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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Selling Your Comic Books Online


By Don M. Ventura

Have you ever taken your old comic books in to a comic book store to make some room in your closet, to earn a little extra dough, or worse, in an attempt to earn that money back for all those collectible editions and sold out issues?  Then you take in a few hundred issues all bagged and boarded and sorted by title and the comic shop owner says: “Fifteen bucks in store credit.”

Insert sinking heart here.  All that money spent on the books and, while you may not have thought you were about to strike gold, you would have liked to walk out with a chunk of change.  Look, if you want to earn some cash for your books, do not take them to comic book store because they will not give you what you feel is a good price.  They can’t afford to.

So let’s put our marketing hats on boys and girls and I’ll tell you what worked for me.  If you are going to sell your books, I strongly suggest doing so on online.  A few years ago I needed to make a lot of extra space and decided to sell my comic book collection and I was able to sell all of them.  All of them.  This is what worked for me.

You’ll Need:
1.  A camera
2.  A computer
3.  Boxes
4.  Shipping supplies
5.  An internet connection
6.  Time on your hands

Have greater than 50 reviews on eBay: If you haven’t done so yet, get some reviews on eBay (and make sure they are all positive).  I have primarily used eBay to fill holes in my collection.  The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of people who try to scam eBayers out of their hard-earned money.  No matter how good a deal is, some people won’t purchase from you if you do not have a respectable number of reviews on your account.

Categorize your comics:
The first thing to do is sort all of your comics by the groupings that you will want to sell them.  For example, put all of your Green Lantern issues together.  I would not recommend selling them by arcs if you have a lot of comic books.  My experience is that a lot of people like to buy long runs of books.  If you can, make sure there are not a lot of holes in your runs.

Bag and board them: Not much to say about that.  I have received comics from eBay sellers that were not bagged and boarded and I questioned why they would use NM to describe it condition.  Highly dubious.   Which brings me to my next subject: grade your books (fairly).

Grade your books (fairly):  Google search “Overstreet Grading Scale” and you should find everything you need to know about grading your books.  Because I tend to bag and board my books immediately, I was confident that my books were no less than Very Fine (VF).  Don’t overstate the quality of your books by grading everything Near Mint (NM) unless you are positive your books are in pristine condition.  This doesn’t mean you have to look at all of your books with a magnifying glass—just be fair to your buyers or suffer the consequences of low seller ratings on your eBay account.

Take photos of your books:  You don’t have to be a professional photographer, but buyers deserve to see what they are buying.  If you want to get people to buy your comics, you are going to need to include photos.  If you have some comics that have a lot of interest, such as early Ultimate Spider-Man’s take close ups of those books.  Even if you don’t post some of those pics, have them handy in case someone emails you requesting them.

Describe ‘em:  Your descriptions of your books must be hyperbole-free.  Nothing says Snake Oil Salesman like “These books are sure to go up in value…”  Just write a paragraph on your books and throw in your thoughts on the books, even if they aren’t entirely complimentary.  On a few occasions I would write, “I know this is a popular title, but it didn’t resonate with me.”  Did I mention I sold every book I put on eBay?

Price them low: If there is one rule you may not want to follow it’s this one.  But don’t be surprised if you don’t get as many bites as you would like.  If you’ve got good titles on sale, and you’ve followed the other rules, the buyers will come.

Be friendly and responsive to questions: Remember that putting your stuff up for sale on eBay means that you are running your own mini-business.  And your business is going to live or die by your ability to provide good service.  Answer any emails immediately.  Provide any additional information requested.  Also remember to be cordial and friendly and provide contact information.  I have been shocked at the amount of times people have made me feel as though I was wasting their time.  So I would waste their time or my money.

Package them well: Purchase mailing boxes, bubble wrap, and tape at Target or Wal-Mart because they seem to have the best prices.  Make sure all of your comics are wrapped snugly in bubble wrap (in batches of about ten or so).  Use old newspapers, magazines or paper in the box to ensure there isn’t a lot of shifting.

One last thing.  I’ve only used eBay, but there are other places out there to sell your books online: Amazon and ComicsPriceGuide seem to be reputable sites as well.

Happy selling!

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