How I discovered huge profits in reselling small paperback books, the results from my book sourcing experiment, and why Mass Market Paperbacks are one of the most overlooked and profitable book categories to sell on Amazon.
Video: Does reselling tiny paperbacks on Amazon work?
Okay, I didn’t “discover” anything. I’ve been hearing Amazon sellers sing the praises of “Mass Market Paperbacks” for years. But I didn’t understand how valuable they were until a recent experiment (that I’m about to recount in full).
This is a story about how I got excited about a (mostly) new book category to me, and how I made significant money from it, very quickly.
I’ve never been totally ignorant about how profitable the “mass market paperback” format were. I even included them in my guide to “overlooked but profitable book categories.” But while I knew this category contained gems, my position was always that this category was a last resort. The ratio of profitable mass market paperbacks was extremely low, and they were more of an “if you run out of other options, give them a look” book category.
While other sellers sang the praises of mass market paperbacks, I didn’t really grasp it. I thought they meant there was some anecdotal profit to be found, not that this was a core book category to give attention to.
So when book sourcing, I would always tune out the Mass Market Paperbacks. Literally filter them out of my reality. And it was only when I was out of other options that I would give them a look. Which was rare.
I was totally wrong.
So what are “Mass Market Paperbacks”?
So we’re all on the same page: Mass Market Paperbacks are the publishing industry term for those small paperbacks that are 6.75″×4.25″ in dimension. If you think of an average romance novel – that’s a Mass Market Paperback.
It’s the smallest size book that you see consistently.
How my opinion on Mass Market Paperbacks changed
There wasn’t any specific “a ha” moment. It was more like a book sourcing experiment that went far better than expected.
I was at a book source and found a copy of Ice by Ice: The Vanilla Ice Story in His Own Words. Yes, that Vanilla Ice.
And while the Sales Rank wasn’t great, I liked this part:
Nothing hugely notable, but a little light bulb went off.
What if I spent the next few book sources pretending that Mass Market Paperbacks were a great, profitable book category?
What if, instead of mostly ignoring these tiny paperbacks, or instead of treating them as a distant afterthought, I gave them equal attention? Experiments are fun.
So for the next five sources I went to, I gave very deliberate attention to the Mass Market Paperbacks.
And the results were way beyond my expectations.
How I made an expected profit of $250 in three days
When this mini five-source experiment was over, I had over $250 in profit. This is profit that was pure gravy, and would have left behind had I not given Mass Market Paperbacks deliberate attention.
Do you ever discover something new (or new to you) and start doing the math on how much money you’ve left on the table because you didn’t know that thing before? This easily could have been a six-figure blunder for me, if you added up all the lost opportunity over the years.
I now consider Mass Market Paperbacks to be a core book category that I will be giving full attention to going forward. Not a last resort, or of secondary importance. I’m totally sold that there is tons of profit in this category.
The downsides of Mass Market Paperbacks
Before I get into the books I found, here are the bad things about Mass Market Paperbacks (and why most Amazon sellers skip them)…
#1: The barcodes often don’t scan. More often than not, if you scan the barcode of a Mass Market Paperback, it reads the UPC – not the ISBN. This means you’re likely to get a “no results found” in your scouting app if you scan the barcode. You an often only look up a Mass Market paperback in one of four ways:
- Scan a second barcode on the inside cover. Often the “ISBN barcode” (the one that scans) is hidden on the inside cover.
- Scan the ISBN using the “OCR” feature of your app. I don’t know how ever app works or if every app has this feature, but Scoutly has an “OCR” button that lets you hold your camera over the ISBN, and it reads it using “optical character recognition” technology.
- Type in the ISBN manually.
- Use the Amazon app to search using the book’s cover.
#2: Mass Market Paperbacks often don’t have barcodes at all. You have to use the OCR function of your app to look them up (or use the steps above to look the book up other ways).
#3: Mass Market Paperbacks are mostly fiction. Fiction is dramatically less profitable category in general, but it’s especially a problem in Mass Market Paperbacks. The vast majority of these books are fiction. And while there can be profit even among fiction Mass Market Paperbacks (see an example below), its best to give your attention to non-fiction first.
#4: Mass Market Paperbacks are mostly romance fiction. Fiction is bad enough, but romance fiction is the worst. It’s entirely possible there are hidden niches of romance that are profitable among Mass Market Paperbacks, and I may have something to learn here. But can conclusively say I’ve never sold a Mass Market Paperback in the romance category for a profit.
#5: Mass Market Paperbacks usually have low-demand. You’ll definitely find examples with an average Sales Rank of better than 500,000, but more often than not the Sales Rank is in the millions.
10 examples of profitable mass market paperbacks
What follows are the results of my experiment, and ten Mass Market paperbacks I found across five sources (profit totals at the end).
- ISBN: 9788129140166
- List price: $13.99
- Amazon Payout: $6.19
- ISBN: 9780547480008
- List price: $11.99
- Amazon Payout: $3.84
- Notes: Alice Walker is a big author, and this is proof there is some profit to be found even among very mainstream authors in the mass market paperback format.
- ISBN: 9781611806212
- List price: $11.99
- Amazon Payout: $5.24
- ISBN: 9781558170940
- List price: $49.98
- Amazon Payout: $37.53
- ISBN: B000EG5S9S
- List price: $19.16
- Amazon Payout: $11.25
William R. Forstchen)
- ISBN: 0061054240
- Listing Price: $31.30
- Amazon Payout: $21.13
- ISBN: 9780394703107
- Listing Price: $9.99
- Amazon Payout: $3.45
- Notes: Normally I wouldn’t purchase a book with a value of only $10, but the demand is really high, and mass market paperbacks are so small that you can get a $3+ Amazon payout at a $10 selling price.
- ISBN: 9780380765942
- Listing Price: $29.94
- Amazon Payout: $20.50
Book #9: Send Me Your Guardian Angel (Padre Pio)
- ISBN: B000UQ2LLK
- Listing Price: $ 37.62
- Amazon Payout: $ 26.94
- ISBN: B0036PZ768
- Listing Price: $152.99
- Amazon Payout: $120.84
- Notes: The is a box set of 7 mass market paperbacks.
The totals of my “tiny paperbacks” experiment
- Number of sources: 5
- Total number of profitable books found: 10
- Total Amazon payouts: 256.91
- Total cost: $6.50
- Profit: $250.41
What’s important to note (and what I’m hostile at myself over) is that this is pure extra profit. I would have normally totally or almost totally ignored these books. They would have been under my nose and likely skipped altogether.
Before you get excited and think this is “easy, free money,” take note of this: None of these books returned results using my scanner. Meaning, I had to use the OCR function of Scoutly, find the hidden barcode on the inside cover (see notes on this above), or photograph the cover in the Amazon app to look up every single one of these.
That means if you don’t have an eye for spotting value, you won’t do well with Mass Market Paperbacks. Here are my top tips on how to do that (and I’m still learning)…
How to spot profit among Mass Market Paperbacks
While I’m still in the early stages of really studying this category, my approach is currently very simplistic:
I scan all non-fiction Mass Market Paperbacks
Since the percentage of non-fiction is low, this isn’t actually very daunting.
I scan all fiction Mass Market Paperbacks on any pop-culture subject matter
Examples: Magic The Gathering, Star Wars, Star Trek. Cabbage Patch Kids, etc. This hasn’t paid off hugely for me yet, but this is my current approach. I expect as time goes on. I will get a better eye for other fiction niches that are profitable.
I ignore all generic fiction
This is 98% of all Mass Market Paperbacks.
I fully accept that there are certain to be profitable titles in the “generic fiction” category. I also accept I will learn how to spot these over time. But for now, I’m avoiding most Mass Market Paperback fiction.
In conclusion: Mass Market Paperbacks are an overlooked (& profitable) book category
I’m excited to go deeper into this category.
For now, the takeaway is: Small size does not equal small profits.
-Peter Valley
PS: Know of other profitable niches within Mass Market Paperbacks? Post a comment below.
There’s one by Bruce Lee’s wife that’s valuable. And I had a Teddy Pendergrass bio that was good but Amazon restricted it for some reason and I had to have it removed. It has to be nonfiction, and arcane or fandom-related, so your strategy to scan the pop culture ones is spot on. I would’ve scanned that Vanilla Ice one too!
I’ve never found a romance paperback worth selling on Amazon either, but if you lot them up they do well on eBay, especially if they’re niche romance like paranormal, or Amish, or even better, Amish suspense. I once bought ~250 paranormal romance books and I don’t remember exactly how much I made, but it was very worthwhile. I did send a few of those to Amazon but they were in a larger format, not mass market size. Usually a big enough lot of almost any author/genre will sell, if you have the patience and time for it. For many it’s probably more efficient to just source more FBA-worthy books, but if your supply is limited and/or you need to squeeze the most out of a collection… it works.
Great info! I’m going to start keeping an eye out for more hyper niche romance. Keep hearing good things about this category.