How to make $1,000 a month selling used books on Amazon

Every step to going from nothing, to making an extra $1,000 a month reselling books on Amazon (written by a real bookseller). How to sign up for an Amazon account, where to find books, how to list them for sale, how to price them, and every step.

I’m not holding anything back with this guide

You’re about to get a complete guide to (fairly quickly) making an extra $1,000 a month buying and reselling used books on Amazon.

Everything I’m about to cover is from my personal experience. I’ve taught thousands of people these exact steps and watched them quickly get to $1,000 a month (and well beyond) using this framework.

I’m also not holding anything back. This isn’t a bait-and-switch “read the article and buy a course to get the rest” article. You can use exactly what we’re about to cover to start doing significant revenue fairly quickly, and build from there.

You can go deeper into each of these steps by read or watching my other articles and videos (almost all of it is free). But if you’re committed, you can work solely off this article and build a successful side hustle or full-time business.

Important to know before we start

Like I said, every step you need to start making $1,000 a month is included in this article.

For subjects that require a little more detail that we have room for, I will link you to a (free) resources. Either:

1. An article I’ve written, or-
2. A (free) PDF guide.

Follow the steps, take a few minutes to understand the concepts, and you will be totally prepared to launch an Amazon bookselling business – either as a side hustle, or a full time pursuit.

What does an Amazon bookselling business cost to start?

For each step, I’m going to give you a free option, and a not-free option.

With these steps, I will make it possible for you to start this business entirely for free (I’ll even tell you how to get free inventory). “Free” usually means you’ll work harder (like having to look up books with your phone’s camera), or things will be less streamlined (like listing inventory by hand), but its totally doable.

You’ll be able to get started for anywhere from $0 to $250.

As soon as you have money coming in, I encourage you to review the “not free” options to scale up and streamline you bookselling business significantly.

Every reason Amazon bookselling is a great business

Let’s start with the question: Why books? Why not board games or stuffed animals or anything else? Why books of all things?

The reason we’re going to focus on books is very deliberate:

1. Books are cheap: Most used books can be purchased for $2 or less.
2. Books are everywhere: The world is simply drowning in books that no one wants.
3. Books offer the best profit margins: It’s very simple to buy a book for $1 and resell it on Amazon for $20. Multiple this dozens or hundreds (or thousands) of times a month, and you have a serious business.
4. Books have barcodes: This means we can scan those barcodes and quickly learn the value of each book on Amazon.

I’m not proposing bookselling because “I love books” (even though I do), or anything subjective or random. The decision to sell books is calculated, and generally agreed upon as the best product to start with.

Skeptical? Look at almost anyone online who teaches Amazon selling (either on YouTube, blogs, etc). Most of them either started with books and branched out, or continue to sell books. There’s a reason for this (see the list above).

 

Step One: Sign up for an Amazon selling account

You need an account to sell on Amazon, so that’s the first step.

Sign up here.

You’re going be presented with two options:

1. A free option (the “Personal” plan). This is free, but there is an extra $1 fee for every item you sell. Since the paid account is $40/month, that means if you plan to sell less than 40 items per month, the paid plan is actually cheaper. Since we want to get you quick momentum with the lowest startup costs, let’s start with the free plan.
2. A $40/month plan (the “Professional” plan). As covered above, this waives the extra $1 per item fee. If you happen to already have inventory to sell when you start, then you might want to start with this plan. Otherwise, choose the free plan.

We’re going to start you on the free plan. You can upgrade to the paid plan anytime.

Should you choose a “Merchant Fulfilled” account or a “Fulfillment by Amazon” account?

Another decision you’ll be presented with is how you want your items “fulfilled,” or shipped to your customer.

• Merchant Fulfilled: This means that when a book sells, you will pack the book yourself and take it to the post office. You are the one “fulfilling” the order.
• Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA): This means that you ship all your inventory to an Amazon warehouse in a box (or multiple boxes), and when it sells, Amazon ships it to the customer.

The benefits of Merchant Fulfilled are the lower fees. The negatives include extra work for you, and lower sales (buyers prefer buying FBA offers).

The benefits of FBA include higher sales, higher sales prices (you can charge more for FBA listings), and less work. The negative is the higher fees.

While I’m a big proponent of FBA, I’m going to recommend you start selling Merchant Fulfilled. The whole point here is to get you fast momentum, and there is a steeper learning curve with FBA. You have to learn the process of packing and shipping books to Amazon. This isn’t hard, but it is a couple extra steps, and you can always choose FBA later.

What to expect when setting up an Amazon seller account

Amazon’s interest is in insuring that everyone who sells on their platform is a real person who isn’t a scammer. So you’re going to be put under some scrutiny during this process. You’re not being singled out – this is normal.

Since Amazon changes the sign up process seemingly every few months, here is a list of things you might expect when signing up:

• Amazon may want to do a video interview with you. You’ll get on a video call with an Amazon representative, who will ask you a few questions.
• Amazon may send you a postcard. The postcard will have a pin number you will enter in the application process. This is used to verify your address.
• Amazon may ask you to upload numerous identity documents. Sometimes they’ll come back after you’ve uploaded one, and ask you for more. This is normal.

What can go wrong when signing up for a selling account?

You may experience a situation where Amazon comes back repeatedly asking for more documents, whether its a driver’s license, bank information, or address verification.

What I’ve learned from talking to lots of sellers is applications are essentially vetted by robots. Either actual AI “robots,” or humans who may as well be robots. That means that any possible discrepancy that Amazon detects, or any deviation from their instructions exactly, will probably delay the process or cause them to reject your application.

With this in mind, I present to you the Two Commandments of signing up for an Amazon account:

1. Every letter and number of every document must match exactly. This cannot be stressed enough – exactly. That means if you enter your address as “Apt #205” and your driver’s license says “Apartment #205,” you’ll get rejected. No matter how insignificant you think a difference is, it’s not insignificant enough for Amazon.
2. You must follow their directions exactly. This also cannot be stressed enough – exactly. If they tell you to send a photo of you holding your drivers license in your left hand, and its in your right hand, they will rejected. Follow the steps exactly.

Amazon wants you to sell on their platform

The process can be tedious, and they can throw some curveballs (like asking for more documents). This can make it seem like Amazon doesn’t want you to sell with them, or Amazon selling is some kind of elite club that doesn’t want you. That’s definitely not the case.

60% of Amazon’s revenue comes from third party sellers like us. So Amazon needs us. They also need to cover their bases and make sure no shady business happens, which is why there’s so much scrutiny of new sellers in the sign up process.

This process might not be 100% painless, but it’s not complicated. Just do what they say, and wait for approval.

Step Two: What software do you need to start selling on Amazon?

We’ll divide the tools you need to start your bookselling business into two categories: Software and hardware. Don’t worry, this won’t be complicated.

The only software you need to start is a “scanning app.” You’ll also hear these referred to a “scouting app” or a “sourcing app.”

These perform the crucial function of telling you two important details about any book:

1. What the book is worth.
2. How often the book is selling.

These apps will provide even more data, but the two items above are all you need to make a purchasing decision. We’re trying to keep this simple to start.

Which scouting app should you use?

There are multiple apps available, and to keep this even more simple I’m going to recommend the one I think is best:

Sign up for Scoutly

This is the most respected app among booksellers, and also the cheapest.

You probably remember that I promised you could start this business for free, and Scoutly offers a 30 day free trial. That’s more than enough time to get momentum. At the conclusion of the free trial, plans start at just $10 a month. This is an incredible deal for a tool that provides a form of X-ray goggles that let you see profitable books everywhere.

How do you scan books with an app?

The mechanics of scanning books is very simple:

1. Hold you phone camera over a book’s barcode.
2. The app will show you all the pricing and Sales Rank history.

Once you get momentum, you’re going to graduate to using a bluetooth barcode scanner. This makes your sourcing go a lot faster. But to start, using your phone camera is totally fine.

Step Three: What hardware do you need to start selling books?

The only piece of hardware you need to start is a smartphone. Since you probably have one anyway, there’s no extra expense for you.

Scoutly (and all other apps) work for both iPhones and Android devices.

What hardware is optional to start?

A Bluetooth barcode scanner (mentioned previously).

A desktop barcode scanner. This is a “nice to have” item for listing inventory, but not necessary. You can also use your bluetooth scanner for this function, or just enter your books manually.

A label printer. This is only necessary if you’re choosing to start by selling via Fulfillment by Amazon. Amazon requires a special label be placed over the barcode of every book. If you’re starting as a Merchant Fulfilled seller (as recommended), you don’t need to worry about this.

Step Four: How do you know what books to buy?

There is just one last step before we send you out into the world to get your hands on profitable books,You have to know what books to buy.

There are two parts to this:

1. Establishing personal buying criteria around what books you buy.
2. Understanding how to read the data on your scouting app.

Let’s cover each of these…

What should your personal buying criteria be for books?

To prevent you from having to do much thinking when you’re getting started, I’m going to recommend a buying criteria called the “Rule of Threes.” Here it is:

1. Don’t buy anything that won’t bring you a minimum $3 payout. A “payout” is the amount Amazon deposits into your bank account when an item sells. Your app will tell you the payout for every item.
2. Don’t buy anything that won’t get at least a 3x return on your investment (ROI). Meaning, if you spend $2 on a book, the minimum payout you should accept is $6.

It’s very hard to lose money if you stick to the Rule of Threes.

The last buying criteria I’ll suggest is having a Sales Rank based rule:

1. Don’t buy anything with an Amazon “best seller rank” of worse than 1.5 million (meaning, a number higher than 1.5 million).

Here’s quick tutorial on Amazon Sales Rank:

A quick guide to understanding Amazon Sales Rank

“Sales Rank” (which you’ll also see referred to as “Best Seller’s Rank”) is how Amazon measures demand for an item. The lower the number, the higher the demand.

By looking at the Sales Rank in Scoutly, you can always get a general idea how often a book is selling. This prevents you from purchasing books that aren’t selling.

In a second, I’ll give you a simple Sales Rank standard to adhere to so you don’t have to spend much time studying and memorizing sales rank. But I’m going to recommend you study my complete guide to Amazon Sales Rank (it’s free).

What Sales Rank should you stay under to start?

Don’t buy any books with an average Amazon Sales Rank of worse (i.e. a higher number) than 1.5 million.

Remember that Scoutly will give you this number for every book. So if you see the average rank is a higher number than 1.5 million, pass on that book.

As your progress in this business, it will be absolutely find to buy books with a Sales Rank of 2 million, 5 million, and even 10 million (depending on the profit potential). The reason we’re starting you with such a conservative range is that when you’re getting started, it’s important to only list books that will sell relatively soon.

Once you have money coming in, you can relax your standards. But for now, we need to focus on getting you quick sales. So 1.5 million is the ceiling.

How to you interpret the numbers in your scouting app?

Now that you have clear buying standards, how to you read all the data that appears for each book in your app?

It can be overwhelming when you’re looking at all those numbers for the first time. But it’s actually very simple.

• Look at the lowest price in used condition. This is the top number the left-hand column.
• Look at the payout (selling price minus all fees). This is displayed at the top.
• Look at the average Amazon Sales Rank. This is displayed in the upper-right.

You will buy any book with the following criteria:

• The payout is at least $3.
• The payout is at least 3x what you’re paying for the book.
• The Sales Rank is better than 1.5 million.

Super simple. You can’t go wrong with this buying formula.

Remember the app is doing all the heavy lifting for you: Calculating all Amazon fees, giving you the prices, and showing you the demand. All you have to do is give the app a quick glance, and when everything looks good, buy the book.

What pitfalls to avoid when sourcing books

Buying books with severe damage. For every book you buy, give it a quick glance for any severe damage. Normal wear is fine when you’re selling used books, but avoid major damage like a missing front or back cover, or heavy water damage.

Getting discouraged. It’s probably accurate to say that less than 1/200 books will be profitable. This is a big shock to a lot of sellers when they get started, and can result in people getting discouraged quickly. It’s totally normal to scan 100 to 200 books before you get to a profitable one. Your efficiency will dramatically increase once you upgrade to a bluetooth barcode scanner, and get a better “eye” for spotting profitable books.

Free resources to learn what books to buy

1. My guide to understanding Amazon sales rank
2. My guide on the 12 most profitable book categories
3. My article on how to read scouting app data

Step Five: Where do you find books to resell?

Now you have the infrastructure in place. You have the hardware, the software, and the Amazon selling account. Time to get some books.

Finding books is incredibly easy. Cheap books are everywhere. Grab your phone (with Scoutly installed) and go to these sources:

• Thrift stores. This is the lowest of the “low hanging fruit” for Amazon booksellers. You should be in proximity of multiple thrift stores, which always have cheap books.
• Garage sales. If you can wait until the weekend, go to as many garage sales and scan as many books as you can. Books are extremely common to find at garage sales.
• Estate sales. These can be absolute goldmines for booksellers. Search online for dates and locations of local estate sales.
• Library book sales. Nothing better for booksellers than a giant room (or multiple rooms) of cheap books. These are a major book source. Use Google to find these, or BookSaleFinder.com.

 

And start scouring these online book sources:

• Facebook marketplace. You’ll find people both selling tons of books, and also giving away tons of books.
• Craigslist. Go to the “Books” tab and search for opportunity. You can’t scan books of course, but you can look them up individually on your app or on Amazon directly.
• eBay. Another great book source.

You’ll have more than enough book inventory to hit $1,000 a month using just these sources.

Where can you find free books?

If you’re committed to starting this business totally for free, you have a lot of options. Free books are everywhere.

The best resources on this is my (free) guide on 10 sources of free books.

How many businesses can you start where your inventory is literally free?

Step Six: How do you list your books for sale on Amazon?

At this point, all the hardest parts are behind you. You have actual inventory to sell. Now we’re at the last step before actually get paid.

Follow these steps:

1. Step One: Go to Seller Central.
2. Step Two: Go to Catalog – > Add A Product
3. Step Three: Enter the ISBN.
4. Step Four: Select Used or New.
5. Step Five: Enter basic info – price, condition, and other basic info.

Done. Your listing is live.

Now let’s go into a little more detail on the most important parts of the listing process.

How to price your used books

The most important part of this process is setting a price.

Amazon pricing strategy can turn into a fairly complex subject if you let it, but there’s no reason to complicate it when you’re getting started. I’m going to suggest a very simple formula:

Always match the price of the cheapest used offer.

Open the Amazon product page for every book you’re listing (or pull it up on your app), look at the lowest priced used offer, and match that price.

You might be tempted to price below that price, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You then force them to underprice you, and a “race to the bottom” is triggered. Just match their price, and move on to the next book. Very simple.

A reminder for the future: This formula of “always matching your lowest priced competitor” is not the strategy I would recommend as your business grows. We’re keeping this pricing strategy really simple as you get started, but as you get more experience, you will learn how to balance price and Sales Rank, and price higher to increase your profit margins.

But there is nothing wrong with pricing conservatively to start.

How to condition your used books

The other important step when listing is to properly grade your book. Here’s a quick rundown of your options:

New condition: If a book is cosmetically flawless, you can list it as new. But don’t cut corners here – only choose new if the book is truly in new condition.

Like New condition: Generally this condition should be avoided. It is only applicable in rare instances where you have a New condition book with a very slight blemish. Like New condition is often misapplied by sellers, resulting in negative feedback from customers.

Very Good condition. Apply this to any used book that has only light wear. This is probably the most common condition to apply to used books. If you have a book and it has some minor wear to the cover, bumps to the corners that aren’t severe, etc – that’s a Very Good condition book.

Good condition. Grade a book as Good condition when it has wear that is slightly more substantial than what can be called “light wear.” This is somewhat of a subjective assessment. If you have doubts as to whether a book is Good or Very Good, err on the side of Good condition.

Acceptable condition. Condition a book as Acceptable if it has heavy wear. Books with lots of highlighting, heavily worn covers, etc are best described as Acceptable condition.

Note that some books should never be sold, such as books with serious water damage, have missing covers, or are heavily soiled.

How to write condition notes for your used books

Lastly, as part of the listing process, you’ll add a condition note, otherwise known as a condition description.

The purpose of the condition note is to communicate to the Amazon customer that they can trust that the item is in the condition you say it is. In other words, to instill trust in your customer.

At its core, this just means writing specific notes about the item’s condition in a way the make it clear the book was individually inspected.

Here’s an example:

“Average shelving wear. Some light wear to cover but overall great shape.”

Don’t overthink this, but make sure your notes are specific and non-generic.

If you want a free resources with condition notes that you can copy and use yourself, grab my (free) guide: “Condition Note Examples You Can Steal.”

Step Seven: Reprice your inventory and wait for a sale

Once your books are live and for sale on Amazon, your only major job is to keep them competitively priced.

Repricing is necessary because prices on Amazon are always changing. They can go up and down sometimes hundreds of times a day. That can mean your inventory can get underpriced by many other sellers fairly quickly, and you want to be repricing up and down to keep your offers visible to customers and optimized for quick sales.

The simplest way to accomplish this is by going through your inventory once a day, and matching the price of your lowest-priced competitor – while still not dropping the price so much that it’s unprofitable.

The steps to reprice your books

1. Go to your Manage Inventory page.
2. Filter the “listing status” to “active.”
3. For every item where you are not the lowest price, click “match.”
4. Save your changes.
5. Advance to the next page and repeat.

What repricing mistakes should you avoid?

Mistake #1: Pricing too low. The most significant thing to be careful of is to not price your item so low that you lose money. Eventually this will become second nature as you understand Amazon fees better, but when you’re stating this can be an easy mistake to make.

Fortunately, you don’t need to speculate about profits. Amazon gives you a “calculate revenue” button on the Manage Inventory page. Click this to get a full analysis of all fees and your profit at the current listing price.

Mistake #2: Panicking when the price drops. It’s normal for prices to drop. And it’s tempting when you’re starting to be desperate for a sale and drop your prices too fast. But often its smarter to just let the lower priced competitors sell out, and wait your turn at a higher price.

Just don’t panic when prices drop. That’s normal. They (usually) raise again eventually.

Step Eight: How do you ship your books to Amazon customers?

After listing your inventory (and editing your prices), you’ll start to get sales. This is the fun part. Now you just have to ship your books to your customers.

Earlier in this guide, I gave you the option of choosing “Merchant Fulfilled” (shipping books to your customers yourself), or “Fulfillment by Amazon” (letting Amazon ship your books). You might remember I suggest starting Merchant Fulfilled, and graduating to FBA eventually.

Assuming you chose the Merchant Fulfilled approach to start, here are the steps:

1. Package your books. There are varying opinions on how to best pack books for shipment, but I am firmly in the camp of “keeping it simple.” Put your book in an envelope, seal it well, and you’re good to go. It’s a used book after all, so elaborate packaging is not necessary.
2. Take it to the post office and ship. You’re going to tell the person at the post office counter that you want to ship “Media Mail.” This is a discounted rate reserved for books, CDs, and other media.

Step Nine: How does Amazon pay you?

Every two weeks you’ll get the profits from all your sales directly deposited into your bank account.

You are now running a real Amazon bookselling business.

What have you accomplished with these nine steps?

Before we cover how to dial in this process into a well-oiled machine, let’s recap what you just did:

• You signed up for an Amazon account.
• You spent a small amount of time understanding basic numbers (like Amazon fees and Amazon Sales Rank).
• You downloaded an app onto your phone to look up book prices.
• You went out and found cheap (or free) books to sell.
• You listed them for sale on Amazon.
• Customers bought your books.
• You shipped them to your customers.
• You had money deposited into your bank account.

What a time to be alive, right? But we’re not done…

The #1 secret to bookselling success

This is point where far too many sellers get far too comfortable. You got sales, and while this is worth celebrating, you most avoid the trap of getting complacent.

The #1 secret that separates sellers who stay in the business from those who drop out is one thing: Consistency.

Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

You have to keep repeating steps #5 through #9. Consistently.

Source books, List books. Reprice books. Ship books. Repeat. Over and over. This is how you build the business.

And as you source more books, your inventory will grow. Soon you will be getting dozens of sales a day. Then, if you remain consistent, hundreds.

But you must repeat steps #5 through #9 consistently.

That’s the secret.

How to predictably make an extra $1,000 a month

Let’s turn this into a predictable system using conservative math that will get you to $1,000 a month, quickly.

Find 10 “fixed” sources of books in your area. These are the thrift stores, etc. Places that can relied upon week after week, month after month.

Commit to 10 “non fixed” sources each month. These are the garage sales, estate sales, library sales, etc. That’s only two or three each weekend. Pretty easy.

Here is the conservative math we’re going to assume:

You should expect to make $100 per fixed source, per month. It should work out to better than this, but I don’t want anyone to say these numbers are overly optimistic. And you should be able to accomplish this with only one visit, so this is extremely part-time work we’re talking about.

You should expect $50 per non-fixed source. We’re keeping this estimate lower, because they’re a little less consistent. You might score $250 in books at one estate sale, followed by two garage sales that are duds. That’s normal.

Let’s do the math on where we are now:

• 10 fixed sources = $1,000 in books each month.
• 10 non-fixed sources = $500 in books each month.

That’s $1,5000 in books.

Because you’re starting out with books that have an average Sales Rank of 1.5 million or better, everything in your inventory is selling at least once a month. So if you’re staying on top of Step #7 (repricing), you can expect most of your inventory will sell the first month. Let’s assume 2/3, but it should work out even better.

That’s $1,000 your first month.

Now remember: We’re keeping this really simple to start, and there are many many sources of books we are not covering. So it’s only going to get better from here.

Why is Amazon better than eBay?

The decision to list on Amazon and not eBay isn’t random. While there are some benefits to listing on eBay for certain books (like highly collectible titles), Amazon is the best platform to sell books on.

1. Amazon gets at least 90% of the traffic. There are simply vastly more people buying books on Amazon than eBay. You will simply get more sales listing books on Amazon vs eBay.
2. Amazon lets you scale. Eventually your business will grow to a place where it expands beyond your ability to pack and ship everything yourself. Amazon’s FBA program will allow you to free yourself from the shipping part, and focus on sourcing.

If you’re serious about maximizing sales and growing your bookselling business, choose Amazon over eBay.

Seven ways to scale your bookselling business after hitting $1,000 a month

So far I’ve given you the beginner’s formula, with a focus on getting your to $1,000 quickly and with minimal time and monetary investment. But once you get momentum, you’ll want to grow. Here are ten ways to scale:

1. Discover new sources. Always be looking to expand the number of existing book sources. Research your area and add new book sources to your sourcing routine. And while its best to focus on mastering one model, consider expanding to other bookselling models like online sourcing or bulk buying.
2. Sell via Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Eventually you will find that shipping your books yourself is a bottleneck, and you’ll want to consider paying Amazon to pack and ship your inventory for you. The fees are higher, but shifting to the FBA model will allow you to scale.
3. Get a bluetooth barcode scanner. Using a scanner instead of your phone’s camera allows you to source literally 10x faster. Strongly recommend investing in a scanner as soon as possible.
4. Sign up for a listing tool. Listing items one at a time on Amazon is painfully slow, and Amazon makes it unnecessarily complicated. As soon as you can, sign up for a listing tool like Scanlister or Go2Lister.
5. Use an automated repricer. Once your inventory gets above 100 items or so, repricing by hand becomes cumbersome and its time to turn over the repricing process to software (like NeuroPrice).
6. Hire sourcers. You can duplicate your efforts by hiring people, teaching them your methods, giving them barcode scanners, and sending them out to acquire inventory for you.
7. Social sourcing. This is the term for obtaining inventory that isn’t publicly for sale, but that can only be obtained by talking to people. Whether this means setting up a deal with your local library to get first access to books before a book sale, contacting estate lawyers to obtain books from clients, and beyond. Truly endless number of possibilities with “social sourcing.”

You just learned every step to making $1,000 (or more) selling books on Amazon

My goal was to make this article so detailed, that you could build an entire business from what we just covered. This article can replace many courses and books on this topic.

From signing up to scaling, you now have the Amazon bookselling blueprint.

-Peter Valley

 

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