Best Books to Sell on Amazon from 5 Years’ Experience

If you are selling books on Amazon, of course you are going to want to know what kinds of books are most likely to sell for more—education or business.

To be honest, all of them do. You just have to find the right ones. Now, I know that answer sounds like a kind of cop-out, but I’m giving you that answer for one reason. Why? Because I don’t want you to go out looking for specific types of books. It’s great to be aware of textbooks in general. Textbooks are probably the best books to be on the lookout for. Textbooks are very encompassing. It could be business books; it could be educational books. It could be accounting, biology, political science, history, or literature books. Textbooks in general are probably the number one thing that you want to be on the lookout for.

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The Amazon Seller App
I can’t say it’s educational based, or business based, or accounting based. The top piece of advice I’m going to give you is to go out there and download the Amazon Seller app.

First and foremost, if you’re looking to sell books, don’t sell them on eBay. Now, if you have a huge business, and you’re selling boatloads of books, and you’re getting thousands and thousands of books into your warehouse every day for pennies on the dollar, then, yes, you could sell them on eBay. I know some successful eBay sellers who put their books on eBay for $4 or $5, and they make maybe 20 or 30 cents per book. They do high volume, and they make that work.

But for the average person, I would recommend selling them on Amazon FBA—which is Fulfillment By Amazon. What you’re going to want to do is to download the Amazon Seller app. That app is going to give you the ability to scan books. The app will be able to tell you a couple different pieces of information—the rank (which indicates how fast of a seller it is, or its sales velocity) and the number of reviews (which speaks to its social proof). Usually the more reviews you have, the better a seller is typically going to be. But that’s not always the case. Rank is probably one of the best things to look for. It’s going to tell you the new price, the used price, how many FBA sellers, and how many merchants.

Which Textbooks to Pay Extra Attention To
I don’t want to give you the advice to look out for specific books because in the end you’re going to make a lot more money by scanning all the books, or, at least, picking and choosing specific textbooks. But in general, if I had to give you advice about what to look for, things that are weird, textbooks, or weird educational books.

For example, take a really specific textbook like The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance. Now, you’re going to find a lot of books on low-carb dieting, which is normal. But when you match two things together—low-carb dieting and performance—then things get interesting.

So that would be an interesting book I would scan. Why? Because you’re matching two different themes up together. For example, if you find a book about exercise but for grandmothers, well, that would be just different. Just look for books that make you say to yourself, “What? Who the heck would want that?” Yes, you want to scan that book.

Finding Books to Scan
Where do you go to find books to scan? I would recommend starting with library sales if you have them in your area. Why? They are dirt cheap. But be aware that because they are so inexpensive, you will have a lot of competition. You want to get there early.

Secondly, I would look at thrift stores. That is another great place to find textbooks. Obviously if it’s garage sale season in your area, go to the garage sales. Most people are not buying and reselling books from garage sales, so the competition for them won’t be an intense.

Be Cautious about Dates
Now, I’ve learned over the years not to get very excited when I see a bunch of textbooks. The thing with textbooks is that they are outdated quickly. If you find a textbook that’s, say, three or four years old, many times it’s not worth anything. But if you are lucky enough and persistent enough, you will look into a book of textbooks and see that many look current. You’ll get the hang of it the more books you sell—figuring out which textbooks are valuable, seeing which ones are current, understanding what textbooks will move the quickest.

So go get the Amazon Seller app. Learn the FBA process. Start scanning as many books as you can from library sales, church sales, garage sales, and thrift stores, and you’ll get good. You’ll start making money.