New Ebook for Afols Wanting to Sell Lego on eBay or Amazon to Support Their Hobby

Dunamis

Hi everyone! I have not posted much here before but have been collecting and selling Lego online for a while now. I have recently published an ebook with KDP Amazon entitled:

Brickvesting: How to Make Money Selling Lego® on Amazon and EBay: A Step-By-Step Guide to Make Your Child's (or Your) Lego® Hobby Self-Supporting

It is intended to educate adult Lego fans who have little to no online selling experience and enable them to make their brickdictions less costly and even profitable. I imagine it could be a great resource for new collectors or collectors who have no experience with selling on either Amazon or eBay. To make it widely accessible it is free for Amazon prime members and only $2.99 otherwise.

It covers the process step-by-step from finding discounted inventory, developing a selling strategy that fits your time and resources, setting up an account, listing, getting paid, and shipping items with amazon and eBay in a way that will generate consistent positive feedback. At several points I compare eBay and amazon and discuss what kind of Lego inventory is better for each site.

If anyone gets a chance to look at it I would love any feedback on how to make it better. You could simply respond to this forum post with suggestions for improvements. The benefit of ebook publishing is that I can easily update and revise the text as I get feedback or as market conditions and strategies change.

Here is the link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BXRHVNS

mak

OMG!

Phonebooth

Coming next: "I (heart) reselling" clothing line, followed by the made-for-TV movie, "flipper"

richo

Is there a section on tax liability? The title suggests the book is advising or encouraging people to operate as commercial businesses, so people do need to know there are various implications such as tax liability if they are buying completely to resell or perhaps even as a full time business. Maybe you have this covered, but just wanted to check.

Bandit

There goes the neighborhood... ;)

Dunamis

richo said:

Is there a section on tax liability? The title suggests the book is advising or encouraging people to operate as commercial businesses, so people do need to know there are various implications such as tax liability if they are buying completely to resell or perhaps even as a full time business. Maybe you have this covered, but just wanted to check.

There is a section on tax liability that discusses the kind of documentation and record keeping you will need to reduce or, for low-volume sellers, eliminate tax liability. $1.00 in net profit results in a tax liability but if you keep proper records you can actually carry a loss "on paper" that would result in little to no taxable income. I am not a professional tax advisor so high volume sellers ($20,000.+ a year who will receive form 1099-K from Amazon or eBay) are advised to consult a tax professional or a more specific book on taxes. TurboTax and TaxCut both provide the necessary software to handle this yourself as long as you keep proper records. I provide enough tax info to get started and make your Lego hobby self-supporting but not enough to sell full-time.

timinchicago

Gotta love Amazon Prime, I will definitely check it out.

Dunamis

Bandit said:

There goes the neighborhood... ;)

Lol; I worried about that some but I think that Lego fans and buyers will far outpace Lego resellers for at least the next decade. This book is not being marketed or advertised at all and is intended as a simple resource for AFOLs or new collectors who need some help to offset the costs of their hobby.

Phonebooth said:

Coming next: "I (heart) reselling" clothing line, followed by the made-for-TV movie, "flipper"

More likely a reality T.V. show documenting the lives of hard-core Lego flippers. That much publicity would probably kill the resale market, but who knows; the Lego phenomenon is only going to grow for the foreseeable future. You can beat me to the clothing line; I have no plans to try to sell t-shirts ;

TheLoneTensor

I just had a couple of honest questions:

1) What are your qualifications that support you as someone whose advice we should follow?

2) How is it that you aren't an active member of this forum, which is among the most informative and influential when it comes to Lego knowledge (reselling or otherwise).

Kanohi

^ well, to be fair, some people are just content with lurking rather than posting.

Then again, you normally wouldn't expect a lurker to write a book :)

....

Dumanis,

I plan to download your book later when I'm at home and will share my thoughts.

--Gary

Dunamis

tensor said:

I just had a couple of honest questions:

1) What are your qualifications that support you as someone whose advice we should follow?

2) How is it that you aren't an active member of this forum, which is among the most informative and influential when it comes to Lego knowledge (reselling or otherwise).

Those are fine questions. Concerning online selling, I have been selling on eBay and Amazon for several years. With Amazon I started primarily with used books but when my boys hit their Lego years I quickly transitioned and now primarily buy, sell, and build Lego. Concerning the forum, I have primarily engaged and used brickpicker.com although I have also benefited from this site. Brickpicker is a much smaller community but it is wholly focused on the research needed for buying and selling. I also like to write and had some free time so I put my knowledge and experience into a format that could benefit others.

Beyond that, the proof is in the pudding. I am confident the book can be a useful resource for Lego fans with little online selling experience who would like to move in that direction. It will likely not benefit high-volume sellers who have lots of prior online selling experience. Such AFOLs are likely making a fine profit already. I think, however, that there are a lot of AFOLS that love to build and collect but have little experience selling to make the hobby self-supporting. The book is aimed in that direction.

Kanohi said:

^
I plan to download your book later when I'm at home and will share my thoughts.

--Gary

Thanks! Any feedback would be great and with the ebook format I can easily incorporate suggestions into further revisions.

doriansdad

Care to share your ebay username? As you say the proof is in the pudding.

Dunamis

doriansdad said:

Care to share your ebay username? As you say the proof is in the pudding.

Lol, the expression was directed to the contents of the book, not to a background check. But sure, my eBay username is papastewie (100% positive, 106). My Amazon seller name is Bibloi. I have some good listings ending Sunday this week but will be traveling through April and will resume selling in May. I am a part-time low-volume seller with other jobs so I am sure there are 1,000s of members on here who have more experience than me selling online. That is not the point nor are they the primary readers who would benefit from the book. I have enough experience making my Lego hobby self-supporting that I can help others who love Lego but have yet to sell online do the same.