What I did not realize is that you can make a tidy side income from selling used books on the Internet. I found this out one day when I decided to sell a used book on eBay. It was a children's book that was out of print, something that was very precious to me, but that I had multiple copies of. I figured that I could make a few bucks off it, but I had no idea what the demand was. I had seen people sell used books on line many times, and they never seemed to make any money. I even have a friend who decided to sell used textbooks over the Internet, but he makes only a little bit more than I used to make selling them directly back to the book stores. Nonetheless, that book was worth several hundred dollars!
I had several other out-of-print books, so I decided to sell used books as a side project. I have considered myself a pretty good book collector for years, but money was never one of my major motivating factors. I would only sell used books when I was out of space on my bookshelves, and it would always be a major undertaking deciding which ones I wanted to part with.
I had to completely reeducate myself in order to sell used books as a business. I had to learn what was valuable, and what was merely valuable to me. I had to think about which books I loved too much to part with, and which ones I could bring myself to never see again. I would buy dozens of books at the local bookstore, then sell used books online. Sometimes, I could make as much as three times what I paid for them. Other times, they would not sell at all. I don't think I will ever sell used books as a profession, but I do enjoy the money that it makes me.