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It sure seems like many people are looking for a way to make money from home by doing nothing, investing nothing, and spending no time doing it. If this is the type of opportunity you are waiting for, you are probably going to wait a really long time.

Personally, when I started looking for a legitimate home-based business that I could do part-time, I was really disappointed to see so many scams being offered. I could sell pills, potions, miracle dietary supplements, exercise gadgets, drop-ship merchandise that I never possessed, become a copy writer, collect debts/judgments, stuff envelopes, set up shell affiliate websites, and a whole host of even lesser reputable "opportunities." In fact, I felt like the only ones being honest about their business and the opportunity to make money were the porn industry where I found an ad saying that I could make money without ever getting out of bed by setting up a web cam to broadcast video of my wife and I on a subscription basis. Incidentally, I was not looking for this "opportunity," it was a text ad that I made the mistake of clicking on.

So, where are the legitimate opportunities for people that don't care to pester family, friends, and neighbors to buy their pyramid products and certainly don't want their sex lives broadcast to the world? I found one, online bookselling. It is as legitimate as Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, ebay, and dozens of other online marketplaces, the only trick is knowing how to get started without buying a few cords of expensive firewood that is only going to sell for pennies online.

Well, I learned the ins and outs of the business the hard way because when I started there were no guides to how the business is done. Over the past five years, several books have been written about the subject, and I wrote one of them.

Some of the things that the mystery has been taken out of include: where to buy books worth reselling, where to sell books, how much you should pay for books, how to know the online value of a book BEFORE you buy it, how to grade and price books, where to find wholesale/remainder book dealers, etc. I covered them all, and not by printing a bunch of lists, I went into great detail to make the entire process of starting an online bookselling business as painless as possible.

With the online bookselling marketplaces now well established, a steadily growing customer base in the hundreds of millions worldwide, and comprehensive books available about how to be successful selling books online, I have to wonder why more people are not getting into the business. Could it be that they really think someone is going to knock on their front door and hand them a key to an established business where they can make millions doing nothing, or that they just like working in the fast-food industry making minimum wage while making the franchise owner rich?

Copyright 2006 Michael Mould