What to do when you have a book that you want to sell, a buyer wants it but cannot afford the cash outlay to purchase it? The answer is CONSIGNMENT. When offering a book for consignment you first must inquire as to the fees the seller will charge. Remember, the seller is the one who is doing the labor. This includes grading the book, writing a fair description and setting a fair price based on prevailing market conditions, storing the book until it is sold, and packaging and shipping it when it is sold. If the book does not sell within a given time frame (6 months or a year) the seller must then pay to ship the book back to the consigner. A seller cannot afford to keep a consigned book for indefinate periods of time nor to only deduct costs from a sale. At oldguysbooks my consignment rate is usually 40% or 50% of the sale price after any listing fees and other expenses not covered in "postage and handling" are factored in.
If you are interested in selling books on consignment through oldguysbooks please send me an email to: oduvall@yahoo.com telling me what you wish to sell, its general condition, and how much you are hoping to get for it. I will then reply expressing my interest and beging the negotiations.
Many sellers will not offer consignments because of the increased record keeping. Oldguysbooks will accept books on consignment. Just ask for more details.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Special requests
On occaison someone will ask me to acquire something for them that is not in my inventory. When I locate the book I will usually try to get them to order direct from the seller. When they want me to buy the book and ship it to them myself I have to charge a small mark up and shipping costs.
Another request I get is for a free sample. This is a cost prohibitive no-no. Even if I have a book that I know will never sell in a million years that was givent to me for no cost, shipping does cost money. I hate to have to put it this way, but no money = no book.
Another request I get is for a free sample. This is a cost prohibitive no-no. Even if I have a book that I know will never sell in a million years that was givent to me for no cost, shipping does cost money. I hate to have to put it this way, but no money = no book.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Discounts! I Have Discounts!
Well, I did say that I was going to be posting discounts on orders of my books placed through biblio.com and here they are:
1) 10% off on any order of $10 or more use coupon code B157399-10
2) 20% off on any order of $50 or more use coupon code B157399-20a
These discounts are taken at checkout and are not applicable to taxes or shipping.
My next blog will concern private transactions.
1) 10% off on any order of $10 or more use coupon code B157399-10
2) 20% off on any order of $50 or more use coupon code B157399-20a
These discounts are taken at checkout and are not applicable to taxes or shipping.
My next blog will concern private transactions.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Welcome to the oldguysbooks blog
Welcome to the blog for oldguysbooks, my itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie used book selling hobby/business. Don't expect anything fancy like graphics and such as my CGI and HTML skills are worse than horrible. I will be learning more about blogging as time progresses and may even become competent at it in after a while. Just be patient.
Just what is this oldguysbooks and who is this character who is trying to run this one-man operation. Well, I am Onnie Duvall. I started oldguysbooks in the fall of 2005 in order to sell some used books and government documents that had fallen into my hands from various (legal) sources, mostly from library discards and library donation rejects. Most of the stuff I had then was pretty esoteric with a limited market. My holdings have expanded and contracted since then and while the majority of my books are still esoteric (a large proportion are geologic in nature dealing with primarily the intermountain west) there are things that may be of interest to the general populace. I maintain a small inventory of competitively priced books. Most are of a single copy only. If you are looking for something in particular I will try to help you locate it.
What kinds of books will be found at oldguysbooks? It's probably easier to answer this with what you are unlikely to ever see in my holdings. Campaign biographies and autobiographies of contemporary politicians. Unless I am given them gratis I will not sell them. The reason, and this is also true with contemporary best sellers, is that there is an oversaturated market for them. I simply cannot and will not compete with the penny sellers.
You will not find books by those trying to make money on their notoriety. You will never see a book by the subjects of the recent high profile cases in my holdings.
Since oldguysbooks does not have its own website or its own brick and mortar store how can one find the current holdings? While I do most selling on amazon.com I prefer a lesser know sight known as biblio.com. At biblio.com ()you can peruse my holdings by general subject. Also from my point of view while both have their advantages and disadvatages biblio charges a lower commision than does amazon and they offer payment by PayPal in addition to the usual credit card methods.
What to look for in future blogs? Discounts for books ordered through biblio.com. I will be posting some discount codes here in the near future.
Just what is this oldguysbooks and who is this character who is trying to run this one-man operation. Well, I am Onnie Duvall. I started oldguysbooks in the fall of 2005 in order to sell some used books and government documents that had fallen into my hands from various (legal) sources, mostly from library discards and library donation rejects. Most of the stuff I had then was pretty esoteric with a limited market. My holdings have expanded and contracted since then and while the majority of my books are still esoteric (a large proportion are geologic in nature dealing with primarily the intermountain west) there are things that may be of interest to the general populace. I maintain a small inventory of competitively priced books. Most are of a single copy only. If you are looking for something in particular I will try to help you locate it.
What kinds of books will be found at oldguysbooks? It's probably easier to answer this with what you are unlikely to ever see in my holdings. Campaign biographies and autobiographies of contemporary politicians. Unless I am given them gratis I will not sell them. The reason, and this is also true with contemporary best sellers, is that there is an oversaturated market for them. I simply cannot and will not compete with the penny sellers.
You will not find books by those trying to make money on their notoriety. You will never see a book by the subjects of the recent high profile cases in my holdings.
Since oldguysbooks does not have its own website or its own brick and mortar store how can one find the current holdings? While I do most selling on amazon.com I prefer a lesser know sight known as biblio.com. At biblio.com ()you can peruse my holdings by general subject. Also from my point of view while both have their advantages and disadvatages biblio charges a lower commision than does amazon and they offer payment by PayPal in addition to the usual credit card methods.
What to look for in future blogs? Discounts for books ordered through biblio.com. I will be posting some discount codes here in the near future.
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