A lesson in books with bad Amazon sales rank, and how to “see” hidden value in books no other Amazon bookseller would touch.
Finding a stack of books with terrible, bad Amazon sales ranks
I took a road trip to Iowa recently. On the return trip I made a few stops to source FBA inventory. One library I stopped at had an ongoing book sale, where I found a collection of books that presented an interesting test for any Amazon seller.
The test was this: Is there a way to look at a book with a bad Amazon Sales Rank and tell that it will sell?
To put another way: Is there a difference between books with a bad Amazon Sales Rank that you should not buy to resell, and books with a bad Amazon Sales Rank that you should buy?
The books in question were a series of spiral-bound titles on homeschooling your child. On the surface, this seemed like a no-brainer for any Amazon seller: Stay away. No reasonable Amazon bookseller should touch these books.
The three reasons no Amazon seller would touch these books
- Four of them had an Amazon Sales Rank of zero, aka no Amazon Sales Rank. Meaning they had never sold a single copy on Amazon. Ever. You can’t get lower Amazon Sales Rank than zero.
- The other six books had Amazon Sales Ranks between 6 million and 8 million. Meaning, these hadn’t sold in a loooong time. Years. 8 million isn’t as bad as it gets, but close.
- These books were $6 each. That’s much higher than most sellers are used to paying for individual books, myself included.
In the eyes of almost every Amazon seller, these were horrible, worthless books. With bad, bad bad Amazon Sales Ranks.
What did I do?
I bought all ten books
Am I insane? Probably. But there is a method to my madness. Here’s why I knew these books would sell, and sell at a profit…
How to know when Sales Rank doesn’t reveal a book’s demand
I was convinced the “best seller rank” for these books didn’t tell the real story. Here’s why:
Reason #1: Every book was published four years ago. These books weren’t exactly new, but they weren’t old. Being published recently is not in and of itself an indicator that a book will sell on Amazon, but in this case it was the most important factor in my decision.
Reason #2: The books emanated “quality.” Experienced Amazon booksellers know what I’m talking about. At a glance, you can tell if a book is a low-quality hack job, or something that offers real value and high-quality content. These were the latter.
Reason #3: None of the books had any current offers on Amazon. Every Amazon product page stated “This item is not available at this time.”
Together, these three factors indicated to me the bad Amazon Sales Rank didn’t tell the whole story. In fact, it told the wrong story.
Poor Sales Rank can mean pent-up demand (not no demand)
Based on all the information, my theory was that there was a pent-up demand on Amazon for these titles.
Put another way, there were people who wanted to buy these books, but couldn’t because there were none listed. It was a risky theory, but not that risky. Just sixty-dollars-risky.
I put down the $60 and bought all ten books.
Once I was home, I listed them on Amazon for $49.99 each.
Generally, I would list any book for which I was the only seller at $99.99, then sit back and wait for a buyer. In this case, I had some money tied up in them so I wanted a quicker return on my investment. And the bad Amazon Sales Rank’s were so bad, I felt $99.99 was just slightly too bold.
The results (spoiler: I was vindicated)
All ten books sold on Amazon within a month. One buyer bought five in one purchase, and the rest sold almost as quickly. That’s about $400 profit on books with a bad Amazon Sales Rank that most other sellers would tell you “will never sell.”
It feels good to be right.
-Peter Valley
Your refreshing audacity – in the face of “never do this” and “always do that” – makes me laugh out loud. I never miss reading your columns, as you offer us tons of inspiration along the lines of this: when the going’s tough, the tough use their heads! Keep posting. 🙂
Great post Peter! I’m glad those turned profitable so quickly for you. I wondered what to do with books where I’m the only seller… I’ll try your approach.
I hope you can answer a question for me. I recently bought a big lot of books (thousands), but I’m not sure what to deem FBA worthy. IE: you’ve mentioned you look for at least $3 payout, but given I already own the books, I’m really trying to systematize to an extent the decision making process of what rank/payout combo make a book FBA worthy.
Hope you can shed some light on this.
Thanks in advance,
Guillermo
Good question. For me it is a simple question of what your time is worth. I will occasionally break my own profit-threshold rule if I already have the book in my possession. So the question really comes down to personal preference. There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with listing a book you’ll only make $1 on if you feel it is worth the time-cost.
Good Job! There’s a lot of money in home schooling books and learning aids.
Facing down the madness of “They won’t sell!” Gives great reasoning why they would sell, and the reason I am spending my time reading your blog.
Peter, I don’t completely trust Amazon sales rankings. Why? I have about 20+ years of my own book selling records. Often a book comes up with NO rank on Amazon, and I can look at my sales records and see that I have sold one or two copies before.
There are also some books that used to sell for good prices that have been totally devalued over the years. A certain fashion related book published during the Kenedy administration used to sell for $200-500. Reprinted a few years ago, the value has fallen to $25-50.
The case of the missing Amazon sales ranks started a few years ago. Very strange and I’ve never heard an theories as to why Amazon applies this seemingly randomly.