One of the best things about selling books online to make extra money is that you probably already have the basic equipment needed to find and sell books. If you’re just starting out, a cell phone (or tablet) with a good data plan, a computer with Internet access, and a printer are all you need to begin making extra money by selling books online.
That said, there’s a big difference between making a little extra money and making a regular stream of income that you can rely on month in and month out. After all, there are a lot of books at thrift stores, garage sales, and library bookstores that you can resell – and if you can only check a few of these places every day, you’re missing out on a lot of potential profit.
If you’re serious about making money selling books online, you need to upgrade your equipment – and one of the best investments I can recommend is for you to purchase a Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner.
Using this one piece of equipment, I’ve seen my online book sales increase from $200 a month to over $1000 – thanks to the greater number of books the scanner allows me to check for resale value.
What is the Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner?
The Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner is a lightweight, portable handheld barcode scanner that can read barcodes with the touch of a button. The scanner then sends this information via Bluetooth to any device you link it to, including cell phones and tablets.
Using the scanner, you can quickly and easily send the ISBN numbers on barcodes to the Bookscouter website on your cell or tablet, letting you see if any buyback companies are offering any price quotes on your book.
Since this entire process only takes a couple seconds, a Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner offers a much faster way of looking up book prices than typing in the ISBN number by hand or even using your cell phone’s camera to read the barcode.
Making Extra Money with the Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner
Using the Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner, I’ve checked buyback price quotes on over two hundred books in the same amount of time it used to take me to examine less than fifty. Because the scanner saves me so much time and energy, I can now visit more thrift shops and library sales every day, find more profitable books to resell online, and increase my daily earnings.
How much extra money does this translate into? Well, in 2010 when I was still selling books online without the scanner, I was making less than $200 a month re-selling books online to buyback companies. In 2013, when I started using the scanner on a regular basis, that number rose to an average of $700 a month.
This year (2015), that number has jumped to a monthly average of over $1000, thanks largely to all the extra stores I was able to visit using the time saved by the scanner.
Keep in mind that these are only profits I make from selling books online to buyback companies – and do not include any additional profits I make by selling some of the books I find on Amazon.com.
I think you’ll agree that purchasing the Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner is a great investment that will more than pay for itself – if you’re serious about investing the time and effort using it to look for books to sell online.
Cons of a Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner
In general, I’ve been very happy with my Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner, and the way it’s helped me sell more books online.
However, there are a couple things that have annoyed me about the scanner, and I think it’s only fair that I inform you about them in this review.
When I linked the scanner to my Android cell phone, I found that while the scanner normally connected itself to my phone automatically, there were times when I had to go into my cell’s scanner software and link scanner and phone manually. Only took a few seconds, but it was annoying.
I’ve since linked the scanner to my tablet and haven’t had that problem again so far.
I also found out that after a couple years, the scanner’s rechargeable NiMH batteries degraded a bit, and the scanner frequently disconnected from my phone (only to reconnect automatically a few seconds later). Replacing the NiMH batteries solved this problem, so I recommend that you purchase a couple extra rechargeable NiMH AAA batteries when this happens to you. (Just make sure they’re NiMH – the scanner won’t take anything else).
Note: Since publishing this review, I’ve had the chance to review the SP2100 Laser Barcode Scanner which offers additional benefits for selling books online. Feel free to read my review of this scanner at Making Selling Books Online Easier with the SP2100 Laser Barcode Scanner.
I hope you enjoyed this review and that it showed you more ways to make extra money by selling books online. Please feel free to comment below and, as always, please subscribe to my blog for more tips on making extra money by selling books online quickly!
Michael J. Jung
Michael J. Jung is a professional freelance writer for hire. He loves learning about new side hustles and promoting nonprofit groups. When he's not writing or selling books, you can find him volunteering as Darth Vader or Spider-Man for children's events. Check out his Sell Books Fast eBook series on Amazon!