Start Your Own Secondhand Bookselling Business

Secondhand Books!  Meaning what?  Books the children have cast aside, dog-eared paperback novels, rare first editions?  Yes, all these things and more are exactly what you need to become a bookseller specialising in all kinds of books at a variety of trading venues, including car boot sales, antiques and collectors' fairs, flea markets, even by list to carefully targeted book collectors and dealers.  Selling is easy with lots of profitable options.  There are people who earn their entire living purely from taking box loads of books to car boot fairs, sometimes supplemented by a few well-chosen collectors' fairs and flea markets. 

Many trade every day of the week, earning a few pence on each book they sell.  And they sell hundreds, sometimes thousands each week.  Others accumulate just a handful of rare titles for regular clients.  They report profits extending to thousands of pounds each week from a few easy transactions.

This report introduces bookselling as a viable business proposition and outlines the various factors which must be considered by anyone starting in this highly lucrative venture.

THE MANY FACETS OF THE BOOK SELLING BUSINESS

Saleable stock ranges from antiquarian to fairly new, from out-of-print specialist topics to first editions, and on to a wide variety of other collectors' categories, including author interest, topographical, paperbacks, subject interest, and so on.  Here are a few ideas to get you started 

-    Specialise in Antiquarian Books.  'Antiquarian' means a great many things, depending on whom you ask from purists who say anything printed since 1700 is merely secondhand, to those who accept anything published before 1945.  Generally speaking, however, the term can be taken to include anything published before 1830.  But don't expect everyone to agree with you!  The only thing you can take for granted is the huge profit potential awaiting you.

-    Specialise in Subjects.  A strong book-buying public exists for specialised titles, including, the most popular subjects Art, angling, animals, antiques, aviation, biographies, birds, children's books, cricket, dogs, Egyptology, erotica, golf, history, illustrated books, militaria, mountaineering, natural history, railways, sport, topography, travel, war. 

Take a look in Book and Magazine Collector to discover the vast range of titles available and the very high prices they go for.

-  Specialise in Remaindered Books.  Remaindered books are those publishers no longer include on their own sales lists and which are rarely found in bookshops.  Retail book trends change rapidly and most books have a limited lifespan in shops and traditional retail outlets. 

Remaindered books offer a wonderful chance to buy in bulk at a tiny fraction of books real worth and sell at huge profits.                                                    

-    Start a Book Barter Business. Barter stores that specialise in specific items are rapidly increasing.  Book and magazine exchanges are particularly common. In London there's a small paperback book exchange operated from the living room of the owner's home.  Popular titles line the walls and specialist books are stored in a huge converted cellar. 

Clients pay a standard joining fee, currently £20, to avoid timewasters and generate profits.  Up to six books can be borrowed at any time at a cost of 10p each.  When books are returned, new ones are chosen and the process continues.

Clients can also swap their own books, value for value, for a standard fee on each transaction.  For higher value swaps, the difference is paid in cash.

Stock needed to start the business can be purchased inexpensively at car boot sales and fleamarkets or through advertisements in local newspapers, freesheets, and book collectors' magazines.

-    Out-of-Print Books. Out-of-print specialists offer to locate titles that are no longer in print.  This doesn't mean they are without value out-of-print search is one of the most profitable categories for dealers. 

 All you have to do is place an advert offering to locate books for readers, dealers and collectors.  They contact you with details of the books they want and how much they want to pay.  You place another advertisement or process a direct mailshot offering to buy specific titles at a specified price.  When you have an offer, you add your profit and processing costs, and quote a price to the person who wants the book.  If that person is no longer interested, nothing is lost.  You do not have to buy the book until you have a definite sale.

-    Add-On Products.  Look for other items to offer alongside your books, depending on what kind of books you offer and how and where you trade.  Ephemera - paper collectables - goes well with collectors' books and antiquarian titles; toys are a useful sideline for children's books; cigarette cards; prints and postcards work well for dealers of collectors' books of all kinds and ages.

THINGS TO DO FIRST

A few procedures are essential to any business start-up.  They include

-    Deciding on a Business Name.  Choose something descriptive; not vague.  'Read Again Books' is good, so too is J Young, Antiquarian Bookseller and Yesteryear Books and Prints.  A. B. Titles is vague, Anne's is worse.  The name you choose should indicate what your business is about, namely that you deal in secondhand books, possibly of a particular type and age. 

-    Legal Rules and Responsibilities.  You are responsible for paying your own National Insurance contributions and income tax.  Local offices of the Department of Social Security and Inland Revenue will advise you.  VAT, not currently applicable to books, is optional and might be worth considering once you reach the appropriate threshold.  Ask your local office of Customs and Excise for further information.

-    Opening a Business Bank Account.  It is important to keep business monies separate from personal funds.  Having a business bank account adds credibility to your business.

-    Deciding on a Trading Format.  This means deciding whether you want to work alone as a sole proprietor, with someone else in partnership, or as a limited company.  The limited company is a legal entity in its own right, independent of those who run it, and there can be certain benefits to operating this way which your accountant or bank manager can tell you about.

-    Deciding How and Where to Trade.  This means deciding whether you want to sell direct to customers, maybe from a shop or through collectors' fairs and flea markets.  Alternatively, you might wish to operate entirely by mail, perhaps selling through sales lists, display and classified advertisements, possibly on approval.  If you can, try to include a variety of selling methods in your overall business portfolio.

-    Deciding What Kind of Books to Specialise In.  To some, perhaps the most important consideration of all, largely dependent on what experience, qualifications and capital you already have.  If possible, deal in as wide a range of books as possible.

FINDING STOCK

Suitable stock comes from a variety of sources, including auctions, sales lists compiled by fellow dealers and collectors, car boot sales, church fetes, jumble sales, book sales, auctions (book and general interest auctions), library clearances, private sales, direct from the publishers, and so on.  Never, ever, assume that because the sale is low key - it might be a church jumble sale or a small village auction - that the stock will be similarly mundane.  This isn't always so, and many a valuable book has been found in the most unlikely location.

Usually you will be offered collections of books, sometimes in tea chests, frequently stored in huge cardboard boxes.  The seller won't expect you to go through his hoard, picking and paying for those titles that suit you best.  Instead, you might be expected to take the whole lot off his hands, usually at a discount price. 

WHY BUYING PRIVATELY IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA

Private sellers are a wonderful source of books of all kinds.  The best way to approach them is through wanted advertisements in local newspapers and freesheets.  Word your advertisement according to the kind of books you want to sell.  Here are some examples which you are free to use in your business

*  Wanted.  Paperback books.  Very high prices paid.  Please phone 000 111333

*  Used Books.  All dates and subjects needed.  High prices paid. Phone 000 111333

*  Horse and Animal Titles Required.  Pre-1918 only.  Write or Phone ......... 

*  Children's Books.  All subjects and titles considered.  Very high prices for illustrated books.  ABC Book Company, 111 High Street .......

SELLING – THE OPTIONS

Selling takes place via a wonderful assortment of marketing methods, ranging from the personal - car boot sales, collectors' and book fairs, to the impersonal approach favoured by sellers through classified and display advertisements, sales lists, approvals selections, and so on.  A few ideas will get you started

Selling By List

Many booksellers operate entirely by mail, from advertisements in book and general collectors' magazines, and by mailing lists to known book buyers, sometimes their own buyers, sometimes other firms' customers.  Here, you are catering for a select band of book collectors and dealers, frequently people who will buy from every list you produce.  Consequently, a great many booksellers find their profits come entirely from sales to a handful of regular buyers.  Profits can be high, working hours few, and overheads very low.

Listing can be a time-consuming job, and not everything you list will sell.  This doesn't really matter, however, since one or two good sales will invariably cover the cost of your mailshot and postage.  The rest is usually pure profit.  All depends on sending your list to carefully targeted individuals and businesses, prospects you know to be interested in the type of books you offer.

How to obtain those names?  Simple!  You start by joining book collectors' clubs and societies yourself, even if just to obtain lists of fellow members.  Other sources include advertisements in book collectors' magazines (your own and other people's advertisements), membership lists from other societies (e.g. ephemera collectors, hobbyists, etc.), directories of book collectors, your competitors' mailing lists, and so on.  Much of this information is available via clubs and societies listed in specialist magazines, perhaps the most useful being Book and Magazine Collector. Taking out a subscription to this publication will repay you many times over.

There's very little to learn about compiling a list of books for sale, and most lists follow a pretty general format, the main purpose of which is to describe the title, author, condition and appearance of each title.  Things each entry in your list should include

Title.

Author.

Publisher.

Year of Publication Not always obvious, but a variety of techniques can help you date books.

Edition 1st, 2nd, etc.

Number of Pages.

Condition  Usually indicated as mint, fine, very good, good, fair or poor.

Price.

All of these things should be covered, unless you are selling extremely cheap titles.  Other information you might consider includes illustrations, engravings, bookplates, and so on.

Where more valuable titles are listed, you should also include information about the binding, since some books were published in both leather and cheaper cloth covers.

Selling On Approval

As well as selling by list, you will eventually come to quote to individual collectors.  From a 'wants' list compiled by you or extracted from other sources, you can offer books the prospect has already expressed interest in.  This could well be the most productive and profitable feature of your business, one which takes very little time to operate.  A simple card index for each client is all you need.  Make a note of every request you receive for a particular book and include details from all 'books wanted' advertisements you find.  Go through your records every time you obtain new stock.  (Of course, if this list is computerised instead of on a card index, you can skim through with the speed of lightning when you are looking for particular items).

By Invitation to View

Some dealers, particularly those with high-value items, allow prospective customers to visit their homes to view stock.  'By arrangement' or 'by appointment' is a frequent condition, meaning you can dictate times when people visit.  Asking people to write or phone for an appointment gives you more chance of eliminating timewasters and offers greater protection against fraudsters and undesirables.  Be very careful about offering this buying option.  It isn't always wise to allow people into your home, especially where you live alone or your home is in an isolated area. 

Selling At Fairs

Books sell well through general and specialist fairs, flea markets, collectors' and antiques events and book fairs.

Getting a stall is easy.  Most such events are advertised extensively in specialist book collectors' publications, antiques magazines, as well as local, regional and national newspapers.  All you do it telephone the organiser, arrange a stall, prepare and price your stock, turn up on the day, display your goods and sell.  Make a point of visiting book and collectors' fairs.  Note how dealers set up and lay out their stalls, how they price their stock, how they deal with customers.  Get there early in the day, before stall holders arrive if possible.  Watch what goes on, how trading frequently begins long before the doors open to the public (book dealers buy and sell between themselves), how differently traders deal with customers who arrive early in the day and those who arrive just before closing time, especially on a bad day!  Frequently, 'hard done by' dealers will divest themselves of heavy books for a pittance when sales are few and far between, yet they'll happily trundle home with mountains of unsold books when just one sale has yielded enough profits to see them through the week ahead!

Car Boot Sales and Flea Markets

For car boot sales, all you usually do is turn up on the day, drive onto your pitch, open your boot, display your stock and start trading.  Inexpensive books and most general titles are best for selling at car boot sales.

To get a stall at flea markets and collectors' fairs, all you do is find out which fairs are running (local newspapers are a useful source), telephone the organiser, arrange a stall, prepare and price your stock, turn up on the day, display your goods and again, wait for customers to arrive.

Make a point of visiting venues first, as a customer or observer.  Note how dealers arrange their stalls, how they price their stock, how they deal with customers. 

Sell Through Shops

Most books are sold through shops, sometimes the bookseller's own shop, often someone else's.  Taking part of someone else's shop is a useful way to start small and grow as big as you like, perhaps supplementing your in-store takings with sales on approval, through sales lists, mail order and direct mail. 

Bookshops come in all shapes and sizes, from those with secondhand books lining the walls, to small elegant shops housing just a handful of select antiquarian gems.  In town and city centres you're more likely to find bookshops specialising in job lots, clearance lots and remaindered books such as those mentioned earlier.  Bargains here are particularly plentiful and most customers wouldn't dream of leaving the shop without at least a handful of purchases.

Ideally, to be successful in your own secondhand bookshop, you'll need to be in a heavy tourist area or somewhere with a minimum 50,000 local population.  The store needs to be in a high-flow pedestrian area where passing trade is considerable.  There's no denying that some bookshops do survive, and survive well, in side streets and alleys, especially those selling rare, high-value books to their own well-established clientele.  For traders in side-streets, it's a good idea to have a sandwich-board display outside the shop, and another somewhere on the high street to direct trade your way.  A good window display is essential and, if weather, space and planning authorities permit, it's also useful to have carousels and shelves to display books outside your shop. 

WHAT TO CHARGE

Bear in mind that rarity is often the factor that determines value, so you can't expect to turn up at every church fair, car boot sale or jumble sale, expecting to pay pennies for the titles advertised in current book collectors' magazines.  Yet, the fact remains that gems are lurking virtually everywhere.  All you need do is make a mental note of who wants what, what subjects are in demand and those that no-one seems to want, however low the price.  Arrange buying and pricing around this knowledge.

Until you gain experience, be content to make a fixed profit on each sale.  If, for instance, you buy a hundred or so books for £10, you might start by taking out obviously better titles which can usually be offered at £5 each or more.  For the remainder you might ask £1 each across the board.  When the better books have gone, the rest might be offered in batches - 5 for £1 is common - or charge something like 25p each for what is left.

Learn all you can about pricing.  Start by collecting other dealers' lists, visiting book fairs, even auctions.  Subscribe to various trade periodicals and study auction records.  Make a note of what sells best, and at what price.  But, don't ever assume that what one book fetches will invariably apply to a similar title.  It rarely happens that way and many prices, particularly those at auction, are more often the result of aggressive bargaining between parties than actual market value.

For sales at flea markets, book sales and collectors' fairs, opt for a standard mark-up until you have a better feel for prices.  Make sure your margin covers overheads and discounts for bulk purchases as well as providing reasonable profits for you.