William W. Johnstone is the author of well over 150 mass market paperback book for men. As is often the case with mass market paperbacks, most of Mr. Johnstone’s individual titles don’t have stellar sales records on eBay. However, he does have a growing number of faithful readers and there’s a way you can take advantage of this.

The majority of William W. Johnstone’s titles are part of one of seven or eight different series he has written. These series range in size from three or four books up to more than thirty books. It’s these series that can provide you with nice profits when sold on eBay.

The secret to profitably selling William Johnstone books on eBay is to buy and sell them in lots within each series. For the purpose of this article, we will look at his six most popular series and one fiction genre his works is also popular in.

The First Mountain Man series consists of 14 different titles. A lot including all fourteen titles will usually bring somewhere between $50 and $100 on eBay. Smaller lots made up of between 6 to 10 titles usually also sell, but only in the $15 to $20 range.

The Last Mountain Man series is made up of 36 different titles. A lot containing all thirty-six titles will usually sell somewhere close to $200. Smaller lots of 15 to 25 books regularly bring between $80 and $125. In this series, even lots consisting o only five or six books often bring between $10 and $15.

The Ashes series consists of 34 titles and a lot made of of all thirty-four titles should bring close to $200 if not a little higher. Smaller lots of 20 to 25 books will often bring you $100 to $125. Even lots of as few as then to twelve titles can bring nice profits if you didn’t pay too much for the books.

The Last Gunfighter series is made up of 17 different titles. Complete sets should bring between $50 and $75 with little problems. Small lots in the six to ten book range often sell for roughly $2 a book.

The Blood Bond series consists of 12 titles. The complete series regularly sells for between $40 and $60 on eBay.There’s not a lot of interest in smaller lots, however 10 or 11 titles from the series will bring $20 to $30 most of the time.

The Eagles - MacAllister’s series contains 13 different titles. The complete series will usually sell for between $25 and $50. Similar to the above series, there isn’t much interest in smaller sized lots.

While not actually a series, Johnstone also wrote nineteen books falling into the horror genre that have come to be known as The Horror series. I’ve never seen all 19 titles offered together on eBay, but if they did, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them bring $200 to $250. Possibly more. This is also the one group of Johnstone’s book in which individual titles can be profitable on eBay. Several of the individual titles regularly sell for between $15 and $25 when offered.

Where to find them - Garage sales, thrift stores, and FOL or AAUW book sales provide the best chance of finding a good sized group of Johnstone’s books at one time. They may also occasionally show up at state sales, auction sales, and flea markets. The nice thing is that you don’t usually find just one title. Rather, when found, it’s in good sized lots.

What to pay for them - When found they can often be purchased for $.10 to $.25 each. Unless you are buying books in one of the more popular series, I wouldn’t pay more than $.50 for them. There are only a very small number of people who know the potential value of Johnstone’s books, so when you run across a box full of them, if the price seems too high, don’t hesitate to make the seller an offer you are comfortable with. Most of the time they will take it.

If interested you can download a list of all Johnstone’s titles by series in PDF format from the William W. Johnstone website. You will find a link to the download in the left hand navigation bar.

Mountain view photograph by Trebz.

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