Follow-up to "Best way to Sell Old, Used Software and SW/dev Books w/little Collectible Value?"

From: Don Wallace <dwallace_at_m-net.arbornet.org>
Date: Sun Aug 3 17:34:01 2003

Hi,

This message follows up my original posting.

I appreciate the interest shown in the subject. I was honestly trying
to brainstorm the best way to get the most money (if possible) out of
this pile of white elephants w/o sacrificing them to a reseller. And
perhaps learn a bit more about online sales in the process.

I think what I may do is the following: do a digital image inventory
of the lot; combine like topics (like end user application software,
development software, C++ on DOS books, Windows 3.1 dev books, etc)
together and offer each type of category as a bundle. Try to construct
each bundle so that each has at least one "flagship" (high quality by
recognizable author) title or product. I would describe each bundle
with an image gallery of the covers and a list of titles in each
bundle. Last, offer one bundle on Ebay and see how it goes, plus set
up a web site with the same info in case the Ebay auction expires with
no takers.

I checked out Ebay a bit and did notice some patterns. Recent but
obsolete tech books (IE, 2-5 years old) are almost a dime a dozen. A
few people have had bundles of tech books up there but their strategy
is terrible - IE, one guy has a big box of books with the spines
facing upward and he posted an image of the box with no list of titles
- and no bids to match, and the image is too blurry to make out the
titles.

Surprisingly to me, some rather dated topics (like a bundle of three
DOS development books) sold with multiple bids. There ARE luddites out
there. :-) So I think it's worth the effort to do it right.

Last - to everyone who expressed interest in buying - thanks - I'll
post a link to a web site with the material described above when it's
worked out. But I do want to defer private sales until I try Ebay
first.

- Don

PS: To address "TeoZ" <teoz_at_neo.rr.com> who posed the question whether
I was harvesting email addresses - Teo, first of all you can address
me directly rather than third person esp. if you're going to accuse.
Secondly NO, if I were meaning to havest email addresses it would be
far more efficient to simply parse the .mbox file of this list that is
available for downloading and strip every email of anyone who has ever
asked about old books or software.
Received on Sun Aug 03 2003 - 17:34:01 BST