Want to Start a Book Selling Business? Here’s How Much Time You’ll Need.

This business is very flexible. You can treat it like a part time job or put in overtime. However, the number of books you list per week directly relates to the amount of money you will make.

The more inventory you have in stock the more sales you will get each week as a certain percentage of your inventory sells each week. The more units you send in each week the higher your overall percentage of profit will be as some of your income must go to cover your monthly expenses.

There is a minimum amount of work necessary to ensure that your fixed costs are covered because there are several monthly subscriptions required just to maintain the business. Listing anything less than 15 books per week is not likely to be profitable. Unless you cherry pick very high dollar books you’re just going to be breaking even by the end of the year.

There are many ways to customize this business to your own personal lifestyle, amount of money available to invest, and location. There are things you can do to increase your personal speed and efficiency which will reduce your work time. There are different sources and strategies you can employ such as traveling to library sales, hiring scouts, selling on consignment, buying books in bulk, getting ungated in DVDs, etc that will affect the overall time necessary and profit margins.

But when you are starting out you will probably be operating at a basic level and doing all of the work yourself.

If you are trying to pay off debt, build up a significant amount of wealth, save for retirement, or acquire the cash needed to invest in other businesses you will likely want to devote significant time and focused energy on this business.

It is possible for you to find and list 200 to 250 books per week or even more if you have a sufficient source of books and if you work overtime in this business

See this article about the different book sources you should explore.

Sufficient source of books might look like several thrift stores in your town and several towns nearby with a couple thrift stores that you could visit on rotation. You should expect to be scanning 2000 to 5000 books to get 200 to 250 books. This can be done in 2 days leaving you with 3 days to prep and list the inventory.

The average experienced seller can list 100+ books a day but you should not expect to list more than 70 books a day when starting out. So listing 200-250 books should take about 22 - 28 hours total which you could split however you like over those 3 days.

This is just an example and results will vary greatly depending on your physical ability, work ethic, mental stamina, and personal goals.

The articles within this blog contain all the information you'll need to start and run a successful book selling business. 

If you'd like a more user friendly way of accessing the directions to starting a book selling business then download the free ebook below.

If you'd like to join a community of students that have gone through the training, then join our Facebook group.