Honestly, I used to think the only way to make real money with books was to be the next Stephen King or spend ten years writing a literary masterpiece that most people would just use as a coaster. I was wrong. Completely wrong. I actually managed to bring in exactly $29,142.80—let's just call it twenty-nine thousand for the sake of my ego—by treating books like a commodity rather than a pipe dream. It wasn't about "passive income" or any of that fluff you see on TikTok; it was about understanding the weird, fragmented logic of the used book market.
You don't need a printing press. You don't even need to be a good writer.
Most people see a pile of dusty hardbacks at a yard sale and see clutter. I see a profit margin. The trick to how I made 29000 selling books isn't some secret handshake. It’s about data. Specifically, it’s about the massive price gap between what a thrift store thinks a book is worth (usually a dollar) and what a desperate student or a niche collector on the other side of the country is willing to pay for it.
The Myth of the Best Seller
Everyone wants to sell novels. Stop. Unless you find a first edition Great Gatsby in a shoebox, you aren't going to get rich selling fiction. Mass-market paperbacks are essentially worth nothing because there are millions of them. If everyone has a copy of The Da Vinci Code, nobody is paying you twenty bucks for yours.
I made the bulk of my money—roughly 70% of that $29,000—selling "boring" books. I’m talking about spiral-bound manuals on how to repair 1990s diesel engines, outdated nursing textbooks that still have relevant anatomy diagrams, and incredibly specific local histories of towns in the Midwest. One time, I bought a book about the history of fencing (the wooden kind, not the sword kind) for fifty cents and flipped it for $145 within three days.
Why? Because the person who needs that information cannot find it at Barnes & Noble. They can’t even find it on a standard Google search sometimes. But they can find it on Amazon or eBay, and they have the credit card ready.
Scanners and the Reality of the Hustle
If you want to do this, you have to get over the embarrassment of standing in a Goodwill aisle with a scanning app. I used ScoutIQ, though BookScouter is a decent free alternative for beginners. You point your phone at the barcode, and the app tells you the "Sales Rank."
If the rank is under 1,000,000 on Amazon, it’s a live one. If it's under 100,000, it’s basically cash in your pocket. I spent my Saturday mornings hitting every library sale within a fifty-mile radius. It’s competitive. You’ll see other people there with scanners. Some of them are aggressive. I once saw two guys almost get into a fistfight over a box of medical encyclopedias. It’s a weird world.
How I Made 29000 Selling Books Using FBA
You can't store 2,000 books in your spare bedroom. Well, you can, but your spouse will probably leave you, and the floorboards might give way. The real turning point for me was utilizing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
Basically, I’d scan the books, buy them, box them up, and ship them to an Amazon warehouse in bulk. Amazon handles the storage, the shipping to the customer, and the customer service. Yes, they take a massive cut—sometimes 30% to 40% when you factor in storage fees and shipping. But it allows you to scale. Without FBA, I would have spent all my time at the post office instead of out finding more inventory.
The math looks something like this:
I buy a textbook for $5.00.
Amazon says the lowest "Good" condition price is $65.00.
After Amazon’s fees (referral fee, closing fee, and FBA pick/pack), I’m left with about $38.00.
Subtract my $5.00 initial cost and about $1.00 for the inbound shipping cost.
Net profit: $32.00. Now do that ten times a week. Then twenty. Then fifty. It adds up fast.
The Long Tail Strategy
A lot of sellers get scared of "high rank" books. These are the books that only sell once or twice a year. If a book has a sales rank of 2 million, most scanners will tell you to skip it.
I didn't.
If the profit margin was high enough—say, I bought it for $1 and it was listed for $80—I’d buy it and let it sit in the warehouse. This is the "Long Tail" theory popularized by Chris Anderson. You aren't looking for a hit; you're looking for a massive catalog of niche items that sell occasionally. By the end of my first year, I had about 1,200 unique titles in stock. On any given day, three or four of them would sell. It’s a steady drip of income that eventually becomes a flood.
Where the Real Inventory Hides
If you’re only going to Goodwill, you’re competing with the bottom feeders. To hit that $29,000 mark, I had to get creative.
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- Estate Sales: These are gold mines. You aren't looking for the jewelry or the mid-century furniture. Go straight to the basement or the attic. Look for the technical books. Look for the weird religious pamphlets from the 1970s.
- Library Discard Sales: Libraries are constantly weeding out their collections to make room for new stuff. Often, they’ll do a "bag sale" where you can fill a grocery bag for $5. I once found a set of law books in a library basement that netted me $400 from a $10 investment.
- Facebook Marketplace "Free" Sections: People move. They get tired of hauling boxes. They just want the books gone. I’ve picked up entire carloads of books for $0. Even if only 10% of them are worth selling, your ROI is infinite because your cost basis is zero.
Quality Control and the "Doughnut" Problem
You have to be honest about condition. If a book has highlighting, you list it as "Acceptable." If the spine is cracked, say it. One bad review can tank your Amazon seller account, and then the party is over.
The biggest mistake I made early on was buying "ex-library" books that were falling apart. The "doughnut" is what I call the hole in your profit where shipping costs eat your gains because you didn't notice the book weighs five pounds. Heavy coffee table books are a trap unless they are worth at least $50. Otherwise, you’re just paying UPS to move heavy paper around the country.
The Seasonal Textbook Surge
If you want to know how I made 29000 selling books in a relatively short timeframe, you have to talk about August and January.
Textbook season.
This is when the market goes absolutely insane. Books that are worth $10 in May suddenly spike to $90 in August because students realize they need the 12th edition of Macroeconomics yesterday. I would spend the "off-season" (summer and winter breaks) hoarding every textbook I could find.
I’d even "flip" them on Amazon itself. I’d buy a textbook listed as "Merchant Fulfilled" for a low price, wait for the prime-shipping students to get desperate, and then resell it via FBA for double. It feels a bit like day trading, but with more papercuts.
Navigating Restricted Brands
It’s not all easy. Big publishers like Pearson and McGraw-Hill have started "gating" certain titles. They don't want individuals reselling their textbooks because it cuts into their new book sales. You'll try to list a book and get a big red "Refused" message.
This is where most people quit.
I just shifted. If I couldn't sell a textbook on Amazon, I’d head to eBay or use a site like PangoBooks. The margins are thinner, but the volume is still there. Being an expert means knowing when to pivot instead of just banging your head against a locked door.
Actionable Steps to Start Selling
If you're sitting there thinking this sounds like a lot of work, you're right. It is. It’s a physical business. But it's also one of the few ways to start a business with literally $20 in your pocket.
Step 1: Get a scanning app. Download the free version of any book-scanning app today. Go to your own bookshelf. Scan everything. You’ll quickly realize that the book you love is worth $0.01, but that weird manual your dad left in the garage is worth $45.
Step 2: Focus on the "Boring" stuff. Ignore the fiction section. Go to the "Reference," "Science," and "Religion" sections. Look for books with weird titles. The more specific the title, the better the profit. The History of the Concrete Industry in Ohio is a much better find than a James Patterson novel.
Step 3: Track everything. I kept a spreadsheet of every single purchase. Date bought, price paid, date sold, net profit. If you don't track the data, you aren't running a business; you're having a hobby. To hit $29,000, I had to know exactly which types of books were wasting my time and which were paying my rent.
Step 4: Scale gradually. Don't buy 500 books on your first day. Buy ten. Ship them. See how the process works. Learn what "Pending" means on your seller dashboard. Feel the rush of that first "Sold, ship now" notification.
Selling books is a grind, but it’s a transparent one. The books are out there, sitting in thrift stores and garages, waiting for someone to recognize their value. I found $29,142.80 worth of value in a year just by looking closer than everyone else.