We just made finding our eBay sale items much easier. Here are some links that will take you there. Clicking on the links will perform an eBay search for our sales. The links are tested, are completely safe to use, and will save you some time! OurSales displays all of our active sales.

If you are wondering how the links work, just visit TinyURL!™ where they make small URLs out of big ones for you.

Send Us Your Comments – Click the "Ask a question" link on our eBay sale pages or click here to use our website comment form.
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Why are the letter abbreviations in your sale titles?
Posted 20-Jul-10 7:00:22 PDT

Hopefully the answer is intuitive, but just in case, here are the abbreviations. PBK=paperback or softcover; HC=hard cover; BN=brand new; LN=like new; VG=very good; GD=Good; AC=Acceptable; [AR] means that the book is on the Renaissance Learning Accelerated Reader quiz list. Feel free to send us questions.

Why do you suggest "keeping young minds fresh with fiction series, math, science and nature titles"?
Posted 25-May-10 9:15:00 PDT

We all know that reading comprehensive is the key to higher learning. How do you improve reading comprehension? More reading! Educators often say that students lose much of what they learned during the school year while on summer break. They suggest reading their favorite fiction series or the harder nonfiction books to keep them "fresh" particularly during vacations. We can help you by offering high-quality, recycled books at reasonable prices and combining multiple items into a single shipment to keep shipping charges low. Feel free to send us questions.

Why do the ISBNs differ between eBay's book details and your book details?
Posted 12-May-10 17:12:34 PDT

The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, is a 13-digit (formerly 10-digit) commercial book identifier. The numbers in our book detail always match the books that we are selling. Ideally each version of a book has its own ISBN and that information is populated into databases that companies, such as eBay, use. When the ISBNs don't match, it usually means that the database wasn't fully populated with all version information. A good example of a mismatch is when there is a Scholastic school-direct version of the a book that is selling commercially. eBay has some, but not all, of the Scholastic ISBNs, so there is sometimes a mismatch when we sell a Scholastic book. When we can't find the ISBN of the book that we are selling in the database, we look for an entry that closely resembles the book and use that ISBN for our listing entry. However, we will enter the ISBN of the book that we are selling into our book detail section of the sale page. In this way, you may compare our sale with other sellers using the correct ISBN. If that doesn't all make sense, feel free to send us questions.

Why do you sell some children's books individually and others in lots?
Posted 02-May-10 17:27:02 PDT

What you see is a response to inquiries from buyers for several of the books in a lot, but not the whole lot. We've switched several of the chapter book series to individual postings to see if it works better for buyers––and we've already had one sale because of the switch. Here's how it works. It's best to visit OurSalesDirectory first. Find the book series that you want, for example Goosebumps, and click that link. Browse our active listings and purchase those that you like. eBay will send an invoice for each one automatically, but please ignore these. Request a combined invoice using any of the "Ask the Seller" or "Request total" links on our eBay sale pages. We'll check the shipping weight and send you an invoice that reflects the amount that you'll save. The shipping will usually be lower because USPS bases their Media Mail rates on pound increments––so you get only the books that you want and save money at the same time! Feel free to send us comments.

How do you evaluate the condition of a book?
Updated 02-May-10 17:29:30 PDT

Great question! There are many ways to describe the condition of books, but thankfully eBay has recently published a set of guidelines to assist buyers and sellers in their mutual understanding. We have migrated our book sales to those descriptions. Here is the information direct from eBay––which you can also find by clicking the Condition link on each book sale page. As of May 2010 eBay has added the condition description to each book sale page making it much easier for you (and sellers) to evaluate.

eBay's Condition for Books (except for textbooks and audio books) ...

Your packaging is great! Do you use recycled materials?
Posted Jul-20-09 22:15:20 PDT

Thank you, yes we do! And recycling was never so inexpensive! Most all of our items are packed first in reclaimed plastic bags to keep them clean. Each bag is packed into a reclaimed cardboard box and padded with reclaimed filler paper. We obtain virtually all of this material from a local retail store that used it for one shipment between its warehouse and the store––material which they would otherwise throw into a trash dumpster and pay to have hauled to a landfill. What’s the upside here? We get clean, high-quality packaging material free and re-use it before it’s discarded. That reduces the amount of single-use material discarded by the store and reduces their charges for waste disposal––plus we wind up delivering a nice package to our buyers! So when you purchase from us, we all do our bit for ecology in some small way!

Why Watch a Buy-It-Now or Make-Offer Sale?
Posted Jul-12-09 13:43:27 PDT

Adding an auction to your watch list allows you can track the changing item price and decide if you want to bid on the item at its current price. Buy-It-Now or Make-Offer sales are different. Even though you can make an offer, the BIN price doesn't change––you aren't able to track offer prices on your watch list. But there is a good reason for adding any item to your watch list! It's like a bookmark to the sale if you ever want to return to it.

Why don't you sell and ship to Canada?
Posted Jul-12-09 00:23:18 PDT

We receive many requests to sell to and/or ship to Canadian customers. Donna and I have spent many vacations, and I've been to Canada on many trips, so we love Canada. It's not because we don't like Canada, I can assure you! The reality is that shipping is very easy within the United States and becomes more cumbersome internationally. We have chosen to sell and ship to United States residents only for that reason. On eBay, this means that a buyer must be registered on eBay U.S., have a U.S. address on eBay and PayPal, plus ship to a U.S. address, ideally a confirmed address. We might chose to open our borders sometime in the future, but for now, it's United States only.

What are your Frequently Asked Questions?
Posted Jul-01-09 22:22:15 PDT

We've looked at many sales on eBay and have been confused by the seller's terms and lack of organization. Rather than list hard and fast rules, we wanted to answer some questions that we've been asked to help potential buyers understand what we can offer -- and how we would prefer to do business. There are always exceptions, so anyone should feel free to ask us a question about a particular sale or a general topic. Comments are always most welcome!

What is a Buy-It-Now or Make-Offer?
Posted Jun-20-09 19:54:37 PDT

I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy bidding on auctions that have reserve prices. You bid and keep bidding only to keep getting "reserve not met." Well the Buy-It-Now or Make-Offer listing is a great alternative. Sellers can list a price that they would like for the item, but allow bidders to make offers that are below the Buy-It-Now price. A seller is more likely to accept a real offer––even if it's a bit lower––when there is someone that is really interested. So, we're trying some Buy-It-Now or Make-Offer listings to see if the eBay community really likes this sort of thing. Go ahead––make an offer on one of our items––but remember if your offer is accepted––you bought it!

What about those first editions?
Posted Jun-07-09 23:36:49 PDT

Every book has a first edition. What makes some rare is their title, author, age, condition and––most importantly––the demand for the book. We've found that some of our books are first editions and their worth exceeds many of the more ordinary books that we post for auction. We're testing the waters, so to speak, with eBay on some of these rare books to see if there is interest in the eBay buying community. We'll know soon!

How do you make those great sale page images?
Posted Jun-06-09 20:44:44 PDT

Well, it's probably harder than it has to be, but I like the results. First I scan the book covers, then edit them down to a max 500 pixel image that eBay likes and make any color enhancements. Then I combine the images in PowerPoint and add shadows to give the books depth. Then I align them and do a desktop image capture. I then open my image processor and paste the desktop image into the workspace. I resize the composite to a max 1,000 pixel image and save it. The composite becomes the image for my auction and sometimes I paste the individual images into the auction so that the seller can see the cover better.

Where did you find all of the books?
Updated Jul-19-10 15:53:41 PDT

The simple answer is that our book collection comes from years of wakening early on weekends to visit book sales. Many of our better quality books have been found at teachers' sales in metro San Jose, California. Many of our books also come from yard sales and estate sales in the area. We are very selective about what we purchase and re-sell. Our goals have always been to find books for our sons to read, to donate to their school classrooms then to sell extras on eBay. Throughout the last five years, we have been able to donate literally thousands of books to Booksin Elementary School teachers in support of San Jose Unified School District's hugely-successful Accelerated Reader program from Renaissance Learning. That's why we use the term "recycling" on our sale pages. Our books vary from brand new to good condition as described clearly on our sale pages––so our buyers can count on quality books at reasonable prices.