I got an email from my dad yesterday, he wanted to know if we wanted to try and sell his textbooks, DVD’s and other classroom paraphernalia on my Amazon book store.
(My dad used to write courses for online classes at a vocational school in New York. As a result, he was given a lot of materials so he could do his job and once he was done with them, well, he kept them. Since cleaning out our junk seems to run in the family, he thought he’d unload, er, give them to us so we could possibly make some money on them).
He mentioned this might be a good opportunity for the boys to make some extra money (GREAT idea!!) so I said, “Sure! Kevin and I will be by to pick them up.”
I was expecting a lot because I knew my dad had written a ton of courses over the years, so I suggested to Kevin that we drive his truck over there.
We drove into their driveway and there were about ten bags sitting on the sidewalk. I was a bit surprised, I had expected more. I was also just a wee bit relieved because since we had just cleaned our garage out a few weekends ago, I knew Kevin wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to be cluttering it up again.
My parents came out to greet us and when I said, “Oh. I was sort of expecting more,” followed by a relieved laugh, my mom smiled, opened the door to their house and said, “Actually, that’s not all of it.”
I burst out laughing because there were about twenty MORE bags just inside the doorway.
They did that on purpose! The sneaks! LOL
Between the four of us, we loaded up Kevin’s truck and as you can see? We have just a FEW books to sell here:
ALL of those bags are full of books, DVD’s and various other things that my dad used to write his classes with. Though I’m excited to put them on Amazon and see what sort of monetary value they have, I’m NOT looking forward to cataloging them and storing them.
But like I said, I’m going to talk to the boys about a “business opportunity” and see if they want to take care of it for me. They can sort them, I’ll help them price them (because that takes a little finesse – what are they going for, what sort of shape is the book in, etc)., and then if they sell any? They can run up to the post office, mail them off, and keep the proceeds.
I hope they bite. I think it would be a GREAT business opportunity for them – it would teach them about starting, and running, their own business.
I have some experience with selling textbooks and the few I have sold? Went for boo-coo bucks! Textbooks are insanely expensive, so everyone is looking to third-party vendors to try and find a deal.
Let’s hope they shop mine, or the boys’, shops for those deals.
I’ll let you know if the boys bite, what sort of textbooks are in those bags and where you can find them online in case you’re interested in buying any.
Stay tuned!
Update: At first, the boys were skeptical. After all, I’m talking about potential earnings here, nothing is guaranteed. But when I picked a random textbook from the pile you see in the picture above, inputted the information into my Amazon book store and they saw that they could possibly sell it for $70 bucks? They were suddenly INTO the idea. I told them that if they want to do all of the work, cataloging, storing, packaging, shipping (and this includes driving themselves up to the post office and mailing them), then they can have 100% of the proceeds. However, if I help, like shipping their books for them, then I get a cut. We’ll see how this pans out.
We couldn’t do any cataloging tonight, Dude had a project that was due tomorrow, but we plan on hitting it pretty hard tomorrow night. I plan on taking my laptop out to the garage (thank God for WiFi), and we’ll get started. I’ll likely list a few books on my own Amazon store, but most of the books will likely be listed on the boys’ store. (They decided to open their own shop). I’ll provide a link to their shop when it’s up and running.
This will likely be a slow process. We’re going out of town on Saturday and we won’t likely resume the cataloging process until early Sunday afternoon.
Write From Karen 