What's a good book to get on Swaptree and then sell on Amazon?

I don’t see how you could make much of a profit from this unless you’re planning on ripping off someone on swaptree

@Ansible1 Here’s how you do it.
1) Go to the thrift store or a garage sale and get some books that are in good condition.
2) Find out what you can get for those books that is selling well on Amazon.
3) Do the trade.
4) Sell the book on Amazon (or eBay, but I like Amazon better).

My brother has done this and made about $20 off of each book, after shipping and everything.

Seems like a lot of work for not much yield.

You can’t just go on swaptree, pick out a book you want to sell and “do the trade”. The person you’re trading with on swaptree needs to agree to the trade and if you’re offering a thrift store book chances are the only thing you will get in return is a thrift store value book.

The same thing will happen if you try it with cd’s or dvds. No one is going to trade you their copy of “Twilight” for “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”

@ChocolateReigns I know from personal experience that you can get excellent quality books (sometimes brand new) on sites like half.com or from third party sellers on amazon.com for a lot less than Amazon’s first party price. I always skip over the expensive “collectible” books that people post and go to the much more reasonable good or very good section of the used books.

People might think they are pulling a fast one over potential buyers by posting the books for a lot of money, but not when there are much cheaper alternatives and especially not when their books are priced higher than Amazon’s new book price (which includes free shipping for over $25).

Just something to think about…

You guys have a good point, but I just thought I might try it since my brother had had good results. So much for that.

The real secret to selling used books successfully is to choose a genre of book that you know well, so that you know which ones people want to read over and over again, or keep on their shelves to refer to again and again over the years. This should also be a genre of books that you can obtain for about 50 cents a book.

Typically, this doesn’t usually involve fiction.

@Darwin Heh, funny. In my case it’s almost always fiction. And a smattering of biographries and collections of artists.

@asmonet – While it is easy to purchase fiction for 50 cents a book, it is often difficult to sell it for enough to make money. This is particularly true for popular fiction and New York Times bestsellers, otherwise known as “penny books.” Often the sellers of these make their money from the shipping allowance.

However, I have done fairly well with first edition fiction, generally selling my 50 cent purchases for $15 to $25. I do much better with non-fiction, however, often selling my 50 cent purchases for $100 or more.