newsletter – Apt. 11d

Because I’m a woman with many side hustles and hobbies, I enjoy going to estate sales and auctions on weekends, buying up old books that range in price from free to one dollar, and then reselling them on the internet for as much as $700. It’s a strangely profitable hobby.

I’ve found first editions Dickens and Hemingway. I’ve sold huge sets of imperfect books to movie sets. My little Etsy shop is currently selling a set of Kipling books with his signature and some Bobbsey Twins books. I’ve been super busy for the past six months and haven’t had time to upload new inventory, but I still got three orders over the weekend. I’m coasting off work that I did creating those listings years ago.

I could never operate a hobby bookstore in real life. The doors of the shop would have to be open full time just to pay the rent on a place. My customers would be limited to folks who walked in the front door. It would be a lovely shop that smelled of old books and coffee, but it would make absolutely no money.

In contrast, my Etsy shop caters to the random person in Montana who, for some mysterious reason, really wants a history book about New York civil war gravestones. With a google search, he finds me, clicks the order button, and that book is in the mail to a ranch in Montana by the end of the day.