It is easy to pick up books from jumble sales for a few pence and then sell them on Amazon for a small profit. I am mother with a pre-school child and do this as a hobby at the moment. I have nearly 1500 listings with Amazon and will increase this as and when I have the time. I get perhaps 16 sales a week and this goes up around Christmas time. Selected charity shops and car boot sales are a great way to pick up cheap stock. The books don't have to be in perfect condition. Even acceptable books sell for a profit; so long as you describe them honestly. Once I have my book I start at the Amazon homepage and type in the ISBM under ?sell your stuff?. The ISBM is the number on the back of the book. ISBM allows me to list my item accurately. Basically I follow the links through from ?sell your stuff.? If the book I am selling is old I put something like ?creases to spine? under the seller description.



I love rummaging at the car boots. I find the best books to buy are current text books. If I can find a text book that is being used now on a college course I can usually sell it at a profit. Sometimes I can buy text books for 20p and sell them for ?20 plus. It just depends. Students can pay ?20 or thirty plus for hardback textbooks. As a rule I stick to paperback however; modern fiction paperbacks. This is because the heavier the book the greater the postage cost. Amazon allows ?2.32 for postage. This is on top of the sale price of the book. This ?2.32 is plenty. Paperback postage cost varies but is usually 80p-?1.50. I often make extra money on the postage, especially if I send my books second class. If I go to the post office every day then my books always get sent out as soon as the sale arrives in so second class is fine.

To conclude I feel as if this hobby is perhaps the start of a small business. I have collected so many books that I could even start up a local market stall as well as selling on Amazon.