Like any other business or investment, the objective is to buy low and sell high, so the best books to sell online are the ones you can get cheap and sell at much higher prices. This is much easier said than done, which is why some booksellers opt to specialize.
Because the assumed objective of all online booksellers is to turn a profit and find homes for books in need, a better question to ask might be, "Why do some booksellers specialize?" Of the booksellers that specialize, most do so because they know one type of book better than other types. A popular theme is children's books. If someone has children and knows which types of children's books are more valuable than other types, they may just feel more comfortable dealing exclusively in that category. Still others are very good at identifying and locating first editions. What does seem to be a central theme with booksellers that specialize in one category or another is more knowledge about their category of specialty.
Still, the predominance of online booksellers do not specialize, they simply find books that will resell at prices higher than what they have to pay for them. This does not mean they do not know anything about specialized categories, it simply means they are open to any category where there is a profit to be had. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach, as this is exactly what bookstores have done for years.
Another logical question would be whether it is a good idea to exclude particular categories. There are probably as many arguments that support excluding categories as there are against doing so. Personally, unless I have time on my hands that I want to waste (maybe an hour each year) I avoid romance, cookbooks, book club editions, promotional books (Advance Reading Copies, principally because so many marketplaces prohibit the sale of this type of book) and popular novels. I am sure I have passed over some real gems in these categories, but my experiences in the past suggest I will be spending hours going through them only to find nothing of value. On the other hand, I know a few booksellers that make a nice living in these categories by finding valuable first editions and/or sets of books by a particular author that can be auctioned for considerable profit.
To be a successful online bookseller, you need only find a sufficient quantity of books that will sell online for a profit and to continue to add to your inventory more books than you sell. What value a book has to you is not really relevant if you want to sell it, the only thing that matters is its demand and what a customer is willing to pay for it. That said, I would encourage you to specialize if there is a category that you know well, but even then, if and only if you can find adequate inventory that will sell. It might be a lot of fun to specialize in a category of interest to you, but if you do not sell the books, you are not an online bookseller; you are a collector building a personal library.
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Michael E. Mould is the author of "Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips,", and developer of "Bookkeeping for Booksellers,", a 19 sheet linked and tabbed Excel Workbook designed to assist online booksellers with the calculation of their in-state retail sales tax obligations and the preparation of their Schedule C tax forms. "Bookkeeping for Booksellers" also provides 55 integrated graphs to visually show an online bookseller just how their business is performing.
"Bookkeeping for Booksellers" and "Online Bookselling" are both available for digital download here: http://www.e-junkie.com/cougarmountainbooks
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