Every Amazon book scouting app reviewed (going deep)

The definitive analysis of every sourcing app for Amazon booksellers: Reviewing all 11 book sourcing tools and ranking by features, price, and more.

This article will review and analyze every app used to look up book prices on Amazon. This is specifically for anyone selling used books on Amazon, or anyone who wants to.

My attempt is to make this the most detailed article ever written on this subject, and serve as the definitive guide to any Amazon bookseller who wants to understand the full landscape of Amazon sourcing apps.

Video review: Full look at every book sourcing app

What is a “Scouting app”?

These are mobile apps that tell you the current Amazon value for books (and more), as well as the book’s demand and other data you need to make a smart buying decision.

Look at scouting apps as X-ray goggles that let you “see” profitable books everywhere.

These go by several names (which I will use interchangeably through this article):

• “Scouting app”
• “Scanning app”
• “Sourcing app”

These apps install in your smartphone, then read the barcode of a book and provide current data on prices and sales history so you know what books are profitable and which aren’t.

Why you’re so frustrated trying to find the best app

Trying to search for the best app option might make you insane. Three reasons for this:

• Too many options to adequately vet.
• Too confusing to determine which tool is best for booksellers.
• Too many gurus giving conflicting information.

I’m going to make this very simple. As we get to the review portion of this article, I’ll start with the two most popular apps for Amazon booksellers. Then I’ll review every other scanning app so you know all your options.

But first, let’s get into everything you need to know about these apps before you make a decision…

Do Amazon sellers need a paid app?

If you intend to pursue bookselling on Amazon, you need a scanning app. It is literally the very first purchase you should make when you’re starting. There’s nothing more important.

Nothing in your Amazon bookselling business will generate revenue more directly than a sourcing app. It is your window to profit. It’s the bridge between you and Amazon’s database. It quite simply mitigates most of the risk, and insures you only purchase profitable inventory.

And it is always more expensive to source without a paid app than with one. Without an app, you are either using an extremely limiting free option, or typing in ISBNs manually into your phone. Both of these options result in finding less inventory or making bad purchasing decisions, which directly costs you money.

A paid app is the very first fixed expense I recommend any seller invest in. First a scanning app, then a listing tool, then a repricer. In that order.

A sourcing app is the one thing you can’t cut corners on.

My history with scanning apps

I remember seeing sellers with scanners for the first time at a library book sale in Pasadena. My girlfriend and I had attended with the vague idea of finding books to resell, but I had no idea what I was doing. I remember looking at them in awe, like some kind of sorcerers. They had a magic device that told them what the books were worth.

This was pre-smartphone (2007 to be specific) and sellers in those days used giant PDAs (remember those?) with unisghtly barcode scanners attached. But I didn’t know what program they had installed on it. What was it that told them what the books were worth?

There was a guy with a ponytail my girlfriend and I saw at every sale. Literally anywhere there was books, he was there. After about the third sighting, I talked my girlfriend into asking him what program he was using. She came back with the information: “He said it’s just called ‘Seller Tool.'”

More accurately, “A Seller Tool.” This was Scoutly before it was Scoutly. Possibly (probably?) the first scanning app. But this was an era when there were so few people selling books on Amazon, that you could literally make money just guessing, and buying books almost at random. On top of that, we were broke. So we weren’t too inspired to drop $30 on this mystery “Seller Tool” just yet.

About a year later, I decided to splurge. But not on the full app and PDA setup. I signed up for a $5 a month A Seller Tool plan that worked on flip phones. It was a simple app that had a blank field. You entered up to 20 ISBNs (manually), and hit a button, and about 20 seconds later you got a list of prices and Sales Rank for each one. As painfully slow and laborious as it sounds. For Amazon sellers today, this is my “I used to walk five miles through the snow to get to school” story.

Eventually (six months later? A year?) I upgraded to the full PDA & A Seller Tool app package. And of course, the impact on my book sourcing and profits was incredible. I finally had a “real business.” And the celebration was tinged with regret over having waited so long.

That set up carried my business until 2011. That was the year I switched from FBM to FBA. If I recall, A Seller Tool didn’t display FBA prices at that point. So I swtiched over to an app called Scanpower. It came bundled with a listing tool. It was at this point, my annual revenue took off into the six figures.

At some point around 2015, I experienced my approximately 1,000th failed sourcing expedition due to no cell signal, and I decided to switch back to an app with a database download option. This meant I wouldn’t have to rely on a cell signal. There were only two tools that offered this, and A Seller Tool was one. By this time, they were called FBA Scan (and later Scoutly). Features-wise, it was comparable to Scanpower, but the database option was the huge differentiator. I switched to FBA Scan. I was now free from the tyranny of a cell signal.

I’ve been with Scoutly (formerly FBA Scan) ever since. I’ve dabbled in others for the sake of due diligence, but Scoutly remains the app I recommend to other sellers.

Features every scanning app must have

Everything on this list is so basic that every app out I’m reviewing here contains all of these.

• FBA prices: For FBA sellers only, you’ll need to see prices for your FBA competition.
• FBM prices: Even as an FBA seller, if there are no other FBA sellers offering your product, and the item is not ranked incredibly well, you’ll want to consider prices set by non-FBA sellers when setting your price. The book just may not be selling often enough to get away with a price $10 or more above the lowest non-FBA seller. Whatever sales rank threshold you set, there will be a point where you base your price solely on non-FBA sellers, and you’ll need the data to make that decision.
• Net profit: The app should look at an expected selling price and calculate your net profit after all fees and cost of goods.
• Product image: So you can see what the Amazon customer sees, making sure your item matches the Amazon listing.
• Sales rank: The top piece of information you need to safely answer the question: Will this sell?
• Link to the Amazon product page: Very important to get more info if the data in the app isn’t sufficient. For example, you need to know if the barcode you scanned is for a set, or one book. You should have the option to click through to Amazon and see exactly what the buyer is expecting.
• Product category: Because a 100,000 rank in Books means something entirely different than in Tools. And many books are accidentally assigned to the wrong product category.
• Amazon’s price: Sometimes this price is lower than every other seller’s price. While it could change, ultimately this is the one price you can’t ever price above.
• Data for non-media items (grocery, toys, health & beauty — everything): Even if you’re focused almost exclusively on books, you will inevitably come across products in other categories that have huge potential for profit.
• Restriction status: You want to know if Amazon will allow you to sell a book before you invest in it.

What features are nice to have in an app (but aren’t mandatory)?

• Profit triggers: While I don’t use profit triggers personally, I know this feature is non-negotiable for many sellers. A “profit trigger” is where an app does a calculation based on parameters that you set, and tells you to “buy” or “reject” any book you scan.
• Sales history charts: While I don’t rely on historical sales charts often, these can come in useful when you’re on the fence about whether to buy a book.
• Price history charts: Similar to sales history charts, it’s not often that the price history of item is deciding factor in what book I buy, but these can be useful. In fact, I refer to these more often than sales history graphs.
• Average Sales Rank: As distinct from current sales rank, average rank captures a book’s demand better. Average rank takes a daily snapshot of a book’s “best seller rank,” and averages it out over time. The two apps I know of that display average rank are Scoutly and Bookzy.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR): This is a close to “mandatory” as you can get, but theoretically I could live without it (I didn’t see any apps incorporate this until 2017 or so). OCR is the technology that reads text based on your phone’s camera, allowing you look up the vale of books with no barcode. These can be some of the most valuable books, and you are left (mostly) unable to assess their value without OCR. Highly recommended (Scoutly offers OCR).
  

There are many other possible features that offer benefits, but these are the top features I look for that are just short of “mandatory.”

What product data should you focus on most?

If you’re new to scanning apps, after looking at that last list you likely to feel overwhelmed. But you can rest easy. 90% of purchasing decisions can be made with these four data points only:

1. Average sales rank
2. Merchant fulfilled prices
3. FBA prices
4. Restriction status

And if you’re not an FBA seller, you can skip #2.

Those four data points are all you really need, most of the time. So if you’re just getting started, focus on reading (and understanding) those, and ignore the rest. You won’t be missing out on much.

How much do Amazon apps cost?

Current price range for standalone apps (not bundled with other products) is $10 to $49. Prices for bundled apps run higher.

On the low end of standalone apps, the Scoutly “Lite” plan and Profit Bandit both give you unlimited live lookups but no database download option. They’re both $10 a month, and adequate if you’re just getting started.

On the high end, ScoutIQ is $44 a month, for live lookups and database downloads (their download includes book & media prices only).

Other apps come as part of more expensive packages that include inventory management tools and repricers, but cannot be subscribed to separately.

How do you use a scanning app?

The mechanics of using a scanning app are very simple:

1. Find the book’s barcode.
2. Scan it with either your phone’s camera (not recommended) or bluetooth barcode scanner (recommended).
3. View the book’s pricing data and more on the app.
4. Make a buying decision.

Simple as that. The last question is: How do you interpret the data your app displays?

How to read scouting app data

The fundamentals of reading data on your app are very simple.

This subject is greatly over-complicated by many sellers, and misunderstood by many more. The sheer volume of data you see in most apps when you scan a book can be overwhelming. But you don’t need 90% of that data.

Here is the simplest way to read what you see on your app when you scan a book:

Step #1: Look at Merchant fulfilled prices

This is the column showing (usually) the lowest five prices for the book.

Even as an FBA seller, you’ll want this column to be your first stop when reviewing the data. FBM prices are high enough that you don’t even have to look at FBA prices. Since FBA prices are never going to be lower than FBM, you may be able to skip Step #3 if the FBM prices are high enough.

Step #2: Look at average Amazon sales rank

This tells you have often a book is selling. This is crucial information, since the lower the demand for a title, the bigger the payout you’ll want to see before investing in that item. It’s not worth it to invest in a book with a $3 payout when it’s only selling twice a year, for example.

Step #3: Look at FBA prices (conditionally)

If you’re an FBA seller, for most books you are only competing with other FBA sellers. So you need to focus specifically on FBA prices.Very low demand items are an exception, and you will want to compete with all offers for some books.

Step $4: Look at Amazon’s price

You need to confirm that the price you plan to sell it for is less than Amazon’s price (you can’t price higher than Amazon).

Which apps are the most popular for booksellers?

Irrespective of features, pricing, etc – which apps are simply the most popular?

The answer is: Scoutly and ScoutIQ are the most popular apps for booksellers. These are the apps you find the majority of Amazon sellers using.

Scoutly has a following among booksellers due to the volume of data it displays, its database download option, and it’s longevity as one of (if not the) oldest scanning app.

ScoutIQ has a following among booksellers also due to its database download feature, as well as being promoted most heavily by various online Amazon seller gurus.

Live price lookup apps versus local database apps

One final distinction before we start review the actual apps, and it’s a big one. Let’s talk about apps that offer live lookups only versus those that allow you to download Amazon’s pricing database into your phone.

What’s the difference?

With live lookup apps, you are dependent on a cell signal or internet connection at all times. If you’re somewhere without a signal, you are out of business. Live lookups also take more time to load, and are a much slower experience.

With database download apps, you can scan anywhere, no matter your signal strength – or if you have a signal at all. And pricing data is returned instantly, since it’s already in your phone.

Some sellers say the difference is minimal, and that a database download option doesn’t matter. I strongly disagree, and encourage the use of apps with a download option. Anyone who dismisses the importance of this probably hasn’t found themselves sourcing in remote areas with no signal (or weak signal). What’s more, a local database option allows you to use your phone on airplane mode, which prolongs batter life dramatically.

The apps that offer a database download option are Scoutly, ScoutIQ, NeatoScan, and Bookzy.

Defunct and out of business apps

For the sake of turning over every stone on this subject, here is a list of apps from the past that seem to have vanished to the Amazon software graveyard:

• Book Bandit
• iBookseller
• Scout Rabbit
• Scout Pal

Are there free alternatives to paid book scouting apps?

There are a couple ways you can get the power of a full scanning app, without paying.

The first way is to use a free trial for any paid app. Every app on this list offers a free trial. For most, you get unlimited use for 30 days. If you’re just starting and short on cash, this can be enough time to source inventory and get sales to pay for your first month.

Second, there are a couple of free apps that sort of do the job, but are significantly inferior to paid apps. I want to stress that any paid app will pay for itself in literally one day. There is no defense for using on a free app unless you are genuinely destitute. With even the most minimal use, any app will generate enough revenue in a few hours to offset its monthly cost. There’s no excuse to cut corners on this.

With that disclaimer, here’s two options that will (barely) do the job, and are free:

Free option #1: Keepa app

Keepa has a free mobile app with a barcode scanning function. This is not going to give you a clean look at competing prices and sales rank in a very usable way. It wasn’t built for product sourcing, and it’s going to slow your sourcing down tremendously. But it is free.

Free option #2: Amazon Shopping app

A free app that is going to provide very little useful data, and do so in the least orderly way possible. You will see the lowest price at a glance, and can click to see additional data. It relies on your cell camera to scan barcodes or cover images.

This app does provide one useful function that paid apps lack: The ability to scan a book’s cover with your camera, and search based on image. This is extremely valuable when looking up books that either don’t have an ISBN, or the ISBN is not returning results in your app. I keep the Amazon Shopping app on my phone to utilize this feature, and use it often – but only for this feature.

How this review is structured

Because I’m committed to make this the most in-depth resource on scouting apps, I’m going to review each app based on the follow attributes:

• product tagline
• data download vs live data only
• price
• design
• data / features
• do I recommend it for booksellers?

Here we go: A complete guide to every Amazon scanning app…

Profit Bandit

Tagline

“One scan away from profit.”

Data download or live only

Live data lookup only.

Design

Data / Features

Price

• $9.95 a month

Do I recommend Profit Bandit for booksellers?

If cutting costs are extremely important to you, Proift Bandit is one of the best cheap options (I recommend Scoutly’s Lite Plan over Profit Bandit personally). Profit Bandit has been a popular app in the Amazon bookseller world for over a decade, and it’s both a trusted and inexpensive option.

Notes

Profit Bandit comes free as part of Sellery or the SellerEngine Plus subscription.

Profit Bandit is one of the oldest souricng apps.

Scoutly

Tagline

“The only App that puts a complete Amazon pricing database onto your phone.”

Data download or live only

Scoutly offers both live lookups and a database download option.

Design

 

Data / Features

• Profit triggers
• Sales rank
• Average sales rank
• Used Buy Box
• New Buy Box
• Department
• Price of FBA offers
• Number of items in inventory for each listing
• Net profit
• Estimated sales 90 days
• Historical Used Buy Box price
• Trade in value
• Product image
• Product weight
• Amazon’s price
• Number of offers new and used
• Number of FBA offers
• Sales history chart
• Restriction status

Pricing

Monthly plans

• $10 a month: “Lite” plan
• $35 a month: Regular plan with database download option

Annual plans

• $100 a year: “Lite” plan
• $350 a year: Regular plan with database download option

Do I recommend Scoutly for Amazon booksellers?

Scoutly is far and away the app I recommend most, and I’ve used it personally for years. In a side-by-side comparison with ScoutIQ (the second most popular app for book sourcing), I found Scoutly to have better features and better data quality.

Notes

I’ve used Scoutly personally since at least 2015.

Should I be offended Scoutly’s default trigger settings told me to “reject” my own book? (See image above).

ScoutIQ

Tagline

“Scout smarter, not harder.”

Data download or live only

Scoutly offers both live lookups and a database download option.

Design

Data / Features

• Prices of lowest “merchant fulfilled” offers (used and new)
• Prices of lowest FBA offers (used and new, if applicable)
• Current Amazon Sales rank
• Used Buy Box
• New Buy Box
• Department
• Amazon’s price:
• Number of offers new and used:
• Number of FBA offers (if applicable)
• Profit
• eScore: ScoutIQ’s proprietary figure that claims to give the exact number of times this item has sold in last 90 days. As repeated elsewhere, eScore is frequently inaccurate.
• Buy Back value: Displays Sell Back Your Book (.com) price.
• Product image
• Product weight
• Sales history chart: Seemingly from Keepa, but not clear.
• BookScouter link
• Live lookup button
• Amazon product page
• Keepa sales rank & price history chart
• Custom link: Choose either AddAll.com, eBay active listings, eBay sold listings, or Bookfinder.com.
• OCR (to scan without barcode scanner)

Price

Monthly plan

• $14 a month (live lookups only)
• $44 a month (live lookups + database download)

Annual plan

• $120 a year (live lookups only)
• $432 a year (live lookups + database download)

Do I recommend ScoutIQ for Amazon booksellers?

ScoutIQ is noteworthy for being one of only three apps that offer a database download (at least among apps that cater to smaller sellers). However Scoutly remains the superior database download app in my opinion. ScoutIQ also offers little that Bookzy does not, and Bookzy is cheaper. For those reasons, I don’t see a benefit to ScoutIQ over competitors.

SellerMobile

Tagline

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Basic MF and FBA pricing data
• CamelCamelCamel price and sales rank history charts
• Profit analysis
• Scan barcode with phone camera or bluetooth scanner

Price

Monthly

• $19.99 a month

Annual

• $192 a year

Do I recommend SellerMobile to Amazon booksellers?

SellerMobile is much more of an inventory management tool than a sourcing app. While it can be used to scan products, that is not its main function. It is very cumbersome to use, and rather than show pricing data for every scan, requires you to make a couple clicks to get the data you need. Not recommended for booksellers.

ScanEZ

Tagline

“The AZInsight Advanced Mobile Companion.”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Profit calculation
• ROI calculation
• Profit margin calculation
• Sales Rank percentage
• Historical sales rank table
• Historical price history table
• Check item variations
• Links to Keepa,
• Calculate net profit: Amazon fees at a glance
• Hazmat & Restrictions Checker
• Variations Viewer:  Get a list of all the child Variations for a product.
• Stock Checker:  See stock levels for all sellers of a product.
• AZAlert: Described as “Avoid listing products from high-risk brands using our in-house Brand Notification Tool.”
  
• Sales and Revenue Estimations: They call this their “ScoutOracle system.”
  
• Alerts & Triggers: Add triggers by Sales Rank or category.
  
• Buy Lists: Create lists of products you plan to resell.
  
• “Zengraph”:  Their proprietary version of Keepa’s sales and price history charts.

Price

Monthly

• $19.95 a month

Annual

• $149.99 a year

Do I recommend ScanEZ for Amazon booksellers?

There’s no clear advantage to ScanEZ over apps better designed for books, like Scoutly.

Notes

I did take notice that ScanEz’s Sales Rank percentage figure is inaccurate. You can see in the image above that it puts my book (Reselling For Rebels) in the top 1.8% selling books, with a Sales Rank of 1.8 million. That suggests there are 100 million books for sale  on Amazon, when the real number is closer to 50 million. Their percentage calculations may be accurate in other product categories, but not books.

SellerAmp

Tagline

“Sourcing Analysis Simplified”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Profit calculator: ROI calculation, adjust buy cost and sales prices to see how it affects profit, MF vs FBA profit impact, breakeven selling price, and more.
• Competing offers: Seller name, stock levels, and of course prices. Also shows the ROI if you matched their price. Prices of Buy Box, Amazon, lowest FBA and lowest FBM sellers.
• Sales Rank
• Keepa drops figures
• Estimated Sales per month
• Estimated time to sell
• Historical data: 30 days, 90 days, 180 day history.
• Keepa charts: interactive charts from Keepa data, including historic sales rank for a product, FBA, FBM, Amazon and the Buy Box history.
• Responsive interface: Adjusts for different screen sizes.
• Notes & Tags: Take notes on any ASIN.
• Google Sheets Export: Export various data from the app to a Google spreadsheet.
• BQool Repricer Integration
• Marketplaces supported: US, CA, UK, DE, ES, FR, IT

Price

Monthly

• $19.95 a month

Annual

• $199.99 a year

Do I recommend SellerAmp for Amazon booksellers?

I will say that among the apps that aren’t specifically made with booksellers in mind, SellerAmp is among the more robust options with a large number of features. As a smaller bookseller, you’re still better off with Scoutly.

Bookzy Mobile

Tagline

Data download or live only

Bookzy offers both live lookups and a database download option.

Design

 

Data / Features

• Sales statistics
• Profit triggers
• Sales estimates
• Triggers
• Keepa link
• Bookfinder.com link
• Amazon reviews link
• Profit calculation
• Three search modes: Live (high accuracy), cloud search (high speed), database (fastest).
• Average Sales Rank
• Restricted Books Warning​
• “Sold Today Items​”: Review your daily sales in the app.
• Review existing stock on scan: Tells you if you have a book in your inventory already.
• Review past orders on scan: Tells you if you’ve sold a book before.
• Triggers: Evaluate offers, payouts, “buy back offers”, desired price, sales volume, and profit, average sales rank, and days of sale.
• Add Buy Cost Option
• 6-month Average Buy Box Price
• Auto live search on “Not-found”

Price

• $29 a month

Do I recommend Bookzy for Amazon booksellers?

Bookzy is made by real Amazon booksellers and is a good option for sellers who choose to not use Scoutly. It’s $5 cheaper per month than Scoutly, while also having fewer features. However, it does have the features that matter most. Also one of the few apps with a database download option. Recommended less than Scoutly, but more than ScoutIQ.

Note

App can be signed up for alone, or with entire BookzPro package for $110 a month.

NeatoPricer

Tagline

Data download or live only

NeatoScan offers both live lookups and a database download option.

Design

Data / Features

• Sales rank
• Profit triggers
• Sales estimates
• Lowest 5 Merchant Fulled and FBA offers

Price

Must contact for pricing.

Do I recommend NeatoPricer for Amazon booksellers?

NeatoPricer would not be among my top recommendations if you’re selling books. There is too much confusion around price (which is not published), and if NeatoPricer still caters to smaller sellers (they seem to have changed course and now cater to bulk operations). Without clarity on these two points, I would not recommend NeatoPricer over an app like Scoutly.

Notes

At one time, NeatoScan was a top player in the Amazon sourcing app world. After selling to a company called Upright Labs, they seem to have pivoted from serving smaller sellers to larger, wholesale operations. While they still offer their app, it is no longer emphasized as a core product, and today comes as an add-on to their desktop application that includes inventory listing and repricing. It is no longer available in the Google Play or Apple App Store.

Scoutify2

Tagline

“Sourcing your products just got easier!”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Net profit calculations
• Restricted item check on scan.
• Barcode Scanning: Scan barcodes with the built-in scanner, or bring your own bluetooth scanner
• Triggers: Identify items that meet your buying criteria.
• FBA storage costs: See how long an item can be in your inventory before it is no longer profitable.
• Personal item history: View sales and purchase history for each item
• Buy lists: Create and view lists of items to buy.

Price

• $69 a month (as part of Inventory Lab)

Do I recommend Scoutify2 for Amazon booksellers?

Scoutfy2 does get the job done, though not as well as Scoutly. If you already subscribe to InventoryLab and are therefore getting the app for free, AND cutting costs is a priority, then you could avoid the expense of another paid app and get by with Scoutify2.

Note

Comes with an InventoryLab subscription, and not available as a standalone product. Surprisingly little info is available on Scoutify 2 online, and the app doesn’t even have it’s own website. The app is not emphasized as a key offering in the Inventory Lab package.

Scanpower

Tagline

“Simplify and Scale Your Amazon Seller Operation with ScanPower”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Competing MF and FBA prices
• Net profit
• Product image
• Sales rank
• Link to the Amazon product page:
• Product category
• Amazon’s price
• Data for non-media items
• “Hot List” feature: Pre-formatted links that allow you create links to other sites for basic product research (such as eBay).
• ScanPower Buy Button: Creat a list of items you have bought or plan to buy that can be uploaded to the desktop applicaiton of Scanpower.

Price

• $79 a month

Do I recommend Scanpower for Amazon booksellers?

Like Scoutify, I you are already susbcribed to the Scanpower package, this app comes free and is a solid app. It does not offer any advantages over an app like Scoutly, and the $79 cost cannot be justified if you are only using the app alone.

Notes

I personally used ScanPower for several years and only switched to Scoutly for it’s database download option. Today, Scanpower comes as par of a larger package (inventory management, repricer, more), and no longer available as a standalone product. At one time, the ScanPower app was it’s core offering, and one of the top apps for booksellers. In more recent years, it has gone the way of NeatoScan, pivoted to serving large Amazon operations, and de-emphasized its mobile app in favor of its desktop application suite.

Bonus: Review of “book buy back” apps

To make this article as comprehensive as possible, I’m including a section on apps the look up book buy back values only.

These are different than the apps we’ve covered so far, in that they don’t show Amazon prices. They only tell you what cash buy back sites will offer.

What are cash buy back sites?

These are sites that pay you cash for your books.

The benefit of these sites is that you don’t have to wait for a sale – once you agree to ship them a book, that price is locked in. When the book arrives, they pay you (usually via PayPal).

The downside of these sites is that the amount they offer is inherently a small percentage of the book’s true resale value (that’s how they make money).

Why would you use a book buy back app vs a regular scanning app?

There’s only three reasons to sell to a buy back site instead of on Amazon:

1. You are extremely risk-averse (no need to wait for a sale).
2. You need money fast.
3. You have books that you can’t sell on Amazon, and don’t want to sell anywhere else (like eBay).

Otherwise, selling a book yourself is a much better options.

With that disclaimer, here are two book buy back apps:

World of Books

Tagline

“Sell your books online the easy way, with World of Books”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data / Features

• Scan barcodes with your phone’s camera
• Manually enter ISBNs
• Lock in prices and check out from the app.

Price

Free

Notes

World of Books is a book buy back app that combines two older apps: Ziffit and Sell Back Your Book. They joined forces to form World of Books. You just accumulate books with minimum cumulative value of $7.50 before submitting books for buy back.

BookScouter

Tagline

“Buy and sell your books  at the best price”

Data download or live only

Live data lookups only.

Design

Data/ Features

• Returns buy back & trade in offers from all major book buy back sites.
• Scan barcodes with your phone’s camera
• Manually enter ISBNs
• Lock in prices and check out from the app.

Price

Free

Note

This is a much better option than World Of Books, because it scans all major book buy back sites (including World of Books) and gives shows you all your options (with the highest priced offer at the top). You can see in the image above, BooksRun is paying almost $4 for my book, while World of Books is paying literally 10% of that (40 cents). If you had relied solely on the World Of Books app, you would only receive the 40 cent offer.

What did we just learn?

The choice of which scanning app to use is probably the single most important decision you’ll make as a seller.

If you often skip to the end of articles (as I often do), here’s the key points:

• The two most popular apps for booksellers are Scoutly and Scout IQ.
• I personally recommend Scoutly as the best app.
• The best cheap option is the Scoutly Lite plan ($9.99 a month)
• The best full-price option is the standard Scoutly plan ($35 a month)
• There are many other options, but most are not a good fit for booksellers.

-Peter Valley

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