Avid Reader Sells Used Books On Instagram

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

What's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School. Hey, it's Chris Guillebeau. I have a curiously interesting case study for you today. And I use that phrase deliberately.

Like when I worked on the notes for the story, I was like, wow, this is curiously interesting. Like what she's doing is a little bit unique. So the question is, here's the setup. What if you want to sell something online, but don't want to go through the typical platforms like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon? And in this case, I'm talking about selling something that you're basically a reseller for.

So it's not your own product. You're buying something and then reselling it. But again, you don't want to go through those typical platforms. Normally, this would only be possible if you already have a substantial following because like who's going to notice what you're selling if it's not listed on a popular platform? So in this story, an IT analyst who's also an avid reader earns page turning profits by selling used books on Instagram despite having a relatively small following and selling at a pretty low price point, just five to $10 a book in many cases.

She was able to make more than $10,000 last year. And she's not ramping up with a goal to do much more. So I call it interesting because in some ways I thought, you know, this is a hard way to do this. There might be an easier approach, but at the same time, it's obviously working for her. And in a conversation I had with her, she actually pointed out that the manual intensive labor approach actually kind of works to her benefit.

And doing this business a different way might not be as successful. So I'll tell you how it works. I'll tell you her perspective, what she's doing. I might offer a couple of if the shoe fits suggestions at the end. So stay tuned.

Avid Reader sells used books on Instagram. [Music]

Taylor Mac is a book fanatic. She has spent countless hours being absorbed in the great novels and modern classics. Everything from Stephen King to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis to Edgar Allan Poe.

A good story composed in a good book sets her world on fire. In 2017, while working as an IT professional in the healthcare industry, Taylor began working on a story of her own. One directly related to the topic she was most passionate about. She loved to share this passion for books with others was particularly fond of what she called gently used books as well as vintage books. Her home was something of a small library.

And one day while pondering her collection, she thought she might try becoming a part-time used bookseller. Not wanting to touch her own precious stock, she set aside a budget of $300 and hit the streets to find some quality used books. She rummaged through secondhand bookstores, plundered local markets, and investigated thrift stores. In no time at all, she'd accumulated an inventory of books she thought would be perfect. With those books in hand, it was time to start selling.

For that, most people would go straight to the large online platforms like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. But Taylor was determined to write her own narrative. She was wary of the high fees those platforms charged. She also saw the value in building an audience of her own. It might be slow going at first, but if it worked, she'd end up with a set of long-term loyal buyers.

So in what was a very novel idea, she decided to try her luck selling on Instagram instead. When I say selling on Instagram, I don't mean using ads, I mean using free organic posts. Just a regular Instagram account, she called it Silver Fire Books, an online haven for lovers of used books far and wide, or at least in the US. Because to keep costs down, Taylor doesn't ship internationally. She took photos of the books and posted them to the account.

Then nothing happened. And then after that, nothing happened. Nothing happened for a long time. In fact, things stayed that way for weeks. With no following, it was hard to drum up interest in the books she'd purchased.

And for a while, they sat dormant and unloved on her feet. This chapter in her story was not off to a very good start. But not one to give up, Taylor kept at it. She learned more about Instagram. She started by looking at hashtags that were popular around the types of genres and books she was selling.

Then she would hashtag her posts and occasionally add a mention to an account she thought might be interested in the book. For customers to actually purchase, she asked whoever wanted it to comment sold underneath the photo. The transaction would then be facilitated afterwards via direct message. A short while later, Taylor turned a page. She began selling, still slowly at first, but those sales motivated her.

She got better at the process of sourcing, listing, and selling books. She'd focus on specific genres and titles that she knew were hot topics. And she kept selling. Within a few months, she'd sold hundreds of books. And in 2018, year two, she sold more than 3,000.

In fact, by the time that year came to an end, Taylor had sold so many books using her unique method that she made a profit of over $10,000. She also pointed out to me that because of her husband's work, they're in a high tax bracket. Someone else with lower household income would actually have a higher profit. While she wasn't exactly putting Amazon out of business, she was thrilled with that result. She was making a real side income, pursuing something she loved, and communicating directly with her audience.

For her, it was a dream come true. That income gave Taylor the confidence to quit her job and work on silver fire books full time. The extra time she has to dedicate to the project has allowed her to increase her monthly profits and source more interesting books. In the first quarter, she's already made more than $3,000 more than the first quarter of last year. She's listing multiple books per day on Instagram, and almost all are sold in no time at all.

Taylor plans to continue, finding more used and vintage books to sell. She's also launching a side side hustle to help other people start stores using a similar model. Silver Fire Books is a real page turner of a story, and it's a story that's far from over. [Music]

Okay, so I thought this was interesting in lots of ways. Like I said, that's why I did some more research on it and talked with Taylor before recording the story.

Most of her used books are selling for $5 to $8 each. So not a lot, right? And she has to do a lot of volume to be able to make this work. You know, I often say things like, you know, it's really hard to run a business if you're selling something, you know, for five bucks each or 10 bucks each or whatever. It is possible, right?

You just have to do a lot of volume, and she's obviously found a way to make it work. So one of the things she does is she gets these books, she gets her inventory just really cheaply, very affordably from library sales and thrift stores. So at least the profit margin than what she sells is high. And it needs to be, like it definitely needs to be high. She also sometimes sells vintage or first edition or other books to collectors, which have prices that can be a lot higher.

So that helps as well. And then she also has this system, which is interesting to look at on her Instagram. People comment, you know, they say like sold or whatever, but people also comment as backups in case the first buyer falls through. So in some of these posts, you've got like seven or eight people, sometimes more, saying that they are the backup. And then she will actually go and list and say, "Oh, the book is sold to so-and-so.

And this other person is backup number one. Here's another person who's backup number two," and so on. One thought that I had was, you know, what if you could get multiple copies of the same book and then sell it repeatedly to both the first buyer and some of the backups? Now it's not always possible, especially if you're just going to library sales and thrift stores, but sometimes it is, especially when there are books that are remainder. And remainder means the publisher is essentially getting rid of the book.

They put a little small mark on the book and then they basically give it away. They sell those books for a dollar and then other bookstores will sell them, you know, for $5, $10, whatever. So that is one small thought I had. And I guess overall, like what I take away from it is, it is really manually intensive. It's a lot of work here to sell thousands of books, you know, for a low price, especially as a side hustle when they are used books.

So there probably is a more efficient way. And, you know, she knows that. And she's opened a Shopify store as well. So now she has the Instagram account and a Shopify store with the idea that some of the process should take less of her time. But it also kind of reminded me of selling, you know, all sorts of items many years ago, like what I did.

Like I was a reseller selling books and other stuff. And in our conversation, she said, I don't actually know that I would be successful if I hadn't done it this way. Because she actually really is building relationships with this small but active community on Instagram to the point where her commenters are getting to know each other. And some people have even commented to buy the book for another commenter, which I thought was really interesting. And that of course is a sign of community.

So there are lots of different paths approaches to running this kind of reselling business. But I don't think I've seen one quite like this. So that's why I thought it was interesting. And I look forward to seeing what she does next. You might want to check it out yourself if you're interested in Instagram, if you're interested in books, or just a creative reselling model.

Maybe you can take some part of it and apply it to what you're doing or thinking about doing. Or maybe you're like, you know what, that's cool. But I'm going to wait for tomorrow's story. And that's the whole point of side hustle school. I'm going to try to show you so many different ways you can make money.

So many ways you can do something for yourself. Build the security of a side income to support your goals and to be able to do what's important to you. So today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/844. That's episode 844. And of course, much more is coming up.

So come back tomorrow, 845 is on the way. Thanks so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.