About a month ago I wrote a post lamenting how hard it has become to find inventory for my Amazon book sales. Well, about two weeks ago I was at a dinner where the person next to me knew someone who had a friend who was cleaning out her apartment and was complaining about all the books she had to get rid of. My ears perked up immediately and by the end of the conversation I had the woman’s phone number. I called the next morning, made an appointment to stop by in the afternoon, and found someone who was cleaning out her office of about five hundred recently published books about business and finance, almost all of them best sellers that go for over $10. I’ve been listing, packing and shipping pretty much constantly ever since. No complaints here though — the money is very much needed. At this point I’ve sold three quarters of the books, and will be getting a nice big check from Amazon in a week or so. I’ve had some great finds before, but this was by far the best one so far.
And it shows me that I need to change my tactics. I used to find most of my inventory in thrifts stores, but there are a lot of people who visit NYC thrift stores every day looking for used books that they can sell online, and those stores are pretty much stripped bare. I’ve had a couple good finds in addition to last month’s by word-of-mouth, which is making me realize that, like any other business, networking is very important.
I’m glad that I’ve sold most of the books and plan to take a bit of a break from online selling. I have had a lot on my mind to blog about lately, and am looking forward to spending some time writing.
For now I’m going to take a break from everything though. It’s Open House New York weekend. All kinds of places that are usually closed to the public open their doors. On my agenda are the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons on Sixth Avenue, and the Newton Creek Sewage Treatment Center. Open House New York happens both today and tomorrow, and there are hundreds of fascinating things to see.