T.S. Sharp's Blog, page 3

Dear Amazon, I Love You But…

I love using Amazon, but there’s something missing from their mobile app. 

Ever since I bought an iPhone a couple of years ago, I regularly use the scanner on the Amazon app to scan the ISBN numbers of books and products I come across in shops. For me, the app serves two purposes.

What does this cost on Amazon, and can I sell it on my Amazon Marketplace Store?
Can I buy this cheaper on Amazon than in this physical shop?

The first issue is only really relevant when browsing items in charity shops or thrift stores or any of the random places you might come across second-hand books. The second option is for looking at books in a bookshop. If I don’t want or need the book asap, I look at the online price on Amazon and buy it later. I know the bookshop loses out in this instance, but that’s the nature of the beast nowadays. There’s a bookshop close to where I work, and even though I almost never buy books from them due to their high prices, I’m always buying birthday and Christmas cards from them. Plus, they seem to be busy so they must sell plenty of full-price books in the face of online availability.

However, I recently discovered another use for the Amazon scanner app. I saw a couple of books about digital photography that looked interesting, (I’m trying to decide between ‘The Digital Photography Handbook‘ by Doug Harman and ‘Complete Guide to Digital Photography‘ by Ian Farrell – any suggestions?) so I flicked through them, and scanned the ISBNs. As expected, the prices were much more reasonable online. I put the books back and thought about buying them later. But then I realised that having scanned the details of two books, the app only remembered the details of the second one. In fact, if the app is closed completely, I think it forgets the last scan entirely. The scanner part of the app has no ‘History’ function to record your recent searches, so all your past scans are lost.

Using the Amazon App Scanner For ISBN Numbers

To get around this problem I realised that once I’d scanned an item I could scroll down the details and use the ‘Add to Wish List‘ function. Whilst not as useful as a ‘History’ function might be on the actual scanner, this does provide me with a way to record my browsing. So now from the comfort of my laptop or iPad I can check out the books I was interested in in the shop. I find Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’ feature really useful for deciding to buy a book or not.

On the item details, scroll down and ‘Add to Wish List’ to be able to browse the item later.

So now with my recently discovered little technique I can quickly capture the details of books, store the info, and make decisions on purchasing at my leisure at a later point.

Now all that’s needed is for Amazon to add a ‘History’ function to the scanner on their otherwise fantastic app, and make that data available to the ‘Browsing History’ on my account. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

** There’s always the chance I’ve been a dumbass and not realised that there is indeed a way to do this from within the scanner. If there is, please let me know.**

My Year In Books – Courtesy of Goodreads

A few years back, for no reason other than mild curiosity, I set myself a target to see how many books I could read in a year, all recorded on the goodreads website. The idea being that you set yourself a target, then record the books on the site as you read them. I started doing this in 2011, when I read 16 of a target of 15. In 2012 I upped the target to 20, and managed to meet it, but only just. In 2013, I set the target back to 15, knowing that the arrival of a new baby would slow my progress somewhat, but I still managed to get in 16 books. She’s a good sleeper.

For 2014, I’ve kept the target at 15. I’m not trying to competitively consume books, punishing myself to get to the end, but I think that’s a good manageable total. So far I’ve read one, so that makes me 6% into the challenge according to the widget on the site. In December Goodreads sent out an email with a link to a summary of the books read that year. It’s quite interesting to see what you read over the last twelve months. Here’s a handy graphic they provided;

Some of them I’d totally forgotten about, which probably meant they weren’t that good. There certainly were several average to forgettable titles in there. Totally average crime drama, a plodding literary fiction novel, and the cult A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole, which I hated. Did anyone else find this annoying to read, or am I only one?

But that’s the beauty of reading, you make a choice based on what you read in the synopsis and see on the cover, but you won’t know until you read it. It all adds to the experience. Read my post on reading bad books for more about completing or dumping books you don’t like, mid-read.

Looking at the graphic of what I read last year, I realise I read three George Pelecanos novels in 2013! That’s because I’m a big fan of the writer, who wrote several episodes of The Wire and Treme. His novels are everything I’d want my work to be (if I ever finish anything!) – taught prose, great narrative, and superb characters. In fact, I have another couple of his books to read this year.

Another thing I notice is that six of the sixteen books were read on Kindle, which is an increase on previous years’. The paper versus e-reader contest will continue I guess. I read at an average speed, and my opportunities for reading are pretty much restricted to evenings, mostly before going to sleep. I drive to work rather than use public transport, but if I did I’d probably decimate my to-read pile (although it would probably grow in proportion to my reading speed.)

Who else sets reading targets, either via Goodreads or just in general? What does your ‘already-read’ pile look like?

Adding It Up – The Grand Total For 2013

2013 is history. Quite literally.

And with it ends my record keeping of all the additional income I earned for the year. In total, I made £627.24 after deductions and costs etc.

December saw a big spike in Amazon Seller Account book sales, presumably from people buying books for Christmas presents. Almost all of these were old aviation-related books that were given to me by my dad from a clear-out he was doing. One of which was a big book of paper planes that could be cut out and folded into various designs according to the instructions. This was still sealed in cellophane and in mint condition. It sold for £15, but was expensive to post due to its size, but there was still a chunk of change to pass on to my dad after deductions etc. Interestingly, it was posted to the Officers’ Mess at RAF Brize Norton, a large air force base here in the UK. I can imagine it being given as a gift to someone at the base and then dozens of paper planes being constructed and thrown across an office or dining room.

The only other source of additional income in December was the payment of my royalties from Amazon Kindle – sales of my short story I chucked on there a couple of years ago. Although it sounds impressive – royalties from book sales – the reality is somewhat different. I made £9.18 in total, and that’s from a year or so’s worth of it being available to buy. It also includes both US and UK sales, which is even less impressive. The only reason I got the US royalties is because Amazon and the IRS changed their policies toward overseas earnings – meaning that if you didn’t have the requisite US tax code, all your earnings are subject to a 35% deduction. After a lengthy and expensive phone call to the IRS office in the US, I got my EIN number, submitted it to Amazon, and eventually got my royalties. Which only just paid off the cost of the phone call…

So the break-down for the year looks like this;

Month
Number
Value


Jan
3
£41.21


Feb
3
£47.88


Mar
9
£48.29


Apr
7
£32.01


May
6
£29.96


Jun
5
£15.62


Jul
14
£127.05


Aug
7
£86.94


Sep
6
£45.22


Oct
3
£64.39


Nov
2
£23.65


Dec
9
£65.02


Grand Total
74
£627.24

And the break-down of the income sources looks like this;

Source
Number
Value


eBay
35
£285.28


Amazon Selling Account
33
£220.23


Quidco
3
£76.75


Survey
2
£35.80


Amazon Kindle
1
£9.18


Grand Total
74
£627.24

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the money was earned through Amazon and eBay. The eBay money comes in irregularly as I tend to list things on an ad-hoc basis, when having a clear-out or something falls in my lap and has a) no interest/value to me, or b) is worth a bit online. I have about 30 items listed on Amazon at present, these are just old text books etc that sit around until someone buys them off Amazon or the value drops so low that I donate them to charity shops etc.

Ultimately what this information tells me is that there is money to be made from sources other than your salary. In theory, the Amazon and eBay listings could be stepped up and provide more income, but like all these things it’s a balance between effort and value. I’m happy to keep an eye out and list things as they come to me, but I don’t really want to be hoarding piles of junk on the off-chance I’ll make a sale.

So what did I do with the money I made?

Like spending money in general, it’s hard to keep track of where it went. More than half of it went on car insurance, which was good to know I had that covered. The rest was used to pay for Christmas presents and helped to fund a 50 inch plasma TV I bought second hand from a friend. Ultimately, it was £627 that I would have had to find from my monthly salary if I hadn’t done this.

I don’t plan to do much differently this year, but it would be good to improve on the 2013 figure. £1000 perhaps?

Adding It Up – November

November’s extra income was a bit lower than previous months, clocking in at £23.65. This is mostly because I didn’t make much effort with putting things on eBay. I only listed one item, an old mobile phone that was in good condition with all its accessories and original box etc. I put this up for Buy It Now for £25 and it sold quite quickly, making £17.35 profit after fees and expenses.

The story didn’t end there with the item though, as the buyer sent me a disgruntled email about the functions on the phone, and sent me negative feedback, which he posted before contacting me! To cut a long story short, I replied to his question, expressing my annoyance at his knee-jerk feedback. He then asked how he could change the feedback, to which the seller has to request a feedback revision, and lo and behold he changed it from a negative to a positive saying ‘item as described’! So I went from a negative to a positive, and didn’t have to argue the toss about a refund. eBay is a strange and confusing place at times.

The only Amazon sale was for a book, a big collection of Commando comics compiled into a tome the size of a cinder/breeze block. Luckily I’d priced it to cover the postage, as although it wasn’t heavy it certainly was bulky! I like Amazon sales as it has that double whammy effect of clearing junk and making money. I don’t have a big inventory, perhaps a dozen books which are a mixture of unwanted titles I’m finished with, or items I came across which looked like they might have some value, or in a few cases, books given to me by my parents in an attempt to clear some of their junk. 

Nov
2
£23.65


Amazon Selling Account
1
£6.30


eBay
1
£17.35

I haven’t listed anything on eBay in December, but I have had a flurry of book sales via Amazon, which I suspect are Christmas presents. These have been specialists titles, namely books about aviation – again a mix of books given to me by my parents for resale, or things I’ve spotted in charity shops which I knew might sell. December’s income already beats November’s total, so that’s good Although I suspect I won’t get any/many more as it gets too close for Christmas post etc, but it’s another title out the door and a bit of extra cash in the slush fund. Incidentally, a large chunk of the money raised paid off my car insurance as well as provided a nice boost for Christmas present buying!

Adding It Up – October

I almost forgot to write up last month’s additional income review. October’s total was boosted by a cashback payment that had been in the pipeline for months, so much so that I forgot about it. Here’s a breakdown of where the money came from last month;

Oct
3
£64.39


Quidco
1
£34.00


eBay
2
£30.39

The cashback was from Quidco, most of which was earned via a home insurance policy I took out about 6 months ago! Luckily I wasn’t relying on this money for anything, as it certainly doesn’t get paid as a matter of priority between the retailer and the cashback company. October also saw two eBay sales, both for the same type of item.

As a Sky TV customer I was sent a wireless Sky TV on-demand box that arrived unannounced in the post. The idea is that you plug it into your Sky box (TiVo is the US equivalent) and it connects with your wifi and gives you access to films and TV shows via the TV. I couldn’t really see myself using this, as I have Netflix plus my time is at a premium any way, so I thought I’d check out sales on eBay for them. Surprisingly, they were selling for £20ish, and seeing as this was free, boxed and unused, selling it made sense. I shelved it with the idea of getting it listed soon. Then a few days later another one arrived, so I listed them both. Selling identical items on eBay is easy as you simply enter the quantity number and it goes down every time someone purchases from you. So I made my listing and waited. The same day I listed them I got an email from someone on eBay asking if he could come round that night and buy one, paying in cash. I agreed, he turned up, and the sale was made. When I went to look at the listing, I realised that the buyer hadn’t actually used the ‘Buy It Now’ function, he’d simply sent me an email and then paid cash for the item on my doorstep. This means as far as eBay is concerned, this sale never took place. I changed the quantity from 2 to 1, and waited for the last one to sell, which it did, this time in the conventional way via Paypal etc. Due to one selling for cash, and the other via eBay, the profits for each item were different. I made £18 straight profit from the cash buyer, and £12.39 for the eBay one. £30.39 profit from two items that cost me nothing. Not bad at all.

I haven’t sold anything on Amazon or eBay during November yet, nor do I have any cashback waiting, so this might be a lean month in terms of extra income, but we shall see. The money from this extra income is getting funneled into a slush fund savings account that I use for ad-hoc expenses, but this time it looks like it will be used to pay for my car insurance, which strangely enough is the same total as the money I have in the account, so at least that’s taken care of!

Adding It Up – September

September’s additional income was a bit smaller than the previous month, but it was about average overall considering I didn’t really sell much on eBay. I made £45.22 after expenses, the majority of which came from Amazon.

Sep
6
£45.22


Amazon Selling Account
4
£35.44


eBay
2
£9.78

The Amazon sales were from second hand books. The largest share of which was a big hardback book about Star Wars figures. It sold so quickly that now I fear that I priced it too low in the first place, but at £20+ after postage and fees that’s not bad. The book was the first and only book so far to sell from a batch of books my parents gave me to sell in order to clear out some space in their house. Non fiction books are the best sellers on Amazon when it comes to re-selling books. Fiction doesn’t really sell second-hand unless it’s really new, and even then the prices are pretty low. As for the titles of the non fiction books, they were a completely random assortment. There was an old text book on hydrology, I suspect this was needed for a Phd course or something, two books about fairy tales and folklore (these went to two different customers), and the Star Wars action figures guide.

The eBay sales were varied too. My wife was throwing some clothes out, so naturally I couldn’t help but have a look at what she’d piled up as ‘unwanted’. There were various items, but the only thing that looked like it was worth listing was a Ted Baker blouse. It was in great condition and is a branded name, so I listed it and it sold quite quickly. There wasn’t much profit in it, but it was worth doing. especially as it would have been thrown away.

With the new Grand Theft Auto game getting a lot of attention and topping sales charts, I realised that I still had my copy of the previous version, and that I was never likely to play it again. So I listed it as Buy It Now and it sold in a day or two, making me £7.79 profit after fees and postage. I’m not going to count the original price I paid for it as that would have been about £35, and seeing as it was bought years ago and provided hours of entertainment I don’t think the original price can be taken into account when selling old household items. I’ve since bought the new version, and the £7+ I got for the old version effectively helped to subsidise the purchase, which makes great economic sense as far as I’m concerned.

Right, I’m off to car-jack a sports car and get in a high-speed chase across Los Santos…

Blog-posting Novel Excerpts – A Good Idea Or Not?

Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of throwing chunks of my work-in-progress novel on to this blog, possibly in 500 word segments or even a chapter at a time. It’s a crime fiction novel set in modern day London, following a corrupt undercover detective as his double-dealings unravel around him. This is my first attempt at writing something that will have elements of a police procedural, so no doubt it’s full of inaccuracies, but I can iron those out later.

Each week I’d post a piece of it, with a brief disclaimer about typos and it being a WiP etc, just to see what it looked like ‘out there’. So far I’m almost 20,000 words in, possibly a quarter of the total projected novel length. So I have enough to post to get me started, and as long as I keep working on it I’ll have more to add as I build it up. I might even pick up some tips and useful critique.

But I’m not convinced it’s necessarily a good idea. While it will give me guaranteed blog content for a few weeks, it will basically be me showing the world (or the couple of lost internet travelers who stumble across it) my first draft. And first drafts are always a bit stinky. Combine this factor with the possibility of receiving some harsh criticism from readers and it could be pretty off-putting. Plus, I’m not entirely sure what direction the narrative should take, so without a strict outline I’d be writing blind and asking people to read it.

Do people actually read what is in effect serialized novels by unknown, unpublished writers? Have you ever done it, and what did you get out of the experience?

Adding It Up – August

August was another good month for additional income, coming in at a nice £86.94. The break-down of where the money was earned can been seen below.

Aug
7
£86.94


Amazon Selling Account
3
£25.92


eBay
3
£42.52


Survey
1
£18.50

The total was given a nice boost by a survey site paying out the cash I had accrued from months of giving them spurious market research data. Two payments in as many months is good going actually, although that does mean I’ll probably have to wait a while until I get any more from them.

The Amazon funds came from selling three different books. One was an unwanted present that had been sitting unread on my shelves for a couple of years, one was sold on behalf of a family member, and another was a charity shop find.

The eBay sales were from yet another set of varied items. The best profit came from a brand new PS3 game bought with Amazon vouchers earned from online surveys and converted into cash via an eBay sale. This is the second time I’ve done this and it’s a nice little earner. List the item as Buy It Now at more or less the top price on eBay and it sells within 24hrs of listing. The only drawback to this is the infrequency of having the vouchers to make the ‘free’ purchase in the first place. Plus, I often use the vouchers for stuff I want myself, or to subsidise birthday present purchases.

A much smaller chunk of the money from eBay was earned through selling second hand items I already owned. One was an old LG mobile phone, the other was a pair of Hush Puppy pumps. The shoes sold quickly via a Buy It Now purchase with just enough profit to justify the (minimal) hassle of listing and posting them. The mobile phone is another story altogether.

The short version of the LG mobile sale is that it and it’s boxed accessories sold for £7 plus postage in a Buy It Now sale. Phone bought, paid for, and posted with positive feedback sent and received. However, I had previously listed this in auctions twice, with a starting price of .99p each time, and twice people won the item but never paid. The first buyer won it for £7.50, but never paid and never replied to any emails. I got my fees back through a ‘Non-Paying Buyer’ case. The buyer’s account was reasonably new and he already had a negative from a buyer, so this was clearly not a good eBay customer to have. I re-listed it at 0.99p.

The second ‘winner’ won at £6.50 then messaged me to say he had no intention of paying as I or someone I knew was clearly bidding against him to drive the price up. On a phone that cost £6.50! I replied saying that he was mistaken and where was his evidence, and apart from receiving a cryptic response that made no sense to me, it all ended there. My ‘NPB’ case auto-kicked in after two days of non-payment and then I cancelled the sale and got my fees back.

Despairing of the phone’s bad luck in auctions I decided to list it as BIN. The only advantage of having two aborted sales was that I now had my pricing point for an old phone that had an intermittent fault, but also had all its accessories. I relisted it for £7 BIN and it sold in a couple of days. I suppose it’s a good example of the weird things that go on in ‘eBay world’.

I don’t have any listings up right now as I don’t have any obvious items to sell at the moment. I have a dozen or so books on Amazon, and they sell in a pretty random fashion so I’ll have to see what happens in September for those. I’m yet to have a month with no extra income coming in, so fingers crossed!

Adding It Up – July

July has proven to be my biggest month yet in terms of money earned from various sources other than my salary. I made £127.05 and the breakdown is shown here in this cut & paste from my precious spreadsheet;

Jul
14
£127.05


Amazon Selling Account
5
£14.77


Quidco
1
£22.75


eBay
7
£72.23


Survey
1
£17.30

As you can see, the majority came from eBay, but it was boosted by payments for cashback from Quidco, and the rewards from online surveys. These two sources of income are very welcome, but they are infrequent. I can’t remember which survey site paid me the £17.30, but it must have been built up over months of filling in online surveys, giving them spurious marketing data to qualify for points to convert into a Paypal payment. Each survey must only take a few minutes when you’re racing through them, so they’re easy to complete. Other sites give vouchers, which I use for Amazon. As for the Quidco cashback payment, that was also built up over months, mostly due to the insane amount of time it takes companies to track and then reward your custom. But if you regularly use cashback sites for large or even regular small transactions you can often get more regular pay-outs. I have another £30+ waiting in the sidelines actually.

The eBay sales this month come from an eclectic mix of goods. I sold a brand new PS3 game bought using Amazon vouchers and then sold using Buy It Now for the exact same price. In fact, it sold within one hour of me listing it. I could do with more of those! From new games to old games, I also sold a PS1 game that I bought in a charity shop for 75p for £10, making me over £5 profit.

The previous owners of my house kindly left behind three empty butane gas bottles, which were sitting gathering dust in the shed for the past three years until I realised these could be sold online. I listed them for £10 each Buy It Now and they sold within days of listing. The buyers came to the house, handed over the cash and they were gone!

A few months back I bought a Camelbak water re-hydration system from a charity shop for £2.95. It was in woodland camouflage and looked brand new, despite having no tags. I knew this was a good item for re-selling, but only after buying it did I realise it didn’t have the reservoir bag inside it for filling up with water! Not sure what to do, I ummed and ahhed for weeks about how to list it. Biting the bullet, I listed it for £20 Buy It Now with free postage and made clear that it was missing the water bag. And it sold. I even emailed the buyer to confirm it was incomplete and he replied saying he already had the reservoir part, so I posted that off and made £10+ profit.

Selling several items at £10 or £5 profit a month quickly add up and if you combine the posting with items that sold for less, it makes the smaller profit easier to bear in terms of time spent in Post Offices.

So all in all July was a good month.

It’s early days for August right now, but I’ve already made a couple of Amazon Marketplace sales for some books which amounts for £22+ profit, so the month definitely won’t be a blow out at least.

Not sure I’ll be able to beat last month’s total, but it helps to pay the bills…

Adding It Up – June

As I suspected, June was a slower month for additional income generated from eBay and Amazon Marketplace sales. I managed to make £15.62. This was from selling an old Nintendo N64 game, a pair of  Fat Face jeans, an Xbox 360 game, and a book about the Spanish Civil War. The small sales rate was mostly due to me going away for a week, so I didn’t want anything to sell while I was unable to deal with enquiries or post things off. Of course, I could have listed items beforehand and made sure they ended after I got back, but I was using the holiday as an excuse to not list things. Plus, if I had some live listings while I was away, I would have been checking my phone all the time.

I noticed recently that eBay have added a ‘Sold Listings’ function to their search facility. This enables searches to be made on items that actually sold, rather than just completed, which is a mixture of sold and unsold items. ‘Sold Listings’ has always been on the eBay mobile app, but was curiously missing on the web version. It’s good to see all the green sold items in one place!

At this mid-way point in the year, the total made so far after all fees, costs, and postage is £254.47. That includes the money made in July so far, which is already at £39.50. Not too bad, really. I even have another £10 in the pipeline from an old butane gas bottle that I sold for collection. It was left by the previous owners of the house, so no item outlay, no paypal fees and no postage costs. If only they could all be like that…

In fact, the house and garden has yielded several items that I’ve managed to sell for profit over the last couple of years. This includes things like steel girders, two air conditioning units, a kitchen storage unit, and hundreds of clay roof tiles. All because the previous owners couldn’t be bothered to sell or get rid of them when they left.

Has anyone else inherited profitable junk from a house they’ve moved into?