Welcome to week one of Book Flipper University, a four week course designed to get you set up, teach you how to source and list books, and get you on the way to making your first sales!
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
If you’ve already set up your Amazon seller account, you may want to skip this week and head straight into Lesson Two. Otherwise, let’s dive right in!
It’s best to do your research and talk to a professional, such as a CPA or a business law consultant to get started. They can help you decide whether it’s best to establish a sole proprietorship, LLC, or S-Corp.
We recommend establishing an LLC (this is what we run) to get started because it offers you a few more personal protections in case something does happen to your business. It’s also a flow-through entity which means that the profits from the business go right to you and are taxed as ordinary income.
It’s also pretty cheap and easy to do. Here in Colorado, it only costs $50 to get set up through a simple web form. The complexity of filing an LLC varies by state, which is why, again, it’s best to do your research and talk to an expert.
The path to least resistance, which will get you started quickly but may not be ideal in the long run as you scale your business, is to create an Amazon seller account with your personal credentials using your social security number. If you choose this path, you can always upgrade to an LLC and update your Amazon account.
To note, updating your account will likely come with a temporary account hold of up to a week while Amazon validates your new credentials. For example, if you’ve got a business with a few thousand books for sale and decide to upgrade to an LLC, your Amazon business operations will be frozen during the validation period.
Regardless of which business type you choose, it’s important to create a separate bank account for your business. This will help you quickly and easily track your purchases and receipts. Even if this is just a side hustle, if you sell over $600 in a calendar year, which is very easy to do, Amazon will be reporting your sales to the IRS. It’s best to be equipped to track what you’ve spent on your business during tax season. Talking to a CPA can be helpful throughout this step in the process as well.
We know it’s tempting to bypass some of these formalities, but getting them out of the way early on will be beneficial for you down the road.
There are two Amazon account types to choose from: the Individual or Professional Plan. Don’t worry too much here because you can change this at anytime. Also, your Amazon account type has nothing to do with your selected business type. They can all be mixed and matched.
The Individual Plan:
Amazon’s Individual Plan has no monthly fees, instead charging a $0.99 fee per item sold in addition to all other Amazon fees. With the Individual Plan, you also don’t qualify for the Buy Box. This means that you can’t get MWS credentials and won’t be able to connect your Amazon account up to third-party listing or scouting software.
The Professional Plan:
The Professional plan comes with a $39.99 monthly fee, but eliminates the $0.99 per-item fee. You also get access to the Buy Box, which we really do find essential to a successful book resale business. We’ve talked to sellers who continued to track their data when they disabled the Buy Box feature, and found that their sales decreased by as much as 50 percent.
The Buy Box is what’s going to help you sell more than 40 items a month because it allows you to connect to the software that dramatically increases your efficiency.
Ultimately, if you anticipate selling more than 40 items a month, and want to use softwares that streamline and boost your business, the Professional Plan is more cost-effective than the Individual Plan, but if you want to start with the Individual Plan, you can upgrade to Professional at any time. Regardless, now that you’ve decided on your Amazon plan type, it’s time to apply for an Amazon seller account!
Click here to sign up for the Individual or Professional Plan. Use this link if you’re interested in starting with the Individual Plan, because visiting services.amazon.com will only point you to the professional plan. Sneaky Amazon!
Regardless of which plan you choose, Amazon has a great onboarding sequence and will walk you through everything. Be sure to have your business information ready if you’re hooking your account up to your LLC or S-corp because they’ll need the following information:
Once you’ve completed your application, it’ll take 3-4 business days for Amazon to process it. If you apply during busy times of the year, such as towards the end of the year or around the holidays, approvals can take a bit longer as Amazon gets slammed in Q4. You can also expect a few extra days if you’re submitting MWS credentials as Amazon has to complete a few extra steps to enable your third-party software.
Just make sure you’re checking your email regularly throughout the process in case Amazon needs any additional information.
Now you’re ready to begin deciding on a business type, Amazon plan type, and apply for an Amazon seller account.
If you want to get started as quickly as possible, you can simply jump in and register as an individual rather than an LLC or S-corp and select Amazon’s Individual Plan. Regardless, make sure to set up a separate bank account for your operation.
We really do recommend taking the time to talk to a professional about whether or not establishing a business is appropriate for your goals, as well as opting for the Amazon Professional Plan. As we dive deeper into Book Flipper University and start to teach you about scouting and listing software, you’ll realize just how beneficial this upgrade can be in helping you level-up your business.
Make sure to register your Amazon seller account as soon as possible so that while your application is processing you can get started on the next lesson in our series and begin ordering the supplies you’ll need to succeed.
We’ve got a lot more fun in store for you, and we look forward to you joining us again for Lesson Two!
BOOK FLIPPER RESOURCES
This week’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUAwu2rJiog
Book Flipper Blog: http://bit.ly/2qFe31w
Book Flipper Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/2IYSKiU
Free Listing Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/2vfMcud
Tracking Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/2Ho44rx
The Book Scouting App I Use: http://bit.ly/2voBstC
My Online Arbitrage Tool: http://bit.ly/2HuCnh3
The 100 Book Challenge: http://bit.ly/2H3mkY5
The Listing Software I Use: http://bit.ly/2qAxEjV
Box Level Contents Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/2qxesCW
Scouting Tools We Use (scanner, printer, etc): http://bit.ly/2viDRpF