who sell 40 or fewer items per month. If you fall under this category, you will not be required to pay the professional seller subscription fee, but you will have to pay a $0.99 individual per-item fee for each product sold. This fee, similar to the referral fee, is deducted from the sale proceeds and does not have to be paid upfront.
It is important to note that, as an individual seller, you will still have access to all of Amazon's tools and resources, including the platform's customer base and fulfillment services. The individual per-item fee provides a flexible and cost-effective option for those who only plan to sell a small number of items each month.
On the other hand, professional sellers who sell more than 40 items per month are required to pay a monthly subscription fee, which provides access to a broader range of tools and services to support a higher volume of sales, taken from a credit card or the account balance. A professional seller does not have to pay an individual fee for each sale (they will probably need to spend money on software that helps them with their customer queries, though). Ultimately, the choice between individual or professional seller status will depend on the number of items you plan to sell and your business needs.
The referral fee on Amazon is a charge that is deducted from the sale price of a book. It is calculated as 15% of the sale price and is deducted from the proceeds after a sale is made. For instance, if you sell a book for $10, the referral fee would be $1.50. It's important to note that the referral fee does not have to be paid beforehand, as it is taken out of the sale proceeds automatically.
The closing fee is a fixed fee of $1.80 that is applied to media products, such as books, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray, for each sale. This fee is only relevant for sellers specializing in these types of products.
The closing fee, like the referral fee, is deducted from the sale proceeds and does not have to be paid upfront. This ensures that sellers only pay the fee after a sale and the funds have been received.
When selling on Amazon, there are two main options for fulfilling orders: Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) or Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
If you choose to sell using FBM, you will be responsible for shipping your products to customers after making a sale. Your shipping costs will vary depending on the shipping carrier you use, the resources required for shipping, and any labor costs involved.
Alternatively, if you choose to sell using FBA, you can use Amazon's fulfillment network to store, pick, pack, and ship your products. This comes with an FBA fee, which replaces the costs you would normally incur for shipping, packing, and storage.
A word of caution: FBA fees tend to be much lower than the potential cost to ship your own books. Since Amazon also does all the work for you, it’s a great option.
Example:
Let's consider a scenario where we sell a second edition copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion for $100. In this case, we choose to fulfill the order using Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), and are classified as an individual seller.
Here, Amazon deducts $15 for the referral fee, $1.80 for the closing fee, and $0.99 for the individual per-item fee.
We use an old box and some packing peanuts to ship the book through USPS Media Mail, which costs us $3.86.
We bought the book for $10 at a yard sale, which also needs to be factored in. Once all the fees and shipping costs have been deducted, we're left with $76.07.
Now that you know how to sell books on Amazon, it’s time to get up to date about the latest e-commerce trends and resources. Check out our suite of products that make selling effortless and easy. Keep an eye on our blog and social media channels and sign up for our newsletter below.
Threecolts is a comprehensive suite of advanced ecommerce software solutions. We're designed to empower retail vendors and marketplace sellers on Amazon, Walmart, and beyond. Our tools optimize every aspect of ecommerce operations to ensure maximum profitability.
For sellers aiming to earn through reselling, Tactical Arbitrage helps you find hidden deals 5X faster. ScoutIQ provides instant insights for scoring in stores. DataSpark helps you get your next bestseller on Walmart Marketplace across over 14 million products in its database.
If you want to sell globally without storing, shipping, or risking money on inventory, SellerRunning simplifies cross-border dropshipping. We let you manage and expand your ecommerce business across multiple Amazon marketplaces seamlessly.
Managing products across leading ecommerce channels has never been easier either. ExportYourStore ensures hassle-free cross-listing and product syncing. Meanwhile, Hemi integrates over 100 ecommerce platforms, handling everything from inventory to logistics.
For efficient financial operations, FeedbackWhiz Profits offers a robust ecommerce accounting solution. We give you total control over your finances. You can track earnings and spending and visualize financial data without much effort.
You can also enhance your customer service with ChannelReply. Centralize marketplace communications through order data alongside support tickets from major marketplaces. Meanwhile, Onsite Support combines AI tools and custom-built help centers to amp up your support capacity. With these two, you can ensure that your customer service team can do more with less work.
Simplify Amazon operations with InventoryLab. It's an all-in-one solution that enhances everything from sourcing to logistics to accounting. We make inventory management and business workflows as streamlined as possible, so you won’t have to think about it.
Protect your profits with our advanced recovery solutions. DimeTyd Amazon helps 1P vendors recover lost revenues from overbilling and inventory discrepancies. DimeTyd Walmart simplifies the process of disputing unacknowledged shipments and organizing deductions. DimeTyd Sellers offers comprehensive monitoring and dispute resolution for Amazon FBA.
Automate your pricing strategies with SmartRepricer. We'll help you stay competitive by adjusting prices automatically based on custom rules. You can make sure that you always win the Buy Box with just a few clicks.
Finally, safeguard your online reputation with our reviews and alerts solutions. FeedbackWhiz Emails lets you handle Amazon review requests with personalized feedback campaigns. CR Feedback offers cost-effective feedback gathering for eBay and Amazon review requests. FeedbackWhiz Alerts keeps you informed with timely notifications on reviews, threats to your listings, and other important events.
