Interview with eBay bookseller Jesse, who shares his complete system for quitting his job, retiring his wife, and selling books full time on eBay (all while living in rural North Dakota)
Video: Interview with an eBay bookseller
(Can also watch the full video on YouTube)
Interview: Selling controversial books on eBay
You’re about to read an interview with Jesse, a full-time eBay bookseller.
(Strongly suggest watching the interview above vs reading the transcript below. The transcript is heavily abridged and the video captures the whole conversation better.)
I met Jesse under unusual circumstances. I was driving cross-country and stopped in Minot, ND – one of the more geographically isolated towns in the United States (look it up). I was sitting on a bench eating takeout downtown and I hear a voice:
“Peter?”
I look up and see someone I don’t recognize. It was Jesse. Turns out, he had recognized me from YouTube. He introduced himself as an Ebay bookseller, with an interesting business model: Specializing in rare, controversial books.
Most of my experience selling books on eBay have been negative. So I wanted to do in-depth into Jesse’s business and find out if I’ve been wrong about eBay all these years. (Turns out, I was wrong).
Watch the video for the full interview above, or read the abridged transcript below.
Do you sell books anywhere other than eBay?
No, just eBay.
You support your entire family off of books right now?
Yeah.
How did you get started selling books on eBay?
I was reading this zine about selling books called Cometbus (“A Bestiary of Booksellers“) I was sick at home with COVID and had a fevered thought: “I think I can make this work.”
And so I bought two lots on eBay for $200 just as a gamble. I listed them individually on eBay, for10 bucks a piece. And I think I made like $800 off the $200. So then I did it again. And from there, it just took off.
So you started out buying on eBay and reselling back on eBay?
So this year is my third year of selling books. For the first two years, it was just nothing but sourcing on eBay and other book sites.
So your first two years you were sourcing entirely online. And then you shifted over the last year to sourcing offline as well.
Yeah.
So what ratio is online to offline sourcing right now?
I’m selling maybe 30% online sourced books and 70% offline.
What percentage are you still sourcing on eBay versus other sources online?
I would say I rarely source on eBay now. Maybe five books a year now.
Let’s get into the type of books you sell. I think is the most interesting. You sell books that I wouldn’t touch. So you sell lots of occult books you talked about. What are the weirdest categories that you find a lot of profit in right now?
Definitely like vintage smut books. Counterculture. Drug books.
Where to you find “vintage smut”?
In bookstores. They’ll have the section blocked off and I just go straight for that spot. They’re usually $1 or $2. And you can easily sell many of them for 30, 40 plus dollars.
What are some of your offline sources that are maybe a little bit offbeat. Are you going to flea markets? Where are you going?
Mostly thrift stores. Also adult bookshops. The one here in town, they have old 90s magazines, like Esquire and video game magazines. I’ll just buy them for 99 cents.
With the magazines, are you selling them as lots or individually?
Individually. The video game magazines, I will sell as lots. But if I find like Esquire and GQs and other magazines from like the nineties, I’ll list them for $15. Quick money.
Here’s my biggest question with eBay: with Amazon, you have an app like Scoutly that tells you the demand for a book. My sense is that is not possible on eBay. How do you determine whether something has demand or not?
Usually I look at sold listings. For example, this book <holds up book on psychedelic mushrooms> I paid $75 for and it sells for $300 or $400.
Let’s focus on that book specifically since you brought some examples. So where did you find that book?
EBay.
And why did it catch your eye?
Just interesting looking to me, is it a drug book. Psychedelic mushroooms.
And so you knew that was a weird category that tends to do well. At that point, do you look at the value on Amazon immediately? Or do you look for closed listings on eBay at that point?
First thing I’ll do is closed listings. And then from there, if I see it sells for like maybe double, triple what I’ll pay, then I’ll go to Google images and search the title. And then I’d look for other copies of it. I might buy three or four copies of a book at once.
You will also comparison shop across other websites, but you’ll use eBay is your starting point?
Yeah.
So you’re buying up basically all the cheap copies on the internet?
Yeah.
So then, if someone wants a copy of that book, they have to buy through you?
Yeah. I treat my books like, like the stock market.
Your corner of the book selling world is the really fringe esoteric, controversial stuff.
Yeah, definitely.
Right now I like buying like cheap thrift store books. And then I’ll turn that profit into rare collectible books and I’ll let them sit for a while.
So you roll profit from faster moving, less fringe inventory into rare books. And you’ll buy them up and you’ll sit on them. You wait for the value to increase. And then you will, how do you know when to sell them?
I guess when I run out of bookshelf space.
.You were telling me that you have a secret chest of the really rare books. And you’re prepared to sit on those books for years. It’s like your retirement nest egg. How much would you say is value is in the chest right now?
Right now it’s about $140, 000. That’s three years of buying low, selling high, and keeping the good stuff.
I read this book and it talked about how collectibles are good assets. And so I remembered that.
Speaking of controversial subjects, does eBay ever take down your listings? Do they have rules about books that can’t be sold?
I’ve had four books taken down so far. I feel like they only take down listings whenever somebody reports it..
EBay doesn’t have a version of “best seller rank.” So how do you know if a book is going to sell or not?
I will look at closed listings. I’ll use Google and compare prices on other sites. If somebody is selling it on Amazon for a high price.
So you go more off of value than you do demand?
Yeah.
What is your average selling price?
I haven’t looked this year, but last year it was $82. That was when I was living in a smaller town, 60 miles away from every thrift store. But this year I’m pretty sure my average sale price has went down since I’ve been doing more offline sourcing.
You went to a library sale recently. How much do you expect to profit from that sale?
This weekend I made $700 so far. But I’m thinking in total it will be $4,000, maybe $5,000. Just that one book sale. And I was there for two hours.
The blind spot I have here is, how you know what books you should purchase to resell?
First thing I do is I look for weird keywords and publishers. And then depending on how much my cost is of goods is, I’ll just grab it. You just have that intuition that it’s worth something.
Do you rely solely on your intuition or are you in the library sale looking up books on your phone?
Usually if my cost of goods is so low, like I’ll just grab it. I rarely look at anything up first.
This is fascinating. I understand why you’re doing lots of due diligence when you’re sourcing online, because one, your cost of goods is higher. And you have the luxury of time. But if you’re at an offline source… this is fascinating for Amazon sellers. This is probably blowing people’s minds. You don’t even have to look anything up? Is that because the eBay fees are so low? What are eBay fees right now?
I can’t remember. Is it like 18 percent or something?
What percentage of books just never sell?
Maybe 10% or 15% of my books.
How do you know when it’s time to pull a book off eBay? How long are you willing to sit on a book?
I let it sit for maybe a month and a half. Then I’ll just take it to the bookstore and get store credit.
To recap, you go into a book source, and there’s no scanning involved. You don’t look anything up. You go off your intuition. You still only end up not selling 10 to 15 percent of your books, despite not having been able to verify anything.
And you’re supporting your entire family doing this. It’s bonkers.
How do you price, do you just go based on the last sold price or is it more complicated than that?
I will look at the last sold price. I’ll also look at like the book condition. If my book is in better condition than that one, I will list it higher.
Let’s talk about the listing process. What does that involve?
Usually I just let my pictures do the talking. I’ll put three photos. That’s it Takes one minute to do like a listing.
Do you try to optimize the title?
I just put title and author. Then I’ll put like keywords in there.
This is fascinating. And, but the description you feel is just useless. It just says, “see photos.”
Yeah.
Have you ever compared the value of the books that you sell on eBay to the corresponding selling price on Amazon? Is one significantly higher?
Usually I’ll see the Amazon prices are higher.
What’s the most expensive book you’ve ever sold?
$1,100. I found it at the thrift store for 50 cents. Life On The Plains by General Custer.
How often do you take sourcing road trips?
Maybe five times a year, maybe.
Let’s go back to this secret chest. I want to know what your long term plans for the chest is. Is that like retirement fund?
I’m not too sure. I never really thought too much about the future. Like eventually I really want to like one, my own bookshop and put them in a case to bring people in.
Do you ever think about scaling up? Having employees? Or are you pretty comfortable?
I think I’m pretty comfortable.
Do you have the eBay app in front of you? Can you show us your recent revenue?
<hold up phone, showing $13,000 in sales 90 days>
Thank you so much for doing this interview.
Thanks.
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