The Magic Tree House series, written by Mary Pope Osborne and published by Random House, chronicles the adventures of Jack & Annie as they travel to distance places or go back in time.

The original series is made up of 37 books for young children. An additional 12 books that build off the original series is called the Merlin Mission series.

The author, along with her husband and sister, also write a companion non-fiction series called The Magic Tree House Research Guides consisting of 18 books. Each Guide is related to one of the books in the original series.

They can often be found at garage sales, book sales, and thrift stores for $.50 each or less.
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Popularity: 38% [?]

A possibly not so hypothetical question. How would it affect your eBay or Amazon business if an Internet sales tax were implemented?

Would you be able to implement the bookkeeping and write the checks necessary to submit the required sales tax to every state your buyers were located in on a regular basis? Or, would it put you out of business?

Earlier today Skip McGrath began his blog post - “eBay and Online Sellers, Get Ready for Internet Sales Taxes in 2009” - with the following words:

The new congress and the new president have signaled their willingness to require all on-line sellers to collect and pay sales tax

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Popularity: 25% [?]

The John Newbery Award is given every year for the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year. The first award was presented in 1922 and there has been a winner every year since.

Because of the quality of the books most winners continue to be reprinted today. These later editions can be readily identified by the award crest printed on their covers and both soft, and hard, cover examples usually are readily available at garage sales, book sales, and thrift shops.

Buy them when you find them for $.25 or less. They will usually bring somewhere between $1 and $2 each when sold in good sized lots on eBay. When listing them it’s a good idea to include both Newbery and Newberry in your headline.
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Popularity: 33% [?]

Popularity: 24% [?]

Calvin and Hobbes was comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson. It was syndicated daily from November 18, 1985 to December 31st, 1995 and, at it’s height of popularity, was carried by more than 2400 newspapers worldwide.

Due to the popularity of the strip, it was only natural that collections of the strips be published in book form. To date, more than 30 million copies of the Calvin & Hobbes books have been printed making them readily available at garage sales, thrift shops, book sales, and other venues.

When found, they can often be purchased for $.50 or less and I wouldn’t recommend paying much more than that per book.

Complete sets will usually bring anywhere from $3.00 to $5.50 per book. Smaller lots consisting of anywhere from four or five up to thirteen or fourteen books will regularly bring between $2.50 to $4.00 per book.
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Popularity: 30% [?]

The Foxfire books are a series of collections of articles taken from Foxfire magazine. The books contain how-to articles, oral histories, and first-person narratives that document the culture, lifestyles, and skills of people in southern Appalachia.

Each volume was originally available individually and, as more were published, in slip-cased sets of three to five books each.

The original series consists of twelve books and were published from 1976 through 2004. Two additional volumes were published commemorating the twenty-fifth and the fortieth anniversaries of the magazine. There are also seven related books that many people consider to be part of the series.
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Popularity: 29% [?]

Alice In Bibleland is a series of 28 hardcover children’s books written by Alice Joyce Davidson and illustrated by Victoria Marshall. Published by the C. R. Gibson Co., they are distributed by Grolier Enterprises.

Each story presented through the eyes of Alice, a little girl who likes to read her Bible storybook and, while she does so, finds herself able to walk through a screen and witness the Bible stories firsthand. The stories are told in rhyme and end with a summary of what Alice has learned.

Each book measure 6.25″ by 8.25″ and has 32 pages.

Prices for the complete 28 volume set vary considerably. When listed in the auction format full sets normally bring between $50 and $90. Some sellers are able to get $100 to $125 for complete sets by placing them in their eBay stores and waiting for the right buyer to come along.
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Popularity: 29% [?]

Following up on James Axler’s Deathlands series I talked about yesterday is the popular “Outlanders” series. This is another series published by Golden Eagle Books under the house name of James Axler.

The “Outlanders” series began with the publication of “Exile To Hell” in 1997. It’s popularity is likely at least partially due to the fact that is is basically a continuation of the “Deathlands” series that takes place 200 years later and attracts the same readership as that series.

To date this series consists of 47 books. Because of the similarity to the previous series the buying and selling guidelines for the “Outlanders” is pretty much the same as for the “Deathlands” series.
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Popularity: 25% [?]

We are going to begin the series of selling books by the lot on eBay by looking at the books by James Axler - an author who doesn’t exist.

James Axler is actually a pseudonym, or house name, used by publisher Gold Eagle Books for several men’s action series. The fact that James Axler doesn’t actually exist however, doesn’t make several series of books published under his name any less sought after by faithful readers.

The name was first used in 1986 for the book “Pilgrimage To Hell” which became the first book in the popular “Deathlands” series. To date the series consists of 85 books.
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Popularity: 26% [?]

eBay buyers are always ready to buy inexpensive books in lots. The astute seller can take advantage of that by selling books by the lot on eBay.

Many of us are always looking for books that will quickly sell for $50, $100, or more. Unfortunately, the reason people are willing to pay that kind of money for them is that they don’t appear that often.

Fortunately, there is another way to generate $50, $100, or more sales on eBay with books that are much easier to find.

Garage sales, thrift shops, FOL, AAUW, and other book sales often have books that can be purchased for as little as 5 or 10 cents each that aren’t worth listing on eBay. However, combine ten, twenty, or more of these “worthless” books into related lots, and it’s not that hard to create a small bidding war that brings you $25, $50, or $100 or more on a regular basis.
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Popularity: 26% [?]