Q&A: Is a home-based comic book store a good idea?

QUESTION: I read your book, "The Home-Based Bookstore" and loved it. What's your opinion of comics? I grew up collecting comic books, and have always wanted a comic shop. I wonder if I could have a home-based bookstore that specialized in comic art books.

ANSWER: I have heard from several people who bought my book who specialize in comics. It was not a category of merchandise I'd thought much about until I heard from these people.

Recently I heard from one lady who discovered that she could find sexually explicit comics fairly easily at used bookstores and resell them online for very good prices. She had no problem with selling them to adults who wanted them. This is probably a category of merchandise that tends to sell well online, since lots of people would be embarassed to buy it in person.

So yes, I think this is something that's certainly feasible using the home-based bookstore model. The difficulty with it is there's probably a vast amount of material you'd come across that does not have an ISBN, and so it would not automatically be listable on Amazon.

However, if you're a Pro-Merchant seller on Amazon, you can add items to the catalog. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to list them under "books" or not. Here's a tutorial for adding items to Amazon's catalog.

I suspect that there's an active market on eBay for comics, and perhaps that would be a better place to sell them, particularly collectibles. And as you probably know it's getting easier every day to build your own Web site to sell items -- although I'd recommend getting your feet wet on a venue like eBay or Amazon when you're first learning the ropes.

Q&A: Are my old medical books worth any money?

QUESTION: Is there a market for old medical and veterinary books? My father was a Vet for the Saint Louis Zoo and a medical doctor as well, and we have lots of old medical books.

ANSWER: I know that people collect old medical books simply because I've stumbled onto a few that happened to be worth quite a bit. I haven't dealt with enough of them to know what makes some of them valuable and others not valuable.

I don't know anything about veterinary books either, but again, I've stumbled onto a few at library sales, estates sales, etc. that turned out to be valuable. For example, I bought one book that was about how to breed dogs to achieve certain colors in their coat, and it turned out to be worth a couple hundred dollars. I found the book in a box of books I'd bought for $5.

The only specific thing I can tell you is that the first editions of books that are considered groundbreaking or influential in their field (this includes any area, science, medical, etc.) are worth especially great amounts. For example, early books by Einstein or Darwin can be worth $25,000 and more.

It sounds like this would be a good specialty area for you if you were interested in bookselling. With a bit of research you could learn what makes some medical books worth perhaps $40 and others worth hundreds or more.

Until perhaps 10 years ago researching book values required an expensive, encylopedic book on collectible books and their values, but today it's fairly easy to look up these values on the Internet.

If your books are recent enough to have an ISBN (a 10-digit identifier usually found on the back cover), you can look up the prices at various booksellers here:
AddAll
BookFinder

Or if the book is too old to have an ISBN (printed before the 1970s) you can usually find the value by entering the title and author last name.

Nowadays many out-of-print books are available on Amazon.com also, but it's good to double-check with these other search engines too.

What's the impact of zShops' demise?

How much do you use Amazon's zShops?

Back when I started selling, about 20 percent of my inventory was zShops listings, and I sold many collectible books that way. Back then most pre-ISBN books weren't in Amazon's catalog, so zShops was the only way to list them.

A couple of years ago Amazon stopped showing zShops listings in searches, and sales promptly dried up. But I've continued using zShops to create special listings for customers who have special requests. For example, every once in a while I'll have a customer who absolutely must have their book sent FedEx for next-day delivery. In other cases, customers didn't realize "standard" shipping might take a few weeks, so they want to upgrade to airmail.

I've sold to more than 100,000 Marketplace customers, but my biggest seller of all time is a $2 zShops listing I call "Upgrade to Priority Mail." Each time I've used it, it's been a hassle on my end, but I offered it to keep my Amazon customers happy.

Recently AuctionBytes asked me to write an article about what the demise of zShops means. I said:

Some Amazon sellers may begin using PayPal for the first time next month to collect miscellaneous payments from buyers...

I think some people have interpreted this to mean I'm advocating that people circumvent Amazon Payments and use PayPal instead. Not so. I'm simply pointing out that every so often, customers have special requests, and there should be mechanism for handling these requests using Amazon Payments. Perhaps this can be solved by allowing Pro-Merchants to invoice customers for additional amounts as requested by the customer.

What do you think about this, and the fallout from the demise of zShops?

Q&A: Should I sell my book collection in big lots or in smaller groups?

QUESTION: In your book, you recommend staying away from fiction and "pop culture" books. However, I have some older fiction books that I see are selling quite well on Amazon and Ebay.

There's a popular teen series. The original series, its spinoff, and references in other fiction teen books comprises about 160 books total. Surprisingly I have nearly all 160 books from my childhood collection, donations from friends and a few from library purchases. These books are no longer printed, but there was such a mass production when they came out, that even today, 15 years since the series ended it's easy to get a copies of these books. Individually these books sell for only $1 or perhaps $2.

However, I noticed in an auction of an eBay lot of 16 or more, the price of the lot can skyrocket due to bidding wars. Should I break it all into different lots? Or should I try and sell all 160 books together at a fixed price or auction? I had hoped to get 75 cents to $1 per book, but I can't see a teenager or even a parent willing to spend $150 on a lot.

ANSWER: You are right, there is a big market in "nostalgia" books that aren't necessarily thought of as "collectibles" by the more snobbish among us. And I think you're on the right track, you need to sell it as a "collection." Since the books aren't individually worth a great deal, selling the whole lot as a package deal is the way to go.

So this pretty much limits you to eBay. The auctions on Amazon draw virtually no bids these days, and since they're phasing out zShops, it really limits your options.

One thing I'd recommend when you sell something like this on eBay is upgrading your auction to "Featured Plus." It costs an extra $20, but it puts your listing at the top of the search results in the category. Selling something like this, having more eyeballs hitting your listing will definitely increase the bidding and could pay for the extra $20 fee several times over.

Also, you should do a bit of research to decide which category is best. The Rare/Antiquarian category is probably best for traditional collectible books, but for this series your best spot on eBay may be in the actual category that new books in that genre are listed under.

You might also want to check out this list of eBay lot selling tips at Elaine'’s Bookseller Blog. As Elaine notes, large lots don't always bring in the highest per-book prices. Sometimes it's best to sell in smaller or medium-sized lots, it depends on the type of book.

And be sure not to miss this follow-up comment by one of Elaine's readers.

Q&A: Book Sale Weirdos - What was your weirdest booksale experience?

QUESTION: I was at a booksale today. It was about half dealers, and half book addicts (people who buy 50 to 100 books a week with no intention of ever reading them all, and no intention of ever getting rid of them).

I was having a stellar day. My PDA pricing tool was flashing hot and heavy numbers to me all day. Then suddenly out of nowhere, a strange guy approaches me and says:

"If you're planning on selling any proofs you better be careful. The publishers are checking eBay and having people arrested who are selling proofs. Random House is putting people in jail."

Huh? I had two options. I could tell this guy to mind his own business or tell him thanks, I don't sell proofs (which I truly don't). As I didn't want to ruin my karma, I chose the latter.

"OK," he muttered and walked away. I continued to have a stellar day, but I have to admit this strange encounter has crossed my mind several times today.

What was your weirdest booksale experience?

ANSWER: I can't top your story, but here's one I can't erase from memory:

I was at a crowded library sale last summer. About 300 people were jammed into a small room, and it seemed like there was no air conditioning.

There was this lady, a rather rotund lady who obviously hadn't bathed for a long while. The air around her was very ripe.

And she was bare-footed. Everywhere I stepped, it seemed I was rubbing up against this lady's bare feet. Ugh. I shudder every time I think of it.

Any other weird experiences out there?

National Book Warehouse calls it quits

National Book Warehouse will close after merger talks with another company failed and it was unable to emerge from bankruptcy by itself. The company will liquidate by February, according to CEO David Hinkle.

NBW has been an Amazon Marketplace seller of remainder, overstock and returned books and operated about 100 Book Warehouse and Foozles bookstores. It had also operated temporary bargain bookstores called Book Market.

Q&A: I bought this used book for a quarter. How much is it worth?

QUESTION: I recently bought this book for a quarter, and I remembered it was in a desirable genre on Amazon's "Buyers Waiting" list. When I searched for the ISBN on Amazon, there was one copy available for $1,965.00. The book is Heliconia: An Identification Guide.

We listed it at $925 and decided to come down $100 a week until it sold. The other seller immediately pulled his listing leaving us hanging out there by ourselves.

Since then we have been bombarded with e-mails from people who want to buy the book but think the price is a "mistake." They aren't collectors interested in adding rare books to their collection, but botanists or students of botany interested in this plant identification book.

This is not an old book, it was printed by Smithsonian Press in 1991.

ANSWER: I love getting questions from readers, but this is the one I always dread: "How much is my book worth?"

I never have the foggiest idea.

I'd never heard of Heliconia either.

Amazon's UK site has new and used copies available, although Amazon says it ships within "four to six weeks." If the book is truly available in the UK at that price, your book should be worth much less than $2,000. At least you'd think so, anyway.

Amazon's Canadian site indicates the book is available "In one to three months." But based on recent experience, Amazon rarely fills orders when the book isn't immediately available. Amazon has cancelled my orders for stuff I've purchased new that they had advertised as being available within a matter of a few weeks.

I did an AddAll search and didn't see anything available. So I'm very skeptical that Amazon can get it like they're advertising. They're probably just canceling all the orders.

I don't know what to think about this book. On the one hand, it's the exact kind of book that can go for a high price, especially at this time of year, with school just back in session. On the other hand, I just went through the listing process and there aren't any pending orders on Marketplace for the book, as far as "Buyers Waiting" goes.

Yet you're getting lots of e-mails about the book, so there's definitely interest. I too have gotten periodic e-mails from people over the years asking if the price on certain books is "a mistake." If memory serves, those books always sold at my original listing price not too long afterwards.

I've sold a few scarce books like this on Marketplace for top dollar, and the buyers were libraries. So that is probably what will happen in this case. My advice would be to avoid lowering your price too much unless you have competition -- particularly listings from sellers with excellent feedback, those will be the people who actually have the book and aren't drop-shippers.

Anyone else want to stick their neck out on this book?

Amazon backtracks slightly on 15-day feedback interval

Amazon will change a policy announced two days ago, and slightly lengthen the interval when it sends feedback reminder e-mails to customers.

Earlier this week Amazon said it would send feedback reminder e-mails 15 after the transaction instead of the usual 30-day interval.

Apparently Amazon got an earful from sellers. Here's today's announcement:

Update: Feedback E-mail Reminder Timing
Posted: Sep 22, 2006 9:08 AM

Dear Sellers,

Thank you for sending us your thoughtful feedback regarding the revised timing of feedback reminder e-mails. We value the comments and experiences sellers have shared with us over the last few days, and we appreciate the time you took to write to us about this issue.

The concerns about consistency with shipment expectations messaged to customers and the increased risk of negative feedback from the reminder e-mail arriving too soon make sense. The overwhelming suggestion from sellers has been to move the e-mail reminder date to 21 calendar days after an order is completed. We will switch to the 21 calendar day interval starting next week.

We also want to reassure you that in the first week since the change to 15 days, we have seen no significant shift overall in the rate of negative feedback relative to positive feedback.

We look forward to working with you as we continue to make improvements for the benefit of sellers and buyers. Please feel free to e-mail your suggestions to feedback-feedback@amazon.com. Thank you again for your thoughtful suggestions.

Many longtime sellers -- including yours truly -- strongly disagree with the 21 calendar day interval also. Perhaps this was the goal all along: To change to 21 days while making us sellers think we're getting a great deal.

What a crock.

Amazon moves up feedback e-mails to 15 days

For about six years now, Amazon has asked Marketplace buyers to rate their sellers in an e-mail sent 30 days after the purchase date, unless the buyer has already left feedback.

But effective today, Amazon is sending the feedback reminders 15 days after the transaction, instead of 30 days.

Here's the announcement from on high:

Feedback Reminder E-mail Changes
Posted: Sep 20, 2006 1:58 PM

Dear Sellers,

Amazon.com recognizes that Amazon Marketplace sellers benefit from timely and complete feedback generated by customers. As such, we are working to increase the response rate to our feedback reminder e-mail message by sending the message closer to the time that orders are delivered. Effective immediately, we are sending feedback reminder e-mails 15 days after orders are placed.

If you have feedback or suggestions regarding this change, please feel free to send an e-mail message to feedback-feedback@amazon.com.

Thank you for selling with Amazon.com!

Am I the only person who smells a fiasco brewing here? I bet not.

If Amazon's Marketplace team had taken a few minutes to survey sellers about this brain fart, they'd have known it's a non-starter. They've had some wacky ideas this year, but this one takes the cake!

This is going to produce a huge spike in undeserved negative feedback for sellers. I will never understand this compulsion to fix things that aren't broken and invent unnecessary headaches.

A few times every week, I get returned packages from Marketplace customers who've bought something and inadvertently had it shipped to their previous address -- or to the address of a friend or family member. They didn't read their screen during checkout, and they didn't read the purchase confirmation e-mail from Amazon. So they don't realize their package is missing until I e-mail them to let them know the Postal Service has returned it to me, postage due of course, marked "Not Deliverable As Addressed." And most of them have the attitude that the whole thing is my fault. But we'll leave that aside for the moment.

Here's the problem as it relates to this policy change by Amazon: I usually get the returned packages about three weeks after the date of purchase. If the customer had received the feedback reminder e-mail from Amazon before then, half of them would already be zapping me with negative feedback, based on the assumption that I never mailed their book. Stupid? Perhaps. But we're not making things any better by inviting these folks to get mad a week ahead of time.

Any other views on this? Feel free to chime in below.

UPDATE: After receiving many complaints from sellers, Amazon partially rescinded this change. Now feedback reminder e-mails will be sent 15 calendar days after transactions. Details are here.

It’s great to be back, here’s a pic from my cruise

I just got back from a three-day cruise with a bunch of family members, partly to celebrate my Dad's 75th birthday. The picture here is from "formal night," that's me and my four-year-old, Lauren.

It would have been nice to have a few more days in the Bahamas, but it's nice being home too. You might have seen the article I did for BookThinker that appeared while I was gone.

You can get more free articles like it in their free newsletter.

Q&A: Is selling ex-library books kosher on eBay or Amazon?

QUESTION: I recently went to a library sale. Only later I realized some of the books had a library stamp. Should I try removing some of the marks with Goo Gone? How should I grade and price these books?

ANSWER: Goo Gone can create an even bigger flaw on some books if it soaks into the finish. For most books with some lamination or glossy coating, it's fine. But on cloth or plain paper, it will create an eyesore.

I get most of my books from library sales, so I've sold hundreds of ex-library copies on Amazon Marketplace. I've never sold an ex-library on eBay, but you're probably on safer ground there, since more of those buyers tend to read descriptions.

On Amazon, I've had only one nightmare from an ex-library sale. Someone bought a "Large Print" library book that I graded conservatively in "Good" condition and described as a "former library copy with library markings." When the buyer received the book, she gave me a 1/5 feedback, and to top it off, her feedback claimed I'd stolen the book from the library!

(That's one of my pet peeves: Certain people who complain about things without spending 10 seconds getting the facts. If I were going to publicly accuse someone of committing a crime, I'd want to be doggone sure I knew what I was talking about.)

That customer was one of the few -- out of more than 100,000 people I've sold to on Marketplace -- who I didn't bother dealing with after receiving a complaint. Didn't want to waste my time or temper on that one. (This was a few years ago, before it was possible to get buyers to remove feedback comments and ratings. If this happened today, I'd gingerly approach the customer and try to get the feedback removed.)

But that one bad apple was the exception that proves the rule -- it's perfectly fine to sell ex-library books. I haven't had a single other complaint.

On the other hand, the ex-library books I sell usually fit into a few categories where buyers often expect an ex-library copy, like Large Print books, business directories, and encyclopedias.

Now, to the question of how to grade and price ex-library books: For a common book, library markings definitely call for a big price reduction and a condition downgrade. You'd want to indicate "Good" condition, perhaps even if the book is "Like New" except for the library marks.

And certainly, you'll want to go out of your way to call attention to the flaw. On Marketplace, I start off with something like this, in all caps:

EX-LIBRARY COPY IN VERY GOOD CONDITION EXCEPT FOR THE USUAL LIBRARY MARKINGS.

Probably 98 percent of the ex-library books I sell are expensive, specialized books where it's hard for the buyer to get a discounted price -- or perhaps the book is just plain hard to find. For example, a few times every year, I come across a book like this one.

I pick up something like this at library sales for about $5 when they replace it with the new edition. I sell the ex-library copy for about $150, and usually it's never been used, so the buyer is totally unconcerned about the library stamps. They just want the information in the book. Perhaps they need the book for their job, it's not for their personal collection.

(Also, this is probably a perfect example of a book that will sell quicker and for more money on Marketplace than eBay. Someone needing a specialized book for their work isn't going to wade through eBay. And they're probably getting reimbursed by their employer -- or writing it off on their taxes -- so they don't care too much about the price, they just want a fair price.)

However, you usually can't sell a fiction "collectible" First Edition that has library markings -- the library stamps totally invalidate the book as a collectible. But of course this is a totally different buyer than someone who's trying to get a deal on a specialized nonfiction book.

For common books, you've got to make it worthwhile for the customer to buy your ex-library copy. Merely offering a dollar or two of savings isn't going to cut the mustard. And, these penny-pinchers tend to be the customers who don't read "seller's comments" and have no qualms about zapping you with nasty feedback.

I'm interested in hearing others' experiences in selling ex-library books, on Amazon or elsewhere. Any horror stories? And what do you think is the best "condition" you can assign to an ex-library? Lots of booksellers claim you shouldn't grade anything above "Acceptable" for an ex-library. What do you think? Please chime in with your comment below.

Q&A: How do you get Amazon SKUs on your books?

QUESTION: How to you mark your books with SKUs?

ANSWER: I use "removable" laser/inkjet labels, Avery 8066. This gives you 30 labels per sheet. When the book sells, it just takes a second to pull off the label.

The Avery labels are pretty expensive, though, so I usually buy an off-brand from somewhere on the Web, you can find them by searching for "Avery 8066 compatible". Buying them through Staples comes out to 4 cents or 5 cents per label, but you can save more than half by going with a no-name label from places like onlinelabels.com

I also rigged up an automated way of printing the SKUs on the labels. To do this you'd need to print mail-merge form letters in Microsoft Word, pulling the data (SKUs) from an Excel worksheet. You can download a template for the form letter from the Avery Web site.

And if you don't have Excel, there's an excellent free program called "Open Office." It includes a full suite of software, including a word processor and spreadsheet program. I can't tell any difference between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, except that I can get OpenOffice to work about 95 percent of the time, and Office works about 50 percent of the time. Here's where you can get OpenOffice.

Q&A: Where can I find bargain CDs, DVDs, and the like?

QUESTION: Do you have any recommendations for sources of bargain DVDs, CDs and the like?

ANSWER: I've looked into it a few times over the years but never managed to find a source. I've always thought it would be great to sell discs, since they're so lightweight and compact.

Some of the remainder wholesalers I deal with have some video, but it's always awful stuff that never sells. Dedalus Books has music but it tends to be really slow-selling stuff.

Another problem I see with CDs (and DVDs to a lesser extent) is the move toward digital downloading. It's putting real pressure on prices of the hard copy. Every day, more people get high-speed Internet and are in the market for downloadable audio and video. Amazon is looking to be one of the big sellers.

All the young people nowadays are listening to music on iPods or burning their own CDs. Even when a disk is popular, people don't think of it as a real object of value like a book -- maybe because the format for music and video changes too often.

And that's why I'm optimistic about the future of books. You can't beat the technology of a paper book.

Q&A: Do postage scales works with online postage?

QUESTION: What kind of scale do you use to weigh your books? Does it connect to your computer?

ANSWER: Yes, I use a postage scale with Endicia and I love how it eliminates that chore of inputting the weight of the package.

Back when I bought my scale a few years ago, there were very few choices out there. So I paid about $120 to Endicia for a scale with a 10-pound capacity. I see they have an even better scale now that costs only $85.

By now I'd bet there's tons of used scales for sale on eBay at cheap prices. For example, after I bought mine, Stamps.com started giving away scales to people who signed up with a new account, so I bet lots of those are now on the used market. Looks like Stamps.com is still giving away scales, but their service doesn't equal Endicia.

But even if you had to pay $100 for a scale, it's worth it. It does connect to your PC, so you can tell Endicia to automatically get the weight from your scale, instead of you having to input the weight of each package.

One caution: If you buy a scale on eBay or anywhere else, make sure it does connect to a PC. A USB connection is best. Some of these scales are digital and look like the cockpit of a 747 but still don't work with online postage.

Another great thing I got used on eBay was a reconditioned Zebra/Eltron thermal printer. It prints 4 X 6 address labels like you see on UPS packages, and you can set up Endicia to use those labels. I paid $40 for mine and it works just like a brand new one that would cost $400 or more. If you buy the labels in quantity, it's much cheaper and faster than laser-printing your labels. If you ship lots of books, the savings can pay for the cost of your thermal printer several times over, every year.

Q&A: Should I use USPS Delivery Confirmation or insurance?

QUESTION: What "extra" service should I add to my Media Mail packages? I've been considering adding delivery confirmation. I recently had my biggest sale -- a $50 book -- and now realize maybe I should have insured it too.

ANSWER: I use Endicia online postage. I gladly pay the monthly fee, which allows me to avoid standing in line at the Post Office.

I also use USPS Delivery Confirmation, which Endicia provides at the discounted rate of 14 cents. I give my customers the tracking number when I e-mail them for shipment confirmation.

Usually this works fine, but several times a month I have a situation where the customer checks the tracking result a few days after I've shipped and they get this response:

• The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper or shipping partner on September 01, 2006 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date.

That's the actual message for one of my packages from last week. It's because my outgoing Post Office didn't scan the barcode. Some of my customers interpret this to mean I didn't really ship the package, as I told them in my e-mail. So I probably spend an hour each month explaining that unlike UPS, the Postal Service doesn't update its "tracking" daily, and might not provide any tracking until the time of delivery ... and sometimes not even then.

It's not a huge deal, but it's irritating to pay for a service, then be forced to constantly make excuses for why it doesn't work.

On the other hand, Amazon has denied all the A to Z claims filed against my account by clueless or dishonest customers claiming nondelivery -- all based on the fact I had "tracking."

Have I gotten my money's worth from Delivery Confirmation? Maybe not. Last year I paid $4,760 for Delivery Confirmation -- 14 cents times 34,000 Media Mail packages during calendar year 2005. Since 2002, I've had 18 A to Z claims filed against me worth a total of $304.

Obviously, I could forfeit the funds from all my A to Zs and come out way ahead. So I guess I'm not getting my money's worth from Delivery Confirmation -- especially when it makes me look like I'm lying.

I'll probably continue using Delivery Confirmation, but I quit using insurance long ago. I used to insure every package worth more than $50, but stopped after my first year -- and I've never had a mishap. (I do upgrade to Priority for expensive books, just to add some reliability.)

A couple of times I've mailed books worth around $500 with no insurance, but I did add signature confirmation so I'd have certain proof of delivery instead of Delivery Confirmation.

Amazon Sales Rank and velocity of used book sales

Do you ever pay attention to Amazon Sales Rank when buying or listing books? I was a full-time seller for at least three years before I ever gave it a moment's notice.

Here's the first numbers I've ever seen on the distribution of sales according to Amazon Sales Rank. It was sent by a reader who operates a brick-and-mortar textbook store that actively sells on Marketplace.

The store's order-management software has a new feature that automatically pulls the Amazon Sales Rank for each book on the day it sells. The table show here is based on the first 1,300 sales. It shows that books in the top 5,000 in Amazon Sales Rank accounted for more than 45 percent of sales. Another way to look at it is, more than 99 percent of the sales were for books ranked in the top 400,000.

As you know, an Amazon Sales Rank of 1 is the fastest-selling book on Amazon, and the slowest-selling book is 3.5 million and change. Books with no recorded Marketplace sales have ranks of "None."

I'm not sure how useful these numbers are to those of us who aren't full-time textbook sellers, but it's interesting nonetheless. Of course this is the time of the year when textbooks are in highest demand.

It's ironic that books with high Amazon Sales Ranks or even a rank of "none" tend to be valuable, since it's often a seller's market. These are the books that are hard to find, and with little competition, we're free to price sky-high. The only problem is waiting for that one-in-three-million buyer.

UPDATE: Here's some fresh data reported this morning. It shows 83 percent of transactions were for books with Amazon Sales Ranks under 50,000.

Q&A: What's the best way for online booksellers to cover mistakes?

QUESTION: Steve, you often say that when you're unable to ship a book due to an inventory mistake, sometimes you source another copy and pay for it yourself.

Do you let the customer know this? It seems the customer would be really grateful to know you've gone to the trouble. But if things go wrong, you'll be the one who bears the brunt of the customer's dissatisfaction.

ANSWER: Great questions. How you handle this depends on your own philosophy, I guess, but here's the way I usually approach it:

The overarching principle is preventing problems and keeping the customer happy. This means less time spent handling complaints, and fewer negative feedbacks.

Generally I try to cover my screwups as transparently as possible to the customer. Doing this can save time for the buyer and seller. For example, sometimes when I can't fulfill an order, I'll buy a new copy of the book from Amazon and have it shipped to the customer. And I usually don't tell the customer about this.

The reason I don't explain everything to the customer: It saves me from having to spend 10 minutes writing out this big explanation to someone who perhaps would only get confused. Maybe the customer didn't understand he was buying from a third party instead of Amazon itself to begin with. Many of our customers are in this category, believe me. They're not necessarily stupid, they just don't read the fine print.

Here's another reason: Some people -- you can never be certain who -- are going to totally misinterpret whatever you say. It's the idea of a "little bit of information" being dangerous. For example, one time when I bought a new book for somebody, I wrote to him beforehand, saying I was out of stock of the book, but I'd purchased one for him on Amazon and he should get it shortly. He writes back outraged, asking why he's getting "double-billed for my mistake." Some people will just assume the worst about everything.

Most of the time, though, I'm able to find a replacement copy from another Marketplace seller with good feedback, so I only lose a nominal amount of money while protecting my feedback.

And having said all this, I still get really nice comments from customers who do find out somehow that I went out of my way. So that's nice, but my main focus is just preventing problems to the extent possible.

And one other thing, I've had at least 25 instances since I've been selling where I was unable to fulfill an order for an out-of-print book and there wasn't a suitable replacement I could find. In these cases, of course, I refund and apologize as soon as possible. My point is, I've never once received bad feedback from this, even though I've always expected it. So it makes you wonder -- when you see certain inept or drop-shipping sellers who have awful feedback -- how many more of their customers are getting the shaft, and just don't bother to complain and leave bad feedback?

Q&A: How can I price books to outsmart megasellers on Amazon Marketplace?

QUESTION: When listing books (especially newer more popular ones), I consistently notice five or six megaseller listings with horrible feedback, about 85 percent. They usually lowball, and have between 100 and 1,000 copies listed. Should I price below them, match them, or above them? Are there enough buyers who will pay a few extra dollars to buy from a seller with better feedback?

ANSWER: The megasellers you're seeing are usually "remainder" or "overstock" book dealers. They get their stock from bookstore returns, etc.

The way publishing works nowadays, new titles get about three months to prove themselves in bookstores. If they don't continue selling like hotcakes, the bookstores return most of them. The publishers don't know what to do with the returns, so they sell them off at pennies on the dollar. These are the lowball copies you're seeing on Amazon Marketplace.

Many of these megasellers are the remainder dealers I mention in the "wholesale" appendix of my book "The Home Based Bookstore."

So yes, if you're competing with one of these lowball Marketplace listings, you can often get the sale at a 100 percent premium, when there's a savvy buyer willing to pay for guaranteed good service from a seller with sterling feedback.

When there's lots of overstock of a certain title on the market, however, one of two things usually happens:

1.) The book starts its descent toward permanent penny-book status if there's tons being returned, and demand is insufficient.

2.) The price recovers in six months to a year when the market has soaked up the glut.

For scenario 2 to happen, there has to be relatively strong demand for a book. Being in the top 25,000 in Amazon Sales Rank indicates reasonable demand for the book. But there's so many variables as to whether a book price can recover -- I've had some high-priced books on closeout that had Amazon Sales Ranks of about 80,000 where the price recovered quickly -- probably because there was not too many remainder/overstock copies out there. The thing is, there's no way to know all the variables.

And I'm sure you know fiction tends to lose its value, while business titles can sell strongly for years on end.

A few times when I've seen really strong-selling books offered at these ridiculous closeout prices, I've bought out the megaseller. For example, when you see a book listed at a low price by the Marketplace seller "Book Closeouts," you can usually buy that stock from "Book Depot." It's the same company, Book Depot is the wholesale arm. They usually sell booksellers the stuff they have listed on Marketplace at exactly half the price they've got it listed for on Marketplace.

This type of opportunity probably won't be around for too many more years though, because the publishers are starting to set up their own retail operations -- selling direct to consumers online. Once they have those businesses running, they can sell their own overstocks.