Should I Use A Scanner When Book Scouting?

10/28/06

Return To Online Bookselling Home Page

Return To Blog Index

A customer recently asked me if I had any plans to use a scanner for my book scouting in the future.

Before I get too far into discussing this, I want to make it very clear that a scanner for book scouting is not necessary to be a successful online bookseller, it is a matter of choice.  I have never personally used one and I know there is another author of a book about online bookselling that sells on a much larger scale and he doesn't use one either.  In fact, we both use Sidekick cell phones.  I wanted to make this clear before in depth discussion of a scanner because I do not want anyone thinking of getting into online bookselling to believe they need to shell out a lot of money to get started.  You can be a successful online bookseller and never own a scanner, it is just an optional tool that some booksellers do use.

To be honest, I did not have any plans to use a scanner until recently. Because of the following reasons I have been recently considering using a scanner: 

1)      I enjoy spending time in book stores looking up books and was never in a hurry to leave. 

2)      I host a restricted access forum for customers of my book only and participation takes quite a bit of my time. 

3)      I am working on three other books unrelated to bookselling. 

4)      I am selling my entire inventory to the people that have purchased my book so that I can start over and build an inventory while telling them about the process as I do it through our forum. 

5)      I still have my day job flight testing airplanes and recently, the new 787 model has been requiring a lot of OT. 

6)      I am involved in engineering consulting on the side with a few close friends and getting that started has required considerable time too. (http://www.performanceengineeringpllc.com). 

With all of this going on, I am beginning to think that using a scanner while scouting might just save me a lot of time.  In the past, I actually enjoyed typing the ISBN's into my cell phone and seeing the numbers come back telling me whether or not I found a gem.  I found it analogous to putting a quarter in a slot machine and seeing if a jackpot came up.  With my time being as limited as it is right now, I am inclined to get a PDA with a scanner and use a database scouting system when I go out book hunting.  Such a system is only good for books having bar codes, but I could still look others up using my cell phone.

I would still not recommend a beginner get a scanner unless they were opting to jump right in and make this a full-time business, in which case I would encourage them to get the best scanner/PDA system they could find.  Having a scanner and PDA with a database system would be very helpful at a book sale because you do not rely on any cellular connection and you get almost instant results.

Starting out with a scanner/PDA system is certainly not starting on a shoestring budget because a good combination can easily cost $600 or more.  Remember, you do not NEED a scanner to be a successful online bookseller, it is just a tool that you can add to your arsenal if you want.

You are visitor:

To This Page

Thank You For Visiting

Look Up Any Book On

Amazon.com, Just Click

Icon Below