Report to Accompany: Make Money Tearing Up Old Books and Magazines and Sel ling Them on eBay Worked Example: The Complete Collection of Randolph Caldecott’s Contributions to the ‘Graphic’ – 1888 2 Copyright Avril Harper, Meander Press. 2010 All information is provided in good faith and is accurate to the best of our knowledge. This document is for information purposes only and does not impart legal or financial advice to readers who must consult their own legal and professional advisors before spending money or taking action of any kind based on operating a business such as outlined in this document. No part of this document can be copied by any means whatsoever in part or total without the express written permission of the copyright holder. It is the reader’s responsibility to ascertain and abide by local, national and international legal, moral and ethical issues. 3 Introduction The Complete Collection of Randolph Caldecott’s Contributions to the ‘Graphic’, 1888 The book we’ll consider today measures about 13 inches by 16 inches and has more than 400 pages almost all featuring prints. I paid £120 at auction for the book (remember I live in the UK but this business works equally well all over the world) and should I desire another copy, or if I wish to promote Second Chance Offers on eBay for any parts of the book, the book is readily available on the Internet from just £30 or so (wish I had known that sooner) to about £250. My copy is from a limited edition of 1,250 copies and mine is number 677. Throughout the book of 400 plus pages there are many items worthy of being listed individually, and other multi-page articles which I must decide whether to sell as individual pictures or pages or as complete sections. Bear in mind I could just sell the book ‘as is’, intact, but there are a few pages loose, and besides I don’t think I’ll make much profit that way. So I’ve decided to split the book and sell it on eBay, in specific section lots and as mounted prints. There are thirty-four sections to the book, some just a few pages long, some more than ten pages. Next illustration shows the contents page where you will see the various categories included in the book, and from which I can pick and choose whatever I will be selling on eBay. 4 5 Special Note I always mention in my listing that because my item came from a rare and popular book there may be other illustrations or text on the reverse of the item which do not show through to the printed side. And naturally I make sure the reverse does not impinge on the front or else I simply don’t list the item! As a description for my items, the word ‘print’ works well for me, and it will work for you to call these items ‘prints’ as do most eBay sellers of similar items. ‘Book plate / print’ is another reliable description. The problem is, if you have read Make Money Tearing Up Old Books and Magazines and Selling Them on eBay, you’ll remember I told you of a common problem associated with selling pages torn from books and magazines. The problem is the word ‘print’ used in titles and descriptions for those pages, where sometimes bidders and buyers erroneously believe a ‘print’ is an exclusive and usually limited edition copy of some image, which has been printed to be sold in its own right and usually with an artist’s signature. But I decided to check my definition just to be sure the word ‘print’ still means the same as it did when I began selling paper items almost forty years ago, at which time it described items from various sources including books. I checked web sites of some of the world’s biggest sellers of vintage and antiquarian prints, and I found all used the word ‘print’ to refer to illustrations taken from books and, like me and other eBayers selling these items, those sites invariably reveal the name of the book from which the items being sold actually came. So ‘print’ is an entirely acceptable definition for an illustration taken from books and magazines! Sites I checked where you will also find lots of information about presenting and pricing vintage prints, , include the following (notice how their wording proves my point regarding definition of the word ‘print’): http://www.wollmansclassicprints.com Baseball - Boston Champions - From Harpers Weekly: June 27, 1874 6 http://www.collectorsprints.com They tells us they sell ‘Antique Ski Prints from Punch Magazine’ !!!! http://www.vintageprints.com/products.php?catid=1002 On one page they tell us they sell ‘Prints from King Albert’s Book’ Scanner or Camera? Next I have to decide between primarily scanning pictures or photographing my prints from Caldecott’s wonderful book. I find scanning almost always gives a clearer picture than camera, but using a standard size scanner (about A4 size) you find most of the mount missing from items measuring more than 10 by 8 inches. If that happens I photograph the item to show its entirety and use a second scanned illustration showing the image itself in closer detail. Let me illustrate the difference here, using a scanned picture, and its photographed counterpart. 7 Scanned Image Photographed Image 8 As you see the photographed version shows virtually all the mount, while the scanned image omits a sizeable chunk. If I wanted just one image for my eBay listing, I’d go with the scanned image which is much clearer, and I would always mention the mount is bigger than it appears in the scan. Do As I Do, Not As I Say! First Principle of This Business: You must not copy and sell the exact same products from the exact same book (or other source) someone else is selling on eBay; you’ll just ruin the business for everyone, including yourself! You must be different, you must not copy other people, not only because it’s unethical and sometimes illegal to copy, but because you are looking for rarity or uniqueness in everything you list on eBay. Copycatting is not conducive to exclusivity. So copy techniques, copy ideas, do not copy products per se. Listing Prints on eBay Caldecott, like many artists of his time, drew keenly on sporting trends of the day for his illustrations, notably hunting. Given that hunting prints in general are popular sellers on eBay, I might safely assume prints from this particular volume, being limited edition, might also be popular and possibly more profitable than their open edition counterparts. Next illustration shows the print I chose to work with first. The caption is: Driven to Crime by Bad Weather and it came from the Facts and Fancies category printed originally in May 1883 and 1884 but of course this version, a limited edition version, was printed in 1888, just after the artist died and the book was published to commemorate his work for the Graphic. 9 To begin listing I need my illustration to be just perfect. I think the one shown above is as close to perfect as I am ever going to get. I need to measure both the print and the mount and then I create a description for my listing. I may or may not give the title of the publication from which my print came. In fact I don’t usually give the title, mainly because lazier eBay sellers will copy my idea and buy their own copy of the book concerned, and begin selling prints on eBay using my ideas. At which point we’d all be wasting our time and money listing these products on eBay! But on this occasion I will give the title of the publication involved. It’s a limited edition publication and quite expensive for all but resolute eBay sellers, so there’s little danger of too much competition for this little beauty. Plus the sheer fact the item is of limited quantity adds significantly to the perceived value of my product. 10 There is a major advantage benefiting anyone listing several similar items from the same publication, being that sellers can create just one eBay listing template to suit the first print in a big pile of similar items where only a few features vary between eBay listings, usually title and illustration. So once you have your first print described and listed on eBay, the rest of your prints from the same publication require just a few tiny changes to the original template. The process can cut your listing time just a minute or so for each item. Although there are several eBay sites I can use for these prints and I may also find several categories to choose from, I tend to list all my prints in one category, namely (in the UK and USA) Art > Prints, with an appropriate sub-category depending on the date of my prints, in this case Art > Prints > Antique (Pre-1900), plus whatever final category applies to my print. There are other categories, as just said, but invariably people search for this type of item using the artist’s name or sometimes the appropriate subject or theme. So I really think if you have the artist’s name in the title, where it responds to eBay’s search engine, your listing will almost always be found by potential bidders. Creating a Template Title and Description I’m going to create a listing for my first print from which also to list all other similar prints from the book. Certain things are essential in the description, being size and age of the print, condition, bidding rules, payment terms, delivery details. In practice I have bidding rules, payment terms, delivery details, and other generic details listed already on a template sitting inside my TurboLister program. I always begin my listings by creating my basic description for the product in Microsoft Word. Later I import the wording into my eBay listings. I do this because I can spell check my description more easily in Word than directly through eBay. I can also return later to my Word document should I suffer a power cut or have to stop work for any reason, or if my copy of TurboLister becomes corrupt in any way. 11 Eventually my description reads: ‘Mounted ‘Matted’ print by artist Randolph Caldecott (1846 – 1886). Overall size of print and mount is 10 inches by 12 inches, print size is 11 inches by 9 inches approximately. Print from a book to commemorate the life and works of Randolph Caldecott - The Complete Collection of Randolph Caldecott’s Contributions the ‘Graphic’ – published in 1888. The print is from one of just 1250 limited edition copies of the publication of which ours is number 677. Please note as a plate from one of a rare and highly collectable book there may be other illustrations or text on the reverse which do not show through to the front. Would look stunning framed and would make a great gift for yourself or a loved one. Good condition. Guaranteed 119 years old. Not a copy or reprint, guaranteed published in 1888.’ Selling Clippings and Sections from the Publication Just one print can fetch double figure sums on eBay and all I really need are one or two good sales to repay my investment in the book. But I reckon I will get many more than just a handful of sales; I’m sure that in time I will achieve 100 or more sales from the book. That’s because I will sell some parts of the book in their original format and others in reprinted format. The book is in the public domain, it has been for years, and there are two or three very nice sections relating to major towns in the UK, including Scarborough (Yorkshire) and Cromer (Norfolk). Sections in the book relating to these and other locations, as well as some very nice equestrian prints, I might recreate in eBooks and also sell as physical paper based reproductions. In both cases I will scan the original pages rather than retype the text for my eBooks. I prefer to scan the pages and import them to a Microsoft Word file before saving them to pdf format and making them available as Internet download or presented on CD. Physical copies will also come from scanned images and will be printed through an everyday printer on top quality image setting. For prints I use 12 100 gram smooth surface paper which gives a better finish than woven paper or other textured paper. More Ways to Make Money from This One Book and Hundreds More Like it * Tiny prints can be individually framed and offered in groups on eBay. * Several small prints can be presented in multi-aperture mounts for a really different and unique presentation. * You could scan the entire book and offer it in print or pdf format to people who want to read the book but can’t afford the high price asked for the original item. * It’s easy to create jewellery items from illustrations too small to be recreated as prints. These look wonderful in picture pendants or charms. * You can create novelty items from prints such as coasters, rulers, key rings, using blank plastic templates available inexpensively on any high street, also on eBay. I could dream up many more ways for making money on eBay from this one book alone, and you should look also for your own unique ideas. When you find them you’ll never share your market with anyone! The End …. Thank You For Reading! 13 Recommended Reading Bank Big Profits Selling Vintage Topographical View Postcards on eBay When people ask me: ‘What’s the best thing to sell on eBay?’, I always answer ‘preferably something collectible, old and rare, which costs you little or nothing to buy and sells at a respectable mark up, and very often reaches record-breaking finishing prices! That’s the best thing to sell on eBay.’ So many things fit the bill, like stamps and coins, books and cigarette cards, but none I’ve encountered in my forty years of selling collectibles comes even close to vintage postcards for generating a really good income, even for sellers lacking experience and knowledge and without investing huge chunks of cash to get started. Now I've recorded everything I know to paper, or rather to eBook, which will tell you all I know about selling postcards , and making money every time you list these hot little collectibles on eBay. CLICK HERE to learn more about selling vintage postcards on eBay.