Audio books are an eBay niche worth exploring. You can frequently find audio books at garage sales, thrift shops, and FOL or AAUW book sales. But, like so many other eBay niches, there are thousands of audio books listed on eBay at any given time with many of them selling for only a dollar or two or not at all.
Fortunately, there’s a sub-niche of this larger eBay niche that can be very profitable if you know what to look for. Here’s what you need to know to get you started.
Audio books are published in two basic versions - unabridged and abridged. Unabridged versions are usually made up of a half dozen or more CDs or cassette tapes and contain the full, word-for-word, content of the original book. Abridged versions usually consist of one to four CDs or cassettes and are an edited, shortened, version of the original book.
The sub-niche we are interested in here is UNABRIDGED versions. Fortunately it’s not hard to differentiate between an abridged and unabridged version because unabridged versions are well marked as such on their cases.
Today we will look at the even narrower sub-niche of unabridged fiction audio books.
The audio books you will find will be in two formats - CD and cassette. In most cases, the CD format will bring a higher price than the cassette format of the same book. For that reason, I recommend that you concentrate on the CD format until you gain some knowledge about what also sells well in the cassette format.
Where do you find them?
- Garage sales. Start looking for them and you will be surprised how many you will find here.
- Thrift shops.
- FOL and AAUW book sales. Most book sales have an audio book section and it can be a gold mine.
What should you pay for them?
I recommend, that until you get a feel for what sells at what prices, you set a $5 maximum and try to stay around $3. Like so many niches on eBay, not everything you buy, especially when you’re getting started, will sell. You’ll find plenty to buy for $3 or less and by sticking to this figure what you pay for any that don’t sell will easily be made up for by the ones that do.
What should you look for?
In the fiction genre a good general rule of thumb is to buy:
- Audio books authors who consistently turn out best sellers.
- Audio books that are part of a series - i.e. Harry Potter.
You can do a little research of your own on eBay by going to books>audio books>completed sales and typing in “unabridged insert author’s name’”. Doing this will also give you a good idea if the cassette format of a particular author sells well.
Here’s a list of a few authors that usually sell well to get you started:
- Clive Cussler - both CDs and cassettes
- Tom Clancy - both CDs and cassettes
- W.E.B. Griffin - both CDs and cassettes
- Ron Zelozny - both CDs and cassettes
- Frank Herbert
- Jan Karon
- John Jakes
- Nora Roberts
- Stephen King - particularly his Dark Tower series
- Robert Jordan
- J.K. Rowlings - Harry Potter
- J.K.K. Tolkien
- Larry McMurty
- Dean Koontz
- Nelson DeMille
- James Patterson
- James Michner
- Janet Evanovich
- John Sanford
Spend a few hours doing research on eBay and you’ll be able to come up with a list of many more authors who consistently do well.
Some other thoughts:
- Most classics such as the Illiad often do well
- Religious fiction often does well
- Always include the word “unabridged” in your headline
- Sets of books by the same author normally sell, but if the author is very popular - i.e. Clive Cussler - you will normally make more money selling the books individually
- When you have 20 to 30 that don’t sell, put them in a mixed lot and list them that way. You’ll get most, of not all, your money back.
I generally make it a rule to buy any fiction audio book in the CD format I find for $3 or less unless it’s a romance novel (I’m leary of most of these except for a few certain authors). This shot-gun approach has been quite profitable over time.
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