Back to school, back to work
Do you ever wonder how many copies of bestsellers Amazon moves in a day? A ton.
A couple of years ago, I bought 2,000 copies of this hardcover, "Essential 55," for $2 apiece when the paperback came out. I usually sell about 15 copies a week -- it's not a brisk seller outside the back-to-school season.
Sunday night, the back-to-school rush must have kicked in. I turned my computer off Sunday at 10 p.m., and when I turned it on at 7 a.m. Monday, I'd gotten 420 Marketplace orders for the book overnight. Yep, 420 orders for one book in nine hours.
For some reason, Amazon stopped carrying this hardcover after the paperback came out. So that allowed me to get most of the sales instead of Amazon.
This book must be assigned reading at lots of classrooms, the Amazon Sales Rank was 3 this morning. And I'm out of mailers.
posted by Steve Weber at 8/14/2006
11 Comments:
Wasn't there as TV movie on the story of Ron Clark on this weekend?
Thanks for the comment. So that's where the boost came from!
Congrats! You had a BUSY day didn't you?!? Yes, there was a movie starring Matthew Perry on Sunday evening. In Charlotte it was on at 8:00 p.m. and again at 10:00.
Jeff
www.Jeff4Books.com
Congrats! If you have 420 orders to pack, how do you find time to post to your blog?
Believe me, it wasn't easy. I didn't think I'd get finished before the Post Office closed, but somehow I did it. I don't have any help with packing, it's just me.
Wow!! That's totally awesome. You must have been packaging books in your sleep!!!LOL!!!
Now, what I would love to know & I'll be a lot of the other people here, is how do you find deals like this in the first place & how did you determine if it was a good deal?
Also, if you don't mind my asking, you said you had purchased the book for $2, but how much did you sell it for?
Thanks.
I enjoy your site very much.
Wow, that is amazing. You get my vote for risk-taker of the year, buying 2,000 copies in one whack! With my luck, two years later, I'd probably still have 1,999 copies left! Did you have some previous experience with the book that helped you think it would sell, or how did you justify taking the risk?
420 packages x 3 mins/package = 21 hours!
Yes, I'd had three previous experiences with the book.
Each of the previous times I had bought one or two dozen overstock copies from one of the remainder wholesalers I mention in the appendix of my book "The Home Based Bookstore."
So I had never hesitated to snap up as many copies as I could get at $2. (The retail price is $20.) And I'd always been able to resell them immediately for $10 to $12, which is what I'm doing now.
I had always based my buying decision on the fact that this book was a relatively strong seller, and I was able to get it at $2 although it was selling briskly on Marketplace for over $10. But, I'd never been able to get 1 or 2 dozen copies at a time. So, when I had the opportunity to buy 2,000 at once I didn't hesitate at all since I'd had previous experience with the book.
The big risk I took with this book was that the hardcover price would crater when the paperback came out. And it did, so I had to hold most of my copies for over a year while lots of people sold low.
But I lucked out in the end. Eventually the hardcover price crashed so low, Amazon stopped carrying the book. So when this unusual event of a TV movie influencing the sales happened, I got all the sales since Amazon didn't have the book. (The paperback has also been selling this week, but it seems an equal number of people were willing to pay 50 percent more for a hardcover copy.)
One additional reason I was willing to take a risk on this book: The author is a young superstar. He probably has 4 or 5 more bestsellers in him. Every time he does it, the price on new and like-new copies of his previous books will skyrocket.
Thanks so much for sharing. These all sound like things booksellers can learn over time & a few risks.
Steve
Congratulations! A story like this is truly inspiring!
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