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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market - By Bruce McKinney Collectors for years could not sell their material efficiently. By Bruce McKinney A Needed Way Out A generation of book owners is looking past weak offers from dealers and limited opportunities selling via traditional auctions, marketing their books, manuscripts and ephemera lot by lot on eBay. The results are inconsistent but encouraging both for sellers and buyers. For sellers it's the chance to control their own destiny, converting market observations into listings, transactions and private client lists. In short order sellers on eBay achieve a working competence to match their commitment to the endeavor. The selling is easy, developing techniques that achieve the best financial outcomes more difficult. For many, selling on eBay is not a career path, just a better option than selling dirt cheap to a dealer or giving the material to a library or Good Will. These sellers will do and be done. A few will find a metier. For buyers who pounce on interesting material as it arrives on the block it's an equally good opportunity: the chance to buy material without substantial mark up. In short, eBay is the emerging cash market and in fact already a very large one. What sells on eBay? Everything sells on eBay including old books, manuscripts and ephemera. Transactions tend to be in the $10 to $250 range however which is less a function of value than market experience. In other words bidders consistently buy good material in this price range and come to the market expecting to find more. If your item is significantly more valuable you may exceed their financial capability or force them to forgo other material. In the end they may simply not bid the full value for reasons beyond your listing and the quality of your item. Think of it this way. eBay has a sweet spot. It's huge but clearly distinct from the premium materials that documented auctions specialize in. Easy to List, Difficult to Achieve High Prices For sellers eBay provides support although they may not emphasize one fact: it's easy to sell but difficult to get a high price. The description is the key to visibility. How well you prepare it will effect how many people see it. It's true you will be visible in category searches even if your description is thin as gruel but categories are large so your chances of being seen small. In the book category today there are 467,955 listings. You don't want to exclusively depend on bidders finding your speck of sand in that pile so you also need to be highly visible in the term searches which experienced eBayers use to locate gems among the clutter. To do this you need to write thorough descriptions. With each additional descriptive term the chances of showing up in buyer searches increases.
eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market - By Bruce McKinney Selling on eBay isn't easy for everyone! At the same time you are attracting an audience to specific listings you are also conveying a broader impression about what and how you list. To the extent eBayers find your listings interesting they'll add you to their favorite searches and choose to receive daily emails of your new postings. Think of this as a variation of Sally Field's Academy Award speech, "You like me. You really, really like me." Yup, that's what it means. Experienced sellers work hard to build a following. If of course you are in a pure liquidation mode you start out prepared to get what you get and don't care if you sell cheap. For you victory is a clean house and eBay will help you do this. There are two parts to your listing. At the top there is a header and subheader. On book listing sites books are listed by title and author. Not here. On eBay they are listed by hooks or search terms that you believe will bring buyers to your listing. So "A History of George Washington" in an eBay header might be "Washington History Inscribed Boards Levenger." This translates to the subject WASHINGTON, the type of material, HISTORY, a signed copy, INSCRIBED, the binding, BOARDS, and a past owner named LEVENGER. Think of this as chess, not checkers. This is all about hits or clicks on the listing. In preparing the second part of the listing, the description, we now have the chance to create opportunities for searchers to find the listing. In doing this we need to be honest and complete while relentlessly answering the age old question: why should I buy this book? Show the title, author, date and place printed. Then look on listing sites for other copies to see how it's described. Look carefully at how book condition is evaluated. Now describe your book in appropriate terms. Is your copy in any way special? Has it been signed by the author or owned by someone? In every case mention this. Books that have been signed by their authors are always worth some premium but no, don't start practicing forged signatures. George Washington died in 1799 so he didn't sign your book that was printed in 1924. If your book has a jacket, mention this. They were uncommon before 1900. Condition is VERY important so be conservative. Many people selling on eBay quit right here. Serious sellers go on. List the table of contents, perhaps the preface and book reviews if you can track them down. You are building a mountain of material that will create matches for buyers searching the eBay anthill. Consider using a scanner and optical character reader if you decide to get serious. You can scan pages of material in a few minutes that would take hours if you type it. Of course you may only be increasing the realized price by $10 so be realistic. Setting the Price Here we find out if you really want to sell. Again let's look on the listing sites for a sense of what the asking prices are. Let's say there are 4 copies. Three sound like yours and they are priced at $40, $60 and $75. There is also a signed copy [by the author] for $150. Yours is not signed so ignore the $150 copy. The average of the others is $58. Start the bidding at $15 or about 25%. You want bidders when they see the listing to say "this is interesting" and add it to the items they are following. You'll probably get about $30 for your copy. Chances are that if you look on the listing sites in three months all four copies that you used for price comparison will still be available while you have already converted the proceeds into baseball tickets.
eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market - By Bruce McKinney Learning to sell on eBay is like learning to drive a car. How will you get paid? On eBay there is a payment processor called PayPal. If you are going to be selling at least fifty lots I would use it. It makes it easy for people to pay and I think increases, at the margin, what people bid. I know that if a seller requires I pay by check I specifically look to see how many lots they have sold and what their feedback is. If I have the slightest doubt I pass. The downside of PayPal is that it isn't free. To compensate you may want to buy some eBay stock before you begin selling. All in all PayPal is worth the cost. Listing Period eBay virgins know how to save money. They list for only 3 or 5 days because it is marginally cheaper than 7 and 10 day listings. Go with 10 days. You are looking for exposure. Give yourself the opportunity to get some. If the lot doesn't sell you can relist but it's not free. Give yourself the best chance now. When do I start my listing and when does it end? I personally think listings should end on a Monday or Tuesday if I'm selling and Wednesday or Thursday if I'm buying. Mid-week seems to be quieter and the prices lower when the auctions end later in the week. For ten day auctions if you start them on Friday or Saturday they will end on Monday or Tuesday. Don't end them on Monday if it's a holiday. The world is full of people who say "I would have bought it but..." So you're thinking it doesn't make a difference really because you can bid anytime while the auction is underway. True but I have lost too many lots by leaving an early bid. I don't do it anymore. You will see me for the first time just as the clock expires. I'm not interested to give other bidders a moment to think about whether they're willing to increase their bid. TOO LATE! For sellers this means that you are going to relive, with each eBay lot, the military adage "Hurry up and wait." Use the optional visitor counter to see [and show] the traffic count on your listing. As an eBay seller you will also be able to see how many people are TRACKING the listing. It will be visible in your eBay seller's control panel. You may not have any bids yet but you can see what the flow is. With experience you'll sense what is happening. Most eBay sellers seem to take a philosophical approach. They post ten items and some do well, some okay and some badly. On average they do fine. If you did a thorough listing, started it at the appropriate time and obtained only a fair result chances are the market value is simply less than you expected. The listing sites may have it posted higher but if in three months those listings are still there who is to say the price you received isn't the right price. Best of luck if you decide to try it! Its great fun and I'll be bidding on some of your items if they fit my collecting and research interests. Editor's Note: This article has generated several Letters to the Editor. To see them, Click here.

eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market

- By Bruce McKinney

Collectors for years could not sell their material efficiently.

By Bruce McKinney

A Needed Way Out

A generation of book owners is looking past weak offers from dealers and limited opportunities selling via traditional auctions, marketing their books, manuscripts and ephemera lot by lot on eBay. The results are inconsistent but encouraging both for sellers and buyers. For sellers it's the chance to control their own destiny, converting market observations into listings, transactions and private client lists. In short order sellers on eBay achieve a working competence to match their commitment to the endeavor. The selling is easy, developing techniques that achieve the best financial outcomes more difficult. For many, selling on eBay is not a career path, just a better option than selling dirt cheap to a dealer or giving the material to a library or Good Will. These sellers will do and be done. A few will find a metier. For buyers who pounce on interesting material as it arrives on the block it's an equally good opportunity: the chance to buy material without substantial mark up. In short, eBay is the emerging cash market and in fact already a very large one.

What sells on eBay?

Everything sells on eBay including old books, manuscripts and ephemera. Transactions tend to be in the $10 to $250 range however which is less a function of value than market experience. In other words bidders consistently buy good material in this price range and come to the market expecting to find more. If your item is significantly more valuable you may exceed their financial capability or force them to forgo other material. In the end they may simply not bid the full value for reasons beyond your listing and the quality of your item. Think of it this way. eBay has a sweet spot. It's huge but clearly distinct from the premium materials that documented auctions specialize in.

Easy to List, Difficult to Achieve High Prices

For sellers eBay provides support although they may not emphasize one fact: it's easy to sell but difficult to get a high price. The description is the key to visibility. How well you prepare it will effect how many people see it. It's true you will be visible in category searches even if your description is thin as gruel but categories are large so your chances of being seen small. In the book category today there are 467,955 listings. You don't want to exclusively depend on bidders finding your speck of sand in that pile so you also need to be highly visible in the term searches which experienced eBayers use to locate gems among the clutter. To do this you need to write thorough descriptions. With each additional descriptive term the chances of showing up in buyer searches increases.

eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market

- By Bruce McKinney

Selling on eBay isn't easy for everyone!

At the same time you are attracting an audience to specific listings you are also conveying a broader impression about what and how you list. To the extent eBayers find your listings interesting they'll add you to their favorite searches and choose to receive daily emails of your new postings. Think of this as a variation of Sally Field's Academy Award speech, "You like me. You really, really like me." Yup, that's what it means. Experienced sellers work hard to build a following.

If of course you are in a pure liquidation mode you start out prepared to get what you get and don't care if you sell cheap. For you victory is a clean house and eBay will help you do this.

There are two parts to your listing. At the top there is a header and subheader. On book listing sites books are listed by title and author. Not here. On eBay they are listed by hooks or search terms that you believe will bring buyers to your listing. So "A History of George Washington" in an eBay header might be "Washington History Inscribed Boards Levenger." This translates to the subject WASHINGTON, the type of material, HISTORY, a signed copy, INSCRIBED, the binding, BOARDS, and a past owner named LEVENGER. Think of this as chess, not checkers. This is all about hits or clicks on the listing.

In preparing the second part of the listing, the description, we now have the chance to create opportunities for searchers to find the listing. In doing this we need to be honest and complete while relentlessly answering the age old question: why should I buy this book? Show the title, author, date and place printed. Then look on listing sites for other copies to see how it's described. Look carefully at how book condition is evaluated. Now describe your book in appropriate terms. Is your copy in any way special? Has it been signed by the author or owned by someone? In every case mention this. Books that have been signed by their authors are always worth some premium but no, don't start practicing forged signatures. George Washington died in 1799 so he didn't sign your book that was printed in 1924. If your book has a jacket, mention this. They were uncommon before 1900. Condition is VERY important so be conservative.

Many people selling on eBay quit right here. Serious sellers go on. List the table of contents, perhaps the preface and book reviews if you can track them down. You are building a mountain of material that will create matches for buyers searching the eBay anthill. Consider using a scanner and optical character reader if you decide to get serious. You can scan pages of material in a few minutes that would take hours if you type it. Of course you may only be increasing the realized price by $10 so be realistic.

Setting the Price

Here we find out if you really want to sell. Again let's look on the listing sites for a sense of what the asking prices are. Let's say there are 4 copies. Three sound like yours and they are priced at $40, $60 and $75. There is also a signed copy [by the author] for $150. Yours is not signed so ignore the $150 copy. The average of the others is $58. Start the bidding at $15 or about 25%. You want bidders when they see the listing to say "this is interesting" and add it to the items they are following. You'll probably get about $30 for your copy. Chances are that if you look on the listing sites in three months all four copies that you used for price comparison will still be available while you have already converted the proceeds into baseball tickets.

eBay Offers Trap Door on the Book Market

- By Bruce McKinney

Learning to sell on eBay is like learning to drive a car.

How will you get paid?

On eBay there is a payment processor called PayPal. If you are going to be selling at least fifty lots I would use it. It makes it easy for people to pay and I think increases, at the margin, what people bid. I know that if a seller requires I pay by check I specifically look to see how many lots they have sold and what their feedback is. If I have the slightest doubt I pass. The downside of PayPal is that it isn't free. To compensate you may want to buy some eBay stock before you begin selling. All in all PayPal is worth the cost.

Listing Period

eBay virgins know how to save money. They list for only 3 or 5 days because it is marginally cheaper than 7 and 10 day listings. Go with 10 days. You are looking for exposure. Give yourself the opportunity to get some. If the lot doesn't sell you can relist but it's not free. Give yourself the best chance now.

When do I start my listing and when does it end?

I personally think listings should end on a Monday or Tuesday if I'm selling and Wednesday or Thursday if I'm buying. Mid-week seems to be quieter and the prices lower when the auctions end later in the week. For ten day auctions if you start them on Friday or Saturday they will end on Monday or Tuesday. Don't end them on Monday if it's a holiday. The world is full of people who say "I would have bought it but..." So you're thinking it doesn't make a difference really because you can bid anytime while the auction is underway. True but I have lost too many lots by leaving an early bid. I don't do it anymore. You will see me for the first time just as the clock expires. I'm not interested to give other bidders a moment to think about whether they're willing to increase their bid. TOO LATE! For sellers this means that you are going to relive, with each eBay lot, the military adage "Hurry up and wait."

Use the optional visitor counter to see [and show] the traffic count on your listing. As an eBay seller you will also be able to see how many people are TRACKING the listing. It will be visible in your eBay seller's control panel. You may not have any bids yet but you can see what the flow is. With experience you'll sense what is happening.

Most eBay sellers seem to take a philosophical approach. They post ten items and some do well, some okay and some badly. On average they do fine. If you did a thorough listing, started it at the appropriate time and obtained only a fair result chances are the market value is simply less than you expected. The listing sites may have it posted higher but if in three months those listings are still there who is to say the price you received isn't the right price.

Best of luck if you decide to try it! Its great fun and I'll be bidding on some of your items if they fit my collecting and research interests.

Editor's Note: This article has generated several Letters to the Editor. To see them, Click here.