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1. Many category books, such as romance, Western, or science fiction, sell best on lots of 20 or more.

2. Some authors sell very well individually. Popular romance author Nora Roberts is one. However, there's a glut of books by other popular authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz which only sell in a large collection or as part of a more general horror lot. Low prices also apply to something like Star Trek books...you need a huge lot to get even a small bid.



3. Some authors or themes do not sell at any price. I once gave away 80 routine Harlequin silhouette romances for which I could not even get a $3 bid.



4. Children's books are considered very popular.



5. With lots, subcategories will generate higher prices. Romance subcategories, for example, include medieval, Civil War, Western, time travel, occult, fantasy, American Indian, etc. You can come up with some specialized category for which some buyer will salivate.



6. Do not underestimate the power of the word "lot" in your title when appropriate. It is a top eBay search term.



7. Your ultimate information source is eBay itself. See how others list their sales, use description and scans, and, above all, research what your book is going for. I'm amazed that people list books for $20 when everyone else is asking $1 or $2 for the same title.



8. Check your own bookshelves for books to sell, then ask friends and relatives if they have books to get rid of. My sister contributed five bags of paperback books she'd stockpiled. Then hit yard sales, garage sales, flea markets, and, the best, library sales. Library sales are bargains, especially on $2 a bag day where you pay literally pennies per book. You can also run a newspaper ad offering to buy paperback books.



9. Make your sales goal $1.00 per book when selling by lot. Ideally, the per unit expense will be .25 or less per book. You can justify buying a few books for .50 or even .75 if it substantially increases the value of your lot. This way the per unit expense averages out to more than .25 but less than .50.



10. Recycle packaging material wherever possible. Environmentally sound, it also cuts the handling charge you must request. Check store dumpsters, ask friends to save their packaging.



About the author:

Nick Howes is a freelance writer of magazine, newspaper, and online articles and news director at a radio station. His website offers used books as well as an archive of this and other articles. The site is at http://home.midwest.net/~howes/