How a Stay at Home Mom Lives Her Dream Selling Books Online
by Christine ----Bookmark on del.icio.us----When I mention I am a stay at home mom who sells books online, people’s ears perk up.
I bet they would perk up even more if I told them I am going to do over $70,000 this year working 3-4 hours a day. Some things are better left unsaid – that kind of information is better spread by gossip. I could causally mention it when asking a neighbor if they know a good accountant. It’s fun to brag, but one needs to be careful.
Exactly one year after I had my first son I was aching to fill a gap in my life. That gap was selling books. I had managed a bookstore for the previous 12 years. I was ready to give it all up to be a full-time stay at home mom. I started to get the itch after a few months, but at the one-year mark, I was going crazy.
So I …
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Got myself a credit card
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Registered with the IRS
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Registered with the state
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Opened a bank account
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Made room in my basement
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e-mailed a wholesaler
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Asked for a current booklist
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Ordered $500.00 worth of books
It took a week and about 500 bucks and I was in business! I was able to pay the $500.00 back in 2 months. Since the initial $500.00 investment I have never gone into debt. After that, I just kept on ordering and kept on selling. The books crept out of the space I had set aside into more common areas of the house. It was obvious that if I wanted to keep expanding the business we were going to need more room. 2 years into the business we bought a bigger house and had another baby boy. Now I have 500 square feet set aside set up with industrial steel shelving. That space is quickly filling up.
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There is no secret to making money online – it’s like any other business – I provide value to my customers
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People assume I buy most of my books at garage sales or library sales and sell them for a small, tidy profit – they are wrong – I buy them wholesale
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I’ve been in the book business for over 12 years – but it doesn’t take 12 years to build wholesale relationships. I’ve never met most of my wholesalers or even talked to them on the phone
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I order all my products online, from my cozy basement home office
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Once in awhile I will go to a trade show to find a new wholesaler, but honestly, I haven’t done that in over 4 years
If you think I’m going to tell you who my wholesalers are, forget it. No one making a good income selling online is going to hand over a list of their wholesalers, so don’t ask. The bookselling business is insanely competitive. My wholesalers sell online to the public; competition can’t get much tougher than that. I’m convinced that I can reach $150,000 or more per year without sacrificing my customer service and small business feel. I am constantly trying to figure out how to get technology to become my surrogate employees.
Coming Up from Christine:
5 Steps to Becoming a Business that Can Buy Wholesale
How to Decide on a Product Niche
Ideas on Where to Find Your Inventory (no promises of magic bullets!)
More info on Momtrepreneurs visit emomsathome.com
Shop for books at my new website http://www.soconik.com
Or check out my eBay store
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:33 am
Thanks for the post, it was interesting. I’m looking forward to reading your upcoming posts. One question: is that $70k sales volume or profit?
October 16th, 2006 at 10:24 am
I like this website because it seems quite real - mprmal. I also think it is inspirational to lots of different people for lots of different reasons.
So thanks and well done.
December 23rd, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Christine, thank you for sharing your experience. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.
A couple of us bloggers at Wise Bread are trying to use ebay to be free too, so that makes you a model and an inspiration for us! :)
February 11th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I’m curious. If the wholesalers are selling online too why do they sell to you cheap enough for you to be able to make a profit? Are you more efficient than they are at selling online so you can sell cheaper than them? Do they not want to be in the direct sales, online business so they are willing to sell cheaper to you to avoid that?
How can you negotiate a cheap enough rate to compete with big booksellers like Amazon?
(FYI, one of my dream jobs would be to own a used bookstore.)
February 11th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Stormy,
It’s complicated, but it is profitable. Not all wholesalers sell direct, and the ones that do, do not sell in all marketplaces. Christine has years of experience in the book business and she mostly sells overstocks and remainders. She has good nose for buying low and selling high and she tends to know how much of a particular title is in the marketplace.
She doesn’t do used. But we just visited a guy in New Hope MN that supports a family of five selling used books online. He is closing his used book store and focusing entirely on the internet. The used book market is very different than the remainder book market…
In used books you generally only have one copy of each title which makes it difficult to have it on a store shelf and on the internet. That’s why he closed his store - I think. He had to pull all his good stuff from his store shelves and put it in his home too insure he didn’t oversell.
Now in the remainder market you usually have multiple copies of each title which allows you to have it listed on the internet and in the store. Then you need to tie yourt POS system to your internet inventory and overselling is minimized.
About Amazon…
She doesn’t really compete with them, she actually sells books on Amazon. 40% of her business comes from Amazon.
February 12th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Thanks, Steve. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:30 am
It sure is a refreshing article knowing that selling books online have their customers as well.
singapore
March 27th, 2007 at 4:59 am
This is something I really did not think could work. But the way you have explained this here makes me change my mind. Thanks for the post and I will return of course. Your subjects are very informative.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:22 am
[…] Little links can turn into big links. One of my top referrers of all time, Steve Olson, linked to me in the fourth post he wrote. His blog has grown so big that this post still sends me consistent traffic to this day, and we’ve become great friends in the process. […]
April 5th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Hi Christine
A very interesting article. I started an online business with eBay in 2004 selling signed 1st edition books and turned over about $70,000 in the first year but the market for signed books dropped and I had to close up shop.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Very inspiring story, I’m also thinking about starting my own home business online.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Thanks for sharing your story. It’s very inspiring because I’ve just started selling books too.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Wow great post Christine. It’s pretty important people like you are sharing their story and blogging about work at home moms, I know theres so a lot of would be work at home moms, if they could only learn the skills. Btw who are your wholesalers (hehe just kidding).Thanks, keep blogging!
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Yes it is a very good example I would like to do it myself.
Thank you and have a good day to all.
Justin
seedubai.blogspot.com
May 19th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Thats very inspirational. I know it can be difficult to stick it out when trying to make money on the internet, but if you stay true to yourself, and follow your heart you will reap the benefits of success.
May 21st, 2007 at 12:06 pm
[…] How a Stay at Home Mom Lives Her Dream Selling Books Online | steve-olson.com […]
July 7th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Thanks for your post. It’s excellently story. I think you have achieved financial freedom :)
So congrat and hope you can reach $150,000 or more per year.
July 19th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Nice story. I would love to know which wholesaler Christine uses. We are about to add a list of wholesalers with contact info to our Book selling blog.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Thank you both! Not only was the article informative, and frankly inspirational, the detailed comments are to be commended.
In fact, after reading it, I got so excited I immediately copied and pasted and emailed this very page to one of our clients. Books online seemed like an uphill fight, but here’s living proof that where there’s a will, there’s a way :)
Do you have an input or insight for audio books (online) website owners? (Never hurts to ask :)
Again, thank you!
July 30th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Christine has a great story in many ways. She was able to fulfill her desire to work from home, she makes good money doing it, and she gets to apply the previous experience she had to something she seems to enjoy.
In the beginning no body thought Amazon would make it either. Sell books online? That’s crazy. With the internet, no one will read books any more, um
not true.
It appears we can learn a lot from books, as well as the business of books.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Refreshing story Christine and a inspiration story for anyone working at home.
Many people are amazed at the markets they can be successful in.
I have a friend who is very succesfull in business and his mantra is find where the competition is and don’t afraid to compete.
If there was no competition there is no money in this. I myself have been trying to work at home finding niches and coming to realize he is right.
A struggling entrepreneur, keep up the great work Christine
August 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I ran an online used book business for five years. I linked to your article in my blog, which is a support site for work at home moms. Thanks for the great info.
September 2nd, 2007 at 8:02 am
Very inspirational. Thank you!
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:39 am
Stay at home moms always inspire me! Keep up the great work!
September 20th, 2007 at 9:19 am
[…] Fellow blogger and all around good guy Steve has a post on his blog from his wife, Christine who is an online bookseller. She sells new and remaindered books but is on track to gross $120,000 this year. The post has some great pictures of her workspace and shipping area ( I love seeing other peoples work space!). She blogged about her business before and promises to again. If you would, leave a comment or two over there so she knows we want more articles like this. […]
December 19th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I stumbled across this blog. I work at home as a medical transcriptionist. This book selling online sounds very interesting. I always wondered how people make money on Amazon….I figured selling books there might add up to chump change but never thought it could be “big” business. Very interesting. I’m going to read up about this even more. Thanks for a really interesting blog.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:22 am
As per the other commenters…. Inspirational.
I have over the last 12 months sold ebooks through ebay and not done to badly, but this story blew me away, I thought only the bigger companies could stand to turn a profit online selling books. As you commented, it’s a very competitive market.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
It is really amazing what can be acheived from a small home office. The path to our success has led us to a skill of getting people to come to our websites and then ask us for the products we sell.
We like Christine have long given up chasing after suppliers and customers. Come take a look a the Renegade Marketing System we use. www.littlegraycells.ca might just be what it takes to put a smile on your face again and see the same kind of success Christine is obviously having online.
PS: It is not about the books, it is about how Christine treats her customers and suppliers that really maters at the end of the day.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:44 am
Very inspirational article. Nice to know a the details of how you make it. Thanks Christine.