Should you donate those "Penny Books"

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whiteunicorna	Should you donate those "Penny Books"	Lead	[-]
Posts: 497 (06/28/09 15:58:46) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None This is actually in answer to a fabficbks post over in the Alibris Answers section http://alibrisdealersforum.yuku.com/topic/2023 but I didn't want to hijack the thread with an answer there. What was said was (in part) "I do have a cravat concerning the assembly of a "List At Your Peril" list. While I think a list of super-glut material would be interesting and amusing, I seriously doubt that such a list would be useful to anybody. ... In addition, even serious dealers will not be able to make much use of the list due to simple economics. ... The odds are astonomical that somebody will pick my average used copy, but the odds are 100% that I will never sell it if I never list it, so guess what, I'm going to list that book, no matter how many other copies there are already on the site. That's the simple reality. I think most of you reading this would agree with this accessment. " Well, actually, although I think the reasoning is good, I don't think it goes far enough and I don't agree. Of course, one can pick numbers to prove their point with a little bit of careful analysis but look at the following situation. I buy a 2500 book lot for $1000 ($0.40 a piece). Suppose half of those are 'penny books' for which 'The odds are astonomical that somebody will pick my average used copy' catagory and examine what happens from the 'economic side'. Lets suppose you sell 20 percent as many of the 'penny books' each year as you do the 'good books' and that you make a gross profit of 50 cents on each penny book. Also, remember that if you 'donate' the penny books, your cost of goods is $0.80 per book rather than the $0.40. Suppose you sell x number of books. You 'additional income' from selling the penny books is 0.10 times x (20 percent of 50 cents). Your 'additional income' from donating the penny books and using a $0.80 cost of goods is 0.4 x (you get to deduct an extra $0.40 cents a book because of the increase in COG). So, if you donate the penny books you make 0.3 x more money that if you sell them [ if that x were 50% of the good books sold the difference is $187.50]. But that is not the whole story. If you turn that additional money into inventory, you make money on that also and so on into the night. As I said, one can always pick and choose numbers to prove their point but I do think you will agree that it is not as straight foward as initially presented. Any comments? De DeWayne White http://www.alibris.com/stores/WhiteUnicornBooks A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.
Gceres		#1	[-]
Posts: 1296 (06/28/09 16:11:36) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	That's assuming the profits are just 50 cents a book.....I had this discussion a few years ago with sellers that thought it was absurd for us to list mass market paperbacks.....we sell approximately 50 a week of used paperbacks (mostly on Ebay and Amazon) at an average of $3.95 per book and an average profit of 2.25 a book. So it makes perfect sense to me to list everything. That's an extra $400+ in profit a month on the paperbacks alone. Now of course you cannot run a business on paperbacks alone unless you want to top out at $25K a year or so. But they can be a supplement to regular sales. I've also never understood the obsession with penny sellers and paying attention to what they are charging. We are rarely the lowest price on anything...maybe around 2% of our items are the lowest priced. Yet we regularly sell products that have 25 to 50 sellers priced lower than us. The market is a strange beast and it's hard to explain why this is the way it is...but it just is. So if you were to assume as you did above that 50 cents profit was all to be made...then yes you're point is well taken....but in general, an average run of the mill mass market paperback purchased for a quarter to 50 cents can yield $2+ any day of the week despite the flood of penny sellers.
whiteunicorna		#2	[-]
Posts: 499 (06/28/09 16:40:17) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Gceres wrote: That's assuming the profits are just 50 cents a book... I was talking about the "penny book" where "The odds are astonomical that somebody will pick my average used copy". Those $3.95 books don't sound like they belong in that category. De DeWayne White http://www.alibris.com/stores/WhiteUnicornBooks A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.
Gceres		#3	[-]
Posts: 1299 (06/28/09 16:54:42) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	That begs the question then and I've always wondered this...what does everyone consider a "penny" book. Because technically most of the used mass market paperbacks out there can be found for one penny on Amazon....but those are the same ones we consider 1.99+ books and sell routinely....so I'm just wondering what everyone else here would consider a book not even worthy of listing. For us, it's anything missing pages, severely damaged and not rare, crayon writing, etc. Most of everything else we'll list and our minimum pricing ranges from 1.99 for a mass market in Acceptable condition to $3.25 for a Like New (minimums).
whiteunicorna		#4	[-]
Posts: 500 (06/29/09 10:36:11) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Gceres wrote: That begs the question then ... Possibly it does. However, the question, as I meant it, was not about books that sell but was about books that don't sell. If you don't ever cull books and sell everything you list within a few years, then I'm not talking about the books you are talking about. What I mean in this particular case by a penny book is one for which there is very little profit margin, say less than $0.50 (and maybe much less) and one for which, as I mentioned before, "The odds are astonomical that somebody will pick my average used copy" or, as mentioned in the original thread referenced above, books you would "List At Your Peril". "Penny books", in the context above with a profit margin of $0.50 or so can generate quite a large amount of income for those who sell them in extremely large amounts. I'm also not talking about that situation. The situation I was talking about was outlined in my first post where maybe you get a large amount of "penny books" mixed in with the lot of "good books". Sometimes it is better to "donate" the "penny books" even if you can make a $2.25 profit. If your sell through rate for "penny books" (as defined above) were 5% of the sell through rate of the "good books" and the lot buy was as described above, you would still be better off donating the "penny books" But then, as I mentioned before, you can always choose your numbers to prove your point. As Benjamin Disraeli (almost) said, there are lies, damned lied, and sadistics. De DeWayne White http://www.alibris.com/stores/WhiteUnicornBooks A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.
Gceres	Oh you definitely have a valid point....	#5	[-]
Posts: 1305 (06/29/09 14:08:48) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I rarely, if ever cull, as for us, the cost of time spent culling seems to dwarf any benefit of culling books that aren't selling especially when there is always a chance that any book sells. Just wondering what criterion you use or others use to decide a book is a "penny book" and thus unworthy of listing. Interesting discussion topic!
Gceres		#6	[-]
Posts: 1307 (06/29/09 14:24:56) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	And I suppose it would be heavily dependent on your volume of sales and average sale price as well....
M5453		#7	[-]
Posts: 1209 (07/02/09 05:25:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Interesting question...what would be a good definition for a penny book...or even "penny" anything. I would think that a good one would be "where a major percentage of the "profit" is culled mainly from the difference in shipping paid and shipping charged.
Joyful Alternative	When not to list	#8	[-]
Posts: 125 (07/07/09 22:57:36) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	When I check amazon and see 10 pages of the book for a penny, and another page of "new" for under 50 cents, and the best-seller rate is 100,000 or so, it isn't worth my time to list. So I put it in the flea market box, and eventually we'll take them to a flea market and sell them for a quarter, five for a dollar. I want a reasonable chance of selling best-seller and former best-seller paperbacks for $2.95. The $1.99s are for markdowns when the mood hits. I just went through 5 dollar bags from an FOL and decided the price was so low because someone had already meticulously skimmed the better stuff. I had some oddball books and trade paperbacks that I had hopes for, but my listing price high was maybe $6.95, and I have lots of flea market books now. I won't waste my time at that library again. Well, at least I can get into the "to be listed" room, now that those bags are out of the doorway. Sales for me were very good and then just stopped for the holiday. And then didn't restart. Finally, tonight two amazon orders, but still nothing from elsewhere.
KazooBooks	Cost of selling penny books	#9	[-]
Posts: 101 (07/08/09 08:14:14) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Everybody here is comparing the cost of the book and what you sell it for. What about the labor costs of handling these books? If an employee has to take even the smallest amount of time handling the book during the process of selling the book, you have lost your "50 cent" profit. consider that the labor cost alone eats up 25 cents a minute. We do not list any book less than $7.00. Our average online sale per book is $21.50. We don't waste our time on "garage sale" inventory. Kazoo Books
fabficbks	Penny books? or opportunity books?	#10	[-]
Posts: 12 (07/18/09 11:39:22) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'll add a few words here, since my thread originally started this discusssion. First, does anybody selling on Alibris actuallty list books for a penny any more? Yeah, when I check prices I still see books somebody listed for a penny or a dime or a quarter, but this makes no sense for anybody currently selling on Alibris, because their minimum commission is a quarter, and the minimum posted listing price on the web site is $1.99. Anybody who lists a book, any book, for less than $1.99 must be either intellectually challenged or really not paying attention to business. I think most if not all those penny and ten cent bookas were posted several years ago. The question also should be bracketted by the condition of the book. I was stunned to read a posting from somebody who said they never culled out their bad copy books. It's a matter of professional pride for me to pick out poor condition copies, stuff that is badly water damaged, ripped up, loose pages and the like. Unless it happens to be a rare book or something of unusualy and particular interest, those books either get tossed into the trash or go into the boxes I save for my yearly yard sale and my twice yearly trips to the local flea market when I clear them out at 4/$1.00. I would never list a book that is less than Good condition unless it was something rare or unique. Listing poor condition books isn't worth the time it takes to list it, and it reflects badly on your reputation as a seller. I specialize in science fiction and fantasy, so I expect and actually get a fair amount of repeat business. You won't get much repeat business if you keep offering up crap; that's my opinion. At the same time I am constantly surprised when stuff not in my speciality area, books which I consider to be very common, occassionally sells. I sold a copy of Tom Sawyer a few weeks back. I sold a copy of a Peanuts paperback last month. When I buy collections of SF books there are almost always some Star Trek paperback books in the lot, and I list them anyway, even tho there are thousands of the same titles listed on the site already, because I sure ain;t gonna sell 'em if I don't bother to list them, and amazingly enough (to me anyway), they sell every now and then. My point, again, if you buy it, most dealers will list it even if there are thousands of the same title already on the site in hopes of turning product into cash. The only books I do not bother to list at all are romance paperbacks, which happilly I almost never get when I buy collections. I tried listing romance paperbacks about five years or so ago, and I think in all that time from then till now I may have sold one, or two, at best. It's just not worth the effort. Any romance ppbks I get go into the 4/$1.00 flea market trays, where I usually managed to clear a lot of them out. Young women and teenage girls will buy those things at a flea market, but I don't think anybody is willing to buy them thru the mail from a book site like Alibris. Has anybody here ever had any luck selling romance paperbacks? It would be interesting if somebody was actually successful with that category. ---Bob Jennings Fabulous Fiction Books
thebookladies		#11	[-]
Posts: 75 (07/18/09 15:00:38) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	fabficbks wrote: I was stunned to read a posting from somebody who said they never culled out their bad copy books. It's a matter of professional pride for me to pick out poor condition copies, stuff that is badly water damaged, ripped up, loose pages and the like. I'm pretty sure the original poster of that comment meant that they rarely or never cull their listed inventory. We also rarely cull listed inventory, we've generally got the space, so what is the need? Unless the price deteriorates to $0.01 on a 10 lb book, we're good LOL. Although our company minimum is $0.99. I think it goes without saying that no one lists a soggy Danielle Steele book I would image that it's hard to find a bookseller that doesn't have some sort of cull criteria for bulk purchases being entered. fabficbks wrote: this makes no sense for anybody currently selling on Alibris, because their minimum commission is a quarter, and the minimum posted listing price on the web site is $1.99. Anybody who lists a book, any book, for less than $1.99 must be either intellectually challenged or really not paying attention to business. I think most if not all those penny and ten cent bookas were posted several years ago. Hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I think most of us list on multi-venues and there are, for sure, PLENTY of penny books on Amazon. I think the term "penny books" generally refers to Amazon since most other venues have their own minimum price.
whiteunicorna		#12	[-]
Posts: 507 (07/19/09 13:34:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	fabficbks wrote: ... My point, again, if you buy it, most dealers will list it even if there are thousands of the same title already on the site in hopes of turning product into cash. ... I don't know about most dealers but we certainly don't. Our minimum now is (moving up to) $10 although we do have a lot of lower priced books listed at the present time. We will probably try to lot some books on (fe)eBay we have in the $3 on up category and hope to get a small profit. I've even thinking of adding a First of Hemingways For Whom The Bells Tolls to a lot. As far as romance books go, we don't sell many but places like Mostly Romance [a Chrislands store] seems to do quite a bit of business in romance. De DeWayne White http://www.alibris.com/stores/WhiteUnicornBooks A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.
DrZilboorg	In the first place	#13	[-]
Posts: 261 (07/30/09 04:57:51) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	WhiteUnicorn, your analysis is flawed. If you cull 20% of anything you can't (legally) double your cost of goods sold for the remaining 80%, at best you can increase the cost of goods sold by 20%. But you can't do that because the 20% becomes a charitable donation or becomes income from cash earned for scrap paper. I doubt the IRS would let you get away with that, in any case, because your initial outlay of $2,500 is what it is and doesn't change with the number of books paid for. But as you say, you can prove anything with numbers. Whatever. I get a lot of books for free. So if I make half a buck on them in shipping and another half a buck on them from the venue, then I've made a buck to offset my time/gas for acquiring them (one book will generally cover the actual cost; and of course the mileage deduction more than makes up for that in saved taxes at the end of the year on my Sched. C). And with Art of Books, it takes maybe 15 seconds to list a book after preparing them in piles for "Lightning Lister". Those sticky notes sure come in handy for making tedious accurate listings a breeze. So few books are culled in the initial phase: strips, really badly damaged books, and books bought for personal purposes that turn out to be penny books with a rating of over 5 million where mine is an ex-library anyways. At that point, my donation to Goodwill nets me 20% off my next purchase and that's a profit so far as I'm concerned. But not a taxable one so far as the IRS is concerned so it's all good. I do have a few boxes in my book room ready to be culled, but I haven't gotten around to lugging them in to delist them, and every once in a while I sell a book in them. I'm in this for the money, but it's a part time thing. I've got two other home-based businesses that pay the bills as well. I have noticed that as Obama's stimulus package increases in success the average sales price of my books seems to diminish, but it is summer, and summer reading is usually lighter. More than half my sales every week seem to be MMPB, but then I get most of them for free, so who am I to complain?
whiteunicorna		#14	[-]
Posts: 510 (07/30/09 06:42:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	DrZilboorg wrote: WhiteUnicorn, your analysis is flawed. ... I think you should reread what I said, the culling was 50%. As far as changing the number of books paid for, no it doesn't. However, it can change the COG computations depending on whether you 'put the books in inventory' before you cull. Actually, if you put them in inventory first and then 'donate' them, you get the deduction off the top the first year as part of your cost of goods. That is, the cost of each book is $0.40 if you keep them all. If you remove half of the 2500 book buy from inventory after putting them in inventory, then your inventory at the end of the year is 'down' by $500 and your cost of goods is $500 more reducing your profit but not actual cash in hand and thus reducing taxes you must pay. The point is, is that it is sometimes better to just get rid of items. This is not true in all cases but it is true in some and it is sometimes better to re-think a situation rather than just automatically follow old procedures. The results may be to follow the old procedures but then again, it might not. De DeWayne White http://www.alibris.com/stores/WhiteUnicornBooks A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.

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