Your Resume Should Say, "Read Me, Read Me!" - Does It?

Imagine walking into a huge bookstore to browse. You're in the mood for something new to read, but don't have a single title in mind. Even after narrowing your quest to a specific category, there are still scores of books to select from.

Which is more likely to catch your eye?

Bookstore

The Blue History Book or The secret Plot to Overthrow Joe Schmoe?

(So there's no predominant historical figure named Joe Schmoe. And maybe you detest history books. Work with me here.)

The Blue History Book may be a great read, but you'll probably pay tiny attention to it, because the title is about as bland as they come. Nothing but a label. It's blue, alright...and it's in the history section...talk about stating the obvious. Worse, this title doesn't do anyone to entice you to pull the book off the shelf and read the jacket - to have a closer look.

There are maybe 100 other books for you to select from. You're probably not going to stand there all afternoon and slide every single one of them out for closer inspection. You'll most likely immediately narrow your quest to titles that grab your attention. The ones that sound interesting. The ones that say, "Read me - find out more!"

So it goes with your resume.

What do you lead with?

Are the first few lines bland and boring...or do they grab the reader and drive him to want to find out more about you?

Do you open with a label (i.e. Plastics commerce supply Chain Executive)...or does the phrase you use to recapitulate yourself give the reader a clue about what makes you unique?

Yours could be one of hundreds of resumes - representing hundreds of candidates competitive for a single job. What are you doing to make sure it gets read?

Your Resume Should Say, "Read Me, Read Me!" - Does It?

Should You be a Book Scout or an Online Bookseller?

There are a estimate of existing businesses that offer to pay you to scout for books. Some even offer to provide you with a cell phone and an Internet list for scouting. The way it works is simple, you type in the Isbn and the book price, and using this information they tell you either or not to buy the book. If you sign up to be their book scout, you are expected to buy the books they instruct you to buy and right away ship them to their warehouse.

Overall, the concept sounds good because you are assured of a profit from the books they tell you to buy, but, and I want to emphasize "but," the estimate of books they instruct you to buy is not going to be a vast estimate of the ones you look up, and since they intend to resell the books they buy from you, your profits will be much smaller, i.e., you are effectively a middle man in the business. You don't think they are going to pay you what the book are worth do you? They are in business to make money too, and your participation in their grand scheme of things is to provide them with cheap labor to find books they can make money on.

Bookstore

Suppose you find a book that has a real value of and the store you are scouting in is selling the book for .99. If you are instructed to buy the book, the assistance you are working for is going to pay at least .99 plus a dollar to have you ship it to them. The .00 shipping assumes you will be shipping any books to them in a box to minimize the per book cost of shipping, And that the assistance even pays you to ship the books to them - some expect you to pay for shipping to their warehouse. So, now the "service" you work for is into the book for .99. Because most such services store their books online straight through one of the big marketplaces like Amazon.com, assume they are going to be paying a sales commission of 15% when they sell the book. That is an additional .00 they will be paying when they do sell the book, so out of the ultimate selling price, they are left with .01. Do you think you will get half of that? Not likely, you are apt to get 10% to 15% of the real value for your scouting service, i.e., .00 to .00, and they are going to make .01 to .01 from your exertion and their "risk."

Consider the alternative of selling the book online yourself. You could open your own online bookstore on one of the big marketplaces, pay as exiguous as per month for a wireless lookup service, and rule for yourself if the books you are scouting are worth buying and reselling. Just that one book above would pay for your lookup assistance and still make you more money than you are going to get scouting for someone else. It only takes about five such books to pay for all of the expenses for your own online bookstore each month.

The numbers are simple, if you find a book that has a real value of , you can make .00 to .00 by being someone's scout, or you can make .00 selling it yourself straight through your own online bookstore. If you know where to look, how much to pay, and how to know a book's value before you buy it, you can make even more. Do not be tricked into being a scout for someone else unless you just want assured sales and minimum profits. I hate to hear about population being taken benefit of because they are not aware of their alternatives.

You should also know that if you are scouting for someone else, you are passing up a lot of books that could make you some real money. For example, suppose that the book I used to account for above only had a real value of .50. Chances are the scouting assistance would not instruct you to buy the book because by the time they paid everybody they would only make .23 (assuming they paid you .00), which is probably not worth their time. That same book could make you .23 if you bought and sold it yourself.

There is also the "gem" consideration to think about. Every month I sell a few gems and if you get into online bookselling you will too. Today, March 27, 2006, I sold a paperback, "The Kate Moss Book," by Kate Moss, Isbn 0789301016 for 9.99, and a hardback, Field, Thermionic and Secondary Electronemission Spectroscopy, by A. Modinos, Isbn 0306413213 for 0.00. I bought them for .90 and .00 respectively and had to pay a 15% sales commission on each. In the end I made 9.09 on the first book and 6.50 on the second book, that is a 15,557% profit on my .90 investment. If I had purchased them as a scout for someone else I might have gotten as much as .50 in profit, assuming I was being paid 15% of the real value for books I scouted and was instructed to buy, and made the other 3.09 for the business I scouted for. Again I would like to emphasize that every month I have a handful of sales like this, but as someone else's scout, I would not make much.

It just seems that if you are going to go to the problem of book scouting you should be doing it for your own business and not taking minimal percentages doing it for someone else, but for every opening ready there are many that are eager to jump in with illusions of manufacture big money. Online bookselling is not a means of getting rich quick - unless you have hundreds of scouts out there seeing good books for you and working for peanuts, i.e., as a scout you are not going to get rich quick, but you will be helping someone else make a lot of money.

On the other hand, you can make a good income selling books online full time or a no ifs ands or buts nice supplemental income selling online part time.

Should You be a Book Scout or an Online Bookseller?

College Textbook Rentals - Should You Rent Your Textbooks?

Within the last two years, a movement in the online textbook business has explosively emerged: College Textbook Rentals. The buzz is out; my Facebook is full of posts from college students spurting the wonders of this astounding business model, as if it were the next handheld gadget invention or turbo-charged public networking model.

Having worked online textbook sales for numerous years, and having the knack to compare the value of time and expenses, I'm not fully convinced.

Bookstore

A typical example, using realistic averages:

A rental site will offer a textbook, say a book titled "International Business" for . At the college bookstore, the book is selling for 0. The current online price on major sites like Amazon.com and eBay's Half.com for a used book is about . Seems like a no-brainer, eh?

I'm not so sure. If these options are viewed from the angle of what you, the student, will Net, renting is for real the second best option.

Here's the inside scoop: Buying at your college textbook store is typically the worse choice for your pocketbook. If you buy the above textbook for 0, it's likely your bookstore will offer - for it when you sell it back to them. If the buyback estimate turns out to be , you're net loss on this one book is 5. Ouch. Let's say you're enrolled in four other classes with similarly priced books, a likely scenario. Multiply your net loss estimate of by five for all your classes, and your net total outlay is 5 for the semester. Incredi-Ouch.

If you rent the above textbook, you'll spend , and in some cases, - for shipping it back to textbook rental business at the end of the semester (always ship media mail, it is the cheapest route.) Your net outlay equals . Multiply this form by five for all your classes, and your textbook total cost for the semester is 5. Better, but....

How about a third option? Let's say, you buy the book on Half.com for , and at the end of the semester, you take ten minutes to set up a half.com list (you'll need a credit/debit card plus checking list information), and then sell the book online for . You'll be mostly reimbursed for shipping (you'll likely net -.00 on this for media mail shipments) and half.com will take a ten percent commission. Your outlay: .00. Multiply this form by five for all of your classes and your total textbook cost is for the semester.

It's clear that buying and selling online is the best route if you want to minimize your textbook expense. And if you buy your books early enough before every person else does (December for Spring Semester and late July/early August for Fall Semester), it is likely you'll spend only versus on the aforementioned book as the furnish will still be plentiful online. If you sell at the right time (wait until the last two weeks of January or first two weeks of September), when every person else is buying and the online textbook furnish dries up, you may sell your book back for More than what you purchased.

Regarding buying and selling online, the most base objection I often hear is, "But I don't want to deal with the hassle of creating an account, selling, etc etc." It can be a valid objection, but really, what is the value of your time? If you spend 40 minutes on your first transaction which includes list set up time, and 20 minutes per book on the rest of your transactions, the estimate of savings per hour you created by buying and selling versus renting is 2.50 per hour. Is your time worth 2.50 per hour?

Also, for a seamless online selling process, write a super-accurate report when creating your listing, and ship the textbook quickly, as in no later than two days after the sale date. And, if you end up purchasing an international edition online, Do Not sell it on half.com or amazon.com, it's against their policies-sell it on eBay instead. In fact, I'd avoid these international edition books if you're just beginning out.

Another objection I hear is, "But I want to keep the book as a reference." My next report will cover a strategy where you can maximize your savings and sales price on your college textbooks, and keep the books for reference. Say what?! It's much easier than you think.

Please email me for more tips on minimizing your textbook expenses and maximizing the value of your books. There are more methods and strategies to fine tune this process, which can only growth your rate of pay or savings when peddling your college textbooks.

Christopher President Happytime Books happytimebooks@live.com

College Textbook Rentals - Should You Rent Your Textbooks?