I ship over 100 poorly ranked books to Amazon. Six months later, here are the sales results.
In June, I did a post on pulling over 100 books from the university library dumpster. The library was (and still is) in the midst of a massive book purge (to make way for more computers), and I am perhaps the largest (and only) beneficiary. I.e. they throw their books in the trash, and I retrieve them.
Before I go over the results of this experiment, here’s a recap of that haul:
- Total transport and listing time: 4 hours
- Quantity: 112 books
- Average rank: Approx. 4 million
- Total listing price: $5,900
Now, nearly all the Amazon “experts” out there would tell you to never ship in a book ranked 4 million. Most of them will tell you not to mess with anything ranked worse than 1 million. My experiment with this shipment offers a different lesson.
Seven months later, the results:
- Total books from this shipment sold: 32
- Total selling price: $1,278.85
- Price of most valuable book sold: $499.99
- Approximate net profit: $767
This haul contained the most obscure, esoteric books imaginable. These were old, arcane university press books from the 1970s and 1980s. The average rank (again) was about 4 million. And I’ve been averaging over one sale a week.
That’s over $750 for 4 hours work. If you’re doing the math, that’s almost $200 an hour. And note the ratio of books sold: Over 25% in 7 months.
Someone should forward this post to the “experts” who tell you not to bother with books ranked worse than 1 million.
The takeaway
No book is too obscure. The importance of sales rank is greatly overstated. If the book has “on paper” value that allows for huge margins, no sales rank should be poor enough to matter. Most books (that are non-fiction, and do not have a later edition available) will sell eventually.
Also, claim your free book:
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Hi
If I can ask?
What are you doing with long term storage fee books if they don’t sell in a year.
I don’t have more than 100 or so items at any time that I have multiples of, so this hasn’t been a huge consideration for me personally. When it is an issue, I just do that math and if I decide I’m going to lose money, I place a removal order.
Peter-Have you gotten feedback indication Amazon is loosening up in rejecting certain books-ASINs? Thanks. Murray
How do you list books so fast. I cant imagine being able to list 112 booka in that short of time.
Being that this post is almost two years old now, being that it was featured in a current email blast, I would love to hear an update on the numbers…
Ditto what Squid says. I just read this in an email yesterday. What was the title that sold for $499.99? How you priced it and how/why it sold is a story in itself. Thanks Peter
I’m deciding what my next article should be, and maybe I’ll make this the subject?
Very interesting. I find the numbers puzzling, though… If you’re a one-man band and you pulled the books from a trash bin, how did you manage to waste $511 and only end up with $767 net profit? Sorry if this question is too personal but I find it mind-boggling.
That’s called “Amazon commissions.”