AC Dickson: eBay Power Seller

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When not to eBay
by acdickson

Recently, my good friend Jason commented about some rare 1st editions (Red Pony, Old Man and the Sea) that he's aquired and wondered if there are times when eBay is not the best place to sell something. He mentioned alibris.com as a place he's heard about for books.

Books are funny breed of collectible. There are a few sites like alibris.com that allow book sellers to list their entire stock for sale indefinetly. Conversely, alibris is a powerful search engine that allows buyers to comb the entire world wide web (including eBay) for a particular book, even if it's not listed on the site.

The advantage to such sites are that you can find out who else is selling the particular edition of the book you have and price it according to the condition and current market. The disadvantage is that you have to sit back and wait, hoping that there are actually buyers out there willing to pay market value. The other problem, is these sites generally charge you a monthly fee based on the assumption that you're a bookseller and hence can afford a $50 monthly fee. Two other considerations, since the book might not sell for months you have to take your listings down everytime you go on a long vacation (you're expected to ship a book within 48 hours of sale), and like eBay, these sites like have feedback features to rate the reliability of sellers. As a newbie, you'll be suspect.

My advice is to do your research. For big name titles, there are likely a few versions of the first editon. Does it say First Edition on the title page? Which publisher put it out? Then get on eBay, alibris, and google and see how many of the exact same book are out there. See what these are worth. If there are some, and these are truly valuable, it might be worth signing up with alibris and undercutting the competition a bit.

But if you've got some truly rare books, especially if they're big titles from well known authors like Hemingway... I'd post them on eBay. The key is using a 10 day auction and doing a really good job with the titles (use the subtitle option), description (explain every single flaw on every single page) and many photos. Also, it's worth spending some extra money for some of the features eBay sells like second category and a gallery picture.

Now, don't just start this at $5 (unless you really won't be disappointed it they go for nada), think long and hard about the minimum you want for each book and start the auction there. If they don't sell, you can always lower your minimum, and even if you decide to keep a book you won't be out more than $10.

Once they're listed, you got some other homework to do. Get on the Hemingway fan club websites and tell people on the chat rooms about your Old Man and Sea auction. Spend a few hours finding the people that collect this stuff and email them. Search for completed auctions of other Hemingway first editions on eBay, email the past winners about your auction. Spread the word. Hell, if these are super rare contact NPR, AP and UPI. What's the worse they'll do, not cover the story?

The key is to start a full on frenzy. You want all the big book collectors out there to know about these auctions. And you want them to get competitive about whose going to win them. Collector communities are like little high schools, the guy who wins the big auction is like the starting quarterback. When AC sold the historic Jones American matchbox for $5,600.99 I had other collectors email me about the eventual winner. Let your auction anoint a new big man on campus.

Sell the sizzle, then the steak.

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