Money Blue Book

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been taking somewhat of a financial blogging hiatus for the last few months. However, during this period of time, I’ve been spending my days productively – traveling overseas, tending to my other online and real world ventures, as well as scouting out opportunities in areas that remain yet untapped. It’s not easy spotting the next big thing, particularly in the realm of online money making ideas, but I have a few new interesting ideas in mind. Perhaps one of these days once I’ve worked them out in my head and actually tested them out, I’ll share a few of the better ones with readers.

Of course, until I find a way to definitively achieve financial independence or acquire a method to ensure a guaranteed passive income stream, I will inevitably have to end my extended vacation and return to my full time job sometime in the next few weeks. Thus I’ll be getting back to my regular full time day job as a self employed attorney and part time gig as a blogger very shortly. Blogging has been an interesting part time job for me for the last two years (bringing in a very steady and rather lucrative income stream), however at some point, the inevitable pangs of writer’s block and declined motivation inevitably creep. Thus it was nice to finally get away and get a multiple month breather after all this time. However, now that I’ve taken my sabbatical, spent time with the family, and pursued other extracurricular activities, I’m almost ready to get back on the horse again and retake the reins.

My Current Net Worth and Financial Status Update Compared To Last Month

Reliable Passive Online Income Through Blogging

Despite my multiple month absence from my normal blogging duties, I continue to rake in a steady monthly income via my small network on profitable blogs and affiliate websites. While I used to earn a significant portion of my monthly take via my small legal practice as an attorney, I have been undergoing a winding down process in recent months to slowly transition my way out of the whole trading hours for dollars routine that working as an attorney entailed. While the legal work and training has certainly been interesting at times, my heart has never been all that much into it. Pursing the viability of online businesses and trying to harness all that the Internet can provide has always drawn much more appeal for me. The lure of being able to make money online by blogging from the comforts of one’s home is what got me started in this industry years ago.

As my primary online blogs (most notably, the financial blog you are reading now) have grown to the point where their traffic levels are now inherently stable and the sizable income profits they now earn are now very reliably self sustaining, I am at the process of trying to decide where to go from here – call it a fork in the road if you will. Do I sell off a few major sites for instant income now and turn my entrepreneurial attention elsewhere, or do I put in the additional effort now and continue to grow these sites into something inevitably bigger?

While the nature of blogs and Internet businesses can be fickle at times, I truly believe that the future of media and information lies with the adaptive power of Internet. The web is continuously transforming how old and new information is consumed. While it would certainly be great to possibly sell off my most prized websites in terms of traffic levels and income, I am somewhat cautious about cashing out too soon when I think there is still tremendous upside to be had in the coming years. Of course, anything is possible and these things are just a handful of the issues that I’ll be pondering a lot about in the coming months as I slowly get back to my old blogging routine again.

Continue Investing In A Down Stock Market

Not much further needs to be pointed out about the stock markets beyond the truism that big wealth can be made during the worst of times. Markets have certainly been choppy and volatile recently, but given a sufficiently long period of time, they will almost always recover in spades. Despite having rather significant chunks of money invested into various index funds and individual stocks, I barely glanced at my holdings throughout the month. Perhaps it was because I’ve been traveling overseas, but more likely than not it was because I see my investments as appropriately geared for the long haul and I don’t want to be overly bothered by the emotional highs and lows of short term price swings. “Set it and forget it” is how I’ve been investing these past few months.

If you haven’t already opened up an investment account with a discount broker or opened up a retirement account with a Roth IRA broker, now is as good of a time as any.

My New Home Construction Is Nearly Complete

As long time readers may already know, my new house has been under construction since summer 2009. After months of construction activity and suffering through periodic pauses due to severe winter snow, the home is now nearly complete. With construction now projected to conclude by the end of March 2010 and with my home mortgage application paperwork eagerly waiting on the sidelines, I am preparing to close on the house by the end of March. It’s been an interesting ride in terms of my journey to become a first time homeowner. I went through spats of doubt, indecision, and even exuberance during my home purchasing process, so one can’t say that I didn’t fully think my decision through. I had and still have occasional doubts of the timing of my purchase, particularly in light of the reality that the real estate market is still lingering in the doldrums. However, I have faith that in due time, the home prices and sales numbers will recover, as early indicators do seem to be bearing that out. Particularly in the Washington D.C. suburbs of Maryland and Northern Virginia where I live, the housing market has been remarkably resilient. Living close to the epicenter of the federal government, which powers and maintains such a reliable supply of jobs definitely has its positive secondary benefits in terms of ensuring the need of a continuously growing housing supply.

The first month of the new year was a good month for me financially. Now you must be wondering to yourself – how can that possibly be – especially considering that my calculated net worth dropped in excess of $15,000 for the month of January. Well, because I only show a singular snapshot of my financial picture in each of my monthly net worth updates – they generally don’t reveal sufficient cash flow numbers to offer one a complete picture of my true financial health from all appropriate angles. Thus, the balance sheet numbers reflected on these reports can at times be somewhat misleading, as in this particular case. At first blush, my January numbers would seem to suggest that this particular month was a disappointing one. But truth be told, in terms of earnings stability and projected future income potential, January 2010 was yet another reliably steady month for me.

For January 2010, the combined income accumulated from this personal finance blog, the revenue generated by my other online affiliate ventures, and the part time income I earned from my small legal practice as an attorney – all saw slight increases. However, much of the income stats were gobbled up by the hefty estimated tax payments I had to make to the federal and state government during the month. Because I operate my small business and solo legal practice using a cash basis form of accounting, I don’t spread the estimated quarterly tax payments evenly throughout the year, but rather record them on my personal financial balance statements only when they are actually paid out – resulting in these precipitous drops in total net asset value that occur four times a year.

There was one major financial hit however which came from a furious stock market correction that reared its ugly head at the latter half of the month, which pretty much wiped out the hefty gains I would have been on track to record. But as far as the worth of my stock investments go, I don’t generally pay substantial attention to them – as I see them as long term investments that will ultimately pay off years down the road. Month to month dips in stock portfolio value don’t generally rattle me in any significant way (so long as there aren’t serious financial Armageddon type issues lingering in the market). On the whole, so long as I can continue to pull in a steady income with my online website businesses and small legal practice, I am generally content to stay the course. No one ever said becoming a millionaire would be easy, as there are bound to be unexpected bumps on the road. But so long as the rules haven’t changed to any major degree, the economic and financial landscape will inevitably improve in the long run, and such long term investments will ultimately enjoy much success.

My Current Net Worth and Financial Status Update Compared To Last Month

Paying My Quarterly Estimated Taxes As A Self Employed Taxpayer

For those not familiar with what quarterly estimated taxes are in general, or not sure as to why they took such a big bite out of my networth this month, here’s a quick explanation. Estimated taxes are basically the  income taxes that self employed individuals like myself  pay on income that is not subjected to withholding. This income includes everything  from self employment income, interest, stock dividends, rental income, and gains from the sale of assets, etc. It’s important to pay attention to this obligation, because failure to timely pay the quarterly assessed estimated taxes on time does result in a hefty penalty and associated interest charges, even in those cases where you are ultimately due a refund when you file the tax return.

Most people never have to deal with paying estimated taxes because their employers usually already withhold their federal, state, and social security taxes on their paychecks. But for self employed small business owners like myself, because we don’t have someone else to withhold these types of taxes for us, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has mandated that we do so ourselves – requiring us to make four projected pre-payments throughout the year at set intervals on April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15 of the following year. One of these hefty tax payment dates occurred in January, which is why the vast bulk of the income I generated during the month was siphoned off to pay the Man. But next month, my networth will likely return back to its regularly anticipated upward growth trajectory.

Buy Low, Sell High – And Continue Investing In A Down Stock Market

Some are saying that we are up for another routine market correction after a somewhat furious run up from spring 2009, while others are running around in circles predicting another major collapse again. But once you cut past the rhetoric and emotional hyperboles, you realize that it’s really just business as usual. The economy naturally ebbs and flows and there is always bound to be good stock market days and bad ones as well. But if you are generally optimistic about the distant future as I am and are willing to make your long term investment bets today, I am confident that years from now, your investments will pay off quite handsomely.

While I keep a rather sizable amount stored away in my safe and secure FDIC insured high interest bank accounts for emergency fund purposes, the vast bulk of my savings reside in discount broker accounts – invested into a variety of long range investments. I intend to stay invested for quite a few years – at least 3-5 years before I plan to engage in any significant portfolio reshuffling. I think the market is currently at its low and that all indicators strongly suggest that there is only tremendous upside from hereon. It is certainly possibly for the market to continue getting spooked and experience a pullback, but I don’t think we are in for another financial Armageddon scenario or are on the verge of a serious economic depression – the likes of which were talked about during the early part of last year. We are definitely on the road to economic recovery – however, admittedly, the road is long, and heavily paved with pot holes and obstacles.

Cashing In and Taking Advantage Of Credit Card Rewards and Bonuses

This month I also happened to redeem a rather large chunk of the credit card rewards I’ve accumulated over the last many months – converting my various credit card reward points into usable currency – namely, gift cards. Overwhelmingly, the more lucrative card reward program I use at the present time is the Citi Thank You network, with the American Express Blue Cash program being a close second. Because I used reward credit cards to pay for pretty much everything I purchase, I tend to rack up a substantial amount of reward points in a very short period of time.

The amount of credit card reward points I had accrued after only a year of routine credit card spending was rather enormous (in my opinion) – an amount that exceeded a value of $1,500. Ultimately, I decided to convert the majority of them into gift cards to places like Marshall’s and Macy’s. I don’t go shopping for clothing very often, but I’ll probably go on a small shopping spree in the near future with my new found loot. I had the option to convert my accrued credit card reward points into a cash lump sum, but for those who are familiar with credit card rebates and rewards, the point to cash conversion rate is frequently pretty low – and you tend to lose a big chunk of your points during the conversion process. While pure cash back credit card rewards are more versatile and bypass the hassle of having to manually convert accrued points into usable gifts or rewards, I’ve found that point based reward programs tend to offer a higher purchase rebate percentage. If you don’t mind a little work or putting in a little effort towards micro-managing your points, you’re better off going with a point based reward program.

I know credit cards tend to get a very bad rap with many out there believing them to be the source of all evil as evidenced by the government’s recent crusade to regulate every aspect of how credit card issuers run their businesses. However, I personally feel credit card programs are what you make of them. If you spend responsibly and pay off your balances in full every month, the credit card usage incentives they provide can be extremely lucrative. Even those who persistently carry monthly balances are not without options – there are a variety of 0% balance credit cards and low interest credit card deals out there for the qualified applicants to take advantage of. Keep those FICO credit scores high and monitor them regularly with programs like MyFICO Score Watch like I do, and you’ll ensure that you’ll always have access to the best credit card offers according to your personalized needs.

Well, it looks like January 2010 has finally arrived. Goodbye 2009, and hello 2010!

According to most public sentiment surveys I’ve seen thus far, the overwhelming consensus is that 2009 was a particularly terrible year. The economy tanked, retirement savings were largely wiped out, and home equity values were pretty much eviscerated. However, where there’s misery, there always seems to be a smidgen lining of hope. Despite most people’s vastly negative opinion of 2009, the great majority of surveys indicate a very optimistic outlook for 2010. Maybe it’s because this time around, we are no longer staring at the barrel of an imminent financial sector meltdown and hearing the ghastly doomsday warnings of a possible decade-long economic depression, but things certainly feel less dire than the same time 12 months ago.

Most certainly, while we are still languishing under the worst economic recession in decades with depressive unemployment rates continuing to climb, the pace at which the economy continues to worsen has drastically decreased. In other words, while the economy is still deteriorating, it’s worsening at a significantly slower pace than before. This is very good news for the aspiring optimists and opportunists in all of us. Most significantly, there also does appear to be tangible economic metrics emerging to back up the growing optimistic fervor for 2010. While I personally think we are still many months away from a real and sustainable recovery, I think we are decidedly heading in the right direction as punctuated by the fact that I’ve been jumping back into the stock market of late and starting to invest strongly and aggressively in long term positions again – positions that I think will pay off handsomely in the future. Previously during the very early part of spring 2009, I exited and stayed away from the market to protect myself from the effects of the irrational fear and panic that was crippling the American psyche. But with the way things are now, I am pretty confident that the worst case scenario has been averted and all that remains now is for the economy to begin its long and steady natural progression towards recovery. While home prices will almost undoubtedly not return to pre-recession levels anytime soon, home prices will most likely stabilize during 2010, leading to a positive and steady ripple effect across other sectors.

In terms of my New Year’s resolutions for myself in the financial planning and income growth department, I plan to make 2010 a banner year for my bank savings account balances and investment holdings. Now is the most opportunist time to start placing one’s bets for the distant future. Despite the mild market run up since spring 2009, stock market prices on the whole are still lagging and have not returned to pre-recessionary panic levels. If you have cash on the sidelines and have been waiting for the so-called “best time to start investing”, now is the time to start opening up a discount broker account and start investing those excess savings into long term mutual funds, or better yet – into the exchange traded funds (ETF’s) of your choice. I’ve personally chosen to invest heavily into riskier financial and emerging market funds (such as the XLF and EEM funds) to fully maximize the potential of my future gains. However, your personal investment strategy is up to you and dependent on your willingness to assume risk today for a greater payday in the not too distance future.

My Current Net Worth and Financial Status Update Compared To Last Month

Allocating Cash Savings For The Closing Of My New Home Purchase

Back in August 2009, I signed a contract for the purchase of a brand new construction 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom cottage style single family colonial home. For several months now, I’ve been patiently monitoring the construction progress of my first home purchase ever – swinging by the home lot to take photos of the inside and outside at least once every week. Most recently, the transformation from a pile of dirt to a free standing wood and concrete structure has been nothing been dramatic. With the roof tiles now in place and the windows having been installed, the home is starting to really take shape. While the housing construction is proceeding rapidly and steadily, there have been a few slow downs due in large part to the recent snow storm activity that we’ve been experiencing in the D.C. Baltimore area the last few weeks. Coupled with the time off effects of Christmas and New Year’s, construction work has occasionally stalled – but I expect things to start picking up again briskly when construction starts rolling into January.

Currently, the new home is tentatively scheduled to be completed and delivered sometime early March 2010. As such, I’ve prepared and saved up a sizable cash balance to pay towards my new home mortgage 20% down payment. With the home priced at around $622,000 (this is pretty much average for the D.C. area), I presently have set aside and reserved more than the necessary $125,000 down payment I will need for home mortgage purposes. While there have been several times that I’ve been tempted to allocate this special purpose money into various lucrative stock market investments, I managed to do the right thing and keep the funds safely segregated in their own separate bank accounts.

Funding My IRA and Opening Up A New SEP-IRA Account For Stock Investing

Most people rely on their employer’s 401(k)’s with matching contribution packages for most of their retirement planning needs. But because I am currently fully self employed with my network of online businesses and run my own legal practice from my home office, I have to depend on myself. Fortunately for solo practitioners and self employed folks like myself, the IRS provides a useful mechanism for us to still take full advantage of the tax deferred benefits of individual retirement savings accounts – namely the SEP-IRA. Because I’ve already maxed out my limited Roth IRA and Individual IRA contribution limits and desire to contribute more, I recently, I opened up a SEP IRA account with Fidelity Investments. The greatest benefit of a SEP-IRA account apart from the obvious tax deferred benefits, is that the maximum contribution limit is pretty generous – at 25% of an individual’s compensation, capped at a maximum of $49,000 for both individual tax years 2009 and 2010. Eventually, I may very well open up a few more other SEP-IRA investment accounts with other reputable online discount brokerage firms to test them all out – but for now, I’m going with Fidelity.

Relying On My Passive Online Income Streams For A Living

Unfortunately, due to several notable and rather complicated personal situations during the last few months, I’ve neglected to post on my personal finance blog and other online blogs as frequently as I would have liked to. While I’ve continued to maintain and tend to my online businesses and network of profitable websites on a regular basis, I have not really posted new articles with much regularity. But despite my lack of effort and lack of any substantial headway in the way of content creation, my online income streams continue to remain very stable (with even signs of growth). This brings me to the most powerful and compelling aspect of why I truly believe any person who is strongly self motivated ought to start blogging to make money online and not delay in tapping into the powers and limitless potential of the Internet. Because of all of the effort I had previously put into my online craft for the last 2 and a half years, I’ve built up a very substantial network of online traffic streams that remain solidly consistent despite my lack of present effort. Contrary to what most layman and blogging beginners believe, once you have built up solid search engine traffic and have earned reputational authority in the eyes of major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo – your keyword rankings pretty much stay consistent indefinitely (and dare I say it, permanently). Once you have this search engine authority built up, it’s very difficult for new blogging and website entrants into the field to supplement your existing position. This probably explains why numerous major media companies have been trying to contact me recently to inquire about potential buyout opportunities or website acquisitions. Frankly, I have very little incentive to entertain such offers as I truly enjoy the significant incomes I generate from the sites that I own, as they require very little effort on my part – but of course, with the right offers, anything is possible I suppose.

For those of you who have always thought about wanting to start blogging online to either share your  interests with the rest of the world or just to make some money on the side or even provide your family an alternative income source during these difficult and unpredictable times – now is the time to start blogging and pursuing your web business aspirations. The more you delay, the more such opportunities will gradually slip away. Carpe diem!

Selling used books online is one of the easiest ways to significantly declutter your home and earn some extra money in the process. Although it might seem like the intellectual thing to do – to have volumes of books and textbooks lining your book shelves to offer up that desirable professional-looking scholarly facade, but chances are, after you’ve read those books once you’re very unlikely to ever read the vast majority of them ever again. Thus in the name of decluttering and staying organized, why not try to downsize your personal library periodically, and make some extra money while you’re at it by selling off some of your used books and textbooks?

As a part time personal finance blogger, book publishers and book authors frequently send me free personal finance books to read and review. After blogging about making money and a whole slew of financial topics for several years now, in this span of time I’ve probably received well over 30-50 books about money (the vast majority of them parroting and repeating the same material frankly). If I did not periodically sell them online or donate them away to friends and readers of this blog, the incredibly large pile of books would probably have winded up clogging a large corner of my house, gathering dust and taking up space.

College and graduate students in particular have the greatest to gain from not delaying in their efforts to sell off their old and used textbooks online. School textbooks are by their very nature profitable exchanges for the book authors and publishers who issue new editions every few years and force all current book owners to buy the new versions to stay current. Thus, limited in terms of value by short multi year lifespans, school text books are only as current and up to date as the next year’s release date. That is why I always strongly recommend that students sell their books quickly and convert them back to cash form as soon as the school semester or school year is over, lest they delay and wind up in ultimate possession of yesterday’s edition.

Where To Sell Your Used Books To Get the Best Price and Most Money Back

I started selling new and used books online back in 2000 when websites like eBay.com, Amazon.com, and Half.com were just gaining prominence. While I sold my fair share of unwanted books to local used bookstores, thrift stores, and even pawn shops for cash, I focused primarily on online selling due to the higher prices I could fetch over the Internet. Selling back used textbooks has always been a great way to recoup some of the expensive costs of expensive textbooks, but unfortunately, college and university bookstores these days continue to pay students the worst prices for book buybacks. In most cases, college bookstores usually only offer half or less of the original purchase price for buybacks so that they can in turn sell the used titles back to other students for huge markup profits. Today, there are many places over the Internet where you can sell your used books for much better returns – each with its own host of pros and cons.

1) eBay (Auctions) – If you’re a regular consumer looking to buy a new or used book for cheap, eBay will probably be your best bet as auction deals abound there and final sale prices are incredibly low. However, if you’re a seller of used books or textbooks, the general public perception that eBay offers super low prices definitely works against your favor. But due to eBay’s incredibly large customer base and superb ease of use, it’s an online book selling resource you simply can’t ignore. eBay is one of the very quickest, easiest, and simplest ways to sell used books online. Oftentimes if you’re listing an auction for a used book, you can simply utilize eBay’s book template setup feature, punch in the book’s ISBN number, and have an effectively designed eBay auction ready to go in just a moment’s time.

Even if you don’t always get the best prices for your books with eBay, it’s almost a solid guarantee that they will sell (albeit at eBay market determined prices). If you’re looking to sell an obscure, rare, or valuable book, or perhaps you’re looking to capture high traffic volume for an auction involving a collection of books at the same time – eBay might be your best bet due to its ability to offer up maximum public exposure. But because eBay auction consumers have been conditioned and accustomed to seek out and demand almost unreasonably low prices for their bids for some time now, you’re unlikely to make a tremendous amount of money with eBay book auctions if you’re a seller. Ebay’s continuously increasing listing fees and rising commission charges have definitely taken a serious toll on seller profit potential in recent years.

2) Craiglist.org (Classified Ads) - Craigslist is a very popular online classified ad listing website and is also truly the wild, wild west of market place transactions. The greatest appeal of Craigslist for online book sellers and buyers is that there are no commissions, advertisement listing fees, or special mandatory shipping charges required. Pretty much anything goes on Craigslist – with all transactional terms and conditions negotiated and worked out between sellers and buyers themselves. If you have used books for sale and do not wish to be constrained by the auction rules or regulated limitations of policed sites like eBay or Amazon, you might want to try out Craigslist. Prices vary wildly however – sometimes they offer prices higher than eBay listings while other times they’re lower. But in terms of saving time and effort, if you’re looking to get rid of your used textbooks or old book collections all at once in large parcels, Craigslist is ideal.

Here’s a suggestion for Craigslist sellers – if you’re looking to sell a large bundle of books at once, try putting multiple books together into a single collection and posting the listing for sale on Craigslist. If potential buyers express interest, try throwing in additional books to spicen up the pot in their favor if you’re willing to do so. This type of book selling strategy works incredibly well for smaller and lower priced books that don’t sell as well individually.

3) Book Buyback and Textbook Rental Websites - The biggest problem with utilizing do-it-yourself (DIY) type sites like eBay, Amazon, or Craigslist to personally list and sell your used books is the time and effort involved to list and market every one of the books for sale. Trying to keep shipping costs down and save money on the cost of packaging envelopes isn’t easy to do if you’re not an adept micro-tasker. One viable alternative to the do it yourself approach is to solicit the services of an online book buying website that will pay you a one time bounty for all of your available and aggregate used books in one fell swoop. Usually after you’ve provided the book buyback website the names and ISBN numbers of all of the books you have for sale, the site provides you pre-paid postage labels for you to ship the books to them via the postal service. With book buyback services, there is no need for you to manage auctions, handle customer service inquiries, or follow up regarding timely payment. Once the folks at the book buying firm have received your books and reviewed their condition, they usually issue payment directly to you in the way of a check, PayPal payment, or even a direct deposit into your checking account in some cases.

The biggest downside with these online book buyback websites is the incredibly low price they generally pay for used books and textbooks. Because they pretty much do all of the work for you, these companies generally pay only small fractions of the original retail price for these books. Rarely do their offers ever match or exceed the prices that used book sellers can fetch on their own via eBay, Amazon, or even Craigslist. While I don’t necessarily vouch or recommend any one particular site for its quality or reliability – here are a few book buyback and book rental websites I’ve come across that you might want to follow up on – Chegg.com, eCampus.com,  BookByte.com, Cash4Books.net, Barnes & Noble, TextbooksNow.com, Textbooks.com, BooksValue.com, WeBuyTextbooks.com, BooksValue, TextbooksRUs, and CollegeBooksDirect. Let me know if there are any other sites worth mentioning, worth reviewing in detail, or even worth criticizing.

4) Amazon.com Used Books and Textbooks (Recommended For Most Sellers)

Compared to all of the other online ways of selling used textbooks and old books, I prefer listing books for sale on Amazon.com because it is much more intuitive to use than other alternatives. Signing up for an Amazon seller’s account is straightforward and listing your used books for sale is easy. You will be asked to describe the condition of your book, set your desired fixed price, and denote your available shipping options. Amazon.com ultimately reimburses sellers for their shipping costs but charges a $0.99 fee plus an additional fee based on a certain percentage of the final list price. Here are a few Amazon quick links for sellers that want to get started:

• Amazon’s textbook store - Click here if you’re looking to sell a used college or graduate school textbook.
• Amazon’s used book store – If you’re selling any other used book, try this link to get started.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a lot more regular success and have earned more profit with Amazon than say, eBay or Craigslist. Quite possibly because Amazon.com started out as a book store and many people still see and trust Amazon primarily as an authoritative source for buying books at a reasonable price, it seems visitors to the site are more willing to pay a slightly higher price premium than at other websites. But perhaps the greatest benefit of using Amazon to sell books is the ability to take advantage of the natural flow of visitors coming to the site and looking to buy a brand new book. Because used book listings are displayed alongside the prices for new book titles, you may be able to siphon off new book seekers and convert them into buyers of used, lower priced versions. Rather than go to Amazon.com and shell out $25 for a new book, you may be able to successfully lure prospective buyers into going for your cheaper $15 used version instead.

Obscure, rare, and collectible books tend to fetch higher prices via an auction or free-for-all classified ad listing than you may be able to get by selling the title via a fixed price listing on Amazon. If you prefer to sell a whole selection of titles simultaneously as a pallet or collection, you might be better off using eBay or Craigslist. Non textbooks or expired textbook editions tend to sell much faster on eBay and Craigslist where aggressive deal seekers and bargain hunters abound. But if you’re selling either a popularly used and update-to-date school textbook, or trying to sell an otherwise recognizable bestselling title, Amazon will probably be your best bet. So long as your textbook has not been discontinued due to the release of a newer edition, you should not have any trouble selling your new condition book on Amazon somewhat close to what you paid for it. Standardized books such as school textbooks and popular bestsellers almost always perform better on Amazon.com listings than on other alternative sites.

If you’re thinking about selling used books on Amazon, here are a few important tips and pointers I’ve learned and picked up in recent years:

1. Always list your used books for sale at prices lower than your closest competitor.
2. Always track your used book listing periodically to ensure that it’s being priced at the lowest it can be.
3. If your competitors attempt to low ball their prices and undercut your title listing, instead of getting into a pointless price war, try matching prices tit for tat rather than beating them instead.
4. List your used book’s condition accurately. Even if your used textbook is really in “like new” condition, you might want to list it as “very good” instead. You don’t want future potential buyer complaints to cause your Amazon seller rating to suffer.
5. Keep your shipping prices low by utilizing free shipping boxes that you naturally come across, or buy them from deep discounters like Walmart, Target, or even your local supermarket. One great way to save a lot of money on packaging and shipping supplies is to buy them through eBay. For example, check out the following prices for eBay bubble wrap mailers, and eBay bubble envelopes.
6. Always ship utilizing the cheapest method possible – For used books and textbooks, the cheapest way to ship is usually through the postal service’s media mail option. However, with certain smaller books, it might very well be cheaper to go with First Class Mail – just ask the post office to ship using the cheapest way possible.

Regardless of which method you use to sell your used textbooks and unwanted books, selling back books (textbooks in particular) is simply a great way to recoup original purchase costs. But bear in mind, unless you are somehow a very large power seller with access to special shipping discounts and access to very cheap shipping supplies, you are unlikely to get rich or make a lot of money online through selling used books alone as a business form. Like those money making paid online surveys you always see, they may be otherwise legitimate ways of earning some extra cash back, but it’s doubtful you’ll ever become a millionaire in the process. It’s theoretically possible, but highly unlikely.